Occult Lore (Atlas Games/Penumbra)

[Tsyr]

I am uncertain what you mean. Dragon magic is in bastion's Spells & Magic, alchemy and herbalism are in Bastion's Alchemy & Herbalism.

Ah. Gomen. Got the two (neither of which I have yet) confused.

I've never liked the "skepticism dampens magic" paradigm. I can sort of understand why they went that route in Mage (and for that matter, Palladium's Beyond the Supernatural) because the characters live in a world where magic is greeted with skepicism, but in an overtly fantasy setting (i.e., most d20 system fantasy settings), I find the concept a bad fit.

True. On the whole though, I got the feeling that this book was aimed at a world with a somewhat lower-than-normal magic level. For a grim-n-gritty campagin, it might not be too bad. Or for D20 modern .

I actualy just had a thought... what if you changed the name of the pclass to... oh... say, Unraveler... and added a prequisit of X ranks in Spellcraft or knowledge: arcana or something... then change the flavor text a bit... bingo, you got a person who knows magic is real and is specialized in countering it. Sorta an anti-mage, if you will. And if you dropped the animal-shapeshifting power I hate, and then bump up the BAB progression a notch, ya got a nice Witch Hunter prestige class.

Ya know, I think I might throw one of those at the party next session and see what they think...

 

[Conaill]

Alchemy & Herbalism -- I think bastion did it better.

Yikes! Is it THAT bad?

Seriously, I found Bastion's Alchemy & Herbalists to be essentially unusable from a PC point of view. Way too complicated, not balanced with existing alchemical items, and too big a departure from the existing D20 rules.

Can you tell us some more about how Occult Lore deals with Alchemy and Herbalism? How easy would it be to integrate their new rules and items, considering there's already close to one hundred alchemical preparations in existing published D&D sources?

 

[Tsyr]

Alchemy is actualy two sections in one.

The first part of alchemy primarily is for NPCs... it introduced a class called the Arcane Healer, which is, more or less as you would guess, a healer class. It's mostly targeted at NPCs, though (Doesn't have much ooomph).

The second part of the chapter concerns the Master Alchemist prestige class... These are the guys from stories, trying to find the divine forumla behind things, if you will. They are able to make alchemic concoctions with fairly nifty, if suble, effects... most of them, early on, are things like alchemical steel... by using it in place of normal steel when making a magic weapon, it allows the crafter of the magic weapon to forgo a bit of the experience cost. At the pclasses last level, you can make Alchemical Gold, or Philosopher's Gold... Basicly, a longevity potion. Might be really cool if your playing a human wizard concerned with his mortality, or something.

Herbalism is tied very closely with the book of plants in the last part of the book... in said book of plants, they have lists of things that can be made out of the plants... Herbalists create those potions. Two new prestige classes (The Master Herbalist and the Wylderwitch) are the new classes introduced in this chapter.

The Master Herbalist is the more methodical of the two. It's a 10 level prestige class, and they get numerous bonuses to crafting herbalist potions and similar, as well as continuing their spell progression. The Master Herbalist will, in the long run, create better potions than the Wylderwitch can.

The Wylderwitch, on the other hand, is much more haphazard... They get abilities such as Inexpensive Potion and Improvided Potion, as well as a bit more of a magical plantbinding focus (I'll get to that in a minute). This one is probably a bit more suited for your average adventurer, while the Master Herbalist is is more suited for your stationary druids or wizards. The Wylderwitch also is a bit easier to qualify for than the Master Herbalist.

Herbalism also has rules (which you could easily ignore) for "plantbinding"... which is essentialy enchanting a plant with a spell, sorta like a spell scroll or potion.

 

[Psion]

Yikes! Is it THAT bad?

Seriously, I found Bastion's Alchemy & Herbalists to be essentially unusable from a PC point of view. Way too complicated, not balanced with existing alchemical items, and too big a departure from the existing D20 rules.

Well obviously, our opinions differ.

Of course its a departure from the existing alchemy... that's sort of the point. I did have a few problems with A&H, though. Like one of the classes having +5 to save DCs for two schools of spells? I disdain the archmage for the same reason. I also found it a bit hard to get into. But on the whole, there is some interesting and useful material in there.

Atlas's alchemy classes include the arcane healer and the grand alchemist.

Grand alchemist is okay... has continuing spellcasting progression, but has class abilities that assist in alchemical creation. The approach is similar to A&H's, though not as in-depth.

Arcane Healer redefines its spells as "alchemical preparations", an approach that sort of bothered me, and if anything departs more from the existing system than A&H does.