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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Sigil" data-source="post: 2009673" data-attributes="member: 2013">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 SigilNovember 6, 2002</blockquote>

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