Why So many Wu jen only spell

[TheAuldGrump]

The 'too much attention to a niche character' nature of the book is what made me put it back on the shelf at the bookstore.

I like Oriental Adventures just fine. But when I want a supplement for OA I will buy a supplement for OA. As is it makes two of the four Complete books that I have skipped, Adventurer looks just fine, and Warrior was okay, but the two magic oriented books just did not float my boat at all.

The Auld Grump, and I like Arcane spellcasters dang it!

 

[Stone Angel]

I wish that it wasn't the case because there are some awesome spells in there. I think part of it is for flavor and maybe that since the Warlock has his invocations so they wanted to give the Wu Jen something unique also


The Seraph of Earth and Stone

 

[BigAlzBub]

Wu Jen are basically elemental spell casters (although they have an extra element: wood (for some reason)), the reason that so many of the spells are Wu Jen only is so that when you fight a Wu Jen you don't really know what to expect, when you fight a normal spell caster you expect to be fireballed or magic missiled, etc, but with the Wu Jen until you are familiar with them you just never know what's up their sleeve. If the spells were availble to wizards by default then some of the mystery would be gone, and as zoroaster100 pointed out a wizard/sorcerer could easily reseach that spell (possibly at a higher level) after they have been exposed to them. I don't know, first people complain that D&D 3.x has no flavour, and then when WotC gives you some you moan about it

 

[Shallown]

What do all of you think about allowing the spells as regular Sorc/Wizif the GM has already disallowed any oriental flavored classes such as the Wu-Jen and nijna?

 

[BigAlzBub]

Make your case to the GM. As a GM I would only allow you have such spells if you had some background reason for it, or if you had witnessed such spells firsthand, YMMV.

 

[azmodean]

I think they should be allowed, if at all on a spell-by-spell basis, I certainly wouldn't just tell my arcane casters that here is a whole new pile of spells they can use. Oh, and IMC they would have to research them seperately, and I don't mean the two spells wizards "research" for free per level.

 

[Plane Sailing]

The 'too much attention to a niche character' nature of the book is what made me put it back on the shelf at the bookstore.

...snip...

and I like Arcane spellcasters dang it!

This was my experience also, sadly

 

[kingamy]

I was looking at the spells in the Complete Arcane and I notise that almost half of the new (well new and recycled) spells where for Wu jen exclusively.

They seem to be perfectly good spell for Sor/Wiz list.

Many of them seem appropriate for Druids as well (or instead).

Mike

 

[Voadam]

In my campaign I'm thinking of having wu jens as just a different specialization of wizard and all their spells port onto the wiz/sorc list.

Heck my 2e mage had a bunch of 1e OA spells and he made the conversion to 3e and we've allowed him spells from the 3e OA such as ice knife, magnetism, steam breath, and elemental burst. They are not the best spells but it adds a little flavor from his time learning magic in an OA setting.

I haven't read over the wu jen in depth, any problems with making them wiz specialists?

 

[Doctor Shaft]

So... you're saying you love the Wu Jen spells... but you'd never play an oriental guy to get them? Why not... just play a Wu Jen?