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ShortQuests -- Pocket Sized Adventures! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed for 1-2 game sessions.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="bramadan" data-source="post: 2008381" data-attributes="member: 1064">First of all let me say that of all d20 products so far the greatest disapointment for me were the Wizards classbooks. While not as unbalancing as the old 2ed classbooks they simply fail to expand my game in a way "Relics and Rituals" or "Traps and Treachery" do. It feels to me that rather then bursting with creative impulse, WotC folks are going through the motions, trying to accumulate enough material for the 96 page book. That said, there is usefull stuff in there, just nothing that will leave you impressed.Intro is just cut and paste from the previous books. Creating effective wizard is "hero's guide book" newbies material possibly usefull in general but boring for me. Familiars section I found usefull, it clears out some rules about familiars and (more importantly) introduces stats and info ona whole slew of additional ones, including, and I realy like this, imp, pseudo dragon and the other 1st ed favourites. This are now summonable through an "advanced familiar" feat, a single most valuable addition this book made to my particular campaign. Closeup on skills is again marginaly interesting, with no realy imaginative new uses. Wizardly organizations read like a filler. They are too all-encompassing to be easily insertable into anyones existing world (or into Greyhawk for that matter) and yet too generic to be an interesting addition to a world being freshly designed. On the topic of organizations, if there is to be such setting-specific material in a generic rules sourcebook I believe that it would make much more sense to make it specific to a particular setting, say Greyhawk. Inserting them in the other existing settings would not be any harder then it is now and them being grounded in a well described setting and having internal consistency with other organizations described would be a good example and as such much greater help to the aspiring world builders then what is provided as it is.Next is an eight page long section describing utterly uninteresting mages abode. It has no interesting features that would make it a memorable dungeon, and with its bathrooms, bedrooms and pantries it reads like an entry from the real estate agent's catalogue.    Feats are always nice to have if they are not unbalanced and ones in this book are not. This is a section that will see the good use in my campaign. in adittion to the said Advanced Familiar, Spell Specialization, Innate Spell and Sanctum Spell are probably most original new ideas here. Only objection here is a lack of any OGL credit to the Sword and Sorcery Studios for the Chain Spell feat which is practicaly copied from the R&R book.   If you have been reading my other reviews, by now you know what I think of prestige classes, WotC ones in particular. Nevertheless, altrough possibly not as unbalanced as the DoF ones prestige classes from this book appear remarkably pointless. - Acolyte of the Skin is a mage that dresses in living demon skin, not too bad and fairly balanced but, like the most of the WotC PG-rated treatment of Demon Lore lacks the evil and peril associated with traficking with the nether planes.  I am looking forward to "Demonology: the Dark Road" to give us much more intersting take on this.-Alienist is a some sort of the Chtulu worshiper. besides being overpowered (almost always the case when class gains the spell levels as fast as wizard and gets stuff on top of that) it makes the huge assumption of the existance of chtulu-like incredibly powerfull beings in the campaign world. As neither of WotC published campaign worlds has them explicitly I do ot know why do they assume that the people's own worlds will have them, especialy given that they are very much incompatible with traditional DnD plane based cosmology. As this sort of beings are not the something you suddenly introduce into your campaign cosmology at whim this class seems to me of a very limited use in a consistent campaign. -Arcane trickster would have been a good idea if there were any reason for a wizard meeting prerequisits not to multiclass into it. The wizardly feeats evey five levels one loses by doing so are more then made up by the improved BAB and the incredible thief like abilities gained on the every single level of this class. Fortunate thing is that the entry requirements for this one are somewhat steep so it still leaves the Hospitaler as the unquestionedly most unbalanced prestige class in d20. -Bladesinger is elven fighetr mage specialist.  As written, it is a bit too weak but interesting class. One given on the web enhance ment for T&B page is probably the best, and most interesting, prestige class in the book, except of course, that it is not in the book...-Blood magus is less elegant take on the Blood Witch from R&R.-Candle Caster is a fellow that casts spells out of the candles that behave like the scrolls and potions. Besides being rather silly concept class is seriously overpowered. Again, the loss of a few mage feats (one every five levels) is supossed tomake up for a whole slew of oddball but rather powerfull abilities.-Dragon Disciple is something for those who realy wanted to play a half dragon but their DM did not let them. I knew at the outset i am not going to be using this one so I did not bother to check its balance. That said, I can see it being used in some campaigns, it is probably a better class then most in this book despite being relatively obscure. -Elemental savant is an overpowered class that deals with elenents and elementals (same problem as above regarding class abilities). -Fatespinner is a fairly interesting fellow, he messes arround with fate and probablities at the cost of the slower advnacement in his Arcane Spells. I believe that the class is roughly balanced and is usable in the settings in which workings of Fate are not already well established elements (As in Greyhawk where it would be very hard to imagine thius class as anything other then the specialty priests of Istus).-Mage of Arcane order is supposed to be an academician wizard, a good idea for the prestige class but botched in this case by overpowerdness (again, same principle at work) and a HUGE assumption about the campaign setting - namely the existance of a powerfull and ubiquitous organization of such wizards. Inserting this prestige class into an existing campaign or campaign world without huge upheaval seems to me neigh impossible. -Mindbender is some sort of an arcane psonicist.-Pale master and True Necromancer are respectively, underpowered and overpowered version of the same thing. Similar to the Acolyte of the Skin, neither of them goes beyond rather vanila flavoured approach to necromancy. Crypt Lord from the R&R is a little bit more succesfull solution to this old problem of simulating traditional wizard-necromancers in D&D game but i believe that the definitive answer is going to be given in the Moongooses "Necromancy: beyond the Grave" book.-Spellsword is outright usefull and balanced class. It is a probably best rendering of a general fighter/mage so far. It balances against the fighter by losing the extra feats and against the wizard by only gaining new spells every second level. It has good abilities of its own and I can see it as second only to Bladesinger as the lasting legacy of this bok in people's campaigns. -Wayfarer is a teleportation specialst. I personaly find it unnecessary given the fact that wizard can take a lot of metamiagic feats improving his teleportation abilities but there is little harm in this class.Mundane items section is short and almost absolutely useless, being a smaller version of one or two dragon articles. Magic items are largely just variations on the two themes, Metamagic Rods (they let you metamagic your spells at the cost of rod charges) and Schools Staffs (that collect several most popular spells from each school).Part of the spell chapter prior to the listing of the new spells I have (to my own surprise) found interesting. It gives useful guidelines on researching the new spells on using the spells offensively and on that favourite cantrip of my parties wizard - the prestdigitation. New spells, again, are always usefull and the ones in this book are not an exception. There is suprisingly few of them and there is a lot of repetition in so called spell groops but the spells that are there are worthvile addtiopns to the campaign. That the WotC class books are to short and too soft-covered to justify the price has been said many times by now. Art is standard for the WotC publication, which is to say it is very good. Editting is above average except for the Bladesinger botchup but the prose is dry and boring, especialy compared with some other d20 products of lately. Usefull material is outweighted by lots of filler space but yet there is enough of it that i can not bring myself to give this book less then 3 as its grade. However, I have to state that it is in my oppinion the weakest of the WotC 3ed products I have purchased so far.</blockquote>

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