Spellbound

[Messageboard Golem]

The Codex of Ritual Magic

· Over 150 fully detailed rituals, ranging from simple to epic
· An entirely new form of power to be wielded by clerics, druids, wizards, and sorcerers
· Ritual skills, feats, magic items, and prestige classes
A complete system of magic suitable for any campaign setting

 

[JoeGKushner]

As noted on the cover, Spellbound is “A Codex of Ritual Magic”. What does this mean? Basically, it’s a spellbook for divine and arcane spellcasters but instead of spells, it has rituals.

Chapters One through Four are brief and to the point. They lay down the groundwork for the ritual magic system. First comes how to use ritual magic and it’s through skill use with an expensive component known as korba. The more powerful the ritual, the higher the skill check needed to cast. The results of the ritual can vary though so even if you succeed at the ritual you’re full success isn’t a sure thing. For those who fail badly, there are dire results ranging from level drain and disintegrate to loss of all spell casting power. On the other hand, if you get a critical success, much like getting a critical hit, you gain benefits like experience points or even a wish.

If you don’t want to use korba in your setting, you’re not forced to. Pages of items that can be used in place of korba are listed and this provides the GM with a lot of flexibility as some may chose to mix and match. The notes on using korba as a control device in the campaign, by limiting the amount of korba available, helps keep rituals under control.

Another useful tool in customizing your ritual experience is the rules on crafting ritual circles. There are five different types of circles that can be drawn and each one has a different effect, depending upon the amount of success the user had not only in planning the circle, but in drawing it. One thing not clear though, if if you can craft multiple circles for each ritual or not. There are time limitations based on the planning of the circle, but a simple statement would've went a long way in clarifying this issue.

The prestige classes from Chapter Two, the Arcane and Divine Ritualist, are specialists at using ritual magic getting bonus feats and bonuses to their skill checks but aren’t anything truly special. In some ways, because the Divine Ritualist has the reduced attack bonus and hit points, a character is almost better staying a cleric and using feats to mimic the specialization of the PrC.

The Feats in Chapter Three revolve around Ritual Magic. Because Ritual Scrolls are magical items, there are feats to Scribe both Arcane and Divine Ritual Scrolls, as well as feats that allow non-arcane casters or non-divine casters access to the Ritual skills necessary to utilize these rituals. Bonuses for domains or schools are also available to the user through different feats like Arcane/Divine Ritual Focus and Arcane/Divine Ritual Mastery. The ideas are sound and add to the ritual magic without becoming overbalancing but have no place in a campaign that doesn’t use ritual magic.

The magic items in Chapter Four are also heavily tied into the book ranging from the Orb of Ritual Nullification to the Amulet of Ritual Skill. Most of these items either grant a bonus to the Ritual skill, provide korba for casting or detection of a ritual in place.

The real meat of the book, much like the Player’s Handbook, is the spells, or in this case, Rituals detailed. The methodology of the Ritual Stat Block is laid out and then the text starts to roll. It starts off with six pages of tables that start with the arcane rituals, which include the ritual name, type, DC, Flaw, and amount of Korba needed. This is important because Arcane users can get a bonus to schools that they specialize in. Clerics have open rituals that any cleric can cast and then there are domain rituals that require the caster to have that domain in order to cast the spell. This allows the GM to customize the world quite a bit by insuring that certain churches or mage guilds become known for their rituals even as it provides a lot of material to work on in the campaign.

So what are the rituals like? On the lower end, like DC 24, with 4 drams of korba, is Banish the Unnatural. This Druid ritual allows the caster to store the effects, the banishment of an unnatural creature, within himself. The spell requires a touch attack roll and effects aberrations, constructs, outsiders, and undead. The target gets a DC 24 Will save to avoid the banishment. At the higher end, Deity Barrier is a DC 24 with 14 drams of korba and prevents spellcasters or divine powers and feats of a specific god to cease working in the radius (300’) of the ritual. This is a permanent effect but can be ended if the holy symbol, the material component of the spell, is destroyed.

There’s a nice range of spell powers within the book and if you do decide to utilize the rituals, you’ll have a vast store of them for play before those in the book get old. Some of these can be used even at fairly low levels. Duplicate Spell only takes 1 minute to cast with a DC of 18 but on the korba, it’s 1 dram per spell level.

The art in the book ranges from bad to good. Now that artists like Britt Martin, Eric M. Lofgren, Marcio Fiorito, and Jose Rivera Pares, among others, artists who should be familiar to fans of Mongoose Publishing and other d20 products are being used, they need to learn that bad art isn’t better than no art. So what would I consider bad art? If you’re in the store looking it over, take a look at page 64. While we may not all agree on what is and what isn’t good art, material of that caliber should be reserved for a humor book. So what’s good? How about the Warrior of Flame by Marcio on page 117 or the Living Fortress on page 83 by Jose Rivera Pares. In addition, while the layout is standard two columns of text with images for borders, the tables are universally terrible to look at and the longer ones gave me eyestrain. A table is not something that is just copied out of a spreadsheet program. It too needs its own design.

In terms of the material, it reads fine for the most part but there’s too much overlap between the arcane and divine material. Almost every ability from the arcane is covered in the divine. A few notes under the item in question could’ve cut the first three chapters almost in a third. Arcane Ritualist and Divine Ritualist? How about just Riutalist? Arcane Ritual Casting and Divine Ritual Casting? Why not just Ritual Casting?

Those are minor issues. The main decision a potential reader has to decide, is do they want to add another layer of magic to the campaign and if so, how will they deal with it? The book offers some basic ideas on how to customize the rituals but doesn’t go into detail. This helps keep it setting neutral but doesn’t provide a lot of tools as much as it does examples.

Spellbound is perfect for those seeking to add another layer of onion to magic in the d20 system.

 

[GameWyrd]

Recently I’ve enjoyed reading Broadsides! and Streets of Silver by Living Imagination. Both book was packed from cover to cover with on-topic rules and game meal and yet for each book there was the slight hiccup where I couldn’t use the tempting looking rituals because I didn’t have the core ritual rules. I think there’s in Living Imagination’s main campaign book Twin Crowns: Age of Exploration and that’s fair enough, it’s a good place for them. Buying a whole (and fat) campaign book just to use the ritual rules isn’t on, it’s just a non-starter and so (and very acutely Living Imagination gives us Spellbound: A Codex of Ritual Magic instead.

Spellbound offers up two things; rules for Ritual Magic and a whole shed load of ritual spells. Actually, there’s prestige classes, feats and new magic items tucked in there as well but they’re a given, as sure as page numbers and an index in most d20 books. It’s these main two areas that the book does very well.

Ritual Magic is more powerful than namby-pamby spells. There’s no limit to the number of ritual spells you can cast in a day either, no theoretical limit. Ritual Magic requires a ritual scroll, a host a special ingredients and good luck. Pages 28 to 33 summarise the book’s Ritual Spells (with over 40 spells per page) and it’s not uncommon to find a DC value for the ritual over 40. Any one with ritual training can have a go at performing the ritual. Failing to perform the ritual can (and does) result in the permanent loss of spell casting abilities or death. Since the in character consequences of failure are so serious the natural game play provides the limit on how many rituals a character will cast. It’s common sense. It’s also rather more mature than an arbitrary game mechanic.

Let’s not be too quick to bash game mechanics though. Ritual magic possesses a lovely flaw value. The chance of casting a flawed ritual never completely vanishes, it has nothing to do with the mage and so we might assume that there’s something inherently wrong with the rite. For every ritual in the book there’s a note on what might happen if the caster successfully completes the ritual but doesn’t quite perfect the magic. This is the flaw.

The very real danger isn’t the only important limitation. You need ritual ingredients too. I’m not a fan of the D&D ingredient system; if you play by the canon rules then the entire game runs the risk of being dominated by the wizard in their quest for ingredients or becomes one of those games where weird and wonderful components are conveniently found lying around in dungeon chests. The ritual rules offer me an alternative; they call it korba but it could just as easily be Chemical X or Blood Type A. We’re advised to keep it rare, something that’s sought after and fought over. This way the GM can keep a limit on the number of rituals that the players are going to pull out of the bag and korba becomes a powerful plot device. The many dozens of rituals in the book have a korba cost included.

If the idea of korba (chemical X or blood type A) sounds silly to you then you’re not caught out. Conversation tables show how much korba suggested ingredients for spell school specific (illusion, transmutation, conjuration, etc) are worth. You can run your game without korba and entirely with ingredients instead or use a mixture of the two. I like books that put some choice into their crunchy bits.

There are tables for critical successes and critical failures. There are also rules to define critical successes and failures. There are arcane and divine rituals and so there are arcane successes, arcane failures, divine successes and divine failures. It’s potent stuff. You could gain a shed load of experience points if you critically succeed in a divine ritual and please your god and as already noted you could fall over stone dead if you critically fail. These table are a classic example of why GMs should be experienced enough to know not to let the dice run the game but these tables are also a great way to keep power crazy ritualists in check.

I wish there was a little more to the two prestige classes, both Arcane Ritualist and Divine Ritualist are only 5 level classes. Both of the PrC requires an appropriate Ritual Mastery feat as a requirement (which kind of suggests you’ve mastered the art before completing the class) and those feats come with a prerequisite of level 9 or 10. That’s the toughest requirement. It should have been possible to squeeze in a fully-fledged, lifetime of study, 10 level class rather than just a half, part-time, 5 level class.

The rituals themselves get going at page 34 and run until page 121. That’s a heck of a lot of new rituals. I think they’re new rituals anyway. I don’t have the complete Living Imagination set to check against but it seems most unlikely that there are nearly a hundred pages of ritual magic distributed among them. The new rituals, therefore, make the Codex of Ritual Magic a tempting buy for people already with the Twin Crown core book. There are more than enough rituals to cater to both arcane and divine ritualists and to the schools of magic.

An appendix of monsters; mainly ritually constructed golems (like the spider golem or the guardian ritual golem) finishes off the book.

Spellbound: A Codex of Ritual Magic does what it sets out to do. You’ve got a new, if not too different, form of spell casting. You can safely get the most out of other Living Imagination books with the Codex or just use it in its own right as a useful supplement. The book’s hidden success is the small set of rules for when someone who’s supposed to be working to assist the ritual actually slyly sabotages it. Muhaha. That’s the evil thinking GMs relish.

* This Spellbound: A Codex of Ritual Magic review was first posted at GameWyrd.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

By Brad Mix, Staff Reviewer d20 Magazine Rack

Sizing Up the Target
This review is for Spellbound: A Codex of Ritual Magic. This is published by Living Imagination Inc. and retails for $19.95. It is 128 pages long.

First Blood
Rituals are a way of accessing powerful magic but tend to be trickier to cast than spells. Chapter 1 starts off with the differences between rituals and spells. Rituals are not level dependant but do have some high DC’s to overcome. Casting a ritual is a skill and has to be learned. Both arcane and divine rituals are included.

To determine if the ritual is successful, all the modifiers are added and compared to the DC. Several things can affect the casting. Additional ritualists can add a +1 to the roll for each additional one up to 6. Casting in your deities temple adds +2 and taking damage can result in a –2 if a concentration check is failed. Each ritual also has something called flaw. Even if the roll is high enough it still may have a flaw or imperfection. For example the ritual has a flaw of 3. The caster makes the DC check by only 2. The ritual succeeds but is flawed. Flaws include losing XP to being stunned for 1 hour.

Critical failures are also possible. The effects range from, caster loses all spell casting permanently, to caster only takes 1 point of damage per DC of the spell. The chance of flaw never disappears.

Critical successes are also possible when casting a ritual. The ritual was done so well that an added benefit is granted. These boons range from Gaining XP to being granted a Wish.

Each ritual uses something called Korba. Korba can be a gift from the gods or a rare mineral. It is up to the GM to decide what Korba is. It should be around 1000 gold per ounce though. An alternate to Korba is material components. Just like spells, different rituals require special ingredients. I prefer the material components better as this can lead to some interesting adventures just to get the needed items. Eight tables detailing the various components are listed and are separated by the school of the ritual.

Magic circles can also be constructed to aid in the casting of the ritual. There are five different one and each adds a bonus to one aspect of the ritual. The different circles can add a bonus to the casting, reduce the chance of flaw, reduces korba, reduces the risk of critical failure, and increases chance of critical success. These can be a great benefit to the caster but the result is not known until the ritual is completed.

Critical Hits
The best part of the book is the rituals themselves. Over 150 rituals are detailed. They are first listed on a table divided into name, type (Enchantment, Illusion), DC, Flaw number, and Korba. It then goes into a good description of the actual ritual. The description adds the components (verbal, somantic) casting time, range, target, duration and if saving throws or spell resistance applies.

A couple of my favorites include, Become Lich, which allows the caster to become a Lich and thereby gain all of the abilities of a lich. , Call Greater Familiar allows for stronger and more useful familiar. Change Season allows a natural change in the weather. So it could become harvest time in mid summer. This effect lasts for one month and affects a 10-mile radius. Elemental Immunity grants invulnerability to one elemental type of damage. A critical success on this one allows for healing from that form of damage. Modify Enchanted Item would allow the removal of a Curse but allow the +3 enchantment to remain. Natures Wrath devastates an area with the type of disaster the caster chooses. It could be a tidal wave swarms of tornadoes, sink holes or blizzards.

The highest DC listed is 50 for Natures Wrath and the highest flaw is listed
at 8 for Elemental immunity. A few are listed as special and could be higher depending on the exact casting of the ritual.

Critical Misses
Chapter 2 introduces two new prestige classes, the Arcane ritualist and the Divine ritualist. The two classes mirror each other when it comes to the powers gained for taking the prestige class

I would have liked to see some differences between the two prestige classes. The same requirements are listed for both and the gained powers are identical. A few changes to each could really separate and distinguish each class.

On the table that lists the rituals, including a corresponding page number would have been very helpful. There is plenty of room to have added this little feature. The individual rituals are not listed in the index or appendix for easy reference.

Coup de Grace
If you are looking to add a new system of magic into your game or want to give an NPC villain strange and unusual powers then this book is for you. It is well laid out and the art work is pretty good throughout. A few new magic items and ritual creatures are also added. Ritual magic can even be added to magic items and the rules are discussed on how to do that.

To see the graded evaluation of this product and to leave comments that the reviewer will respond to, go to The Critic's Corner at www.d20zines.com.

 

[Psion]

Spellbound

Spellbound: A Codex of Ritual Magic is a magic sourcebook detailing rituals as a system of magic in d20 System fantasy games. The book is by Living Imagination, and the ritual magic system detailed here is an extension of the one that appears in their Twin Crowns campaign setting.

Spellbound is written by John Faugno, Evan Burnstein, Celeste DeAngels, Joseph Unfried, Harald Henning, and Larry Fitzgerald.

A First Look

Spellbound is a 128 page perfect bound softcover book priced at $19.95 dollars. This is a competitive price for a d20 System product of this size.

The cover of the book has the blue marbled look common to Living Imagination's releases to date. The front cover picture, by Dale Lawrence, depicts what appears to be a wizard and a cleric, with each in a different backdrop, both stepping into a glowing circle on the floor. The picture is bisected by a glowing bolt of energy. This picture apparently addresses the two major types of magic in the d20 System: arcane and divine.

The interior is black and white and includes art by Paul Butler, Marcio Fiorito, Eric M. Lofgren, Britt Martin, Catherine Noble, Jose Rivera Pares, and Ronaldo Santana. The art varies in quality, but veteran RPG artists Fiorito and Lofgren have some great work in the book, and Santana and Martin are definitely making a good first impression on me. However, some of the remaining art is not so pleasing to my eye.

The interior body text is conservatively sized, and the lines and paragraphs are single spaced, delivering a good product content quantity. Some of the tables are a bit block and boring, but otherwise the layout is decent.

A Deeper Look

The ritual magic system presented in Spellbound is fundamentally similar to the one introduced in Living Imagination's Twin Crowns campaign book. Ritual magic in this system is uncertain, using skill rolls relying on special skills. Different skills are needed for arcane and divine ritual magic. Ritual magic also relies on expensive components.

Rituals are fundamentally similar to spells, but have more powerful effects. All rituals have a DC, a flaw number, and a korba cost. If the ritual casting skill check fails, the casting of the ritual fails. If the character rolls a natural number on the dice equal to the flaw number, even if successful, then the ritual has a random flaw as a side effect. It is also possible to critically succeed or fail at rituals, similar to combat rolls. The effects of a critical success, failure, or flaw are typically listed in the ritual description, though some rituals refer to a common random table for these effects.

The skill check for ritual casting can be modified by other factors, such as deliberate attempts to sabotage the ritual by one of the characters involved in it, or by inscribing a special ritual circle (which can also modify other aspects of the ritual.)

The primary listed method of controlling access to rituals in a game is by requiring korba, a silvery powder with fantastic properties, and that is rare and expensive. This is the option that the Twin Crowns setting uses, though the you are encouraged to come up with your own ideas for the origins of this mysterious substance.

A more flavorful alternative is also provided. The book spends several pages providing specific exotic components that can be used in the place of the called for korba requirement. A number of possible components are provided for rituals in each of the eight schools of magic.

Finally, the book discusses combining the two methods.

To support the ritual casting system, Spellbound provides the arcane ritualist and divine ritualist prestige classes as well as a number of feats that affect ritual spellcasting and magic items related to ritual casting. The prestige classes are fairly balanced, only providing two spellcasting levels with their advancement, the bulk of the class abilities enhance ritual casting.

The bulk of the book is the rituals themselves. Rituals allow powerful effects such as reversing of aging or raising a fortified cathedral from the bare ground.

Conclusion

If you are interested is a magic system that allows for a bit of power in exchange for a bit of randomness, without totally scrapping the existing system, Spellbound ought to be right for you. Overall, the book seems well written, conceived and balanced. That said, I must say that personally I still prefer the popular ritual casting system in Sword & Sorcery Studios' Relics & Rituals for the fact that you can use it to cast normal spells, not just special ritual spells.

Overall Grade: B

-Alan D. Kohler