Forged in Magic

[Paradigm]

Thank you very much for the review. We are confident that any d20 System gamemaster would find a wealth of useful information and items within this title, several of which that could provide an adventure seed to drive a campaign.

I do have one answering point to make. Though there are some products with a higher word count per page, the text-density of this product is actually higher than the industry norm. One may notice that we did not use bleeds or ornate borders to the pages as they would add cost to the product without adding substance. Combined with the many art pieces that are unframed, this style may create the visual impression of less words.

Eric Wiener
Paradigm Concepts, Inc.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

I will admit, thanks to the other reviewers here, I took a chance and bought this book. I'm glad I did. The authors and people at Paradigm concepts have always intrigued me, since I have gotten Spear of the Lohgin. But I stopped after that as I figured I needed to spend my little income I had wisely. But I can safely say I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

The book's cover has a picture of what I believe is one of the master smith prestige class mentioned in the book. Also there is a sword being magically forged and of course the ubiquious chick in chainmal. The interior art work is very good. Most of the pieces I found were fairly eye catching and related of course to many of the magical items in the book.

The book table of contents reads as follows:

Introduction
Rings
Potions
Rods and Wands
Staves
Wonderous Items
Monster Charms
Weapons of War
Constructs (used in war)
Armor
Shields
Miscellous Weapons (non-swords)
Swords
Artifact, minor
Major Artifacts
New Powers (New Weapon and Armor enhancements as well disadavantages.)
New Spells and Feats
New Materials
Master Smith Pr Class
And Appendixes: I for the Panethons of Arcanis, II for a Glossary

Also there is a set of tables on the back for DMs to roll for various items

While I won't bore you with a lot of details, I found many of the magic items here exceptional useful. Certainly it was more than just "Here give these to your party." Each item had a history and specific purpose. Something I always enjoy seeing in books on magic items. Probably the least exciting part for me were the spells. I guess since I've experienced a lot of various spells, these weren't as exceptional as say "Book of Eldritch Might" or even Relics and Rituals. Still they might come in handy for a DM/GM.

While a lot of the history behind the items comes from the Arcanis campaign setting, I didn't see anything that would prove a problem for a smart DM/GM. Overall I say what I enjoyed the most was the new materials, some of the new enhancements, and most certainly the various sundry of potions, rods, wands, staves and especially the monster charms. The weapons and armor were interesting and certainly if your a DM/GM looking to add more flavor to your campaign, there is plenty to go on. The Master Smith Pr-class, is fine but I guess I'm not as impressed since now a lot of people are doing those kinds of classes. Still I would say, if your looking for a way to explain who made all these wonderful things, the Master Smith is one way to go. Overall, for the price and stuff you get, this is an exceptional book. Certainly one I'm glad I have in my collection.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

By Steven Creech, Exec. Chairman d20 Magazine Rack

Sizing Up the Target
This review is for Forged in Magic, a 128-page collection of new magic items for the fantasy side of the d20 system. Published by Paradigm Concepts, creator of the Living Arcanis setting, this book retails for $19.99. With the exception of designated product identity that directly relates to the Arcanis setting, the majority of the material is classified as open game content.

First Blood
The book is divided into sections similar to what you find in the DMG: rings, potions, rods and wands, wondrous items monster charms, weapons of war, armor, shields, miscellaneous weapons, swords, and artifacts. Each item comes with a detailed description along with caster level, prerequisites, and market value. In addition to the specific items, there are also forty-one new weapon qualities and seventeen new armor qualities. The last eighteen pages of the book detail new spells, feats, manufacturing materials, a new prestige class (Master-Smith), and two appendices that cater specifically to Arcanis.

Critical Hits
The authors waste no time in pointing out one of the inherent problem areas of magic items in general; the lack of a names. All too often a player will refer to his character’s magic items in terms of their properties (ring of invisibility, +2 longsword, staff of passage, etc.) rather than giving a proper name to it (Grimtooth, the demon slayer). The lack of names means the players become less attached to their items and more prone to trade up without hesitation. Therefore, every specific item in this book has a name of sorts attached to it (for example, Wailing Stone of Lost Souls) in order to give it more uniqueness and a sense of importance.

Critical Misses
There isn’t much really that I can complain about with this book. Most of the faults can be considered minor. There are several items that are tailored to be Arcanis specific, which does require some work to adapt them to other settings. The weapon disadvantage table would likely come across better as options for cursed weapons rather than magical weapons with flaws. Lastly, I felt that some entries lacked the detail and depth evident in others (which is a common occurrence when a large team of writers is involved) and is most likely due to differences in style. As I said, minor complaints really.

Coup de Grace
Forged in Magic is an ideal resource for those looking for more options than the DMG offers. There seems to be no real game balance issues with the entries and the non-generic naming of them goes a long way towards making them seem important and a part of history. While it is 90% a GM resource tool, players could benefit in coming up with suggestions for quests that their character may embark upon to gain items from this book. This is truly a book worth having in your library.

To see the graded evaluation of this product, go to Fast Tracks at www.d20zines.com.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Forged In Magic

Paradigm Concepts

Author: Various

Cover art: Carrie Hall

$19.99 128-page d20 sourcebook

ISBN: 1-931374-06-6

Upside: A wealth of information, applied in an easy to use format. Role-playing elements are heavily featured, but never as a substitute or barrier to the rules.

Downside: Some editing errors. The same issue where an underscore appears in several items seems to happen in the same context, so it may be a font problem with the printer.

The Book: This is a 128 page resource on magic items. In all there are 375 distinct magic items, 71 weapon and armor qualities and disadvantages and there are 10 spells. The book rounds out with a prestige class and some feats. The layout is clear and easy to read and there is no whitespace.

Organization: The book is laid out in a logical manner. Every item has its space and there is an exhaustive table of contents that easily serves the purpose of an index. Paradigm also went to the effort of creating random generation charts for the items for those that like to roll stuff up.

Rules: I duplicated several of the magic items in the book using the creation system from the DMG and they all stacked up. Many of the items are very powerful, but the charts that Paradigm created account for minor, medium and major awards. The new disadvantage system is thin and could use some development, but is an interesting idea. The feats and prestige class appear to be suited for use as NPCs more than as PC options. The Spells may have been created just to make some of the magic items as I have found them in the creation information of some of the objects.

Flavor: Each magic item came with a history related to Paradigm’s Arcanis: the World of Shattered Empires campaign setting. It appears that this book will also serve as a sourcebook for the Living Arcanis RPGA campaign. The introduction of the book explains Paradigm’s thoughts on item creation and based upon what I have seen of Arcanis, their thoughts on D&D in general. The items typically have very good names. There is a psionic defense item called the Talisman of Unassailable Intellect and a sword named the Drusus of the Indomitable Gladiator. Most items have histories that can serve as adventure seeds. The book provides perhaps 300 solid adventure seeds.

Appearance: I have never heard of Carrie Hall before, but the cover is very attractive and I wonder why more products don’t have her work on them. It depicts a well-muscled man (a master smith perhaps?) stirring a cauldron and a beautiful woman in a breastplate and chainmail casting magic (perhaps a cleric). The interior art ranges from average to outstanding with a trend towards the higher quality. The layout is clear and crisp with little wasted space and the font is large enough to be easily read but not so large as to be wasteful of space.

Value for the Dollar: At $20US, this book is less than most 128-page titles nowadays and is packed with relevant information. There is no fluff; almost every word applies for use in your game. I would have preferred if the book were hardbound as I will make extensive use of it and the spine may crack over time.

Conclusion: If you run a D&D game that uses magic items and you don’t insist upon creating every item yourself, then this book is a wise investment. You could likely base entire campaigns upon the history of some of the juicier items and that alone is worth the investment. Highly recommended.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Just a not on the spells, they exist for the creation of the items. In some cases, the closest spell would have either made a powerful item inexpensive or a moderately usefull item too pricy. Unlike WotC, we didn't want to put in arbitrary costs.