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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2683961" data-attributes="member: 1129">The Power Gamer’s 3.5 Wizard Strategy GuideWritten by Glyn Dewey, Jason Little, Anthony PryorPublished by Goodman Games<a href="http://www.goodman-games.com" target="_blank">www.goodman-games.com</a>GMG 4311ISBN: 0-9768085-0-196 b & w pages$19.99The Power Gamer’s 3.5 Wizard Strategy Guide is perfect for those new players who want to know how to run an effect wizard or sorcerer in the new D&D game.On the cover, it claims “The 100% Official Guide to Kicking Monster Butt and Winning the Game.” That tells you a few things about the product. One, it’s working with material out of the SRD. If you’re playing something like Iron Heroes, Black Company or Arcana Evolved, while some of the advice might be useful to you, especially for AE, it’s written for the core D&D player.The second thing is that while focusing on using the game engine to it’s fullest, it’s also a bit tongue in check.Broken up into seven different chapters with four appendices, the book provides a wide list of opinions and options to make your mage a more useful spellcaster, regardless of what type of mage you’re trying to play.It does this by looking at the various things that make up a character, almost just like the Player’s Handbook. For example, let’s start with your ability scores. Where should you place your dump stat? What’s the most important secondary stats? Things like that. It then moves onto races. Which races are best for which arcane spellcasting option and why.While some of these elements are of common sense to the long term player, others are useful on the way that the author points out that some races for the wizard, like the half-elf and half-orc, don’t really offer a lot in terms of payoff in abilities. It’s an interesting, almost honest look at how some of the races are skewed towards different play types.After you have stats and race, what’s next? In this case, it’d be skills and then feats. These chapters are useful for those who been fooled by the utility of Combat Casting, a feat that should’ve probably been updated to a +5 bonus in dangerous situations as Skill Focus is only 1 less and works in all situations. It’s a good breakdown of feats and has several feat progressions and ideas on how to get the most out of your feats.In looking at arcane spellcasters, one of their abilities is a familiar. Which familiar works best and why? This is covered, as is a quick run down of the differences between the wizard and the sorcerer. The former with the ability to have an unlimited number of known spells but the limit that he has to memorize them, the latter with a limited spell selection, but can cast any spell they know as long as they have slots open for it.Probably of more interest to some, is the idea of the archetypes. The authors break down the different core roles that a wizard often fills in the group as follows; blaster, controller, saboteur, and support specialist. It’s a good section that gets used in terms of appropriate spells, schools that might be good for specializing in, and even spells by archtype.For those who wonder what mages might do to augment themselves further, a chapter on equipment provides a good breakdown of what to own by type. For example, healing has it’s own section, as does defense. The big break in sections here, are consumable magic items, things that are temporary like wands, potions, and scrolls, against those that are permanent, like amulets, gloves, and armor. Of immediate use to people making characters higher than first level, would be the sample mage kits with several different lists of items according to level and the gold they should have to spend at those levels, including level 5, 10, and 15.The chapters end on combat and making sure that your mage is of use to the group and of course, keeping yourself alive. One thing that’s of great use to players, but annoying as a GM for the meta knowledge it has, is the break down of monsters by type in terms of their good saves. It also breaks the monsters down by different categories and includes an example. In looking at toughs, these are the “thugs” of the game, the giants, humanoids, and monstrous humanoids. It then uses it’s archetype system, to talk about how each archetype would handle the different monsters in a paragraph or two.For example, in looking at the undead, the blaster is advised to dish out as much damage as possible, especially on any unique or potent undead that are in the group over targets such as standard skeletons and zombies. The appendices contain various tables like spell saves vs. target DCs, or caster checks vs. target’s spell resistance.The book is perfect for a new player or for the casual player who might be interested in kicking up his utility to the group. It’s not going to appeal to people who use a ton of third party material, although the advice and core ideas are still sound, and it’s not going to appeal to those who put the “role” emphasis on the game as it notes that certain classes and choices, while perhaps valid, are just not the most effective.If you’re looking to add some oomph to your wizard, this strategy guide is a good place to start.</blockquote>

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