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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2010257" data-attributes="member: 1129">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.</blockquote>

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