Complete Mage: A Player's Guide to All Things Arcane (D&D Supplement) [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

The Complete Mage is full of interesting tidbits from the feats to the prestige classes to the items and spell. Like the first four "Complete" books it contains ways of adding something, in this case Arcane Magic, to many different kinds of characters. Unlike earlier books though there are no additional base classes.

The first section of the book offers advice on mages and how to play them. Some of the advice is interesting and useful ... but some of it is outright bad. If you are new to playing mages I would speak with a more experienced player before blinding following something you read here.

Next up are the feats. This section offers some really fun things but by far the biggest innovation is the concept of "Reserve" feats. These feats add staying power to arcanists. These feats grant an arcane spellcaster the ability to use an at will supernatural ability as long as they have a spell of a certain type memorized. The higher level the spell the more powerful the ability is. So the spellcaster can use the ability granted by the feat through an adventuring day ... until he is forced to cast the spell that powers it, and even then they will get a small bonus from the feat. Essentially casters get to have their cake and eat it too with these feats. For those games where casters are always running out of spells these feats are great! There are plenty of other feats too, including one that speeds up metamagic use for spontaneous casters, one that enables casting while holding a weapon in hand, some Wu Jen specific feats, and more. The heritage feats, especially the Fey Heritage feats bear mention. They aren't as well developed as the Dragon Heritage feats are now but there is some good stuff here. Overall this section is really well done and I wouldn't hesitate to use anything from it in my games.

After the feats is a section containing Prestige Classes. Of special note for fans of the Warlock class introduced in the Complete Arcane, there are 3 Warlock prestige classes and all three have me itching to play them. Outside of the Items section this is the one that contains the most problems. Right off the bat is the Abjurant Champion, a powerful class that is destined to be used in ways that the creator undoubtedly did not intend. It was obviously designed to be used by Fighters who had dipped into Wizard ... but is far more useful for pure Wizards since it's too easy to qualify for. Full BAB, d10 HD, full casting, and some powerful special abilities in 5 levels makes it a no brainer for an mage who sees melee from time to time. The Lyric Theurge also has major problems. First off we already have a PrC for the "spellcasting Bard" ... namely the Sublime Chord from the Complete Arcane ... the Lyric Theurge fairs poorly in comparison to it. But then when you read the flavor text it quickly becomes apparent that this was originally a dual progression Bard / other arcane caster PrC when first written but that it was changed too quickly at some point in development. To me this PrC is a clear sign that Wizards of the Coast is trying to publish too fast these days. As is the class is a waste of text.

The next section contains fun new spells for Hexblades, Wu Jen, and more in addition to Wizards and Sorcerers. It also contains some nifty new Warlock Invocations. Mostly these are all good though a few are potentially abuseable. In particular the Sorcerer spells for casting multiple spells must be examined with care by a DM before letting them into a game.

I had to pick my jaw up off the floor after I got finished looking at the items in the book. While as a player I would love to have most of them I think that DMs should be very leery of many of them. In particular several items seemed woefully inexpensive considering what they do. For example "Heward's Fortifying Bedroll" let's wizards get away with 1 hour of sleep instead of 8 for only 3000 gp. What caster wouldn't want one? The Spellguard Rings for 4000 gp don't seem out of line for what they were intended ... keeping a teammate from being toasted by your fireball ... but open up huge abuse potential with spells like Evard's Black Tentacles or even Antimagic Field. Use this section with care!

The remainder of the book is mostly fluff ... and it's not bad at all. Interesting ideas, mostly for DMs, but some for players as well can be found here. The idea of some of the magical locations intrigued me.

Overall I gave this book four stars out of five mostly because I will be able to use so much of the book in my games. However I strongly feel that this book could have been a lot better if it had been given some more editing and playtesting. Flaws like the Lyric Theurge and some of the abuseable items made me seriously consider dropping it further but were balanced out by some of the things that I really really liked.

Reading the first chapter, I was pleasantly surprised to see how the fundamentals are laid down; a quick overview of the differences between arcane magic, divine and innate magic. Then some slightly more in depth than Player's Guide articles on the various spellschools and finally very nice to read the various archetypes. I especially liked the miniguides that accompanied the archetypes, which explain why you should or shouldn't select certain spells or feats. Very nice for me anyway, because I'm not too experienced and the thought processes described really helped me think for myself.

An intriguing chapter 2 'Character Options' has a section 'Alternative Class Features' which describes how you can modify and augment some specific class. For example there's an alternative class feature called 'Spell Sense' for barbarians or rogues that allows you to swap the trap sense class features for an extra dodge bonus to your AC against spells. It adds some more options for you as player.

Then there's a section about a new type of feat: the Reserve Feat. Ofcourse the other types are still described - like heritage and tactical feats - and added feats for, but reserve feats are feats that provide secondary effects for spells you carry. For example "Acidic Splatter" allows you to cast a lower level orb of acid as long as you have an 2nd+ level acidic spell available to cast. There are various kinds of secondary effects for different feats way (including traveling plains at will). In addition to this secondary effect, most reserve feats add an extra competence bonus for castingtype-related spells. The general idea behind reserve feats is to be able to use your innate magical potential in more encounters without using your spell slots with every cast. It's like there suddenly many shades of gray between the extremes 'cast a spell' and 'don't cast a spell'. Also, they can't be countered, fail, ignore spell resistance and don't need any components.

Then there are ofcourse a handful of prestiege classes and a basket full of new spells as well as some items. I won't go into those; you can probably find those reviews anywhere on the Internet already. Plus, I'm not the guy for that anyway.

Finally there's the chapter for DM's that contains a list of hundred arcane based adventure ideas, and describes various arcane related game facets such as magic item shops, mercenary spellcasters, crafting, creature born of magic experiments and whatnot. In addition, there are the 'magical locations' as treasure, which basically states a magical location somehow made available to the player characters that in itself is the treasure because of the specialness and rewards that come from it. There are a number of predescribed magical locations ready for you to use accompanied by some maps.

Conclusion:
All in all, not everything is new and half of the book is the usual fluff. But combined with the various new features and options it makes for a nice book to join your collection. No unusual well writing or rich background history and characterization (though the archetype section does provide some), just straight up information... mostly.

Sincerely I hoped not too much for this book. There was a Complete Arcane already, and much more about wizards/sorcerers in other books. But it suprised me with some new concept, mostly in the feats section. The reserve feats are good for wizards to add them more "long-term usability" in adventures, and tactical feats have their - albeit more special - uses as well. Some prestige classes are good extensions too (master specialist for example), so all in all its a much better book than I anticipated, maybe better than Complete Arcane was.