Mystic Warriors

[Psion]

Wow... quite the little discussion here... see what happens when I tune out.

Anyway, I didn't so much mean to get on your case, but I do think that you should realize that the points I brought up will be viewed as bona fide faults by some players. Sure, you can fiddle with things like BAB and save bonuses... but some people are going to be at the very least uncomfortable with it.

 

[trancejeremy]

I was a bit leery of picking this up due to bad reviews, but the price was very appealing (128 pages for $14.95). Overall, I'm glad I picked it up, although I paid even less than it's low cover price (thanks to a game store on Ebay).

Essentially, this book details the 'Mystic Warrior'. Mystic Warriors are basically just orders or organizations that have learned to fight using magical abilities. Essentially, a Mystic Warrior is a broad type of prestige class. It's set in Mystic Eye Games own campaign setting, but is relatively easy to adapt to any. For instance, the Templars, Thugees, and the Assassins of historical earth could possibly be "Mystic Warriors" (and in fact seem to be the inspiration for some of the groups in the book).

The magic abilities are generally based around what is called 'Vitus'. Essentially, 'Vitus' is just a way of saying 'Spell Point'. Characters get so many vitus (spell) points (based on level, class, and their stats), and can spend them to use magic powers called 'techniques'.

Some magic powers to specific to certain mystical orders, but some are common to all. The latter are learned almost like spells are. By my count, there are 22 different mystical orders, each with their own prestige class, and 52 techniques. So there's a lot of material in here. Some of the orders are more suited for villains, while some are PC orientated.

Each order and prestige class gets a good 4-6 page devoted to it, including a full description of the class, the order, as well as how to adapt it to another fantasy setting, art depicting what members of that order looks like, their symbol, and a short piece of flavor fiction. The orders range from the very interesting and cool to the goofy (the wolf people) and somewhat lame (people who become golems). But the majority are good.

This product actually reminds me a lot of the old "Compleat Whatzit" books from Bard Games. Decent but somewhat amateurish artwork, odd writing at times, but essentially a labor of love. So it's hard for me not to like this a lot.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Hunted and feared by the Pantheon. Praised and revered by the commoners. In the world of Gothos there are hidden sects and secret schools where the most powerful arts of war are learned and perfected. Great masters have studied the most ancient ways of fighting, passed down through the ages, and tied it the most powerful source of energy, the very spirit and soul of life.

In this d20 supplement book, 20 + schools of Mystic Warriors are presented, each with its own unique history and abilities. These special prestige classes can easily be adapted to any campaign setting as well as the schools of the Mystic Warriors themselves.

 

[Lady Danyon]

Mystic Warriors is really great. I gave it five stars!

The Vitus system alone deserves that rating. It is what appealed most to me about this product.

That, and Mystic Eye Games put good stuff in there as far
as vitus techniques, and such...

I strongly recommend this product for good flavor to any campaign!

 

[drnuncheon]

OK, reviewing the review here...

I appreciate that you like the product, but unfortunately this review is not very helpful to anyone who isn't familiar with it.

What kind of book is this? Prestige classes? NPCs? Monsters? Organizations? Adventure?

What is the 'vitus system'? New magic, a replacement for feats, a psionics system, something else? How does it work? Is it well balanced? Does it make sense with other d20 mechanics?

What do you mean by "good flavor"? What kind of flavor does it have? Gritty stick-and-potato adventuring, wild Hong Kong-style martial-arts, epic high fantasy, something different?

I think in order to review a product and have it be a good review, you need to provide enough information about the product for the reader to judge whether or not it would be useful for them. This review has none of that.

 

[Archer]

Quick summary: This is a 3rd party d20 product that doesn’t try to cover up the 4 guys in a basement feel. If that bothers you, you might as well stop reading now because you’ll never like Mystic Warriors. I think it’s a good effort to have an idea and a setting and develop it into a product.. This product is a labor of love but as Monte Cook says, that doesn’t always make a great product. Mystic Warriors is most like the Psionics Handbook, with all the love/hate that entails. The vitus mechanic is very similar to PSPs and techniques substitute for powers. Vitus doesn’t scale upward like PSPs, you start with a bunch and get a fixed amount per level. I would have been impressed if this product had come out 6 months before the PsiHB instead of 6 months after.

I really wanted to like this product but it ended up the 3rd most disappointing. (For those who have been keeping track the other two were Librum Equis and Hero Builders Guidebook.) I remember the ads on ENworld for this product and reading the preview material. I even tried to order it (not directly though) 6 months ago but after 4 months of being out of stock I gave up but ended up getting a copy through an auction bundle last month. I’m sure that given time, experience and money this team could come up with some products that would rival the top of the line

I rate this a 2 even though I think Sword and Fist is a better product overall and I gave that a 1. Mystic Warriors has more pages and costs less plus it’s a 3rd party product which all combined improve its rating one step.

I really don’t want to write the negative review that I’m writing but I’m not comfortable writing a positive review. Hopefully it can be construed as constructive criticism. I was put off by the amateurish artwork, odd writing, rules errors and balance questions. Assume I like everything about the book except the points I bring up here. Jason's artwork is very good by the way.

http://www.sjgames.com/general/guidelines/writers/writers-guide-style.html

I suggest everyone who ever writes anything for publication read this. It totally changed the way I looked at everything when I first read it many years ago. See? My reviews are both educational and informative! Everyone knows that Monte Cook has incredible tips on good gaming and writing but not everyone knows that Steve Jackson has been doing the same for many more years.

Mystic Warriors is what Steve Jackson would call a first draft, which is entirely different from what the majority of people call a first draft. I’ll include a short quote from the above link. A final draft for Mystic Warriors would probably merit a 4 or 5 rating.

“We require two drafts on each project. The first draft is a complete draft. If any sections are missing, it's not an acceptable first-draft submission. It should be good; when the writer sends his first draft, he should feel that it's ready to be typeset and printed, as is!”

I could nitpick about literally hundreds of small details but others have done this enough to give you an idea of this work. It is my personal belief that this book could have been published in 64 pages and lost nothing. Anything dealing with facing should have been put in a web enhancement.

Here's a quick playtest element I'll just throw in here. The leader of the stone soldiers was killed by an 8th level party even though he is listed as CR24. An ancient red dragon is CR24, not any mystic warrior. I never told them what they had beaten, they thought it was an earth elemental with a few variant powers. Too bad he can never be resurrected (a stone soldier drawback) Not being able to talk is a real problem too. It makes stone soldiers unusable as both a player and NPC.

I'm surprised some people felt the classes were too powerful overall. There are maybe 2-3 classes that are too powerful. Dealing 1000+ damage in a round is too much and so is the stackable dagger stance feat. A fighter could take that for +20 to hit and dump it into power attack. Those 2 things were the most egregious examples of broken mechanics. I don't know what is up with the 10-100% tithes on nearly every mystic warrior class. That just drove me crazy. Gear is twice as important as character level. See the playtest example above for the results of having no gear.

I feel that mystic warriors are best left as NPCs.

 

[Archer]

There are 3 positive reviews by this person and none of them have any supporting details. This one is longer than the other 2 put together. The vitus system is good, I liked it when it was the psionics system as well. I agree that it is very good for flavor as well but the complete lack of detail makes it a poor review. I give this review a 1.

 

[mistervimes]

I wanted to LOVE Mystic Warriors, I really did. I eagerly anticipated the arrival of the product and 'oohed' and 'aahed' over the cover... but somewhere between the pages it lost some of its... well, mysticism.

Firstly, let us discuss what the book IS before we discuss what the book is not. Inside this 126 page soft back are:

* 22 Prestige Classes
* 1 New Race
* 20+ New Feats
* 50+ "Special Techniques"
* "Special Items" (think MAGIC Items)
* Sample Schools
* A Guide (albeit a small one) to help you run/incorporate Mystic Warriors (and the concepts presented) into a campaign
* Design rules for expanding the concepts presented.

Mystic Warriors begins with the premise of introducing a new, point based, magic system, for the d20 game system, called "Vitus". Vitus is, essentially, the life force that we all possess. Every character has a Vitus point total (whether a Mystic Warrior class or no). Using the Vitus system requires the use of the Harness Vitus skill. Expending these Vitus Points power the characters "Special Techniques" (essentially spell-like abilities). Expending too much Vitus has a detrimental effect on the character (as the character is, essentially, depleting their life force).

Despite the way it sounds, this introduction does exactly what the Open Gaming License intended; it expands and grows the d20 system. Does it do it well? That is up to you to decide.

The drawbacks to this book start small and (unfortunately) grow. The artwork ranges from Excellent to very poor, and that is very disappointing as it is obvious that Mystic Eye Games™ has some talented artists on staff. Why they were not used in exclusion of the less polished artists is a mystery.

The Artwork does have a nostalgic feel, reminiscent of 1st edition dungeons and dragons and older Hero Games™ products... but the nostalgia wasn't enough to make me enjoy the artistic presentation.

The layout of the book also lacks. The pages were full of "Gutters" where the information presented could have been condensed, making the book smaller or saving space for more designer notes.

The classes themselves are well designed save for the fact that the system seems to require that each class takes a series of Restrictions (examples include a weekly sacrifice of the character's most valuable material possession and never using or owning magic items.), many of these restrictions (though in many cases well conceived) ham-string the character to the point that the class would never be playable. It feels like the folks at Mystic Eye were afraid that the Classes were too powerful without these emasculating "Strictures".

Fortunately, there is good news. Towards the end of the book, there is a page dedicated to using the "Special Techniques" without Vitus and even rules for eliminating the "Special Techniques" altogether (though I think this is a disservice to the designers).

I believe that if the Strictures were eliminated (or at least toned down or balanced from class to class) and the Vitus system were set aside (except for those of you that want to expand to yet another Magic System) that the product is very playable.

(...) With a few modifications it can also contribute a great deal to an existing campaign.

If you are looking for a flawless product then pass this one by, but if you are looking for prestige classes with an inspired background that needs a bit of mechanical overhaul, I recommend that you give Mystic Warriors a try...