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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2673368" data-attributes="member: 1129">A compilation worthy of Arcana EvolvedTranscendenceA Player’s CompanionWritten by Mike MearlsPublished by Malhavoc PressISBN: 1-58846-788-0Stock Number: WW1614996 b & w pages$19.99One of the things I enjoy about the new edition of D&D is that it’s closer to a point buy system then ever. While it’s still not quite in the league of Hero or GURPS, the changes in the new edition like easier multi-classing, feats, and more recent additions like racial substitution levels and racial paragon levels, give players more control over their characters than ever before.Monte Cook took that attitude and kicked it up another notch by making the core classes in his alternative player’s handbook, Arcana Evolved, with even more flavor and more importantly, more options. You could play one core class like a champion or a witch and have different abilities based on decisions made at character creation. It took concepts like the ranger’s fighting style to a new level.But what if that wasn’t enough for you? That’s where Transcendence comes in. Written by Mike Mearls with art by Scott Purdy, the art and writing go hand in hand in a showcase of superior product. While layout is simple in terms of being two-column, it’s easy on the eyes with no fancy borders trying to box the text in.So what do you get in Transcendence? The book is broken up into five chapters. It starts with evolved classes. Here, each attribute, like strength, is given an evolved class. These classes aren’t tied into any specific race, unlike racial levels or evolved racial levels, but they have something in common with the latter. See, these levels are the result of the dragon’s using the tenebrian seeds on flesh, molding it to their whim.These classes are focused on improving the ability in question and have other benefits that might be associated with them. For example, a strength evolution class can call upon a power surge gaining a +6 to strength for five rounds, but at the end of that, suffering a –4 penalty to strength. The character also evolves into large size, as well as strength bonuses.It’s a good section and can augment the options to a campaign six ways to Sunday. Even nicer is that some of these drawings by Scott Purdy, have miniatures based on them like the mojh with the intelligence evolution class. A good deal for those who like their illustrations to match their miniatures.Chapter two provides new character options. The first of these, is a new core class, the totem speaker. This twenty level PrC uses a d8 for hit dice, has a medium bab progression, good will save, poor fortitude and reflex, and has special abilities that tie it not only to the green, but to its totem. In addition, the class also has access to simple spells. They gain access to other spells depending on the animal forms they master. It’s an interesting new class but it’s not my type.Instead, I’m more interesting in the replacement levels. While on the surface similar to racial substitution levels, these are a little more interesting in that it’s for the class to give the class a bit more variety as opposed to showcasing how a particular race approaches a class. In addition to these replacement levels, each class also has some other goods like new feats. Let’s look at one of my favorites, the mage blade. A common concept not found in the core rules, the mage blade is a fighter with some spellcasting abilities. We have four replacement levels for the giants here and their particular variant of mage blade, the masters of the blade song. They gain different bladesong supernatural abilities to use such as the song of victory that allows the giant to grant his allies a +2 morale bonus on attacks, checks, and saves. In many ways, these abilities remind me of a bard’s song abilities. But not everyone is going to want to play such a character and some might be going, “Joe, you just said that these replacement levels are for every race.” Well yes, but not all of them. For example, while bladesong is limited to giants, the eldritch blade is not. These individuals start off by gaining eldritch athame, an ability that allows them to reshape their mage blade into a different form. They continue gaining ways of augmenting their athame such as spending spell slots into the athame to grant it extra power, providing a bonus equal to half the spell’s level on attack and damage rolls that last a number of rounds equal to the spell slot’s level.Keeping on the martial track, how about the unfettered? Here they have different fighting academies, each with their own abilities. For example, those who want speed would take the bleeding wind, while those who want offense, would take the heart seeker replacement levels. These replacement levels must be taken in order and you have to take all of them if you want to take the higher-level replacement levels, as that’s a requirement. The special abilities of these replacement levels are the abilities to access different forms, from first to fifth form, each form granting a better ability.For example, the steel tornado style starts off with rain of steel. The unfettered losses his strength bonus on damage rolls but can make one additional attack at his highest base attack bonus as part of a full attack action. When you get up to fifth form, you can use the full attack action and move up to your normal move before or after your attack. The warmain is another fun class to look over. See, while I mentioned things like replacement levels and feats, there are a few PrCs scattered through the text. In this case, we have the ironmain. This five level PrC makes the character into a suit of living armor whose physical abilities, like strength and constitution continue to grow, as does his natural armor and ability to use his spikes on his natural armor, as natural weapons.Chapter three gives us runic affinity feats. Here you take a ceremonial feat that has the ruinic affinity type, all requiring the character to have a true name, and gain different abilities that are related to your rune. For example, the fire rune gives it’s linked master several benefits like making unarmed attacks that do fire damage or letting your flames flow down your weapon to inflict extra fire damage or even igniting ranged weapons.Chapter four moves on to Tylonian equipment. Almost living material, the Tylonian crystals are able to bond with the user. Information on what armor types can be made from the material, as well as weapon properties, is included for ease of game play. For example, Tylonian weapons adopt their users tendencies becoming what its user desires. For example, a warmain may wield it as a greatsword while a barbarian may use it as a greataxe. To get the most use from it however, you have to take the feat, Wielding Tylonian Weapons, which allows you to have proficiency with them and allow you to shape them and gain the maximum benefits from it, including unique forms designed to augment your fighting style.Chapter five, magic evolved, uses the replacement levels to showcase how different spellcasters may approach magic. There are three levels that can be taken, and each one gives the caster casting style abilities from first through third style. Imagine you’ve substituted some levels to gain fire-casting style. Here you start off with the ability to light a torch or do that fire damage, similar to the fire rune from before. As your abilities grow, you can do more with the flame. For example, at second style, you gain fire resistance 10 and don’t take damage from your own fire spells. When you reach third style, you can add air and fuel into a spell with the fire descriptor which can potentially set its targets aflame for 1d10 minutes.While the book doesn’t have a true index, it does have a feat index. This includes feat name, in alphabetical order, page number, categories, prerequisite, and benefit. Having the page number is a great idea, and companies should remember to do this when say, listing monster’s by challenge rating so that the device they’re putting in to save time, actually you know, saves time.The book is packed with options. It’s like they watched the books coming out in the Complete line and took the cream of the crop in terms of ideas and utility and placed all that in one book with a minimum of wasted ideas. Want to expand your ritual warrior? Try the new exotic combat rites. Want to forsake your essence and become a living oath? Then look up the Living Oath PrC. The book doesn’t have all the fluff that recent WoTC books have had for their PrCs in terms of knowledge checks, example NPCs, and other details, like adopting it to a generic world. Because it’s a sourcebook not only for Arcana Evolved but the Diamond Throne, that’s not an issue. And for many, having pregenerated NPCs is a waste of space.If you’re playing Arcana Evolved and want to expand your options, Transcendence should be the first thing on your shopping list.</blockquote>

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