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Message: <blockquote data-quote="drnuncheon" data-source="post: 2008966" data-attributes="member: 96">Time once again for another hardback from Fantasy Flight Games, and although it wasn't the Dragonstar Galaxy Guide that I'd been waiting for, it was the book from them that I was looking forward to the next most: Spells and Spellcraft.I'm a sucker for magic, I know it.  I've got the entire run of Mongoose's Encyclopedia Arcane series, I've got Sword & Sorcery's Relics and Rituals, Malhavoc's Book of Eldritch Might I & II, WOTC's Magic of Faerun and Tome and Blood...I have almost as much fun looking through books of arcane secrets as most wizard characters.So how is Spells and Spellcraft compared to this rather hefty competition?  In my mind, it gives Magic of Faerun a run for its money, and since that is probably my favorite of the books above that is some worthy praise indeed.  Like Magic of Faerun or the Books of Eldritch Might, Spells and Spellcraft is a grab-bag of magical techniques and variants, not simply a compilation of spells and magic items.Spells and Spellcraft is 176 pages, hardbound, with the near-ubiquitous "tome" cover that so many companies have chosen to use, making it fit in with both the WOTC core books and earlier books in the Legends and Lairs series.  The interior is black & white, with fairly thick pages.  The font is a little larger than WOTC standard, but the book doesn't have a lot of extraneous and unneccesary whitespace, meaning it's stll got a decent density of information.Now, on to the contents.Chapter One: SpellsAs with any book of magic, there are a selection of new spells.  I was gratified to see that the spells from the Seafarer's Handbook were not reprinted, meaning there's more new stuff.  New stuff is always good.  My biggest complaint with this section is that the Sorcerer/Wizard spell list is not organized by school, making it much harder to handle specialist wizards.  The spells are presented for all the core spellcasting classes, although the paladin and ranger lists are fairly scant.For the most part, the spells seem fairly balanced, although a few (like claws of the demon and ghoul pack) probably need to be tweaked (or errata'ed) - they seem a bit high in power compared to similar spells in other sources.  The new spells range from ones so simple you wonder why they hadn't been created before (like quill, which summons a writing pen for you) to the strange but imaginative dramatic visage (which does everything but give you a soundtrack).  A couple of spells from older editions make appearances here as well, like dig.Chapter Two: The Craft of MagicNice as the spells are, this chapter is what really begins the meat of the book for me - a selection of alternate rules and variants to bring more detail into magic.  It begins with a section on arcane libraries and magical research, including a more detailed set of rules for researching new spells.  These replace the optional rules from the DMG rather than augmenting them - the Spellcraft roll is significantly more difficult in Spells and Spellcraft - but the increased detail and ways to get bonuses prevent it from being an unreachable goal.  There are also suggestions for other uses of arcane research - discovering the properties of a magic item, for instance, or developing a new metamagic or item creation feat.Next is a section for the spontaneous casters: bards and sorcerers.  There are small variants here for both classes - nothing on the level of what Monte cook did in Book of Eldritch Might II - which can add small bits of flavor to your character.  For instance, now there can be a mechanical difference between a bard who uses song and one who uses dance...or juggling!  Similarly, sorcerers can have the blood of different creatures running through their veins - perhaps the fey rather than a dragon.  My biggest problem with this section was that it didn't go far enough.  Why would a dancing or juggling bard have countersong? Still, the tweaks are great ideas and they definitely got me thinking.  There's also two pages of additional feats focused on these casters, like bloodburn (which lets a sorcerer pay for a power boost with hit point damage) and improvise counterspell.  These feats definitely underscore the nature of sorcery as opposed to wizardry - that is, they make it feel more like you are mucking about with the raw forces of magic.  Good job. There's also a rather disturbing ritual called 'Cleanse the Taint' offered up for wizards who distrust the abilities of sorcerers.  It's a kind of ritual seen fairly often in fantasy fiction, that separates a person from their source of magical power.After that is a short section on new uses for old skills.  There are a few surprises in the choices of skills here = Balance, for example - but the new uses are well done and hardly unbalancing. (5 ranks of Balance gives you a synergy bonus to Concentration, if your Concentration checks are because of unsteady/uneven footing.)  Others give minor bonuses to certain spells - Sense Motive, for example, can make it harder to resist a cleric's discern lies spell.Ceremonies and Rituals follow this.  This is a regrettably all too short section detailing divine ceremonies.  The idea is fascinating - making certain effects available through rituals rather than spellcasting - but there isn't enough detail given for me to fully feel comfortable desiging my own.  Sample rituals are given for all core divine casters, including a solitary prayer for guidance, a ritual to raise the dead (somewhere between raise dead and true ressurrection in power, it needs the whole body but does not cause XP loss), summoning an exceptional animal companion for a druid, a paladin's atonement ceremony, and a ranger ceremony that allows one to temporarily take on a new favored enemy.  All are very flavorful and would encourage roleplaying at the very least.Chapter Three: New Types of MagicMoving on to the even larger variants, we find a new type of magic item called a ward.  In effect a magical location, wards let those within them cast certain spells, if they are in possession of a keystone.  Fasicnating, if not exactly what I expected. (I was thinking more along the lines of magical traps.)  There's also a discussion of intelligent wards.After that is a new type of magic: Chaos Magic.  This is somewhere between Mongoose's Chaos Magic and Natural 20's Wild Spellcraft in both versatility and randomness.  Like Natural 20's offering it builds on the existing spells rather than creating a wholly new system of magic - but at the same time each chaos spell is made up of six others, and exactly which of the six occurs is random, as is whether it gains a harmful or beneficial 'mutation' (such as a change in casting time, duration, etc.)  Chaos casters gain 'control points' with which they can bump their result up by one (only once per roll).A short section describes the new feat of cooperative magic, which is what it sounds like: two casters (and only two, sadly) working together, casting the same spell for increased effect.  Unfortunately, like most feats of this type, it seems to offer too little for the cost (a feat each, and Concentration checks) - many times the casters would be better off casting their spells separately.The section on Religion discusses different ways to classify religions and the relationships that divine casters have with their gods, providing some interesting ideas beyond the standard polytheistic pantheons of most D&D settings.  There are three clerical variants: the Small Gods Disciple, who worships a lesser power and is limited in power - but who can request a direct intercession from their deity; Theurgists, who give up domain special abilities in return for the ability to choose spells from any domain (this could be unbalancing, and it might be best to limit them to filling their domain slot in this manner); and Animists, who give up their domains in exchange for the ability to ask the local spirits for favors.Place Magic discusses arcane nexuses and shrines - locations where magic is affected in unusual ways.  In general they are lists of ideas rather than an actual system, but they may spawn some interesting locations for your games.Chapter Four: The Mundane made MagicalPerhaps the most interesting chapter of all, this goes into detail about several areas of interest to spellcasters: Alchemy, Constructs, Familiars, and Magical materials.  Like the variants in Chapter Two, these are small changes that can add a lot of flavor to your games.First up is Alchemy, which does for that skill what the Arcane Libraries section did for magical research.  Several new types of labs are included, like the field lab and the production lab, with varying effects.  There's a failure table for alchemy mishaps (so you too can blow up your laboratory) and several new alchemical items like concentration pie and firebane parchment.  Several of the items require skills other than alchemy to create - a thunder arrow requires a fletcher as well, for instance.Constructs are next.  While it is of course not as detailed as Mongoose's Constructs (how could it be?), the short section here ought to be fine for anyone that does not want the level of detail in that work.  Unfortunately the example constructs given have the wrong stat blocks - they are a reprint of the coral golem from Seafarer's Handbook - but the publisher has promised errata ASAP.Next are magical materials - not only for weapons and armor like the three in the DMG, but for other items as well.  Some materials boost the efficiency of items like wands or staffs if they are incorporated into the design of the item, while others, like dream items, are considerably stranger.Last is a section expanding familiars, opening up new types: constructs, elementals, parasites, planar, and undead - each with their own benefits and drawbacks.  There is a section on NPC reactions to familiars (for some reason, walking around with a zombie squirrel on your shoulder seems to disturb some people) and rules for improving your existing familiar through the expenditure of XP - letting you add abilities like Alternate Form or Winged Flight.  There are also stat blocks for 2 dozen new familiars.  My favorite is the grimoire - an animated spellbook.Chapter Five: Magic ItemsThe book returns to more familiar territory now, with some magic items.  But first there's some more variants.  There is a new type of item called a glyph egg - which amounts to a magical hand grenade.  Following that is a discussion of 'personal growth items' - an awful name for a great concept, that being a magic item that grows with the character.  This has been discussed in an issue of Dragon before, but it's still a good idea.  Relics are also discussed, being differentiated from artifacts in that they are generally not deliberately created - and are far harder to control.After that is the expected list of new magic items - mostly wondrous items ranging from skill boosters (gloves of the rogue) to new types of ioun stones.Overall this is an excellent book, providing more detail for some core skills and plenty of variants for additional flavor.  There are some errors that will need to be errataed and a few places where balance may be an issue, but overall it is a fine work and definitely worthwhile if you want to give some extra flavor to magic in your campaigns.  This would be a 4.5 if EN World allowed such a rating, but as it is I need to go with a 4.</blockquote>

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