Quint Sorcerer

[Psion]

I picked up Quint Sorcerer at gen con, and have been ever so slowly digesting it. Every time I go looking for something new for my game, I read a little more. As I delve into it, I find I am liking it a lot.

Since I probably won't get a chance to do a formal review, I thought I'd drop a few thoughts and a sort of "shout out."

I've never liked Mongoose's character concepts and that's not about to change, so I won't belabor that.

Prestige classes are cool, and put together a lot better than many I have seen. More importantly, the FEEL like sorcerer classes, mostly referring to heritage or the underlying magical nature of the universe.

True names, particularly dragons as keepers of true names. Patrick just wrote the basics for a whole story arc for me right there.

Sorcerer spells... neat. Some shared with wizards, but some offer extra benefits to sorcerers. Also, the concept of scaling spells done better, IMO, than Kalamar did it.

Bonds of blood - provides a variety of "touched" and "legacy" templates for concepts like fiends, celestials, dragons, giants, etc. Each template takes a level to advance, and most have two stages, "touched" and "advanced." They aren't as overkill or inappropriate for sorcerers as the core templates, but provide some interesting and useful abilities. Very flavorful.

Song of Blood, Song of Will. Whoa. Okay, this is cool, and adds some flexibility and flavor to the sorcerer. Basically, it allows the sorcerer to trade spell slots for permanent abilities. These seem like they would lend sorcerers the feel that they have been missing in the campaign. For example, you could trade a 0-level slot for the ability to change the color of your eyes, which can add a small bonus to intimidate skills. Higher level slots allow more potent abilities. Very cool.

Ley lines. Well, it's not as cool as the system in my house rules, but still pretty neat stuff. And it adds power to supernatural creatures, something I hadn't thought of for my own ley lines rules and I may have to nick.

Overall, Younts puts in another nice performance here. Some of the variant subsystems seem a bit odd to me, and if the balance may not be perfect, but they do so much for the sorcerer in terms of flavor and flexibility that it may overcome my conserative apprehension for straying from the beaten path.

 

[Crothian]

Yes, I agree. I picked this one up solely on the fact that Mr Younts wrote it and I was not disappointed in the least!!

 

[Sirius_Black]

Yes, I agree. I picked this one up solely on the fact that Mr Younts wrote it and I was not disappointed in the least!!

Ditto here with enjoying Quint. Sorcerer. I really enjoyed the book. My only disappointment was the binding feel apart shortly after getting the book.

 

[Psion]

Funny you should mention that. As I was typing my post, I stared down and saw that the binding was cracked open between the pages of the character sheet.

I applied some Allene's Tacky Glue and trust that it will be fine soon (it worked for my ailing Tome of Horrors and some other books, but I forget what they are.) If you are in the US, you can find this product at a Michaels or a similar craft warehouse, and it works very good for gaming book bindings.

 

[Sirius_Black]

Funny you should mention that. As I was typing my post, I stared down and saw that the binding was cracked open between the pages of the character sheet.

I applied some Allene's Tacky Glue and trust that it will be fine soon (it worked for my ailing Tome of Horrors and some other books, but I forget what they are.) If you are in the US, you can find this product at a Michaels or a similar craft warehouse, and it works very good for gaming book bindings.

Ick! Sorry to hear the binding problem happened to you too. Two recent Mongoose products I purchased had binding problems and that combined with my displeasure at Quint. Drow and Quint. Ranger has significantly cooled my future purchasing towards Mongoose products.

Thanks for giving me the Allene's Tacky Glue tip. There are numerous craft warehouses in this area, so I should be able to find some.

 

[Arcane Runes Press]

Ick! Sorry to hear the binding problem happened to you too. Two recent Mongoose products I purchased had binding problems COLOR=Black]

Heh.

Actually, when I got my comp copy of Quint. Sorcerer at GenCon, I took it out at the hotel room to glance at the art.

I set it on the table, and the front cover rose up on its own, fell open, and came right off the spine.

Thanks for the mini-review Alan.

Patrick Y.

 

[Li Shenron]

Too bad you are not writing a full review, I have to confess that yours is always the first one I read when I want to know about a D&D book.

I've never liked Mongoose's character concepts and that's not about to change, so I won't belabor that.

I am very fond of arcane spellcaster characters, and in fact the only D&D books I own besides WotC's are from the Mongoose series Encyclopaedia Arcane. Long ago I thought I could not have missed the Quintessential Wizard, but luckily I had the chance to read it before buying it, which of course I didn't. My general opinion is that the Q series has useful stuff in the form of crunchy bits, but generally I am very tired of crunchy bits alone, and very frustrated of not having used even 10% yet of the WotC splatbooks .
I trust your opinion about QSorc anyway, but I agree with you that the Q's character concept are a very disappointment: the idea is just great (basically taken from DMG when it tells the DM to consider swapping one ability of a core class for something different if the player has a good concept), but the implementation is always giving bonus skills or feats in exchange for others... so I am afraid that here you mean it is still the same for Sorc... that they didn't find anything better yet.

Prestige classes are cool, and put together a lot better than many I have seen. More importantly, the FEEL like sorcerer classes, mostly referring to heritage or the underlying magical nature of the universe.

With so many PrCl for spellcasters made, I am curious to find out if they came out with something new Would you write down your favourites from the book? I mean just a line about the concept...

True names, particularly dragons as keepers of true names. Patrick just wrote the basics for a whole story arc for me right there.

Mmm... not sure if I get this one: is it just a RP/campaign idea or is it a ruleset for handling what a keeper of someone's true name is able to do above him?

Sorcerer spells... neat. Some shared with wizards, but some offer extra benefits to sorcerers. Also, the concept of scaling spells done better, IMO, than Kalamar did it.

Scaling spells: do you mean there are rules about for example Summon Monster I-IX to handle them differently than separate spells? Do the rules let the Sorcerer learn some spells for free or swap them?

Song of Blood, Song of Will. Whoa. Okay, this is cool, and adds some flexibility and flavor to the sorcerer. Basically, it allows the sorcerer to trade spell slots for permanent abilities. These seem like they would lend sorcerers the feel that they have been missing in the campaign. For example, you could trade a 0-level slot for the ability to change the color of your eyes, which can add a small bonus to intimidate skills. Higher level slots allow more potent abilities. Very cool.

This sounds really cool, even if obviously the abilities will be less powerful than spells since they are probably at will or almost. I think this is definitely a thing to check out from the LGS

Ley lines. Well, it's not as cool as the system in my house rules, but still pretty neat stuff. And it adds power to supernatural creatures, something I hadn't thought of for my own ley lines rules and I may have to nick.

Ok, I am totally unable to sort this out... what are ley lines?

 

[Psion]

I am very fond of arcane spellcaster characters, and in fact the only D&D books I own besides WotC's are from the Mongoose series Encyclopaedia Arcane. Long ago I thought I could not have missed the Quintessential Wizard, but luckily I had the chance to read it before buying it, which of course I didn't.

Q. Wizard is actually one of my favorites. Mearls did have one or two overpowered classes in there (the Arcane Avatar, for example), but I found out later that it was because Mearls had a misundertanding about how additive spellcaster levels worked. But I loved the wizards staff part and thought it gave wizards the feel they were missing.

My general opinion is that the Q series has useful stuff in the form of crunchy bits, but generally I am very tired of crunchy bits alone, and very frustrated of not having used even 10% yet of the WotC splatbooks .

Yeah, well, I too often find I can't make use of the tack-on subsystems and tend to not use them unless they are well written and conceived... as the ones in Q. Sorc seem to be.

With so many PrCl for spellcasters made, I am curious to find out if they came out with something new Would you write down your favourites from the book? I mean just a line about the concept...

Arcane Blade is the one that a player in my campaign is considering. It's sort of the arcane knight or spellsword concept, but respun to improve magic used to assist in melee vice just adding melee abilities.

Artillerist: blast mage specialist.

Echo of the Ansestors: The class highlights the aspects of the sorcerers supposed nonhuman anscestors; requirements and abilities vary by the nature of the anscestor (giant, elemental, dragon, etc.)

Fey Lord: Faerie themed class for sorcerers whose backstory is they were granted power by the fey.

Primordial Sorcerer: Taps into magic as it existed in ancient times. Basically trades upper spell levels for ability to manipulate to power of spells. Not bad conceptually, but I don't think I'd want to play one.

Spirit Carver: A sorcerer with a closer connection to necromantic energies. Gains a number of selectable powers.

Weaver: Sort of a chronomancer/diviner type.

Mmm... not sure if I get this one: is it just a RP/campaign idea or is it a ruleset for handling what a keeper of someone's true name is able to do above him?

Okay, basically, it is a ruleset with some interesting and GM-fiat friendly guidelines for how one might find truenames... exotic things like "scattered on a field of flowers." The dragon thing is a sidebar that talks about casting dragons in the role of keepers of truenames and providing some rules on how that would operate: e.g., the dragon is bound in circumstances in whcih they can reveal a truename, once a truename is revealed, the dragon loses knowledge of it, etc.

Scaling spells: do you mean there are rules about for example Summon Monster I-IX to handle them differently than separate spells? Do the rules let the Sorcerer learn some spells for free or swap them?

Well, the core rules let the sorcerer swap spells. But some of the spells herein can be cast at different levels, often for entirely different effects. Sort of like the way Arcana Unearthed does it, now that I think about it.

This sounds really cool, even if obviously the abilities will be less powerful than spells since they are probably at will or almost.

For the most part; many are continuous benefits.

Ok, I am totally unable to sort this out... what are ley lines?

Gee, here I've seen this idea used and abused so much that I thought every gamer would have heard of some variation of it.

Basically, ley lines are drawn from real world folklore/mythology; they are geographical locations along which magic is said to flow more freely. Where ley lines connect are called nodes (well I call them nexuses in my game, but same thing) and nodes tend to be places of great magical power.

Patrick's version provides some general effects applicable to spells (like increase chance of penetrating spell resistance) and to supernatural creatures and makes ley lines sort of easy transit points, allowing quick movement and even teleportation. My version is a little different; I allow ley lines to power spells (sorcerers only) or enhance spells (any arcane spellcasters). Heroes of High Favor: Elves is another book that tackles the concept of ley lines and it's ley line rules are free online:
http://www.badaxegames.com/mm/pdf/hohf_elves_ley_lines.pdf

Bad Axe's version relies on skill checks instead of explicit mapping. Patricks version (like mine) is explicitly mapped, and incidentally Patrick's rules for drawing them are almost like mine (except that I have an additional rule that ley lines always form triangles, never squares or any other polygon. My campaign ley line map looks like a giant cat's cradle. )

 

[Black_Kaioshin]

I really like the book. My particular favorite is the "MetaMagic Cradle feat." With that baby, a sorcerer can finally fully take advantage of metamagic. Overall, its a good book, although the blasted bindings fell apart in mine as well.