The Quintessential Wizard

[Messageboard Golem]

The wise old sage, stooped and walking with a staff, good-natured and kindly yet terrifying if angered. The lean, wily battle wizard, festooned with bandoliers of magical throwing daggers and wands. The tribal magician, feathered rattle in hand, tattoos shimmering with magical force. The vile necromancer, lurking in his subterranean lair, plotting to rule the land. All these are examples of the wizard, the character class without which no game could be considered high fantasy. The Quintessential Wizard is a sourcebook that will greatly expand this class, fleshing out the wizard from his typical role as a source of magical artillery to a character with more options and variants than any other in the game.

 

[Psion]

The Quintessential Wizard

The Quintessential Wizard is the fourth book in Mongoose Publishing's Collector Series. Each book in this series provides new options and details for a given core race or class. The Quintessential Wizard provides new game options for members of the wizard class.

The Quintessential Wizard is written by prolific d20 system author Mike Mearls, who also wrote The Quintessential Rogue, as well as contributing to various supplements by AEG and Fiery Dragon, and adventures in Atlas Games' Penumbra line.

A First Look

The Quintessential Wizard is a 128-page perfect-bound softcover book priced at $19.95. This is a good value compared with other companies that only offer a 96 page book for this price.

As with other books in the Collector Series, the cover of the book has a russet brown faux leather look with no illustrations, similar to the AD&D 2nd edition "complete" handbooks that the Collector Series seems to imitate.

The interior is black and white. The interior illustrations vary in quality. As with many Mongoose books, the best pictures seem to be those by Danilo Moretti, Marcio Fiorito, Rick Otey, David Griffiths, and Renato Guedes. I find some of the pictures rather unappealing. There is some depicted nudity in the illustrations.

A Deeper Look

The Quintessential Wizard is sorted into topical sections.

Character Concepts

The first section deals with character concepts. Character concepts as described in the Collector Series of books are ideas for character backgrounds with pre-packaged modifications to a character class (in this case, all are applied to the wizard class). Ideally, the character concept will be a balanced character choice that grants only as many benefits to the class as it takes away. This is somewhat akin to the idea of modified character classes as discussed in the D&D 3e PH, or kits in the various AD&D 2e "complete" books.

Character concepts in the Quintessential Wizard include:
- Academic
- Alchemist
- Entertainer
- Exorcist
- Arcane Craftsman
- Fortune Teller
- Geomancer
- Gutter Mage
- Hedge Wizard
- Investigator
- Knight of the Staff
- Pyromancer
- Sea Mage
- Summoner
- Tattoo Mage
- Theoretician
- War Wizard
- Wind Mage
- Wizard Hunter

In past reviews of books in the collector series, I have been rather down on the concept of character concepts, primarily because they tended to rely on assigning the character disadvantages to skills the character would never use and attest that was sufficient compensation. In the Quintessential Wizard, this is not the case. The character concepts herein actually trade off character resources – primarily bonus feats and class skills – and as such seem like they would be much more balanced in play.

The Prestige Wizard

The second section introduces a number of prestige classes targeted at wizards. These are:
- Arcane Avatar: This is a high-level wizard who has become so steeped in magic the he becomes part of it. In addition to continued spellcasting advancement, the arcane avatar gains spell restistance and class abilities that let him better shape magic, such as a class abilities that lets him sacrifice multiple spell slots to prepare a single spell that isn't in his books.
- Arcane Avenger: The arcane avenger is a wizard who has been wronged by some race, and dedicates her life and her study of magic to defeating creatures of this race. The arcane avenger receives class abilities which boost the character's effectiveness against their designated enemy.
- Society of Atheists: The Society of Atheists is a network of wizards who see deities not as sovereign powers, but dangerous beings who have duped mortals into serving them. The prestige class has abilities that are especially useful against divine magic and divine spellcasters.
- Spelleater: The spelleater is a character loathed by many wizards. In addition to slow continued spellcasting advancement, the spelleater can absorb prepared spells from a wizard and later inscribe them in his spellbook. At higher levels, this ability becomes more versatile.
- Soulforger: The soulforger is a wizard who has unlocked the secrets of creating life from lifeless components. A complete system for building new creatures is included in the class description. Unfortunately, as the soulforger gains experience, the nature of her studies slowly drive her mad.
- Sun mage: The sun mage is an elven wizard who focuses on light and sun related magic. The sun mage receives normal continued spell advancement as well as class abilities relating to sunlight.
- Wordbearer: The wordbearer is specialized in words of power that have devastating effects. The character does not receive continued spellcasting advancement, but receives a number of power-word type spell-like abilities that can be used as free actions.

These prestige classes are probably some of the better ones in the Collector series. The classes are all unique and interesting enough to make the players want to play them and the DM want to include them in the game.

Tricks of the Trade

This section is sorted into a few smaller subsections with general advice for would be masters of the arcane arts:

Creative Spellcasting: This section analyzes a few arcane spells for potential creative use. For example, blindness/deafness can be used as a defense against creatures like harpies, and rope-trick can be used to set up an ambush or trap.

Personalized Magic: The section on personalized magic discusses choosing the wizards spells to reflect a certain theme to assist in characterization. Sample thematic spell lists include the investigator, the diabolist, the crusader, the protector, and the scholar.

Building Your Own List: This section discusses how to make personalized spell lists as in the previous section, as well as discusses ways that you may want to customize the appearance of spells in order to make wizards even more distinctive.

Arcane Duels and Competitions: This section discusses a few arcane contests. The first is arcane chess. Arcane chess is a boardgame similar to chess, but in which the pieces move themselves. Peiced can be made to perform supposedly illegal moves by being invested with spell energy. Mechanically, and arcane chess game is resolved by opposed spellcraft and knowledge (arcane) checks, the victor in each such bout receiving a point towards victory. However, each participant may bid prepared spells to boost the results of a roll.

The other means of arcane contest discussed is the spell duel. The wizards in a spell duel don't target each other. Rather, they set their spells off at a safe distance. Each caster makes level checks modified by the level of spell cast and the character's charisma modifier, and possibly a synergy bonus from perform. The spell duel here is not about destroying one another, but impressing onlookers.

Wizard Feats

This section introduces new feats intended for wizard characters; many such feats are designated as "wizard" feats and can only be taken by characters with wizard levels.

Some of the feats include:
- Arcane Armor Proficiency (Light, Medium, or Heavy): The proficiencies require the appropriate "normal" armor proficiency. Each of these reduces the arcane failure percentage for casting spells while in that type of armor.
- Arcane Senses: You can use detect magic, detect undead, or detect [alignment] at will as a free action. Some GMs may not be too keen on allowing this. Spell like actions at will is pretty generous, but at least it is not combat oriented.
- Durable Magic: The DC to dispel spells you cast is increased by 2.
- Imbue Weapon: This metamagic feat allows you to cast a touch spell through a weapon, and the effects are applied when the weapon hits.
- Machine Master: Your echantment spells can affect constructs normally.
- Mystic Bloodhound: You can study the emanations of a magic spell to determine who cast it.
- Power Surge: You can channel extra power into your spells; by taking 2 points of constitution damage, you can raise the DC of a spell by 2.
- Spell Stealer: If you counter an opponent's spell, you may force it to target a different target rather than simply countering it.

Overall, this is a fair selection of feats to provide some interesting capabilities to a wizard character.

Tools of the Trade

The Tools of the Trade section details various items, magical and mundane, that a wizard may use.

Amongst the mundane you will find items such as deep-pocketed robes, wizard's armor (armor specifically crafted to allow for freedom of movement, and thus offers less protection but also has a lower spell failure percentage), alchemical substances, and special scrollcases (including scrollcases of materials such as adamantine.)

Magic items include new weapon qualities such as spellbreaker (which dispels magical protections), specific magic weapons such as the mage blade (which grants certain feats including martial weapon proficiency when wielded by an arcane spellcaster), potions, staffs (such as the staff of force, with force related spells in addition to acting as a brilliant energy weapon), and wondrous items (such as the gloves of reach, which cast spectral hand or telekenisis.) There is also a small selection of wondrous items intended for use by familiars. However, some of the staffs have DCs that do not follow the guidelines for magic item DC.

Libraries and Spellbooks

This section presents the wizard character with new options for storage of spells and arcane knowledge. In it, a number of new variants on spellbooks are presented. For example, instead of an actual book, you can opt for an amulet with an elemental or demonic spirit bound in it, with certain advantages and drawbacks. You can even inscribe your spellbook on the skin of yourself or others as tattoos.

Spellbooks may be imbued with a number of magical enhancements. These special qualities can do a variety of things such protect the book from harm, ward it against interlopers, or reduce the time it takes to prepare spells.

The rules for libraries define statistics for libraries and rules for using them. Libraries are defined by size, similar to the d20 system creature size categories. The size of the library determines how many topics it can cover and what kind of a bonus it provides when using the library for research.

Spells

No book on wizards would be complete without a few new spells. A sampling of the new spells includes:
- Grave Storm: A cone of death magic damages opponents. Any creatures slain by the spell are raised as zombies under the casters control.
- Loyal guardian: An invisible shield hovers around the caster that can automatically intercept one attack per round.
- Melzek's Swarm of Voracious Hell Beetles: The caster summons otherworldly beetles (apparently from the movie The Mummy) that rapidly devour their targets.
- Unseen Trickster: This spell produces an invisible entity similar to an unseen servant, but it can harass foes and filch items.
- Weapon Ward: This spell grants the character damage reduction against one type of weapon: slashing, bludgeoning, or piercing. However, the damage reduction does not count against magic weapons. Considering that this spell is a level higher than stoneskin, this spell seems a little weak by comparison.

The Wizard's Staff

This section introduces a new type of magic item, the arcane nexus, along with a new craft feat to make them. The arcane nexus can take many forms, but the larger they are, the more powers they can contain. Thus they often take the form of a staff. An arcane nexus is attuned to a particular wizard, so it is useless to anyone else.

The staff can provide a variety of abilities. These fall into four categories: encoded abilities, spell enhancements, spell repositories, and wondrous features.

Encoded abilities require the caster to expend one of their spell slots when preparing spells. Each encoded ability is similar to a low level spell, but with certain benefits. For example, the burning hands ability can be used originating from the end of the staff instead of at the wizard, and the detect magic ability detects magic in any object touched with the staff for a full day.

Spell enhancements can enhance spells in certain ways when cast while the wizard is touching the nexus. For example, arcane cleave allows the caster to better penetrate spell resistance, and metamagic enhancement allows you to use a meatamagic feat on a spell without modifying the spell level once per day.

Spell repository allows you to store a spell within the nexus. This has two effects. First off, you may use that nexus in the place of a spellbook when preparing that spell. The second is that you may swap out a prepared spell for the stored spell.

Wondrous features are general magic effects similar to standard magic items. For example, arcane parry grants a bonus on saves versus spells. Bound spirit provides you with bonuses to a specific skill.

I found the arcane nexus rule an interesting addition to the magic items rules. It makes the wizards staple magic item – the staff – into a more personal representation of the character's power.

Wizard Mercenaries

This section focuses not on wizards themselves, but on those assigned to see to their well being: bodyguards. The section starts out with rules for acquiring mercenary bodyguards and determining their loyalty.

A new selection of feats is provided for would-be bodyguards to let them better protect their charges. Absorb blast, for example, lets the bodyguard trade reflex saving throws with the wizard, and arrow shield lets a character use deflect arrows on missiles targeted at other characters.

Finally, there is a new prestige class called the Bodyguard of the Crimson Shield. This class is primarily intended to act as elite protectors in a land where wizards are in a prestigious position. They receive bonus feats (many from the ones introduced earlier in this section) and have other abilities that provide bonus toughness feats, makes them more difficult to turn against their charge, and lets him force spells targeting his charge to target him instead.

Apprentices

This chapter provides rules for handling apprentices. The feat Arcane Tutor provides the character with a number of apprentices up to fourth level. The feat is similar to Leadership in that the number and level of the apprentices is determined by the character's level and charisma modifier.

The chapter discusses the advantages and drawbacks of apprentices. Among other things, apprentices can assist the wizard in research and item creation, with some possible complications...

Towers

The last section is devoted to towers. The rules are a fairly straightforward menu-driven construction system with some embellishment. The placement of the tower can provide advantages and disadvantages when dealing with or researching certain types of magic. There are a number of magical enhancements available, letting you add special chambers with magical properties, or even do things like create walking towers.

Conclusions

Creating books about classes and races is somewhat difficult. One is faced with the possibilities of deviating too much from the basic concept and making something so bizarre that players won't appreciate it, or creating something that does not go far enough to create something interesting and useful. Mike Mearls does a good job of this with the Quintessential Wizard, providing a supplement that both plays to the basic concept of the class yet enhances it significantly.

-Alan D. Kohler

 

[GameWyrd]

The Collector Series continues with the Quintessential Wizard and if you take a peek at Mongoose's schedule you'll see that the next two in the series are Elf and Dwarf and it's August when the series comes back to cover character classes with the Quintessential Monk. I'm not the only one out there to keep an eye on when the next offering from the Collector Series is due to hit the shelves, it's an extremely well received set of books and fast becoming a d20 stalwart. The Quintessential Wizard continues in the tradition of high quality and gaming insight.

The very first of the Collector Series, the Quintessential Fighter, introduced the concept of Character Classes as mini templates which could change the mechanics of your character in small ways and provide an umbrella of a stereotype to play under while you're still getting to grips of your character's quirks. These character concepts are extremely useful for Wizards and provide a much needed focus for the broadly scoped character class. Among the character concepts you'll find the pyromancers, geomancers, wind and sea mages, but you'll also find ideas for gutter mages, fortune-tellers, entertainers, investigators and other magic using careers. I especially liked the exorcist concept. There's no shortage of these concepts and the Quintessential Wizard provides some of the most detailed in the Collector Series to date, the summoner concept, for example, has its own table of extra bonuses.

I've taken to harassing books that throw in poorly thought-out and unnecessary prestige classes. If the adventure is set in the Black Pit of Puzzzah there's no compelling need for a Puzzzah Ranger. None. The Quintessential Wizard, however, is a book that sets out to add further flavour and detail to the Wizard character class and so is entirely able to present a wide range of prestige classes without falling foul of my nit-picking wrath. The prestige classes in the book are exceptional. You'll find more than a mere mix of 5 and 10 level classes, you'll find prestige classes of Wizards with access to entirely new means of magic. The dreaded Spelleaters actually rip spells from rival spell casters, the Soulforgers have pages of text on their new style of magic and even rewritten some of the base character tables for spells per day and level bonuses and the Worldbreakers bypass the mutterings and hand gestures of Arcane make and speak words of power to annihilate their enemies instead. Dare I say that there are other more "mundane" prestige classes as well? I do. There are.

The Tricks of the Trade section is at its most interesting in Wizard. The chapter on creative spellcasting revisits some common low level spells and suggests some sly new uses for them. The rope trick spell is the prime example, you can use it for shelter or, say, as a part of ambush when the wizard stops maintaining the spell just as the orcs are underneath so that the previously stashed vials of acid tumble out from the pocket dimension and break open on them. There are suggestions on how to bundle spells together in a theme along with some sample lists and this is combined with observations on applying interesting visual effects to different spell casts. The notion of arcane chess is covered in the Arcane Duels and Competitions section and it's a rather quirky but nice example of magical knowledge and tactics being put to rather subtler uses than throwing fireballs around.

I think Feats are pretty magical. Whereas I might be sceptical about some of the more spectacular fighter feats I can sit back and enjoy the more outlandish magically based feats; if a wizard can attempt to track down the location of another mage by following the obscure arcane patterns left in the aether then so be it. There's a mix of both the likely and unlikely Feats in Quintessential Wizard. A wizard with enough practise and the Arcane Armour Proficiency feat has a much better chance of being able to cast magic while wearing heavy armour. In addition, the very heavens open up to a chorus of angels singing their praise of the author who spells "armour" correctly.

The Tools of the Trade takes a tour through the typical trappings of a wizard. Wizards can select either enchanted armoured robes or slyly designed robes with hidden pockets and the appearance of a miser's blanket. In the chapter you'll also find a brief study on useful equipment - like a walking stick, the ostentatious - like a mithral scrollcase, or the weird - such as the mindsharp drug for mages. Magical weapons, potions and staffs all find themselves with subsections of their own as well as one for generic magical items like the wire rimmed Goggles of Arcane Insight. An extremely cute idea is the list of wondrous items for wizards' familiars.

Spellbooks are such an important aspect of d20 Wizards that they have a chapter all for themselves; in fact it's a chapter on libraries and spellbooks. I have to admit that I'm not such a fan of the spellbook idea which is why I was pleased to see simple alternatives suggested. Rather than having a spellbook - why not an amulet? It can work in the same way, use a scroll to insert the spell but with the amulet you've a much sturdier adventuring accessory. A demonicly possessed amulet adds even more flavour to the game, it's ideal for demonologists every where and wouldn't it add an interesting touch to your campaign world if magic was only possible through the "assistance" of possessed gems. On the other hand you might like the spellbook idea but just wished they were a little more fancy and so you'll probably make a lot of use of the list of enhancements for them. Put enough books together and you'll end up with a library. There's more than you'll ever need on libraries in the Quintessential Wizard, rules on how to build them and on how to make the best use of them. A library is essentially an asset and a resource for any Wizard so the book adopts a rank based system that allows you to get a quick measure of them.

Most likely people would have been disappointed if there weren't a huge slew of new spells in a book dedicated to Wizards. There 18 new spells, perhaps not a huge slew of them but that's a few pages worth and more importantly you'll find that they're quality spells. They're spells with a meat on them, the Feast of Flesh necromantic spell, for example, is a bit like ghoul touch but has a rather morbid twist when it comes to deciding what to do with the bodies of those slain by the dark power.

Although the trusty wizard's staff had a mention in the tools of the trade chapter they're revisited later on in the book with a chapter all of their own. The Quintessential Wizard puts forth the idea that the wizard's staff is used as spell nexus, a special magical tool which allows for extra and improved spells. The idea is rather similar to the spell matrix from The Quintessential Rogue, similar but different - so that's spell matrix for Rogues and spell nexus for Wizards.

There are extra feats tucked away in the Wizard Mercenaries and Apprentices. You don't need to win over players to the ideas of having or being a wizard's bodyguard and so there's lots of extra power ups for them; even a whole prestige class. More space is required in the book to put forward an argument as to why a PC wizard might want an apprentice or want to be an apprentice over and above the access to more spells.

I like rules that backup gaming worlds. I happen to like the ideas of powerful wizards locking themselves away in towering libraries. Halfway through the book you'll find the rules on libraries and at the end of the book you'll find the weighty rules for towers. There really are pages of text and tables for wizards' towers; I'll summarize and say that they're similar to a great big magical item.

I like wizards and perhaps that's just enough to give the Quintessential Wizard the position as favourite issue for the Collector Series to date. It's a well designed, professionally presented and cleverly written book.

This GameWyrd review can be found here.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

"In addition, the very heavens open up to a chorus of angels singing their praise of the author who spells "armour" correctly."

Only correct in British English, not in American English mate . Sorry - couldn't resist.....

-Zarrock

 

[Voadam]

The Quintessential Wizard is a $19.95 128 page soft cover class sourcebook for wizards. It is published by Mongoose publishing and written by Mike Mearls.

The book is broken down into eight main chapters: character concepts, the prestige wizard, tricks of the trade, wizard feats, tools of the trade, spellbooks and libraries, spells, the wizard’s staff, mercenaries, apprentices, and towers.

Character concepts present twenty minor variations of the base wizard class to represent different traditions and approaches to wizardry. These are similar to 2nd edition kits and 3rd edition specialists, each offering some benefits and penalties to the base wizard class. These are intended to be traditions that define the wizard from apprenticeship to mastery of the craft. The benefits provided usually involve making some skills class skills, adding some divine spells to the wizard’s spell list, gaining a feat central to the concept, or bonus spells or bonuses to spells of a certain type. The drawbacks range from losing some of the wizard’s few class skills, barred access to a school, or losing the free scribe scroll feat or bonus feats. The concepts cover four basic elemental foci, a variation of many of the core classes, and some more standard scholarly wizard archetypes. The concepts are: academician (scholar), alchemist (potion specialist), entertainer (bard mage), exorcist (hunter of possessed people), arcane craftsman (crafting specialist), fortuneteller (divinations and cons), geomancer (earth magic), gutter mage (urban rogue/thief mage), investigator (urban ranger mage), knight of the staff (paladin mage), pyromancer (fire magic), sea mage (water and boats), summoner (enhanced summonings), tattoo mage (barbarian wizard), theologian (cleric wizard), theoretician (metamagics over skills and practicalities), war wizard (fighter wizard), wind mage (air magics), wizard hunter (wizard opponent specialist). Overall these seem balanced and provide good
templates for tweaking the core wizard to fit a concept or background better.

The prestige wizard provides seven prestige classes for wizards:
Arcane Avatar, a five level alternate archmage.
Arcane Avenger, a five level class devoted to fighting one type of foe.
Society of Atheists, a five level class with bonuses against the divine.
Spelleaters, a ten level class that gains spellcasting every other level but can steal spells from opponents.
Soulforger, a ten level class with its own spell list (including cure light wounds) that creates magical beasts with a lab and gp but no xp costs but goes progressively more insane with levels.
Sun Mage, a five level elven class with powers of sunlight and foes of darkness.
Wordbearer, a five level class with no spell advancement but progressively more potent power word abilities until the over the top power word annihilate (cone 10d6 save or 2d4 stat drain on every stat).
These fit fantasy and RPG niches and I could see creating organizations to support some of them or NPC/villain concepts that these would work well for.

Tricks of the Trade provides new uses for old spells, sample spell lists to support character concepts, and a very good set of ways to modify spell appearances with poor advice for a DM to integrate it into his campaign so that it is consistent and makes sense. The new uses did not seem that helpful even though I had not thought of some of them, the concept lists for basic choices seemed ok for novices and quick NPC design but not so useful for people with time or experience. It finishes up with quick rules for arcane chess and wizards duels with simple mechanics that require more than a single opposed die roll.

The chapter on wizard feats provide 28 for arcane casters. Scattered throughout the book attached to appropriate subject matter are 13 other feats, one restricted to the alchemist character concept, one for making magic spell books, one for making magic nexi, 8 wizard bodyguard feats, a variation of leadership for apprentices, and arcane geometry for making magical towers without spending xp.

Tools of the trade includes new items designed for wizards, both mundane and of the standard magical types. I particularly liked the nonmagical wizard armor which gives up 2 AC for 10% less spell failure, so you can enchant wizard’s leather to get those magical armor features you’ve wanted without spell failure. There are 6 weapon qualities, 3 specific weapons, 3 potions, 4 staves, 9 wondrous items, and 4 wondrous items for familiars.

Spellbooks and libraries add nice elements and options. The spellbooks section details variant spellbooks from bound demons and elementals to clay tablets or tattoos upon your underlings, and magical features to add to your spellbooks for protection or better functionality. The library rules set up a nice system for statting libraries and how to do research to gain virtual ranks from a library.

The spells chapter is fairly short with 18 spells that range from first to eighth level. Some of them are bard crossover spells and one is a ranger crossover as well.

The wizard’s staff chapter introduces a new type of item called an arcane nexus. Usually in the form of a staff, the nexus can hold a number of powers depending upon its size but must be wielded by its owner to be used. Unlike most items, a nexus only functions for the person it was crafted for. Nexi can be enchanted to transform daily slots pumped into it into specific spells, enhance spells its wielder casts, act as a spellbook, or a list of 7 wondrous features such as evasion on the casters own spells (for ground zero fireballs) or protection of the nexus.

The mercenary chapter should be called bodyguards for it is full of rules on getting bodyguards to protect a wizard, whether through the leadership feat or hiring off the street. It provides rules for hiring NPC warriors and fighters, their availability, level, prices, and loyalty. There is also a prestige class for professional wizard bodyguards and 8 feats for that purpose. The only downside here is that using deflect arrows as a prereq for blocking arrows with a shield means western bodyguards will all be martial artists. While these are good rules for wizards, they work well for anybody wanting to hire a bodyguard.

The apprentices chapter deals with attracting low level wizards to work for you in return for a little studying under you. The arcane tutor feat works like leadership but the mages are lower level and they pay you for the study. You can use your apprentices to do research, work on items, finish items you start, give you their low level spells, and do your mundane housework. In return two weeks every two months must be spent teaching them. The rules for cooperative item creation are bent a little bit for apprentices who don’t have prerequisites. The apprentices must make checks or face the arcane mishap chart which ranges from extra time or money required for an items completion to fireball explosions, monster summonings or permanent ability drain to the apprentices and losing the item. While it would have been nice to have rules for true apprentices instead of low level wizards, these seem to work and can add a sort of Ars Magica busy wizards working on down time feel to a D&D game.

Finally, there is the wizard’s tower, and rules for creating a truly magical abode with many features often seen in dungeons, modules or literature. The key feat here allows these features to be added to a construction project for gp costs and no xp. Features such as flying castles on clouds, gates to other planes or places, scrying chambers, protected rooms, underwater buildings, etc. The area a building is designed for often has elemental affinities that can affect magic done in it both beneficially and not.

On the whole I liked this sourcebook and felt it had a lot of good material to offer. I like the research rules, the options for spellbooks and towers, while the nexus I only rate as OK. The feats, items and spells are good as are the classes and concepts. A few rule areas were not clear but nothing that could not be fixed. I wish there was better section on advice for campaign implementation of the spell visuals as it is a good idea for making magic more personal and it has good individual examples.

There were errors that should have been caught in proofreading or spellchecking but it was still readable. I liked the small black and white art for the most part which is consistently about wizards and sometimes more connected to the specific subject at hand (libraries and towers). The quality of the art I rate as OK to very good with most being good.

Overall there is a lot that can be easily implemented, either with existing concepts (items, feats, classes and spells) or good easy new mechanics (research, new item types, hiring mercenaries and apprentices).

 

[The Sigil]

The Qunitessential Wizard is fourth book in Mongoose Publishing's series of race/class splatbooks.

OGC Designation: Hazy ("all rules-related text") but likely covers between one-half and two-thirds of the book.

First Impressions: Amazing what a four-year absence from "the continent" does for you. In leafing through this book and noting some of the female nudity (toplessness), I was reminded of something I learned during my years in Europe that I had forgotten - that Europeans in general are not nearly as body-conscious as Americans. To an American like myself, the pictures were gratuitous and unnecessary. However, since Mongoose is a European publisher, this probably didn't even register on their radar. A cultural thing, I guess. Funny that this is what my first impression was - a reminder that there are cultural differences, but ther you have it. Still, since AFAIK most of the RPG audience is in the U.S., for better or for worse, I have to deduct a little bit for "tackiness." Rules-wise, the Arcane Nexus rules jumped out at me as "really cool," followed closely in utility by the section on Towers. The art looks like typical Mongoose fare.

Initial Annoyances: One of the biggest failings of the Quintessential series in general is in layout - topics are not visually broken into nice, easy-to-digest chunks. This is something that a lot of publishers suffer with, and it is cause for points off on layout. Every new idea, every new ruleset, every big concept needs its own space and the division between concept one and concept two needs to be more pronounced. This rarely happens in the Quintessential Wizard - divisions come in the middle of pages and in roughly the same font size and lettering as subdivisions within a section, making it hard to tell sometimes where each new section begins. This overall trend may not bother some, but it did bother my eyes a little bit.

Content Breakdown:

The book begins with a section on "Character Concepts" - these are analagous to the Kits introduced in the Second Edition Complete Guide To... Series. I was never very high on the idea to begin with, because they are usually unbalanced and some of the earlier showings in the Quintessential Series continued to add to my mistrust. However, I have also seen a few that were very well done (from Mongoose and others), so I try to no longer dismiss them out of hand without examining them. The character concepts discussed in the Quintessential Wizard are not overly exciting, but are not obviously "out of balance" either. I don't really find these all that exciting, and would have liked to see the space used for something else, but there is some utility for new players to be found in these archetypes, and the mechanics are not awful. The section is reasonably short, too, a plus for me, because I wanted to get quickly to the rest of the stuff.

Of course, there is also the obligatory offering of Prestige Classes. Of these, I liked the Arcane Avatar (someone who uses magic so much that eventually it becomes part of his nature - or is that the other way around?) and to a lesser extent, the Word-bearer (think specialist in Power Word spells). I wasn't quite as high on the Soulforger and the Spelleater for PCs - but they could make for some wicked opponents. All in all, a pretty good group of classes here that touches on a diverse array of subjects, while maintaining the "wizardly" feel. Even though I liked the Arcane Avatar, I felt this was a concept more suited to sorcerors, though - I see sorcerors as those with magic coursing through their veins, while Wizards are simply skilled at "plucking the right magical strings" to create effects but are not actually suffused with magic.

I loved the section on creative spellcasting. Similar to a "new uses for old skills" section, this gives you a "new uses for old spells" - my favorite was using floating disc/levitate as a means of flying (read the section, I can't do it justice here) and the "rope-trick ambush trap" (set up a barbarian or caltrops or green slime or whatever in the extradimensional space created by rope trick, then "open" up the space when your victim walks under it). Wonderful job here on getting wacky (but not broken) results from simple spells - folks after my own heart!

Personalized Magic was something I could have done without, but which I suppose was geared for newbies rather than me. It basically discusses letting wizards choose audiovisual "themes" for their spells so long as the mechanical effect stays the same. It also gives guidelines on what spells can be chosen to reprsent a specific theme (including sample lists). I have always allowed wizards to do this, so I found it a bit redundant, but it's a good reminder that when Joe casts a teleport spell, it can (and maybe should) look different from when Bob casts a teleport spell.

The section on arcane duels and competitions is reminscent of Tournaments, Taverns, and Fairs - but smaller and more focused on arcane than general competitions. There are some nifty little ideas here, with fairly simple mechanics (a plus). Nothing earth-shattering, but a nice diversion when the PCs take a break in the local town and while the barbarian is getting drunk at the bar, the wizard asks, "so what do we DO at the wizards' college anyway?"

We then get a (mandatory) serving of Feats. There is nothing gamebreaking here (arcane senses, which allows the use of "detect magic" or "detect evil" or what have you at will, might be "overpowered" because it frees up valuable 0-level spell slots for combat - that was sarcasm - but is well within fantasy archetypes). Other Feats are reminiscent of some of the "good" stuff from Song & Silence (e.g., Machine Master, which allows you to use enchantment spells on constructs - normally immune to such stuff - reminds of Green Ear). There are a lot of nifty ideas here and I think it adds nicely to the variety that one expects from wizard characters.

The tools of the trade section didn't particularly excite me, but it's relatively short and these things ARE useful to the adventuring mage (at least, the mage whose DM does keep track of encumbrance, environmental conditions, etc).

I think Libraries and Spellbooks is meant to be a separate section from tools of the trade (though one could argue they are one and the same), and gives some new twists on the classic spellbook concept. The rules on libraries, which provide guidelines and mechanics on how to use them for research (mundane and magical) are a welcome addition to the system and fill a niche that was missing.

Also present is a section on spells (did you really think a book about wizards would lack this). Again, a nice selection of spells, but they do seem to be a little be on the combat-oriented side - a bit of a change from a book that for the most part was heavy on non-combat stuff.

The highlight of the book (for me) was the section on Arcane Nexuses (usually in the form of staves, but can be cloaks, rings, or other objects). An arcane nexus provides four different types of abilities - encoded abilities (which basically allow for the shuffling of 0th- and 1st- level spell slots - e.g., spend three 0-level spell slots to prepare a burning hands spell in the staff or spend a 1st-level spell slot for a daylong detect magic spell), spell enhancements (basically this is limited use of minor metamagic feats), spell repositories (a spellbook that only you can use and that lets you spontaneously cast stuff in the staff), and wondrous features (kind of a catchall for everything else - things like having spirits bound within the staff to give bonus to Knowledge Checks or the ability to call the staff to fly to your hand provided it is within 120 feet). This is a great addition to the wizard class, IMO. The only problem is that the staff doesn't exactly scale well as the character gains levels. While it is all but indispensable for a first to fifth level wizard, it becomes much less useful past about fifth or sixth level.

Sections on Mercenaries and Apprentices are next - those who surround a wizard. The mercenaries section felt like "filler" (wouldn't this have been more appropriate in a fighter or rogue book), but the apprentices section gives some decent reasons to have apprentices (while discussing the drawbacks). Apprentices can help in creating and researching stuff, for instance (just don't leave 'em unattended).

The section on towers is nice and gives the opportunity for a wizard to design a tower that "feels" right for him (with associated powers). It is not as strong as the Stronghold Builder's Guide, but then, it is part of a larger whole. This is a good section for when PCs decide to build their own towers, even if it feels a little bit table-intensive.

Presentation: As mentioned before, the presentation is a bit visually cluttered - sections are not visually distinct (by which I mean it's hard to tell where one ends and another begins). It's a typical Mongoose product in terms of art and text - if you like the way other Mongoose products are laid out, you'll like this. If you don't, you won't. It's that simple. I happen to slightly dislike the layout and art style.

Conclusion: A pretty solid product that does not try to do anything really new with the d20 system, but does do a pretty good job filling up some of the holes that exist in its handling of fantasy archetypes. This pushes the boundaries of the system a little bit in every direction, but does not push them very far in any one place. A solid, but not outstanding work that is an ever-so-slightly-below-average 4, in small part because the layout is a bit clumsy but mostly because it just lacks that "wow" factor that I feel a superb product has. This is solid stuff, but not "wow" stuff.

--The Sigil
November 6, 2002