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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Simon Collins" data-source="post: 2010009" data-attributes="member: 9860">This is not a playtest review.Heroes Of High Favor: Elves, is a collection of rules ideas and prestige classes based around the concept of mixing the elves' favored class, Wizard, with the other available classes.HOHF: Elves is a 78-page softcover mono book, whose size is slightly larger than A5, equating very roughly to about 48 pages of A4, and costs $9.95. There are a few small chunks of white space and the format means margins effectively reduce the amount of text comparative to A4, but there's nothing too out of line here. Whilst the style of art remains of a similar quality to that of the previous two in the HOHF series (half-orcs and dwarves), the chunky style does not capture the grace and frailty of the elf as well as it did the strength and power of the former two races. The writing style is direct ad clean, whilst I noticed more editing errors than in previous volumes.Chapter 1: IntroductionThis gives an overview of the focus of the book - elven wizardry - and the benefits for an elf to take a level or three of Wizard as a mix with their main class focus.Chapter 2: Feats And SkillsThe chapter begins with some general feats, the majority of which tie in to the base feat of Favored Terrain - the ability to choose a terrain (alternatively, cold or warm climate) in which you gain a +1 morale bonus to skill checks and may exchange traditional elven weapon proficiencies for unusual environments. These feats tend to be most suited (on a roleplaying level) for rangers and druids, which was a pleasant surprise given the focus on magic. Other feats linked to Favored Terrain include Pulse Of The Wilds, which enables an elf to sense danger in his favored terrain based on the CR of a hostile creature, and Tree Stepper (allows the elf to move and even run through the tree-tops).Arcane feats provide some choices specifically for arcane magic-users that include availability of healing spells (at +3 spell slot) and Elemental Penetration (reduces energy resistance by 1 point per caster level). An interesting set of arcane feats are Spell Wards, which allow a spell slot to be exchanged for wards against spells cast against you - counterspelling, turning or absorbing a specific spell.There are various ideas for using Craft skills to create elven style weaponry and items, including living items that can naturally repair themselves. Knowledge (Arcana) is used for many of the new options presented in the book, and these are mentioned here.Chapter 3: Lost ArcanaThis section begins with a variant set of rules governing opposition schools for specialist wizards. Taking more opposition schools than necessary brings various options for purchasing via a points system.These include being able to cast a specialist spellsas Heightened, at +1 caster level, or even a spontaneous casting of a specialised spell.The remainder of the chapter focuses on ley lines and power nexuses. Ley lines are the magical equivalent of power lines running across the land, though they're intangible and invisible. Power Nexuses are the magical equivalent of power stations and are located at places of magical power. Spellcasters (and sometimes others) can hook into ley lines and power nexuses to boost their spellcasting ability in various ways, and there is also advice on fighting other spellcasters for control of a nexus and actually creating nexuses. Chapter 4: Prestige ClassesThis chapter is the meat and drink of the book and contains the following 10-level prestige classes designed to be compatible with elves who take levels in a combination of the wizard class plus one of the other classes:* Ley Runner (Wizard/Barbarian) - uses the power from ley lines, power nexuses and rage to become harder to hit through various movement and evasion abilities.* Arcanologist (Wizard/Bard) - seeks to retrieve lost elven arcane lore and items, to keep it safe from others who might abuse its power; abilities surround locating elven magic and being able to avoid detection and traps.* Grand Theurgist (Cleric/Wizard) - uses a mixture of arcane and divine magic for holy ends, including using turning attempts to boost arcane spellcasting.* Wayshepherd (Druid/Wizard) - essentially guard and protect nexuses and ley lines, including the ability to empower animal companions with magic from a nexus.* Veteran Wizard (Fighter/Wizard) - war-wizard type who can ignore arcane spell failure and can more easily prepare self-defensive spells.* Seneschal Of The Great Library (Monk/Wizard) - defenders of elven magical libraries with abilities such as memorising scrolls and flurry casting (allowing a touch spell to be included in a flurry of blows).* Exemplar (Paladin/Wizard) - essentially a paladin with arcane spellcasting ability, allowing the examplar to prepare arcane spells as divine spells, and access to arcane healing.* Spell-shikar (Ranger/Wizard) - takes the ranger's tracking ability to the planar realms and extends the favored enemy ability to include arcane matters.* Anarcanist (Rogue/Wizard) - assassin-type who specialises in dealing with arcane spellcasters who threaten elven society, be they elven or of another race, including the ability at high levels to drain spells.* Outcast Specialist (Sorcerer/Wizard) - outcast from elven society for practicing sorcery, the outcast specialist takes an obsession with one particular school of magic into exile with him, allowing more spells in this area to be known.Chapter 5: Elven RoleplayingA short two-page chapter discussing elven long life, and four roleplaying archetypes - nature-lover, hedonist, scholar, and elitist. This chapter seems to concentrate more on elven philosophy than actual roleplaying tips - it doesn't actually delve much into the actual behavioural traits that might manifest based on these philosophies, and would have been more useful had it done so.Appendix A: Spell DesignThis appendix provides a relatively simple set of guidelines for quick spell design, in order to allow a player to design (and a GM to judge) a spell suited to a wizard PC's level. The system uses a number of school-based templates, takes into account the Wizard's Knowledge (Arcana) ranks, level, and available wealth and time. It then looks at a standard spell for the school and type of effect and scatters game mechanics either side of this baseline. The spell designer must compare his concept with the game mechanics (range, duration, SR, etc.) either side of the baseline to adjudicate the appropriate level of his spell.  There is also some discussion on mixing rules from the templates to create more unusual spells. This system needs some playtesting before it is possible to fully judge its efficacy, but its a bold concept.Conclusion:Elves improves on previous Heroes of High Favor products by providing more for the same money. Whilst 'Elves' provides some new and interesting game mechanics, not all of them are completely clarified in the text and this could lead to confusion and abuse. For example, in the section that discusses greater school specialisation, one of the benefits that can be gained is an extra spell slot (of any level) and the benefit can be gained multiple times. The text warns... "However, you may not prepare more spells of a higher level than of any lower level slot. For example, a 9th-level specialist with three bonus spell slots per day could prepare one bonus 5th level spell and two bonus 4th level spells, but could not prepare two bonus 5th level spells and only one bonus 4th level spell." This theoretically implies on the one hand that you could prepare one 5th- and two 4th-level spells without preparing any 3rd-level or lower spells whilst stating in the same paragraph that one cannot do this because you'd be preparing more 4th-level spells (2) than 3rd-level spells (0) - and anyway, why wouldn't I just prepare three 5th-level spells? This kind of nebulousness can be found at several points. That said, there are plenty of ideas that do seem to work fine and are clearly stated - I particularly enjoyed the favored terrain-based feats and the spell wards. In previous HOHF books, I found at least a couple of the prestige classes to be excellent and really stimulate the imagination - I found the prestige classes in 'Elves' to be fairly utilitarian overall, and none seemed to really stand out above the others, some even seeming a little boring. However, elves are my favourite character race, and I don't want to judge too harshly.Despite my criticisms, the book still delivers plenty of ideas for players running elven wizard multiclassed characters in particular, and much of the information seemed to be very useable outside the focus of the book, making it a more widely useable product for the GM as well as the player - the concept of power nexuses and ley lines in particular could become a great focus for an entire campaign or even campaign setting.</blockquote>

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