JoeGKushner
Adventurer
This review was made possible by Gaming Frontiers
Way of the Staff takes all of the magic based classes, feats and races from Arcana Unearthed and puts them into a separate PDF file. Like Way of the Sword, there's no effort made to incorporate it into the d20 system, as this is a straight pull from Arcana Unearthed, giving the use skills and feats that may not fit into the standard campaign.
It starts with a short story, revealing how the Way of the Staff came to be in focus, mirroring the short story in Way of the Sword, before moving into the races. I was very surprised to see the fey like Faen in this book as they're presented in Way of the Sword. Then I realized, it's the sub-race of Faen that's different as this one presents the Loresong and Way of the Sword presents the Quickling. Still, the metamorphosis of a Faen into a Spryte is reprinted in both books with racial traits and racial levels duplicated.
More impressive is the Mojh, a former human that's become a humanoid dragon. These creatures do not have the strength of those great beasts, but have some of their intelligence with a bonus to that stat. Ironically, they're frail with a -2 to Con. The Mojh can take racial levels that give them more dragon like abilities including the ability to detect magic, breath weapon and hardened scales. It'd be the race Mojh without racial levels with benefits like that.
The final race covered is the Verrik, red skinned humans who are wise and have minor psionic abilities. It's when they take their racial levels that those abilities begin to blossom.
Now for the Classes, we have five choices: Akashic, Greenbond, Magister, Runethan and Witch. The bad news is that the spellcasting classes, everything but the Akashic, rely on the spell system found in Arcana Unearthed or the Grimoire. The other bad news is that there are no conversion notes for a standard d20 game.
The Akashic is the skill-master of the game. With a d6 hit dice, they shouldn't get into combat much, but with their medium attack progression and ability with martial weapons and all standard armors, there's really no reason why a fully armored and armed Akashic couldn't be a formidable opponent in his own right. This becomes even more true if the Akashic is concentrating his special abilities into being more of a threat in melee. Unlike most standard d20 classes, Akashics gain special abilities of that aren't set in stone,almost like bonus feats. Among those powers are actual bonus feats, Sneak Attack, Battle Memory (bonus to attack, damage, and dodge bonus to AC), and other good stuff that makes this class really stand out. A few things refer to spell like abilities from the Grimoire, but on its own, this class is probably the most playable straight out of this book.
I've heard a few of my friends describe the Greenbond as either Druid's done right, or as a D&D version of the Swamp Thing. This class focuses on the Green, a living force that represents life and is opposed to the Dark, another force that, yes, is focused on death and decay. They gain abilities that range from speaking with spirits, to merging with plants. While there is no true cleric or healer in this book, the Greenbond do have some ability to heal which will help any party.
Now the Magister is the core spellcasting class here, the AU version of the Wizard, and is very similar with bonus feats. While lacking a familiar companion, they get a Magister's Staff, the heart of their power. Without this staff, their abilities are weakened and they must forge another to replace it. This is a fairly classic motif, the wizard and his staff and Monte does a good job with it here. Another impressive ability is the Magister's supernatural powers like Aspect of Power-lesser and greater, where the Magister can select an ability to showcase his mastery of magic like floating off the ground or casting a 0 level spell as an innate spell.
The Runethane and Witch cover other aspects of the d20 game not covered in the core rules, but covered in other d20 products. The Runethane specializes in crafting runes while the Witch is a spellcaster with innate abilities, selecting a field from among iron, mind, sea, wind, winter and wood, and then specialize in manifesting the powers in different ways. The Witch is probably the most diverse class here and presents the user many options to specialize their characters from the get go without any PrC enabling a whole party of witches to each be as different as the players want.
The book ends with feats. There is some overlap with Way of the Sword, Flyby Attack, Skill Application, Skill Mastery, Sturdy, and Wealthy to name a few. Good if you only own one file, bad if you own both. Same with the full page picture of a giant performing a ceremony. It's a good picture but I really don't need it in two spots.
The Feats here are based around augmenting spellcasters. For example, Aid Spellcasting is similar to the aid another standard action in that you're helping another person, in this case, giving the spell a +1 DC or a +1 to the Caster Level. Some of the stuff however, refers to outside sources like BattleMage, Blessed Mage, Corrupt Mage, Eldritch Training, Exotic Spells, Hunter Mage, and others, where it refers you directly to Arcana Unerathed so what good is it and why is it in this separate book?
Cry Havok is a 136 page book that as a PDF, goes for $13. Why then, separate the magic based classes from the system that needs them? It's a 51 page product for $8 and the Grimoire is a 93 page book at $11. It'd be a stretch, making it a 144 page book, but there was repeated material from the Way of the Sword in Way of the Staff, so it could be broken down to a 136 page book. To really use this, you either have to own that Grimoire or Arcana Unearthed. So if you bought all three PDFs to get the maximum use out of them, it'll run you $27. Unless you take advantage of the sale, in which case it's a much more reasonable $18 for the PDF bundle.
Because no effort was made to integrate this book into the standard d20 system, the core classes utility is suspicious at best, cutting deeply into it's use. Because it reprints not only a race, and feats and art from Way of the Sword, it's originality and utility are diminished. Because it includes the Akashic here, and Way of the Sword includes the Mage Blade, there is some question to why those classes were placed as they were. An Akashic that concentrates on gaining memories of war or sneak attack can be a formidable warrior in it's own right as opposed to the Mage Blade, which needs the Grimoire to operate at 100% capacity.
Since this is being sold as a separate product more effort should've been made to integrate this into the standard d20 library and that it should stand on its own. If you own the Grimoire or are planning on buying all three, it's a good book but on it's own, it's utility is vastly diminished.
Way of the Staff takes all of the magic based classes, feats and races from Arcana Unearthed and puts them into a separate PDF file. Like Way of the Sword, there's no effort made to incorporate it into the d20 system, as this is a straight pull from Arcana Unearthed, giving the use skills and feats that may not fit into the standard campaign.
It starts with a short story, revealing how the Way of the Staff came to be in focus, mirroring the short story in Way of the Sword, before moving into the races. I was very surprised to see the fey like Faen in this book as they're presented in Way of the Sword. Then I realized, it's the sub-race of Faen that's different as this one presents the Loresong and Way of the Sword presents the Quickling. Still, the metamorphosis of a Faen into a Spryte is reprinted in both books with racial traits and racial levels duplicated.
More impressive is the Mojh, a former human that's become a humanoid dragon. These creatures do not have the strength of those great beasts, but have some of their intelligence with a bonus to that stat. Ironically, they're frail with a -2 to Con. The Mojh can take racial levels that give them more dragon like abilities including the ability to detect magic, breath weapon and hardened scales. It'd be the race Mojh without racial levels with benefits like that.
The final race covered is the Verrik, red skinned humans who are wise and have minor psionic abilities. It's when they take their racial levels that those abilities begin to blossom.
Now for the Classes, we have five choices: Akashic, Greenbond, Magister, Runethan and Witch. The bad news is that the spellcasting classes, everything but the Akashic, rely on the spell system found in Arcana Unearthed or the Grimoire. The other bad news is that there are no conversion notes for a standard d20 game.
The Akashic is the skill-master of the game. With a d6 hit dice, they shouldn't get into combat much, but with their medium attack progression and ability with martial weapons and all standard armors, there's really no reason why a fully armored and armed Akashic couldn't be a formidable opponent in his own right. This becomes even more true if the Akashic is concentrating his special abilities into being more of a threat in melee. Unlike most standard d20 classes, Akashics gain special abilities of that aren't set in stone,almost like bonus feats. Among those powers are actual bonus feats, Sneak Attack, Battle Memory (bonus to attack, damage, and dodge bonus to AC), and other good stuff that makes this class really stand out. A few things refer to spell like abilities from the Grimoire, but on its own, this class is probably the most playable straight out of this book.
I've heard a few of my friends describe the Greenbond as either Druid's done right, or as a D&D version of the Swamp Thing. This class focuses on the Green, a living force that represents life and is opposed to the Dark, another force that, yes, is focused on death and decay. They gain abilities that range from speaking with spirits, to merging with plants. While there is no true cleric or healer in this book, the Greenbond do have some ability to heal which will help any party.
Now the Magister is the core spellcasting class here, the AU version of the Wizard, and is very similar with bonus feats. While lacking a familiar companion, they get a Magister's Staff, the heart of their power. Without this staff, their abilities are weakened and they must forge another to replace it. This is a fairly classic motif, the wizard and his staff and Monte does a good job with it here. Another impressive ability is the Magister's supernatural powers like Aspect of Power-lesser and greater, where the Magister can select an ability to showcase his mastery of magic like floating off the ground or casting a 0 level spell as an innate spell.
The Runethane and Witch cover other aspects of the d20 game not covered in the core rules, but covered in other d20 products. The Runethane specializes in crafting runes while the Witch is a spellcaster with innate abilities, selecting a field from among iron, mind, sea, wind, winter and wood, and then specialize in manifesting the powers in different ways. The Witch is probably the most diverse class here and presents the user many options to specialize their characters from the get go without any PrC enabling a whole party of witches to each be as different as the players want.
The book ends with feats. There is some overlap with Way of the Sword, Flyby Attack, Skill Application, Skill Mastery, Sturdy, and Wealthy to name a few. Good if you only own one file, bad if you own both. Same with the full page picture of a giant performing a ceremony. It's a good picture but I really don't need it in two spots.
The Feats here are based around augmenting spellcasters. For example, Aid Spellcasting is similar to the aid another standard action in that you're helping another person, in this case, giving the spell a +1 DC or a +1 to the Caster Level. Some of the stuff however, refers to outside sources like BattleMage, Blessed Mage, Corrupt Mage, Eldritch Training, Exotic Spells, Hunter Mage, and others, where it refers you directly to Arcana Unerathed so what good is it and why is it in this separate book?
Cry Havok is a 136 page book that as a PDF, goes for $13. Why then, separate the magic based classes from the system that needs them? It's a 51 page product for $8 and the Grimoire is a 93 page book at $11. It'd be a stretch, making it a 144 page book, but there was repeated material from the Way of the Sword in Way of the Staff, so it could be broken down to a 136 page book. To really use this, you either have to own that Grimoire or Arcana Unearthed. So if you bought all three PDFs to get the maximum use out of them, it'll run you $27. Unless you take advantage of the sale, in which case it's a much more reasonable $18 for the PDF bundle.
Because no effort was made to integrate this book into the standard d20 system, the core classes utility is suspicious at best, cutting deeply into it's use. Because it reprints not only a race, and feats and art from Way of the Sword, it's originality and utility are diminished. Because it includes the Akashic here, and Way of the Sword includes the Mage Blade, there is some question to why those classes were placed as they were. An Akashic that concentrates on gaining memories of war or sneak attack can be a formidable warrior in it's own right as opposed to the Mage Blade, which needs the Grimoire to operate at 100% capacity.
Since this is being sold as a separate product more effort should've been made to integrate this into the standard d20 library and that it should stand on its own. If you own the Grimoire or are planning on buying all three, it's a good book but on it's own, it's utility is vastly diminished.
