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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Cooper" data-source="post: 2011241" data-attributes="member: 24255">Power Classes VII - Hedge WizardEdited by Daniel Bishop and Paul Tucker (no author listed)Mongoose Publishing product number MGP 110716 half-sized pages, $2.95The 7th in the Mongoose series of new 20-level character classes, Hedge Wizard is an interesting take on the generally low-powered wizards you'd expect to find in a small village, selling charms and potions to the local peasants.The cover, another joint effort by Nathan Webb (who provides the picture of the subject in question) and Scott Clark (who apparently provides the logo and background), depicts what could easily be mistaken for a simple peasant: his pants are tattered at the bottom edges, his apron is stained, and his simple cowled shirt/tunic has no sleeves.  The hedge wizard is showing his age and infirmity, for he leans heavily on a cane and has prominent veins along his arms, hands, and feet.  Clues to his profession can be found in the material components hanging from his belt and the familiar he carries in his hand.  (As a bit of a pun, Nathan gives the hedge wizard a hedgehog familiar, even though that isn't one of the standard familiars listed inside the book.  I don't mind - it's a clever pun, and there's nothing stopping a DM from coming up with appropriate hedgehog familiar stats if he's so inclined.)The interior art consists of 4 black-and-white illustrations, 2 each by Nathan Webb and Eric Bergeron.  Page 3 shows a "classic" hedge wizard pouring two pitchers of liquid into a wooden barrel; the contours of the barrel are a little off, but otherwise this is a fine piece by Nathan, with some nice shading.  Page 6 is a bit weird, a close-up of a man's face and hands in a position of extreme outrage (I'm reminded of Admiral Kirk's scream of "Khaaaaaaaan!" from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan).  I can only assume this ties in to the gremlin spell on page 10, which causes the spell recipient to have a -4 circumstance penalty on his next skill check.  The example given in the spell description says that a whole week's worth of armorsmithing could be affected; I'd guess this is what's being depicted here (also by Nathan, and one of his better pieces).  Page 13 has Eric's depiction of a witchlike woman brewing something or other in her cauldron (she's about to drop in a mouse or rat); the most interesting thing here is her outfit, which is a tight-fitting, strapless, floor-length affair covered with horizontal ridges and going all "tendrilly" at the bottom (reminding me of Ursula's lower body from The Little Mermaid).  Finally, on page 16 there's another female hedge wizard, this one with a pair of lips about three times too big for her face.  To tell the truth, she kind of creeps me out.  If that was the intention, then well done, Eric!As for the class itself, I really like it.  Granted, a hedge wizard is never going to be at the same power level as a wizard or a sorcerer (for one thing, he only gains access to 8th-level spells once he reaches 20th level, and even then he only gets one per day), but then he's not intended to be a powerhouse - he's the local village guy, concentrating on cantrips and lower-level spells.  To help compensate for the minimized spellcasting, hedge wizards have d6 hit dice, a cleric's base attack bonus, and proficiency with light armor and all simple weapons plus one light or one-handed martial weapon.  While the hedge wizard is more apt to be an NPC rather than a Player Character (the whole "staying in the local village" thing doesn't equate to being much more than an only occasional adventurer), I still think that the authors did a great job on the class.  I especially like the fact that at 9th level a hedge wizard gets an unlimited supply of cantrips - he can pop one off every round if he wants to devote his actions to it.  Overpowered?  Heck, they're cantrips - 0-level spells!  I think this equates to great flavor, and really separates the hedge wizard from other spellcasting classes, even the other NPC spellcasting class, the adept.The authors provide hedge wizards with 10 new spells (appropriately enough, these are all 0-level and 1st level spells) and 4 new feats, plus create a new type of magic item appropriate to the class, the charm, which holds up to 10 copies of the same cantrip, usable once per day.As for proofreading, the only things that came up in the 16 pages of the book (8 normal-sized pages, really, as the "Power Classes" series is half the size of a standard sheet of paper) was one instance of there being no spaces between the end of one sentence and the beginning of another, and one alphabetizing error ("Soothsaying" should come after "Social Invisibility").  Not bad at all.One last thing worth mentioning: Hedge Wizard was written before 3.5 came out, so all of the terms are in 3.0 format.  This isn't much of a problem at all, though; besides changing "Pick Pocket" to "Sleight of Hand," there isn't much that needs converting.I can recommend Hedge Wizard for those DMs looking for an interesting character to place as the owner of a village potion shop or as an NPC spellcaster willing to help out the adventurers passing through his small town.  A player looking for a slightly different arcane spellcaster might want to give the book a shot, too.  Heck, at $2.95, it's a very small limb to crawl out onto.  I give Hedge Wizard a strong "4 (Good)."</blockquote>

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