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Review of Spells and Spellcraft by Fantasy Flight Games
Spells and Spellcraft: Compendium of Mystic Lore is one of the Legends and Lairs books from Fantasy Flight Games. It truly lives up to its name packed with many new types of magic and given more options to the current ones. It has new options for all the spellcasting classes in the Players Handbook, and not just the Cleric and Wizard like some products.
Chapter one is all spells. They do a nice job of including spells for all the core classes. There are over a hundred new spells in this chapter. They also include alternate domain spells. Once can either add these spells to their domain or replace the current spells.
Acid Vapors: Tired of foes hiding in obscuring mists? Want to make that stinking cloud deadly? This spell makes any preexisting fog or gas related spell become acidic in nature.
Bandersnatch: This is a great anti thieving spell. It can only be placed on a bag, but is very nice.
Catalytic Mouth: This is a very nice upgrade to the Magic Mouth. This version can speak command words to activate magical items near it.
Conjurer’s Toolbelt: This is a great utility cantrip. It basically will conjure small tools to you.
Felonious Friend: There are three of these spells. They conjure an unseen servant that can perform some of the rogue’s abilities. The lesser one can pick pockets, the middle version can disable device and open locks, and the most powerful version can perform sneak attacks.
Marathon Prowess: This useful spell will allow a party to travel faster overland for an eight-hour period.
Rescue: With this spell one can teleport an injured companion next to the cleric.
Chapter Two is called The Craft of magic. It begins with a very well done section on Arcane Libraries. It presents simple rules for figuring out what’s in a library as well as the cost of building one. It has some rules for having libraries help in research and how to find those rare books that really make a library worthwhile. There is even a nice section on spellbooks and some table to give spellbooks a unique look and some odd traits.
Next the chapter goes into Magical Research. This section has some good rules for creating new spells as well as new feats. It goes into good detail for covering everything that can be useful to research from different types of assistants to magical components.
Next in the chapter comes Taint and Tune. This is information on Bards and Sorcerers. For the Bards, they have four types of Bardic magical styles. These are just different options to how the bard casts spells. The sorcerer section goes into detail on different options for where the sorcerer gets his power. They have rules for Dragon blood, Fey blood, Giant blood, and Demon blood. Next it lists some feats designed for Sorcerers. Many take advantage of the spontaneous casting and allow for a little more versatility with it.
Next it has some new uses for old skills. It gives some great ways to use skills like Appraise, Balance, Bluff, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Intuit Direction, Perform, and Sense Motive. These are some nice ways for expanding the old skills and finding more ways to get use out of them.
The last section in this chapter deals with rituals and ceremonies. The best part about this is it has ceremonies for the Ranger and Paladin as well as Clerics and Druids. First, it gives some great ideas on how to design one’s own. Then it gives specific examples of ceremonies. For Clerics is has ceremonies for communing with one’s deity, resurrection, curing lycanthropes, and exorcism. The druidic ceremonies include summoning an animal companion, planting a sacred grove, and shattering magical weapons. The Paladins have a leveling ceremony and an atonement ceremony for fallen paladins. Rangers have ceremonies for preparing for battle and purifying the land.
Chapter Three is New Types of Magic. This chapter covers a lot of different areas. The first type is ward magic. Wards are cast at certain places and have 50 charges. They are mostly defensive in nature and there are some great examples of where and what wards to place. It’s a feat to learn and rather cheap to accomplish. There are also intelligent encounters that will make for a very interesting encounter and option. Next the chapter goes into chaos magic. This type of magic requires a feat to use. Then certain lists of spells are brought together and tit’s possible that when you cast a chaos spell you could get any off the list. Also, rolling on a random chart may alter the spells. Then it has a little section on co-operative magic. This requires two casters to each have this feat. It can increase the DC of a spell by a little as well as allow a Meta magic feat to be applied. It seems to be interesting, but may not be worth it. Then the topic in this chapter is religion. One of the most interesting concepts in any book is the ability to worship a small god, or basically a creature that is not a full god. This section also has interesting thoughts on Theurgists and Animists. A theurgist is a cleric that worships more then one god and an animist gets his power from spirits. There are rules for making a Druid an animist as well. The section in this chapter covers places. First are arcane nexuses. They are places where magic is stronger, but can have unforeseen penalties. There is also an example of one given. Then it covers shrines. These are like arcane nexuses except the positives are for a certain religion or alignment and the penalties apply to others not matching that. There are many options given for both and there are two examples of shrines.
Chapter four is called The Mundane Made Magical. This chapter also covers quite a bit of area. It starts out with a nice section on Alchemy. It covers some new types of equipment like Identification Lab expansion and Alchemists research Library. It has a fun table of what happens when alchemy experiments goes bad and then lists and fully describes sixteen new alchemical items. Next, the chapter deals with new metal alloys. There are only four of them, and they are Alchemists Gold, Frost Steel, Moon Silver, and Stormbane Iron. Building Constructs is the next section of this chapter. It gives some good general rules for creating most types of constructs. It then gives an example of a created construct and a created Golem. Next it details all sorts of new materials. These materials can aid in creating different items and enhance the items power. Lastly, the chapter covers familiars. It starts with a list of many new types of familiars many of them non-animals like elementals and vermin. It has some new rules on how NPCs react to many of these unusual familiars. Then it has a system for the Wizard or Sorcerer to spend experience to give his familiars new abilities like damage reduction, the ability to see invisible, or to even smite. There are almost 40 different options and adding one or two can increase the survival ability of a familiar but adding a lot of these can really make a familiar a power to contend with. That is especially true if you have an advance familiar.
Chapter five is called Magical Items. It starts with describing some new types of items. The first are called Glyph Eggs and it’s a new item creation feat. Glyph eggs are one-use items that hold a spell that has an area of effect. Then you break the egg and that place becomes the center of the spell. It also lists some other types of Glyph Eggs that can be made. Next are personal growth items. These are magical items that increase in power as the character increases in power. The character must invest gold and experience to unlock the powers of the item. There are a few examples of these given. Next it has some general guidelines for Dungeon Masters to create Relics. There is a list of powers and each is given a point cost. This way a Dungeon Master can more easily design relics of different power levels. There are two relic examples given. Lastly, the chapter describes some new magical items. There are many new and interesting items none of which seem unbalanced. There are items like the Staff of Bursting which when charges are expending always it to deal more damage or have a greater chance to break open a door or other object. There is a Cloak of the Wild, which gives a hide bonus in the wilderness as well as allowing the wearing to speak with animals.
Overall, many of the topics described seem they could easily fill a book by themselves. I think they have some great ideas and many good subjects here, but there is just too much in here. Also, while there really does not seem to be anything in here that will be out of balance with most games, there is also not too much that gets one excited.
Spells and Spellcraft: Compendium of Mystic Lore is one of the Legends and Lairs books from Fantasy Flight Games. It truly lives up to its name packed with many new types of magic and given more options to the current ones. It has new options for all the spellcasting classes in the Players Handbook, and not just the Cleric and Wizard like some products.
Chapter one is all spells. They do a nice job of including spells for all the core classes. There are over a hundred new spells in this chapter. They also include alternate domain spells. Once can either add these spells to their domain or replace the current spells.
Acid Vapors: Tired of foes hiding in obscuring mists? Want to make that stinking cloud deadly? This spell makes any preexisting fog or gas related spell become acidic in nature.
Bandersnatch: This is a great anti thieving spell. It can only be placed on a bag, but is very nice.
Catalytic Mouth: This is a very nice upgrade to the Magic Mouth. This version can speak command words to activate magical items near it.
Conjurer’s Toolbelt: This is a great utility cantrip. It basically will conjure small tools to you.
Felonious Friend: There are three of these spells. They conjure an unseen servant that can perform some of the rogue’s abilities. The lesser one can pick pockets, the middle version can disable device and open locks, and the most powerful version can perform sneak attacks.
Marathon Prowess: This useful spell will allow a party to travel faster overland for an eight-hour period.
Rescue: With this spell one can teleport an injured companion next to the cleric.
Chapter Two is called The Craft of magic. It begins with a very well done section on Arcane Libraries. It presents simple rules for figuring out what’s in a library as well as the cost of building one. It has some rules for having libraries help in research and how to find those rare books that really make a library worthwhile. There is even a nice section on spellbooks and some table to give spellbooks a unique look and some odd traits.
Next the chapter goes into Magical Research. This section has some good rules for creating new spells as well as new feats. It goes into good detail for covering everything that can be useful to research from different types of assistants to magical components.
Next in the chapter comes Taint and Tune. This is information on Bards and Sorcerers. For the Bards, they have four types of Bardic magical styles. These are just different options to how the bard casts spells. The sorcerer section goes into detail on different options for where the sorcerer gets his power. They have rules for Dragon blood, Fey blood, Giant blood, and Demon blood. Next it lists some feats designed for Sorcerers. Many take advantage of the spontaneous casting and allow for a little more versatility with it.
Next it has some new uses for old skills. It gives some great ways to use skills like Appraise, Balance, Bluff, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Intuit Direction, Perform, and Sense Motive. These are some nice ways for expanding the old skills and finding more ways to get use out of them.
The last section in this chapter deals with rituals and ceremonies. The best part about this is it has ceremonies for the Ranger and Paladin as well as Clerics and Druids. First, it gives some great ideas on how to design one’s own. Then it gives specific examples of ceremonies. For Clerics is has ceremonies for communing with one’s deity, resurrection, curing lycanthropes, and exorcism. The druidic ceremonies include summoning an animal companion, planting a sacred grove, and shattering magical weapons. The Paladins have a leveling ceremony and an atonement ceremony for fallen paladins. Rangers have ceremonies for preparing for battle and purifying the land.
Chapter Three is New Types of Magic. This chapter covers a lot of different areas. The first type is ward magic. Wards are cast at certain places and have 50 charges. They are mostly defensive in nature and there are some great examples of where and what wards to place. It’s a feat to learn and rather cheap to accomplish. There are also intelligent encounters that will make for a very interesting encounter and option. Next the chapter goes into chaos magic. This type of magic requires a feat to use. Then certain lists of spells are brought together and tit’s possible that when you cast a chaos spell you could get any off the list. Also, rolling on a random chart may alter the spells. Then it has a little section on co-operative magic. This requires two casters to each have this feat. It can increase the DC of a spell by a little as well as allow a Meta magic feat to be applied. It seems to be interesting, but may not be worth it. Then the topic in this chapter is religion. One of the most interesting concepts in any book is the ability to worship a small god, or basically a creature that is not a full god. This section also has interesting thoughts on Theurgists and Animists. A theurgist is a cleric that worships more then one god and an animist gets his power from spirits. There are rules for making a Druid an animist as well. The section in this chapter covers places. First are arcane nexuses. They are places where magic is stronger, but can have unforeseen penalties. There is also an example of one given. Then it covers shrines. These are like arcane nexuses except the positives are for a certain religion or alignment and the penalties apply to others not matching that. There are many options given for both and there are two examples of shrines.
Chapter four is called The Mundane Made Magical. This chapter also covers quite a bit of area. It starts out with a nice section on Alchemy. It covers some new types of equipment like Identification Lab expansion and Alchemists research Library. It has a fun table of what happens when alchemy experiments goes bad and then lists and fully describes sixteen new alchemical items. Next, the chapter deals with new metal alloys. There are only four of them, and they are Alchemists Gold, Frost Steel, Moon Silver, and Stormbane Iron. Building Constructs is the next section of this chapter. It gives some good general rules for creating most types of constructs. It then gives an example of a created construct and a created Golem. Next it details all sorts of new materials. These materials can aid in creating different items and enhance the items power. Lastly, the chapter covers familiars. It starts with a list of many new types of familiars many of them non-animals like elementals and vermin. It has some new rules on how NPCs react to many of these unusual familiars. Then it has a system for the Wizard or Sorcerer to spend experience to give his familiars new abilities like damage reduction, the ability to see invisible, or to even smite. There are almost 40 different options and adding one or two can increase the survival ability of a familiar but adding a lot of these can really make a familiar a power to contend with. That is especially true if you have an advance familiar.
Chapter five is called Magical Items. It starts with describing some new types of items. The first are called Glyph Eggs and it’s a new item creation feat. Glyph eggs are one-use items that hold a spell that has an area of effect. Then you break the egg and that place becomes the center of the spell. It also lists some other types of Glyph Eggs that can be made. Next are personal growth items. These are magical items that increase in power as the character increases in power. The character must invest gold and experience to unlock the powers of the item. There are a few examples of these given. Next it has some general guidelines for Dungeon Masters to create Relics. There is a list of powers and each is given a point cost. This way a Dungeon Master can more easily design relics of different power levels. There are two relic examples given. Lastly, the chapter describes some new magical items. There are many new and interesting items none of which seem unbalanced. There are items like the Staff of Bursting which when charges are expending always it to deal more damage or have a greater chance to break open a door or other object. There is a Cloak of the Wild, which gives a hide bonus in the wilderness as well as allowing the wearing to speak with animals.
Overall, many of the topics described seem they could easily fill a book by themselves. I think they have some great ideas and many good subjects here, but there is just too much in here. Also, while there really does not seem to be anything in here that will be out of balance with most games, there is also not too much that gets one excited.
