Jannica Thales
First Post
Book of Eldritch Might was one of the first d20 PDFs to be released. It quite possibly legitimized the entire PDF market and thus holds a place of distinction in gaming history. Malhavoc Press was recently generous enough to release the product for free over at Drive Through RPG, which is where I picked up my copy. It has been updated for 3.5 D&D and is 48 pages long. While the product is clearly worth a free download, I will be reviewing it as if it cost the $6 it is now currently selling for.
The book starts with very little preamble and dives right into the content. We are given a table of contents and notification that this book is a “smorgasbord”, filled with various content with no thematic structure other than it’s all magic related. That’s absolutely fine with me. Essentially, it’s like paying six bucks for a magazine. The art is sparse and the layout is nice, but easy on the printer. The PDF is heavily bookmarked and its easy to jump from place to place within the text.
Chapter One covers feats. Most of these feats are “eldritch” feats. What that means is that the DM can rule that you can use an eldritch feat to substitute for a metamagic one, like when a wizard gains a free feat or a metamagic feat is required for a prestige class. All of these feats have ability score requirements. Most of these requirements look like holdovers from 2e. For example, some of these feats require an ability score of 17 along with a caster level of 7th. You can’t cast 7th level spells unless you have an ability score of 17. Of course, it’s a little different if you are a wizard and the ability in question is charisma, but then it’s open game for sorcerers. Another, Mirror Sight, has a requirement of CHA 19 and a first level caster ability. So, any bard with a race that gives +2 CHA can get this starting out and most sorcerers will eventually qualify. Considering it acts as a scrying device that you don’t need a spell slot to operate, it’s a bit of a no brainer for any sorcerer with divinational aspirations. However, we’ll see much more mirror magic momentarily.
Chapter Two is prestige classes. There are three and all of them have ½ spell progression. So our prestige classes of eldritch might will not be able to cast a 9th level spell and they’ll barely be able to cast an 8th level spell. Sorcerers will be stuck with 7th level spells. Something to bear in mind as we examine these classes.
The Embermage is a wizard whose blood literally burns. All abilities gained are INT based. The embermage gains fire based attacks culminating with a 10th level ability to cast the implosion spell on a target (this does not work on creatures with fire immunity). This looks like a very flavorful prestige class for an NPC. The prerequisites require that the spellcaster be reduced to negative hit points from a fire attack. So, if I had an NPC that the party fireballed and left for dead, this would be a great prestige class to bring the NPC back with. As a player class, all I can say is that I would never take it.
The Graven One is a spellcaster with some tattoos burned into her body. I was pleased to see the adjoining artwork was that of a woman wearing little clothing, but who had a normal, healthy non-anorexic build. Thank you, Malhavoc Press. The Graven One has somewhat high requirements, but gets a thick natural hide (+1 AC) that she engraves runes into. Beyond that the class works a lot like the Loremaster, except that most of the Graven One’s abilities are combat related. The Graven One also can get animal tattoos that act as simple summoning. Eyeballing the balance is a little tougher here. The Graven One is more likely to survive to 20th level than a wizard or sorcerer because she’s physically tougher. You could have a really good NPC or encounter area based off of this PrC. If there were another spellcaster in the party, I’d defiantly consider going this route.
The third PrC is the Mirror Master. Mirrors again? You bet! This is an excellent PrC for a sorcerer, because you get bonus spells. It requires that Mirror Sight feat, which you may remember earlier in this most excellent review. The Mirror Master gains a few other abilities, including a mirror based dimension door that gets upgraded to teleport and finally plane shift. Not a bad little package, except it was at this point in the book that I started getting a niggling sensation in the back of my head. This PrC isn’t bad or anything, it’s just clearly made for a sorcerer to the point where I wondered why the requirements didn’t just say “must be a sorcerer”, except for some reason you aren’t allowed to do that or the 3rd edition gods will smite you or something.
Chapter Three! On to the spells! We’re on page 14 of the book by now. I’m not going to run down all of the spells other than to say they pretty much look balanced and that there’s no love for rangers or paladins, but there is for assassins, bards, and all the big spellcasting classes. Bone Tattoo looks a little powerful for a 3rd level spell. It gives you spell resistance and unintelligent undead treat you as if you were undead yourself, however you can be “turned” as if undead. It looks very situational, but really if you make it into a scroll it’s a sure bet that it will essentially allow you to avoid a necromancer encounter entirely. Greater Mark of Air looks pretty dang powerful, giving a DEX bonus as well as the ability to fly for 10 minutes per level for the cost of casting a 4th level spell. Actually, most of the “mark” spells are pretty good. There are several spells that prevent scrying and teleporting, remember that this was one of the first d20 products released and it was released by the guy who worked on the rules that made scrying so powerful in 3.0, so while it’s nice to see that Monte Cook also had scrying issues, I’m left feeling a tad annoyed by all of this. Why not just impose a penalty on scrying, give teleporting a long casting time, and maybe make it so that people are stunned or something on arrival? The inclusion of spells like Minor Ward gives me the impression that a problem was recognized and then ignored, leaving it for every DM to houserule the problem. There are several mirror spells also, the Mirror Master PrC gets all of them as bonus spells. There is also spells like Tongue of Fiends, which lets the caster know the Fiendish language. It’s a zero level spell, but I got that niggling feeling in the back of my head again. Other spells seem to ignore the game design Monte has learned from working on products like Arcana Evolved, such as save-or-die spells. Coma puts to sleep any single character that fails a fortitude save, basically it’s a wizard killer.
In summary, the spells are interesting, but are either very situational, powerful, or address metagame concerns that may better be handled by, like, addressing the problem instead of creating a spell that treats the symptom.
Chapter Four covers magic items, and who doesn’t like those? Well, except for all those people who feel that you aren’t role-playing unless your character starts out impoverished in the desert with a sucking chest wound. The magic items are fine and the effects are well described. I found them to be a little video-gamey for my taste, but they can be dropped in most games without problem. I did like to see that they typically were not that expensive. I’m a little tired of seeing 75,000gp items that are only good in the late game. There were, ahem, quite a lot of rods listed. This is a pretty strong chapter item-wise, though I thought the Bluette Walker was a little silly. The magic poisons looked cool, but I have one question: will cure poison dismiss the effects? This isn’t covered and it’s kind of a big deal because some of the effects are pretty powerful. The artifacts presented looked solid, though I wish some costs had been listed. I realize that none of these would be for sale, but it’s useful for a DM to know when to introduce such things into a game. Again, this is a rewrite for 3.5. It isn’t like this book was just dashed off.
Chapter Five brings us constructs. This isn’t really a “how to build” section so much as it is a template to toss on an existing monster. The mechanic to create them is pretty easy to work out. Considering I had to wade through 10 pages on a similar topic for my Morningstar review, I have to say I like these rules a lot better. This section is pretty short and two examples are given.
An appendix gives us a rune generator. No I don’t get it either. Actually, it’s more of a “freaky image generator”. D% rolls of 48, 36, and 71 gave me “A hand bursting from a pentacle flanked by skulls”. OK -- I have to admit -- that’s pretty cool.
Conclusions
Remember that niggling feeling I kept getting in the back of my head? No, it wasn’t a Monte fanboy driving an ice pick into my brain. The feeling I was getting is that I wasn’t reading “The Book of Eldritch Might”. What I was reading was “The Book of Monte Cook’s House Rules”. That is, as they say in the Wizard of Oz, a horse of a different color. That’s why we have all the mirror spells. That’s why there aren’t any paladin or ranger spells, even though we have cleric and druid ones. Monte apparently needed a mirror wizard of some type and he didn’t have a need to flesh out the paladin class. It’s not really a smorgasbord, with lots of various things for various people. It’s a Chinese menu, with a somewhat varied selection generated from a limited set of ingredients. While I recognize Eldritch Might’s place in d20 history, it doesn’t make the book any better. If someone other than Monte Cook were to produce a 48 page collection of house rules with average art, albeit good layout, would there be a rush to praise the work with perfect scores? I really don’t think so.
What we essentially have here is rules supporting three or four really good NPCs or specialized PCs bundled in with a few others that tackle the whole scry-buff-teleport-attack problem that is common in higher level games. As a free download, it kicks butt. But, as purchase, I’d be disappointed. Which is to say the book has high points and low points, making it a respectable, but average product and rates a solid 3/5.
The book starts with very little preamble and dives right into the content. We are given a table of contents and notification that this book is a “smorgasbord”, filled with various content with no thematic structure other than it’s all magic related. That’s absolutely fine with me. Essentially, it’s like paying six bucks for a magazine. The art is sparse and the layout is nice, but easy on the printer. The PDF is heavily bookmarked and its easy to jump from place to place within the text.
Chapter One covers feats. Most of these feats are “eldritch” feats. What that means is that the DM can rule that you can use an eldritch feat to substitute for a metamagic one, like when a wizard gains a free feat or a metamagic feat is required for a prestige class. All of these feats have ability score requirements. Most of these requirements look like holdovers from 2e. For example, some of these feats require an ability score of 17 along with a caster level of 7th. You can’t cast 7th level spells unless you have an ability score of 17. Of course, it’s a little different if you are a wizard and the ability in question is charisma, but then it’s open game for sorcerers. Another, Mirror Sight, has a requirement of CHA 19 and a first level caster ability. So, any bard with a race that gives +2 CHA can get this starting out and most sorcerers will eventually qualify. Considering it acts as a scrying device that you don’t need a spell slot to operate, it’s a bit of a no brainer for any sorcerer with divinational aspirations. However, we’ll see much more mirror magic momentarily.
Chapter Two is prestige classes. There are three and all of them have ½ spell progression. So our prestige classes of eldritch might will not be able to cast a 9th level spell and they’ll barely be able to cast an 8th level spell. Sorcerers will be stuck with 7th level spells. Something to bear in mind as we examine these classes.
The Embermage is a wizard whose blood literally burns. All abilities gained are INT based. The embermage gains fire based attacks culminating with a 10th level ability to cast the implosion spell on a target (this does not work on creatures with fire immunity). This looks like a very flavorful prestige class for an NPC. The prerequisites require that the spellcaster be reduced to negative hit points from a fire attack. So, if I had an NPC that the party fireballed and left for dead, this would be a great prestige class to bring the NPC back with. As a player class, all I can say is that I would never take it.
The Graven One is a spellcaster with some tattoos burned into her body. I was pleased to see the adjoining artwork was that of a woman wearing little clothing, but who had a normal, healthy non-anorexic build. Thank you, Malhavoc Press. The Graven One has somewhat high requirements, but gets a thick natural hide (+1 AC) that she engraves runes into. Beyond that the class works a lot like the Loremaster, except that most of the Graven One’s abilities are combat related. The Graven One also can get animal tattoos that act as simple summoning. Eyeballing the balance is a little tougher here. The Graven One is more likely to survive to 20th level than a wizard or sorcerer because she’s physically tougher. You could have a really good NPC or encounter area based off of this PrC. If there were another spellcaster in the party, I’d defiantly consider going this route.
The third PrC is the Mirror Master. Mirrors again? You bet! This is an excellent PrC for a sorcerer, because you get bonus spells. It requires that Mirror Sight feat, which you may remember earlier in this most excellent review. The Mirror Master gains a few other abilities, including a mirror based dimension door that gets upgraded to teleport and finally plane shift. Not a bad little package, except it was at this point in the book that I started getting a niggling sensation in the back of my head. This PrC isn’t bad or anything, it’s just clearly made for a sorcerer to the point where I wondered why the requirements didn’t just say “must be a sorcerer”, except for some reason you aren’t allowed to do that or the 3rd edition gods will smite you or something.
Chapter Three! On to the spells! We’re on page 14 of the book by now. I’m not going to run down all of the spells other than to say they pretty much look balanced and that there’s no love for rangers or paladins, but there is for assassins, bards, and all the big spellcasting classes. Bone Tattoo looks a little powerful for a 3rd level spell. It gives you spell resistance and unintelligent undead treat you as if you were undead yourself, however you can be “turned” as if undead. It looks very situational, but really if you make it into a scroll it’s a sure bet that it will essentially allow you to avoid a necromancer encounter entirely. Greater Mark of Air looks pretty dang powerful, giving a DEX bonus as well as the ability to fly for 10 minutes per level for the cost of casting a 4th level spell. Actually, most of the “mark” spells are pretty good. There are several spells that prevent scrying and teleporting, remember that this was one of the first d20 products released and it was released by the guy who worked on the rules that made scrying so powerful in 3.0, so while it’s nice to see that Monte Cook also had scrying issues, I’m left feeling a tad annoyed by all of this. Why not just impose a penalty on scrying, give teleporting a long casting time, and maybe make it so that people are stunned or something on arrival? The inclusion of spells like Minor Ward gives me the impression that a problem was recognized and then ignored, leaving it for every DM to houserule the problem. There are several mirror spells also, the Mirror Master PrC gets all of them as bonus spells. There is also spells like Tongue of Fiends, which lets the caster know the Fiendish language. It’s a zero level spell, but I got that niggling feeling in the back of my head again. Other spells seem to ignore the game design Monte has learned from working on products like Arcana Evolved, such as save-or-die spells. Coma puts to sleep any single character that fails a fortitude save, basically it’s a wizard killer.
In summary, the spells are interesting, but are either very situational, powerful, or address metagame concerns that may better be handled by, like, addressing the problem instead of creating a spell that treats the symptom.
Chapter Four covers magic items, and who doesn’t like those? Well, except for all those people who feel that you aren’t role-playing unless your character starts out impoverished in the desert with a sucking chest wound. The magic items are fine and the effects are well described. I found them to be a little video-gamey for my taste, but they can be dropped in most games without problem. I did like to see that they typically were not that expensive. I’m a little tired of seeing 75,000gp items that are only good in the late game. There were, ahem, quite a lot of rods listed. This is a pretty strong chapter item-wise, though I thought the Bluette Walker was a little silly. The magic poisons looked cool, but I have one question: will cure poison dismiss the effects? This isn’t covered and it’s kind of a big deal because some of the effects are pretty powerful. The artifacts presented looked solid, though I wish some costs had been listed. I realize that none of these would be for sale, but it’s useful for a DM to know when to introduce such things into a game. Again, this is a rewrite for 3.5. It isn’t like this book was just dashed off.
Chapter Five brings us constructs. This isn’t really a “how to build” section so much as it is a template to toss on an existing monster. The mechanic to create them is pretty easy to work out. Considering I had to wade through 10 pages on a similar topic for my Morningstar review, I have to say I like these rules a lot better. This section is pretty short and two examples are given.
An appendix gives us a rune generator. No I don’t get it either. Actually, it’s more of a “freaky image generator”. D% rolls of 48, 36, and 71 gave me “A hand bursting from a pentacle flanked by skulls”. OK -- I have to admit -- that’s pretty cool.
Conclusions
Remember that niggling feeling I kept getting in the back of my head? No, it wasn’t a Monte fanboy driving an ice pick into my brain. The feeling I was getting is that I wasn’t reading “The Book of Eldritch Might”. What I was reading was “The Book of Monte Cook’s House Rules”. That is, as they say in the Wizard of Oz, a horse of a different color. That’s why we have all the mirror spells. That’s why there aren’t any paladin or ranger spells, even though we have cleric and druid ones. Monte apparently needed a mirror wizard of some type and he didn’t have a need to flesh out the paladin class. It’s not really a smorgasbord, with lots of various things for various people. It’s a Chinese menu, with a somewhat varied selection generated from a limited set of ingredients. While I recognize Eldritch Might’s place in d20 history, it doesn’t make the book any better. If someone other than Monte Cook were to produce a 48 page collection of house rules with average art, albeit good layout, would there be a rush to praise the work with perfect scores? I really don’t think so.
What we essentially have here is rules supporting three or four really good NPCs or specialized PCs bundled in with a few others that tackle the whole scry-buff-teleport-attack problem that is common in higher level games. As a free download, it kicks butt. But, as purchase, I’d be disappointed. Which is to say the book has high points and low points, making it a respectable, but average product and rates a solid 3/5.
Last edited by a moderator:
