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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2009952" data-attributes="member: 172">Heroes of High Favor: ElvesThe third book in Badaxe Games' Heroes of High Favors series of d20 rules supplements targeted at players, Heroes of High Favor: Elves provides new classes, feats, and other options primarily for elvish characters.Heroes of Hight Favor: Elves is written by Badaxe Games' Benjamin Durbin.A First LookHeroes of High Favor: Elves is an 80 page perfect-bound softcover book with small (about half-sheet) sized pages priced at $9.95.The cover of the book has a leafy motif framing a glowing blue circle with runes inscribed on it. The circle represents a diagram within the book diagraming the relationship of the eight classical d20 System schools of magic.The interior is black-and-white, featuring art by Andrew Hale. The illustrations look fairly good, but some of the pictures look a little harsh and mannish for elves, not to mention looking a little cartoony.The interior text font is fairly small, and the margins are thin, but the double paragraph spacing is used.A Deeper LookAs with the prior books in the series, the bulk of the material in Heroes of Hight Favor: Elves revolves around the favored class of the race, in this case wizard. The book is very light on flavor text, diving straight into mechanics that you can use in a game and relying largely on the DM to sweat the details. As many time pre-written background details are hard to reconcile with an established campaign, I don't consider this a bad approach.The book kicks off with a selection of feats appropriate primarily for elves. Half of the spells are fairly general in nature. For example Bow Mastery provides the character with a +1 bonus to attack with all bows that stack with the weapon focus feat's enchantment (which is a prerequisite.) Favored Terrain is a type of feat used in prior books in the series which makes a fresh appearance here; this feat allows the elf to exchange his weapon feats with ones more appropriate to the terrain, and additionally provide a bonus to skill checks when in the favored terrain. Improved Weapon Finesse allows a character to use their dexterity instead of strength when dealing damage with the appropriate weapon. Tree Stepper, which will appeal to you if you are a Record of Lodoss War fan, allows the character to easily move among the branches.The book also has a new category of feat called Arcane Feats. The book provides the option of limiting the feats to arcane spellcasters or (more specifically) to limit them to specific specialists to enhance the flavor of the feats; each feat lists a school of magic with which it is associated. Some of these are fairly potent and interesting. Mutable Spell allows a cater to prepare two transmutation spells in the same slot, and choose which spell to cast at the time of casting. Piercing Spell allows a character to half the caster level of a damaging evocation spell for most purposes in exchange for increasing either DC or spell penetration of the spell by one half the character's caster level. Gifted Healer allows the wizard to prepare clerical healing spells as wizard spells of 3 levels higher.However, my favorite feats in the book have to be the sub-category of arcane feats called Spell Wards. The most basic spell ward is Spell Ward: Counterspell, which allows the caster to prepare a spell as a dedicated counterspell that automatically triggers if the character is targeted with the specified spell. Other feats in this chain allow turning of the spell, absorbing it to power another spell, and immunity (which operates the same as the couterspell, but is not expended when the spell is countered.)The brief skills section introduces a new knowledge category (elves), as well as adding new uses to craft skills. Similar to Heroes of High Favor: Dwarves, this section introduces new possible effects of masterworking items, such as adding fire resistance or reducing weight of wooden items, reducing the spell failure percentage of armor, and increasing the range and reducing the range penalties of bows. Of these, I found all but the last to be usable. The seeking masterwork quality halves the range penalty, which seems to me far too drastic a benefit for a non-magical modification.The third section of the book, Lost Arcana, presents two sets of variant rules dealing with arcane spellcasting: specialist wizards and ley lines.The first section, specialist wizards, provides rules for a character who wishes to further specialize in a specific school of magic. If a character is willing to choose more opposition schools than outlined in the core rules, the character may gain additional benefits related to skills of that school. Depending on how many and which opposition schools are taken, the character may gain benefits in the specialized school such as improved caster level, improved saves versus the school in question, reduced cost of metamagic with the school, free heightening of spells, and even the ability to spontaneously cast spells in the specialty.The next section, arguably the gem of the book, provides rules for Ley Lines and Power Nexuses, rules that are often referred to in classical magic, but rarely touched upon in the game. Under these rules, an arcane spellcaster (with the proper skill rolls) can anchor a ley line and use it to enhance their casting level of a spell, but entails the risk of losing spells if the appropriate skill checks fail. Nexuses are even more potent and ley lines, allowing less risk and more potent results, such as defraying the cost of metamagic. Other interesting effects are possible, such as having a spell cast at one nexus take effect at another.As with all previous books in the series, the book provides 12 prestige classes, one corresponding roughly to each possible multiclass with the race's favored class, in this case wizard. Each concept is put forth as being a general concept that you can realize by playing the multiclass combination, but the prestige class provide an alternate or more specialized version of the concept. The classes (and the multiclass combination they spring from) are as follows: -Ley runner (barbarian/wizard): After seeing the attempt at combining barbarian and paladin into a workable prestige class in Heroes of High Favor: Half-Orcs, I became convinced that some class combinations well never lend themselves to a workable concept. I feared that this would be an example of the same in this book. I was wrong.The Ley Line Runner plays of off the ley line rules introduced earlier in the book. The ley line runner is at home in the wilderness and trained to take advantage of ley lines to facilitate rapid travel between elven settlements. The ley line runner has slow arcane spellcasting advancement and more rages per day, but there signature ability is to run much faster than the norm along ley lines. -Arcanologist (bard/wizard): The arcanologist is specialist in uncoverng ancient lore. The arcanologist is more bard than wizard; they continue to advance in spellcasting as bards, but may cast wizard spells using their bard slots. The arcanologist gains bonus spells that aid in divination of ancient treasure as well as being expert at using magical devices. -Arcane Theurgist (cleric/wizard): A more basic combination, the arcane theurgist continues to advance is spellcasting, those these additional levels must be split between cleric and wizard spellcasting level. The theurgists has poor combat abilities, but unlike a simple multiclass cleric/wizard, continues with the turn undead ability and the character's familiar advances at half the normal rate, plus the character gains some spell enhancing divine abilities, such as being able to expend turning attempts to boost the power of spells and the ability to prepare wizard spells as domain spells. -Wayshepherd (druid/wizard): As with the Ley Line Runner, this class plays of the ley line and power nexus rules presented earlier. The wayshepherd is a guardian of power nexuses. The wayshepherd continues to advance slowly as an arcane spellcaster, but also counts wayshepherd levels for the purposes of animal companions and gains additional animal companions that can be assigned to guard a power nexus. The wayshepherd eventually learns to give these guardians additional powers much as familiars. -Veteran Wizard (fighter/wizard): The veteran wizard is the classical concept of a fighting mage. The veteran wizard has moderate fighting and slow spellcasting advancement (much as the spellsword in Tome & Blood, as well as the ability to ignore arcane spell failure for low level spells, weapon specialization, and access to the gird spell feat, which allows the veteran wizard to prepare spells with greater than personal range as personal spells and reduce their level by 1. -Seneschal of the Great Library (monk/wizard): This class is a guardian of the great repositories of arcane knowledge maintained by the elves. The seneschal has attack and save advancement (as well as AC and unarmed combat abilities) of a monk, plus continues to advance as an arcane spellcaster at half the normal rate, which seems pretty strong. However, the seneschal is restricted from casting traditional blast type spells; elemental damage spells can only be used if they have a touch range. -Exemplar (paladin/wizard): Much as the veteran wizard combine spell and sword against the enemies of elvenkind, so does the exemplar combine spell and sword in the righteous cause amongst the elves. The exemplar is not required to have been a paladin previously, but gains many paladin like abilities. The exemplar continues to progress in spellcasting as a paladin, but learns to prepare any mastered arcane spells as divine spells. -Spell-shikar (ranger/wizard): Spell-shikars are ranger/wizards specialized in combating outsiders. The spell-shikar continues to advance in spellcasting as a ranger, and learns to apply favored enemy bonuses against his outsider favored enemy. This class seems a little weak to me, as few of the ranger's spells are actually useful against outsiders that would require a save or spell penetration check. -Anarcanist (rogue/wizard): The anarcanist is a rogue specialized in wresting magic from those he considers unworthy. The anarcanist has slow spellcasting advancement, rogue-like skills, and some rogue-like class abilities. The anarcanist can sacrifice sneak attack dice for specialized strikes that make it difficult for spellcasters to cast spells. -Outcast specialist (sorcerer/wizard): The outcast specialist is a specialist wizard that has left that path to pursue the pull of the natural arcane power of sorcerous power. The outcast specialist continues to advance as a sorcerer, but must abide by specialization school restrictions as a wizard specialist. In exchange for this, the outcast specialist gains boons in terms of addition known spells and spell slots at each level.The power of most of these prestige classes are fairly reasonable, and some of them might even be a bit weak and unappealing. I liked the concept and execution of the ley line runner and wayshepherd, but was not so fond of the spell-shikar and exemplar, and think they are possibly too weak and have class abilities that are too limited.Two pages of the book are devoted to roleplaying elves, familiarizing the player with the possible mindset of the long-lived elves as well as providing some typical elven archetypes.The final section of the book is called spell design. It provides a quick system for creating spells and assessing their costs. Each school of magic has a different table - the better elements you select from the tables, the higher the resultant spell level of your spell. The system is simple and won't simulate a lot of standard D&D spells, but could be a good baseline for players wishing to design simple spells that might meet the DMs approval, but much ajudication and fudging would be required.ConclusionAs with previous books in the series, I thought that Heroes of High Favor: Elves provided a lot of useful campaign material in a small amount of space. As mentioned, I was most impressed with the ley line rules and the ward feats, though much of the remaining material is fairly good as well.-Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

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