Path of Magic

[Messageboard Golem]

By Bruce Boughner, Staff Reviewer d20 Magazine Rack and Co-host of Mortality Radio

Sizing Up the Target
Path of Magic is a 171-page hardcover accessory published by Fantasy Flight Games in their Legends & Lairs series. The authors are Wil Upchurch, Greg Benage, Shawn Cashman, James Maliszewski, Brian Patterson and Sam Witt. The cover is done by Brian Schomburg and is done in the faux-tome cover style and is available for $24.95

First Blood
Legends & Lairs has been a consistent performer in the d20 wars, Traps & Treachery, Spells & Spellcraft and the Seafarers Handbook were among their early releases. Great products that show a great deal of time spent in development and game balancing. Their line is steadfastly one of my favorite accessories. Path of Magic is the second of their releases that focuses strictly on classes and this one is for Bards, Sorcerers and Wizards.

While short on chapters, only five, they are well balanced for a spell-caster, starting with classes, 20 of them!!! Arcane Negotiator (summoners), dwarven Chanters (dwarven bards), Swamp Witch (diviners), Force Weavers (evokers) and Grand Divas (female bards) are among the prestige classes described here. The prestige classes take a spell-caster into a powerful path of development. Most of the classes also are followed by a Secret Society of similar casters that can be woven into your own plot threads.

Something new here is the advent of the Legendary Class. After reaching the pinnacle of power as a Prestige Class where does your character go? As with the Epic-level Handbook, into Legendary status. The player must declare his intention to achieve these classes at minimum 2 levels in advance of starting as one. Once on this path, for good or bad, success or failure, there is no changing back. Each legendary class has it’s own set of requirements, skills and feats. The Traveler, Death Lord, Maestro, and Wizard King are examples of these legendary classes.

The chapter ends with four variant classes for the first level character to take. The Arcane Engineer, a magitech that uses their spell abilities to combine with science to create new devices. The Arsenalist, who understands and employs gunpowder to increase their mage abilities. The Mind Weaver that is not quite a psion but more than a sorcerer, drawing on mental energy as well as arcane for power. And the Sun Mage becoming living solar batteries to power their arcane might.

The second chapter covers new feats like Arcane Strike, Counterspell Riposte and Eldritch Defense are good samples of the three dozen new arcane feats here.

Bards are the focus of the next chapter in Performances of Power, using those performances to enhance companions, and augment spells. The four disciplines of bardic magic style; arcane gesture, lyrics, rhythms and musical note give the beginning of a bardic college for the DM to develop. The effects of the bards performance give examples like sustain spell, range magnification and focused energy. There are also inhibitor effects to be used on opponents and expanded musical abilities. Finally the grouping of bards into Troupes and the enhanced abilities the combined efforts can give are also laid down.

Chapter Four discusses the spellcaster’s world, taking on the subjects of magical traditions and schools. The cost and time of training, traveling masters, Academies and Spells and Research are discussed before the example of the Stormweavers School (one of several) is given as a sample. Its history, academy, masters and lesson plan demonstrates the point of the chapter, certainly a great aid for the harried DM. Then the development of wizard towers; from the ground up are given. Charts on location, size, cost, construction time and mystical attuning of the tower are graphically designed to help the mage develop his ‘space’. Then Arcane Societies and their development are bandied in detail, from ranks to membership to the benefits and drawbacks of membership before giving several examples.

What would any book on wizardry be without those wonderful toys? The last chapter has just that. Breaking it down into three sections on Expendable Foci, Fonts of Power and Eldritch Staves.

Expendable Foci discusses how to apply mystical energy into those portable storage bins like rings potions and talismans. Side effects like manafire and the creation, use and charging of the foci are given. Fonts of Power draws on the sources of arcane might, Elemental Energy, Planar Energy, Necromancy, Bloodlines etc are given with the benefits and possible detriments are discussed. Then how to locate, tap and use these fonts by applying them to current arcane spell lists.

Eldritch Staves rounds out the book, touching on the images of Merlin and Gandalf’s staves, the writers launch into the role of and creation of a Wizard’s staff. Feats (called elements) for the staff are given, allowing the staff to grow as the wizard does... OUTSTANDING!!!!!

Critical Hits
Path of Magic is a definite improvement over Spells and Spellcraft, going into a greater depth with regards to the trapping of the spellcaster rather than loading us up on spells and the like. The Guilds and Secret Societies are the meat and potatoes of novels and films and the plans for developing them are topics often seen in issues of Dragon but never in a hardback tome like this. Bravo!

The artwork of the book more than passable, Fantasy Flight’s art staff are among the best in the business.

Critical Misses
Sequel, sequel, sequel! Work on these topics was great, let’s find other untapped potential for characters, NPCs and plot devices like this. It’s rare for a sequel book like this to surpass the original but this one did.

Coup de Grace
This is a must have book for both Dm’s and players who are fond of spell tossers as their favored class. There is such a wealth of information that can be used on both sides of the screen that it would be hard to not recommend it.

To see the graded evaluation of this product, go to The Critic's Corner at www.d20zines.com.

 

[Khur]

Once I said D&D is about fighting. Well, I was wrong--it's about magic, all about magic. Weaving spells of mass destruction, creating items of power, and singing mystical tunes are some of the best bits of fantasy roleplaying. The team at Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) realizes our want for witchery, and has conjured the Path of Magic just for such needs.

Like its blade-wielding counterpart Path of the Sword, Path of Magic comes on strong in the prestige class department. Though their names are uninspired, the classes themselves are superior material. No doubt players who read this book will find themselves trying to figure out how to meet the prerequisites for the Ring Sage, or how to use their newfound Summoner powers. DMs have no shortage of inspiration either, with the ideas provided by the likes of the potion-brewing, future-knowing Swamp Witch. Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble indeed.

While these prestige classes are actually better than the fighting classes found in Path of the Sword, they do have their quirks. A master of conjuration, the Arcane Negotiator cannot select what type of creature she summons when determining a series of permanent extraplanar allies, possibly resulting in a helper that has an opposing alignment--a really bad and unnecessary design choice. Some of the classes are allowed to know all of the spells from a given school in lieu of one known spell at each level, which can be unbalancing for sorcerers (if one doesn't consider them too weak as is). Definitely unbalancing, the Chanter can give bonuses to the skill checks of large groups of other characters that amount to +20, with little repercussions.

Speaking of groups though, once again all of the prestige classes are tied to interesting organizations. Even the most mundane of the classes have societies tied to them that can inspire entire campaign arcs, either from the group in question being a foe, a patron, or having a PC as a member. More than one of the organizations offer potential as both villains and heroes, according to how a DM adds them to a campaign. Even a seemingly simple assemblage of singers has its intrigues and plots.

The low point of the organizations was the Sons of Thunder, though not because the idea wasn't good. You see, the Sons are orcs belonging to the Force Weaver prestige class (also found in Path of Magic), which is a war mage that focuses on force effects, and requires a character to be a 5th-level wizard or sorcerer--both classes for which orcs are not particularly well suited. It seems the underutilized hobgoblin, with no penalties to Intelligence or Charisma, a superior Constitution to orcs (for Concentration checks), and a lawful, as well as martial, society would have been a better choice than the orc. Maybe it's just because orcs win the popularity contest in the genre.

Sure to be all the rage with players, FFG's trademark legendary classes present a real challenge to DMs seeking balance. Despite the storytelling potential some of these classes offer through titanic quests, a wise adjudicator must consider each one carefully. Not all of the aforementioned quests are monumental enough (some are downright easy), and the power offered by even the dullest of these vocations (and there are a few dull ones) is well beyond that of any prestige class. Yet, magic-loving players may shrink from many of these classes, because they cost the adherent character five levels of spell progression.

Those familiar with Path of the Sword should know, however, that the legendary classes in Path of Magic are not only more numerous than those in the former tome, most of them are better constructed as well. The Death Lord proffers to build the better necromancer (and bigger legions of shambling dead). Combine this guy with the ideas in the "Shades of Death" article in Dragon 298 and you've got one scary arch villain (or PC). Similarly, classes like the Elemental Lord, Oracle, Traveler, Wizard King, and Landwalker present ways for wizards and sorcerers to focus their abilities into a clear theme, and thus claim incredible might.

Unfortunately, bards are left with the worst of the legendary lot. The Infiltrator has quests that are too easily accomplished by any character of upper levels, the results of which would hardly result in a vaunted reputation or status. The class's abilities aren't much better, besides one that could ultimately result in a game-shattering +25 bonus to four skills. The Maestro (used in its simple "master" meaning) has nothing to do with music as one might think, but is instead a great leader. As bad as the Infiltrator on almost every count, one of the Maestro's "legendary" powers amounts to a maximum +5 bonus to the character's Leadership score. Uh ...wow. The Puzzlemaster could have pulled one out for the bard, but the good idea falls short on execution. A player of bards will have to wait for more worthy legendary classes.

Not to worry, though, because Path of Magic comes through with a section dedicated to bards. The short piece is tremendously rich in information, such as an interesting distinction between mundane performances and those with truly magical properties. This good idea is taken a step further, turning it into one of the most triumphant bardic portrayals I've seen in a d20 product. With these rules a bard can use his spell power to alter the nature of spells cast by friends and foes. By exchanging his own spells per day, and making a Perform check at the appropriate DC, a bard can extend the range, duration, or damage of another's spell. With a well-timed chant, such a minstrel might turn an enemy's fireball back so it lands at the feat of its own wicked caster. These are mere examples, as there are many more possibilities.

Possibilities expand with the idea of the troupe--a group of bards performing together for greater effect. Not only can a group of bards improve the chances of intended effects on the spells of others, but they can also generate raw magical power that may be directed for the use of other spellcasters. These rules expand the bard as a support character, relate the value of music to other parts of culture (such as church ceremonies), and create great thematic potential in the game.

The theme of the more musical bard continues with alternate bardic music abilities. Now a bard need not have the abilities listed in the Player's Handbook for her bardic music, or perhaps she has those and another set of powers based on another form of mystical performance. The alternate abilities are very nice, and solidly within the themes chosen for them (singing, dance, chanting, and instrumental). The potential of game imbalance is there, however, should a bard have too many of these abilities, despite the fact that each performance type requires a feat.

Those feats are just a few of the talents outlined in Path of Magic. Being familiar with a number of FFGs products, I'm not surprised at the high quality of most of the new feats. Still, some are illogical, like Arcane Artisan, which gives a bonus to Craft checks only if the article in question is intended to be a magic item. So the crafter's skill changes just because of his intent? Others are decent feats, but have misleading names, like Expert Bardic Knowledge, which provides no expertise at all, but a way to coax information about a magic item out of the ether by using a mystic performance. There's over three dozen new feats, and though about a third require that one use some of the rules variants in Path of Magic, almost every feat here has a place in the D&D game.

Things that don't have a place are the alternate core classes (leveled 1st-20th) presented in Path of Magic (much like their inane counterparts in Path of the Sword). There's only four, but none of them are good. The Arcane Engineer is an interesting concept, especially for more "science-oriented" tales, but the class is much more powerful than a wizard in class abilities, with no real penalties to spell ability or anything else. The Arsenalist, also a tech-mage, isn't even that good of an idea (and seems derivative of concepts from White Wolf's Mage: the Sorcerer's Crusade). Worse, this "master of gunpowder" doesn't have the ability to use Craft (firearms) until 11th-level, the Craft (firearms) description is written in a way that must preclude decent editing, and the prose refers to a chart of Craft DCs that does not exist. The final two classes are a bland jumble of magical abilities and fail to live up to their own themes. Though the Sun Mage comes close to avoiding this accusation, the wishy-washy writing and inherent illogic in the contents of its restricted spell list make the class something I'd not bother using.

There's something else I won't use as it's written, but not for the same reason, and that's the Magical Tradition section. This part of Path of Magic is full of inspiration, great story elements, and things that make good ideas for prestige classes, new spells, and feats. Magical Traditions allow a character to follow the teachings and philosophy of a specific group of mages. As he does so, the character expends XPs and time to learn ten techniques in manipulating magic (or other abilities). The idea (also appearing in Path of the Sword) is novel, but adds power to a character outside the context of feats, skills, and class abilities, therefore the potential for abuse is high.

The same cannot be said for the organizations included in Path of Magic. While suffering from the ho-hum naming conventions under which many of the prestige classes languish, these things are great. The organizational template shows a precision way to construct guilds, complete with benefits and costs for membership. Strangely, just like Path of the Sword, this template for organizations is not used for those groups associated with the prestige classes in the earlier section of the book. A question I still can't answer is, "Why not?" Moreover, unlike some of Mongoose's class books, the section doesn't really show a player how to construct his or her own guild. That would have been nice.

What a PC wizard can build is a tower. Despite the painfully cliché nature of such a topic, Path of Magic provides some shallow rules of construction for the stronghold-minded thaumaturge. While interesting in places, most of the guidelines pale in comparison to the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook. Like the latter volume, the mechanics rely on heaps of gold pieces to provide the desired accoutrements in the building--both denying that there are combinations of spells that might allow a clever player to build a stronghold for the mere cost of the materials for the magical architecture. Unfortunately, unlike Stronghold Builder's Guidebook, Path of Magic is not even remotely clear on how the wondrous architecture is constructed (as a magic item) within the context of the D&D rules. Further, the powers of some chambers can be used outside the tower with no maximum range on the same plane. While it's desirable, and even wickedly fun for players and DMs, to have an archmage reign supreme in his sanctum sanctorum, allowing the tower to provide benefits beyond the boundaries of the building (or even grounds) is a potentially game-breaking flaw.

Less unbalanced, and arguably more interesting, are the items and places of power. The section suggests some alternate power sources for mages to use. Expendable foci (think items that are crafted much like traditional magic items, store spell energy, and crumble to dust when consumed) can be used only to power metamagic feats, and are dangerous if used improperly. Entire "fonts" of energy are delineated for DMs who want unique twists to source(s) of magic power. The system for fonts is overly complex, but useable--especially for designing unique magical traditions focused on a specific energy, or even heredity. The suggestions here can inspire some very flavorful additions to a campaign.

Another morsel I hoped would be tasty just left bitterness behind. When flipping through Path of Magic, as I do with every book before I settle in for the read, I noticed the section on eldritch staffs. "Finally," I thought, "someone has been bold enough to come up with wizard staffs that work like those in fantasy literature." Well, I thought wrong. These rules won't be used by anyone who wants even a fair exchange of remuneration for drawbacks. Eldritch staffs do give some extra power, but the "balancing" factors are way too heavy--and those things remain even when a character eschews the use of the item, while the benefits do not. Further, the wizard bonded to the staff loses one permanent point of Constitution, which cannot be regained if the staff is destroyed. Should that happen, worse punishment is in store for the unfortunate spell-weaver. Gamers have to wait for a viable alternative.

Yet, of all the books I've seen dedicated to the path of magic in the D&D games, this is one of the best. Notable is the diverse content, as well as the fact that the truly flawed sections are small. Some of the materials in this book will certainly see use in my campaigns, and those that don't could still provide ample inspiration for games yet unplayed and campaigns uncreated. Path of Magic isn't the wise, pseudo-angelic Gandalf of roleplaying supplements, but neither is it that bumbling Sorcerer's Apprentice. It's like a robe of useful items--cool to have, certainly stylish, and those who draw from it carefully come out ahead.

This review was originally written for Gaming Frontiers on 11/26/02.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Review of Path of Magic by Fantasy Flight Games

Path of Magic is the second in the Path of series by Fantasy Flight Games. Each book tackles certain classes and this book is all about the Arcane Casters: Bards, Sorcerers, and Wizards.

Chapter one is called the Spellcasting Classes. It starts with prestige classes, then has Legendary Classes, and then has some class variants. There are also some great organizations for each prestige class. Like Path of the Sword, the organizations are well done and easy to use. Each organization is given a purpose, a leader (no stat block, just a name and class and levels), their current activities, and campaign integration. The campaign integration is the best part as it gives one great ways for using the organization in a campaign along with saying that not all campaigns will fit the organization. It does talk about what kinds of campaigns will make the organizations hard to use. I really like many of the prestige classes. I think they have some very good bard oriented ones, the best I’ve seen in any d20 product. All the prestige classes get full spellcasting ability, so bards, sorcerers, and wizards really are not giving up much at all to take these classes.

Arcane Negotiator: This is an interesting take on the usually summoner. They gain the ability to summon outsiders of varies power and can have them accomplish more then just fight. They have a good range of abilities and there is a lot of style to this class.

Chanter: This is a dwarven bard prestige class. They get some very neat abilities dealing with rhythm and chanting. It is similar and might have been inspired from the dwarven chanter kit from the second edition Bard Handbook.

Force Weaver: This is one of the few classes I don’t think is balanced. Force abilities are very strong, and this class is devoted to them. They gain the ability to substitute force for other energy type spells and gain higher DCs and bonus damage to all force spells.

Grand Diva: This is an exceptionally well-done prestige class. It gives great singing abilities like the ability to shatter items and even cause death. However, it does not ignore the social aspect of such a character and really brings that to play with bonuses to certain social skills.

Jester: Simply, the best prestige class in the book. It gets comedic Dialogue abilities. They work like the bardic musical abilities, except are very Jester oriented (Comedic Performance, Insult, and confusing Pattern). However, the best thing is the organization that they give for them. It is based off of a chaotic good god of trickery. The god teaches that a good laugh and or trick can be truly beneficial. They make fun of society and traditions to promote change and innovations. Excellent material for a jester character be it a player or non-player character.

Ring Sage: The Ring Sage is an interesting idea that sort of works for me. They do learn to make magical rings and gain the ability to wear more then one on each hand. However, it seems very focused for a character. They do admit it is better for an NPC and the limits of the class can be tough for a PC.

Swamp Witch: A very interesting class made for NPCs. It is the classic witch in the swamp. She knows you are coming to visit her or even if your within a mile of her. She has great divination and scrying abilities. She can even communicate with the animals and summon some of them to help her defend her swamp. It is very well done and gives good character to this classic witch.

Next we have the legendary classes. Legendary Classes are powerful prestige classes that one needs to be at least 12th level to qualify. With the power does come some restrictions. One needs to announce his intentions a few levels before taking the class. Along with the normal requirements of feats, skills, etc., one also needs to complete two specific quests. Also, once one starts to take the class he has to take all five levels (all of them are five level classes) before taking a level of any other class. Each level one picks one of the selected abilities. The abilities picked at the higher levels are more powerful versions. I like the concept of legendary classes, and they do give some amazing abilities. However, most of these give no spellcasting levels. I think adding 5 levels without improving one’s spellcasting ability is a huge cost to pay especially for wizards and sorcerers.

Elemental Lord: This is a very interesting Legendary Class. You can gain immunities to up to all five energy types. You can swap out the different types of energy. Gain bonus spells to cast as long as they have energy descriptor. This is one of the few Legendary Classes that actually might be worth missing those higher-level spells for.

Infiltrator: This is a very interesting legendary class for a bard. It’s very skill oriented requiring a total of 53 ranks in 7 skills. The class does gain 8 skill points per level and does have a good list of class skills. The abilities that can be gained are also very good. They can include a bonus to Intelligence and/or Charisma; a nice bonus to Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, and Gather Information; and the ability to locate secret compartments and hidden areas very fast. Those are just a few of the intriguing options for this class.

Lastly in this chapter we come to the Variant classes. I found many of these on the strong side, although they are all interesting. The Arcane Engineer is a variant Wizard. It gets d6 HD, additional magetech abilities, and all it loses from a basic wizard is the scribe scroll feat. It’s a cool idea; I just found it on the powerful side. The Mindweaver is the same way. It’s a variant Sorcerer with a d6 HD, better class skills, and additional abilities. It does have an altered spell list though. The Sun Mage is the best Variant Class in the book. It has great abilities, might be a little strong as a variant sorcerer, but it does have an altered spell list and has a lot of flair.

Chapter two is entitled New Feats. There are 36 feats here. Most of them are pretty good and none are unbalanced. Arcane Expertise is a very cool feat for a Bard. It requires one to be Bard Level three and allows one to spend spell slots to become momentarily proficient in any weapon. Eldritch Defense is another interesting feat. It allows you to expand a spell to keep yourself from going to negative hit points. Rapid Scribing is another good feat. This one allows a spellcaster to scribe more scrolls per day, but at a greater experience cost.

Chapter Three is called Bards: Performances of Power. This chapter is all about the Bard and it is very well done. It recognizes the support ability of the Bard and greatly increases them in this function. The first set of new options allows the Bard to aid a spellcaster by increasing the power of the spellcaster’s spells. There are ten different ways a Bard can help enhance a spellcaster’s spells. Each has an affinity to a type of mystical performance explained latter in this chapter. All of them require the Bard to expand a spell slot and to make a perform check of a varying DC. If the perform check is missed the Bard will actually hinder the spell being cast. The different types of effects are increasing the DC, increasing the range, increasing the effect, increasing dice to be rolled, and increasing the range and a few others. The Bard can also use his mystical performances to impair an enemy spellcaster. These are similar to the ones he uses to help out friendly caster, except they decrease different areas of the spells. Also, the DCs have the potential for being much more difficult. If this was all that was in this chapter, it would still be a great addition to the Bard. However, they go even farther with new Bardic abilities. They have expanded upon the Bardic Music abilities. These are divided into four feats: Bardic Chanting, Bardic Dancing, Bardic Instrumentals, and Bardic Singing. The bard musical abilities in the PHB are defined as the Bardic Singing and all Bards are assumed to start with it. However, to create a Bard of a different sort one can exchange that for one of the other three and each can be picked up as a feat. Each ability works just like the Bardic Singing. They are a list of different abilities that require a certain amount of ranks in perform to use. All of these are very well done and allow for Bards to offer a variety of abilities.

Bardic Chanting: This is the classical dwarven music of choice. Chants are famous throughout the world and the magical abilities they offer is impressive. One of the low level ability is Discordant Chant. It hinders spellcasters and causes them to receive a negative on all concentration checks. The cooperation Chant is another low-level ability. It allows your allies to work better together and makes aid another more effective. The intimidating chant is a mid level ability that hinders the enemy in skills and attacks. Chant of the Diving is a higher-level ability and it allows divine spellcasters to become a little more effective in their spellcasting. The final ability is the Chant of Confinement. It has the potential to Hold the target of an Intimidating Chant.

Bardic Instrumentals: Bards are perhaps best known for their variety of musical instruments. These abilities can be used with any instruments. It would have been nice to see different abilities based on the instruments, but still what is in the book is fantastic. The Stoking Song is a low level ability that allows Barbarians to rage longer then normal. The Centering Song is another low-level ability that helps allies perform certain skills by relaxing them and helping their concentration. The Jarring Chords is a low level ability that causes pain for all creatures around the bard. Resonating Revelation is a very interesting mid level ability. It allows the Bard to detect secret doors, pit traps, and other structural oddities. The Rejuvenating Melodies is a higher-level ability that allows the Bard to help in the healing of many people. The final ability is Song of Uncompromising Resolve. This helps your allies by giving them a good bonus on all will saves and some temporary hit points.

Bardic Dancing: This is perhaps the most interesting of the new Bardic abilities. Unlike the other ones, a Bard can cast spells while performing these, however the Bard cannot attack or move while doing them. The first ability is the Unsettling Dance. This allows a Bard to target one enemy and that enemy will be consider flanked as it worries about the Bard and his odd dancing maneuvers. The Shield Dance has the bard protecting his allies with this dance. The Juggling Dance uses the juggling of knives or other small objects and allows them to be thrown very fast in succession. The Dance of the Naked Hand is a rather limited ability as it can only be used to increase a Monk’s fighting ability. The Dance of the Eased Mind is a mid level ability that allows the Bard to dance for hours and have his motions ease the mind of certain patrons who becomes more receptive to certain skills. The final ability is the Rejuvenating Dance. It helps in the healing of companions.

Next in the chapter, it has Bardic Troupes. It has some very interesting rules on bards working together and being able to perform some amazing acts of magic. There are two different abilities that a troupe can do. Each is highly versatile and can be used for different things. The first is Enhanced Mystical Performances. This allows for a normal Bardic musical ability to be used, but with a very large bonus from all the other bards helping in this one performance. The other ability a troupe can do is a form a spell pool. The spell pool can be used to cast spells be either the leader of the troupe or another spellcaster that is an ally of them.

The fourth chapter is called the Spellcaster’s World. It covers three areas that will expand upon the ability and character of any arcane caster. The first area is Magical Conditions. This section is similar to the fighting schools of other books, but it deals with abilities and talents that a magic using person would have need of and want. Each tradition is taught by a school and each has it’s own philosophy and way about them and they all have ten separate lessons a student can learn. All the traditions will cost the character XP, time, and to a lesser degree money. Each describes a place where one can go to get taught and it describes a traveling teacher that can teach select students anywhere. I like this as it makes it much easier to use any of these traditions in the game. It also offers some rather interesting ideas for unique NPCs that the players can deal with. The first tradition is the Stormweavers, a group dedicated to learning about weather and influencing it with magic. The early lessons including accurate predicting the weather and the later lessons include casting all wind and air spells at a higher level and the ability to summon a Tempest, a type of storm elemental. The next tradition is the Arcane Marauders. This group is different from what one might expect as they are trained in countering other arcane users as well as trained for operating from a large ship. Their early lessons include learning to cast easier in the rough waters of the ocean and distracting another wizard by making him to angry to cast spells. The later lessons include the ability to enchant arrows with the bane ability that will work against any wizard and the ability to cause intelligence damage to other spellcasters. There are five other traditions written up in this book and they are all very well done and extremely interesting.

The next part of this chapter deals with the one thing most Wizards all eventually strive for: the Magical Tower. It goes into great detail from where the place is built and how close it is to other areas of civilization, to the individual cost of the separate rooms and using magic to aid in the building and protecting of the Tower. Lastly, the chapter talks about different organizations. These are alternate ways to give the caster a little level of power by requiring him to join one of these and each has it’s own requirements. Each organization has five different ranks and each rank gives a certain minor ability be it a bonus to a skill or reaction check to learning an additional low-level spell.

The fifth chapter is entitled Items of Power. It includes a few unique options to aid the arcane spellcaster. The first of these is the expendable focus. These are items that store a certain amount of charges and these charges can only be used in the casting of meta magic spells. Basically, instead of increasing the spell level or even having prepared the spell ahead of time as a meta magic spell, one can expend certain amount of charges to spontaneously make a spell function under a meta magic feat. Using these items is not without risk. It does require a standard action to draw the energy out and then a Spellcraft check to make use of the energy. If one fails the Spellcraft check, he takes damage as well as is stunned for a few rounds. There are three different kinds and each requires a different craft feat to create. The most versatile is the Expendable Ring Focus. It requires the Craft Ring feat to create. Another kind is the Expendable Talisman. It is less versatile then the Ring, and requires the Craft Wondrous Item feat to create. The last and most simple is the Expendable Potion Focus. It requires the Brew Potion feat and also does more damage to the user if the caster fails the Spellcraft check.

Next the Chapter goes into the interesting idea of Fonts of Power. These are places were certain types of magic (elemental, necromantic, or clan related) are increased in power. There are three different power level of fonts. Each has an increased effect on certain types of spells. However, the stronger fonts also will cause subdual damage to arcane casters who use them and stay around in that are for too long. Lastly the chapter talks about the Eldritch Staff. This is a very versatile item that has the potential to be very powerful. However, it is a feat to get and costs a permanent point of constitution. The abilities and uses are impressive and varied allowing for almost any kind of Wizard and power levels a game might use.

The strength of this book is in the second half, chapters two through five. I really enjoyed the new rules and options that are presented there and I think that many games will be expanded upon and greatly enjoyed by many players and dungeon masters alike.