Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Voadam" data-source="post: 2009168" data-attributes="member: 2209">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).</blockquote>

Verification