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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Omegium" data-source="post: 2008835" data-attributes="member: 62">After the success of the Book of Eldritch Might, a lot of people where awaiting Monte Cook's second book of the series. I also bought the first book, and I was quite content with it. After I looked at the first reviews on the messageboards, I decided to buy it myself. I will give my opinion about the separate chapters, and a conclusion at the end.Chapter one: Alternate classes 5/5This was the main part of the book. It consists of both a variant bard and a variant sorcerer.The bard: This is a really good class. The spell system has completely been redesigned, and it's a good change. While the normal bard is quite underpowered, this bard adds both in power and flavour, and I doubt I will ever play a normal bard from now on. The spells are not very powerful, but he can cast a lot of them. Spellnotes will take just a move equivalent action, so he can also cast them fast. The bard has also got more skillpoints, something I had already houseruled.The sorcerer: This class is mainly for those who felt that a sorcerer who is improved invisible and shielded every battle is to powerful. The class got more skillpoints, a better hit die, a better skill list, more spells known, and most important, another spell list. Spells what are very powerful to have every battle, like shield, haste, invisiblity, impr. Invisibility and polymorph have became higher lvl, and some spells (e.g. identify) have disappeared. I think the sorcerer has become slightly less powerful, since those spells ARE really useful and powerful. Chapter two: Feats 3/5This is just a small chapter, two pages. A couple of nice bard spells, and some eldritch feats. There are a few original ideas, but I don't really like eldritch feats. They are powerful for those who can get them, giving an extra bonus for the people who rolled very good, and unavailable for most others, since casters with a 17 in a non premier mental attribute aren't that common.Prestige classes: 4/5There are some original ideas in here, which are quite useful.The diplomancer, the eldritch warior, the song mage and the knight of the chord.Soul Magic: 5/5Original magic, not to useful for players but great for plots.Spellsongs: 4/5Here are the new spells for the bard. Three levels, spellnotes, spellchords and spellmelodies. The spellnotes can be cast as ME actions and can be compared with lvl 1 spells, chords are standard and can be compared with lvl 3 spells, while melodies are full round and are about lvl 5. I think there should be more of them, for the bard spelllist has really shrunken, but I guess people will be converting more spells soon. There were a few things that could be better in here: there is an equivalent of haste as a spellchord, and a bard can cast that very often, so he will be hasted every battle. And fly is a spellmelody, which will be available at lvl 13, and I don't think that is very overpowering to have more early. The same is for dispel magic.Spells: 5/5While not much, there are some very good spells. Blood spikes is a bit strong for a lvl 1 spell (3d6 at caster lvl 1, fort negates), but Gestalt is one of the funniest spell I have ever seen, and has a lot of useful applications.Magic Items: 4/5There are some good ideas in here, although casting in fullplate is a bit low on style. The other items are niceMonsters: 4/5A few, but quite good  monsters. Not for everyday use, but useful for a single encounter.Conclusion: 5/5It is a very useful book, but with some flaws in it. It is certainly a lot for $7. My average may come more to a 4/5, but since you get 64 pages of really useful content. And if you realise that you get 96 pages of content for $25 in the WotC classbooks, this is a really good deal. The artwork is nice, but the bar at the top is good for a nice looking pdf or a colour printed edition, but for a black and white print it is just an ugly waste of ink. If you buy this, take a look at the message boards of Monte Cook. While we are still waiting for the WotC errata of DotF, the errata for this book are already available.</blockquote>

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