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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2009908" data-attributes="member: 18387">By Bruce Boughner, Staff Reviewer, d20 Magazine Rack and Co-host of Mortality Radio Sizing Up the Target The Witch’s Handbook is a 62-page soft cover accessory published by Green Ronin and is the latest in their series of Master Class supplements. Steve Kenson, co-author of Lords of the Peaks, penned this Handbook. The cover is by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law and Drew Baker and Storn Cook join her on the interior art duties and it retails for $14.95.First Blood While I was really waiting on the Witches supplement by Jean Rabe and Citizen’s Games, this gem came out first and being a Green Ronin product, I couldn’t resist. What can I say; I’ve yet to have a bad Ronin project and this is no exception. The book opens on the indicia page acknowledging that they are using Sword & Sorcery’s ritual rules as the basis for some of their work. Mr. Kenson, kudos to all, this co-operation is exactly what d20 is all about. The Witch core class opens the book, followed by 5 prestige classes, now this might seem light, but each one is very well-developed and fills a niche for a campaign that might feature witches, good or bad (anyone want to go to Oz?). No distinction is made for male or female characters, but the old adage about male witches being warlocks is briefly touched upon. Humans and halflings, gnomes and orcs and other humanoids are given the nod as ‘common’ witches; elves and dwarves are considered ‘rare’ with half-elves being given more latitude. Class skills and class starting packages round out the chapter before moving onto multi-classed witches. As one might anticipate, clerics, druids, bards and rangers are the most common combinations. Monks, paladins, warriors and wizards are restricted while rogues and sorcerers are considered to be uncommon for pairing up with the class. Some sample witches at low, mid and high levels follow this. The prestige classes cover an interesting range of abilities, the evil Infernal witch, the shaman-like Shaper, the Hag, the Priest/Priestess and the Witches’ Champion. Each one comes with it’s own set of skills (well defined) and sample characters, also at low, medium and higher levels. Traditions of the Witch follow the classes. Initiation, Apprenticeship and Rites of Passage are delineated, but not to such an extent that an uber-christian, (who is likely to damn the book anyway), could condemn the book in any logical way. Covens and coven structure, coveys and the Witches religion are touched upon in a way that does not violate the senses of the religious right but still impart enough information that a character or DM has enough to go on to create their own for a campaign. A short treatise on Witches in a campaign rounds out the first chapter, how to insert them and how to utilize them. And this, being a Green Ronin book has a section on how to insert and use them into a Freeport, City of Adventure campaign. Skills and Feats are the emphasis of Chapter Two. A heavy concentration on the benign skills is giving, herbology, fortune-telling, and healing as skills. And a similar bent is taken on feats, with feats in the above categories, but adding some meta-magic and shape-changing stunts as well. Chapter Three foci is the tools of the trade, herbs and poisons, ritual tools like the Athame, cauldron, candles, etc and the products of such makings, alchemical results. Then it launches into one of my favorite crunchy bits, magic items, a weapon, candles, a slew of potions, benign and malignant, wands and rods, bunch of the weird stuff like magic cauldrons, masks and then cursed items (Sleeping Beauty run like the wind!) Apples of Eternal Sleep are here, among others. Chapter Four gets into any spell-tosser’s meat and potatoes, the spells. Rules for Rituals, Circle Magic, Lunar Magic and Places of Power precede the actual enchantments. Twenty new spells are added to spells garnered from the core PHB and the Pocket Grimoire series. The book closes with a customary specialized character sheet. Critical Hits As the first of the three books on Witches on the market I’m going to acquire (Mongoose’s Quintessential Witch and Citizen Games' Way of the Witch being the other two), like I said, I’ve yet to find a bad Ronin project. And this was no exception. As a history buff and also well-read on the subject matter, I found this to be very informative and not very repetitive of other magery books. The classes here are well thought out, they add new dimension to a low to medium level campaign or one with early to mid medieval settings. The cross of good and bad witches works well for those wanting to pursue a Grimm’s fairy tale-like campaign. Critical Misses I found very little that was bad in this book, it’s full of crunchy bits that everyone likes. If I could fault it at all, it’s that I want more, a couple more classes, maybe relationships with monsters and the like and more items and spells. Coup de Grace The Witches Handbook is one that is going to stand out in a crowd of similar products. Mongoose’s more is better policy as yet hasn’t hindered their quality and I haven’t seen Rabe’s book yet but they are going to be hard-pressed to top this one. Definitely worth the price of admission.To see the graded evaluation of this product, go to The Critic's Corner at <a href="http://www.d20zines.com" target="_blank">www.d20zines.com.</a></blockquote>

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