OSSR: The Complete Book of Necromancers
Moderator: Moderators
-
CapnTthePirateG
- Duke
- Posts: 1545
- Joined: Fri Jul 17, 2009 2:07 am
-
RobbyPants
- King
- Posts: 5202
- Joined: Wed Aug 06, 2008 6:11 pm
-
CapnTthePirateG
- Duke
- Posts: 1545
- Joined: Fri Jul 17, 2009 2:07 am
Hey everyone. Sorry about the wait, but school got in the way as school tends to do. Today I am going to go through and review wizard spells in the book.
Level 1:
Animate Dead Animals: First, I must give this book props for giving necromancers skeletons at first level. Yes, they are shitty animal skeletons, but the fact that you can animate skeletons AT ALL at low levels makes you a badass. The actual skeletons and zombies get some penalties from their real-life stats, but you can still animate a wolf pack or something and use it in downtime to survive low levels without dragging around fighters. Weirdly, the undead lose any special attacks (the book lists swallowing) but than the spell stats that swallowed creatures don't take damage, implying they CAN swallow whole Ok....
Corpse Link: You can see or hear or smell or whatever (1 sense per 3 CL past first +1) through the eyes of a zombie or corpse. You can also micromanage it a little. Could be useful.
Exterminate: Kills insects and small rodents - specifically, deals 1d3 per CL to creatures with animal intelligence in the area. Yeah, pass.
Locate Remains: Find corpses or corporeal undead. You can use it to find a specific corpse. You're a nomadic murder hobo, when are you going to have trouble finding corpses?
Spectral Voice: Like ventriloquism but from an undead and in a creepy voice. If you are not a specialist necromancer (and thus banned illusion) you have no reason to care about this spell.
2nd level:
Embalm: Embalms a corpse. If said corpse is animated or turned into a flesh golem, it gets +2 HP per HD, but said HD can provide no more than 8 HP. More hit points on minions is always nice.
Living Link:Like corpse link but on a living person. Your victim knows you're riding along and you cannot command them.
Skeletal Hands:You animate a pair of skeletal hands which can lift stuff. They can also make extremely shitty attacks you don't care about. Pass on the combat part. Looks cool though.
3rd Level Spells:
Bone Dance Animate 1 skeleton. And it can only be humanoid. It has a limited duration and you need to concentrate. Yeah, animate more wolves.
False Face: This changes your face to look like someone else's. It cannot be undone by effects that see through illusions. It is obviously a personal spell (as "the wizard's face" is changed) but has a range of 10 yards/level. I don't even know how that works.
Skulltrap:This spell booby-traps a skull to explode in a 10-ft radius (2d4+1d4 damage uncapped, save vs. breath weapon for half) when something living touches it or it takes damage. You can cast this on a zombie's skull to make it a suicide bomber. Good times.
4th level spell:
Brainkill: Alter someone's memory, not capabilities. Fun times.
Empathic Wound Transfer: Terrible, crappy healing that inflicts Con damage. Go away. Go away now.
Summon Spirit: Classical necromancy. There's a little table of modifers where you can be a necromancer wizard with the witch kit and spirit lore proficiency and get crazy high bonuses to gettng a spirit to show up. There's also a 5% chance that a random undead shows up and tries to murder you. Oh, 2e.
Level 5:
Bind Undead: Turns 1 corporeal undead/level into pokeballs, no save.. I'm not kidding. It slows ghosts and undead of 7+ HD, but doesn't work on "special" undead like vampires and liches. +1 for hilarity.
Bone Blight: Save vs spells or have bones transmuted to jelly, leaving creature helpless. Takes 1d6 days with lesser effects until then. Can be reversed to grow back bones.
Graft Flesh: Graft on arms or a face as a disguise. Not very explanatory.
Tune in next time for levels 6-9.
Level 1:
Animate Dead Animals: First, I must give this book props for giving necromancers skeletons at first level. Yes, they are shitty animal skeletons, but the fact that you can animate skeletons AT ALL at low levels makes you a badass. The actual skeletons and zombies get some penalties from their real-life stats, but you can still animate a wolf pack or something and use it in downtime to survive low levels without dragging around fighters. Weirdly, the undead lose any special attacks (the book lists swallowing) but than the spell stats that swallowed creatures don't take damage, implying they CAN swallow whole Ok....
Corpse Link: You can see or hear or smell or whatever (1 sense per 3 CL past first +1) through the eyes of a zombie or corpse. You can also micromanage it a little. Could be useful.
Exterminate: Kills insects and small rodents - specifically, deals 1d3 per CL to creatures with animal intelligence in the area. Yeah, pass.
Locate Remains: Find corpses or corporeal undead. You can use it to find a specific corpse. You're a nomadic murder hobo, when are you going to have trouble finding corpses?
Spectral Voice: Like ventriloquism but from an undead and in a creepy voice. If you are not a specialist necromancer (and thus banned illusion) you have no reason to care about this spell.
2nd level:
Embalm: Embalms a corpse. If said corpse is animated or turned into a flesh golem, it gets +2 HP per HD, but said HD can provide no more than 8 HP. More hit points on minions is always nice.
Living Link:Like corpse link but on a living person. Your victim knows you're riding along and you cannot command them.
Skeletal Hands:You animate a pair of skeletal hands which can lift stuff. They can also make extremely shitty attacks you don't care about. Pass on the combat part. Looks cool though.
3rd Level Spells:
Bone Dance Animate 1 skeleton. And it can only be humanoid. It has a limited duration and you need to concentrate. Yeah, animate more wolves.
False Face: This changes your face to look like someone else's. It cannot be undone by effects that see through illusions. It is obviously a personal spell (as "the wizard's face" is changed) but has a range of 10 yards/level. I don't even know how that works.
Skulltrap:This spell booby-traps a skull to explode in a 10-ft radius (2d4+1d4 damage uncapped, save vs. breath weapon for half) when something living touches it or it takes damage. You can cast this on a zombie's skull to make it a suicide bomber. Good times.
4th level spell:
Brainkill: Alter someone's memory, not capabilities. Fun times.
Empathic Wound Transfer: Terrible, crappy healing that inflicts Con damage. Go away. Go away now.
Summon Spirit: Classical necromancy. There's a little table of modifers where you can be a necromancer wizard with the witch kit and spirit lore proficiency and get crazy high bonuses to gettng a spirit to show up. There's also a 5% chance that a random undead shows up and tries to murder you. Oh, 2e.
Level 5:
Bind Undead: Turns 1 corporeal undead/level into pokeballs, no save.. I'm not kidding. It slows ghosts and undead of 7+ HD, but doesn't work on "special" undead like vampires and liches. +1 for hilarity.
Bone Blight: Save vs spells or have bones transmuted to jelly, leaving creature helpless. Takes 1d6 days with lesser effects until then. Can be reversed to grow back bones.
Graft Flesh: Graft on arms or a face as a disguise. Not very explanatory.
Tune in next time for levels 6-9.
OgreBattle wrote:"And thus the denizens learned that hating Shadzar was the only thing they had in common, and with him gone they turned their venom upon each other"
-Sarpadian Empires, vol. I
These spells can be nice if you're the sherrif of a small town with zombie deputies. Use Corpse Link + Spectral Voice to police everyone. And Locate Remains to find the body of the Mayor that has been missing for a week.CapnTthePirateG wrote:Corpse Link: You can see or hear or smell or whatever (1 sense per 3 CL past first +1) through the eyes of a zombie or corpse. You can also micromanage it a little. Could be useful.
Locate Remains: Find corpses or corporeal undead. You can use it to find a specific corpse. You're a nomadic murder hobo, when are you going to have trouble finding corpses?
Spectral Voice: Like ventriloquism but from an undead and in a creepy voice. If you are not a specialist necromancer (and thus banned illusion) you have no reason to care about this spell.
Gary Gygax wrote:The player’s path to role-playing mastery begins with a thorough understanding of the rules of the game
Bigode wrote:I wouldn't normally make that blanket of a suggestion, but you seem to deserve it: scroll through the entire forum, read anything that looks interesting in term of design experience, then come back.
-
OgreBattle
- King
- Posts: 6820
- Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:33 am
Skeleton policemen seem like a really good idea for any magical society.CapnTthePirateG wrote:Corpse Link: You can see or hear or smell or whatever (1 sense per 3 CL past first +1) through the eyes of a zombie or corpse. You can also micromanage it a little. Could be useful.
Last edited by OgreBattle on Mon Feb 11, 2013 3:19 am, edited 2 times in total.
That's kind of a cool idea, actually...ishy wrote:These spells can be nice if you're the sherrif of a small town with zombie deputies. Use Corpse Link + Spectral Voice to police everyone. And Locate Remains to find the body of the Mayor that has been missing for a week.CapnTthePirateG wrote:Corpse Link: You can see or hear or smell or whatever (1 sense per 3 CL past first +1) through the eyes of a zombie or corpse. You can also micromanage it a little. Could be useful.
Locate Remains: Find corpses or corporeal undead. You can use it to find a specific corpse. You're a nomadic murder hobo, when are you going to have trouble finding corpses?
Spectral Voice: Like ventriloquism but from an undead and in a creepy voice. If you are not a specialist necromancer (and thus banned illusion) you have no reason to care about this spell.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
-
CapnTthePirateG
- Duke
- Posts: 1545
- Joined: Fri Jul 17, 2009 2:07 am
Hello again everyone. Now that exams are finally over and I have enough sleep to not stare dully at my computer screen, we can bust out the level 6 through 9 wizard spells and take a look at some kits.
As a side note, when I do another OSSR, I am not going to do a spell by spell review again.
Level 6:
Corpse Host: You paralyze yourself to possess a corpse. Your body still has all of it's senses and whatnot which you also receive input from. You have special hit points so that if you get stabbed enough you're evicted from the corpse. Kind of cool for a BBEG who wants to hide in darkness and pretend to be undead. At the end you need to make a save vs. magic or lose 1-3 HP permanently.
Ghoul Gauntlet: Yes, it's the original of that shitty spell from 3rd edition! 1-2 hp damage a round, and they can amputate a limb to stop it if less than 20% hp are lost. Otherwise without magical intervention they die and rise as a ghoul under the control of the necromancer, with no apparent control limit.
Transmute Bone to Steel: Cast on dead bodies, when animated as skeletons they have better hp and take only half damage from physical attacks. Can be inverted to turn weapons and armor into bone, making them weaker and easier to break. I kinda like this spell, though it raises some rules questions (how does being turned into bone affect saves? The spell says it does, but I have no idea how that works.)
7th level:
Wound Conferral: Yet another "take damage, heal bros" with the caveat that you can add a 3rd guy who takes all the damage and is within touch range. Can backfire and kill you if you channel more HP than you have, unless you are a necromancer and the DM decides to be nice (yes it says this). You lose 7 points of constitution which each require 2 hours of rest to recover, throwing this into the "do not cast in battle" pile. Gaah.
8th level:
Death Shroud: Touch dudes, have them fail saves, they lose 20% hp per round until they die. If they hit you they share this fate. Requires a 5,000 gp gem to cast, and the effect is removable via powerful healing spells or dispel magic.
Life Force Transfer: Transfer someone's soul to a receptacle, make it into a magic item. Because Con damage sucks. There are some DM-fuck yous built in.
9th level:
Death Ward: Not to be confused with the spell that protects you against death effects, this spell wards a doorway as a symbol of death (saving throw vs death at -4 penalty, kills 2x level of creatures before expiring). There's a random bullshit chance that mortal wizards go insane, liches do not. I don't even know why when Wail of the Banshee is a thing which is referenced in this book.
Life Force Exchange: Permanently switch bodies with a dude, save vs. spells -6 negates. You don't have to involve yourself in the body swap.
Overall I'd rate these as some pretty cool and flavorful spells, much better than having to insert cancer into someone to make them a bitch.
Chapter 5: Death Priests
Fluff paragraph about Loviatar followed by a quick explanation of some real mythology deities your necromancer could worship. And Cthulhu, don't forget Cthulhu. Pretty sure Lovecraft portrays him and the rest of the Great Old Ones as morally neutral - good and evil being human concepts - but whatever. There's a short aside in how players would be totally uninterested in playing a death priest. To which I respond "What the hell are you smoking, and isn't it illegal?"
There are some kits. Priests of the God of the Dead can never fail to raise dead at 12th level and get a little pile of spheres. They also get some granted necromantic spells. They do have to remain celibate.
The murder priests can strangle people which is a DNS which takes place over 3 rounds of grappling. Also they get ranger stealth skills and invisbility. Holy shit these guys are awesome.
Plague priests are immune to disease and can spread it, but can't rebuke undead unless the undead were created by disease. Also you look diseased and take -1 to cha every level.
Flagellent priests lose turning/rebuking but get emotion as an SLA 1/2 levels. Note that they also get hit points from Con as though they were fighters.
The Lord of Undead gets +1 hp per hit die to any undead he animates and rebukes 3x as many. You have to sacrifice dead bodies. At higher levels, you can raise ghouls, ghasts, vampires, and liches after paying some money, and that's all the info you get. Maybe you become a lich at some vaguely determined time, it's not clear. But you are a ballin necromancer.
Tune in next time for priest spheres.
As a side note, when I do another OSSR, I am not going to do a spell by spell review again.
Level 6:
Corpse Host: You paralyze yourself to possess a corpse. Your body still has all of it's senses and whatnot which you also receive input from. You have special hit points so that if you get stabbed enough you're evicted from the corpse. Kind of cool for a BBEG who wants to hide in darkness and pretend to be undead. At the end you need to make a save vs. magic or lose 1-3 HP permanently.
Ghoul Gauntlet: Yes, it's the original of that shitty spell from 3rd edition! 1-2 hp damage a round, and they can amputate a limb to stop it if less than 20% hp are lost. Otherwise without magical intervention they die and rise as a ghoul under the control of the necromancer, with no apparent control limit.
Transmute Bone to Steel: Cast on dead bodies, when animated as skeletons they have better hp and take only half damage from physical attacks. Can be inverted to turn weapons and armor into bone, making them weaker and easier to break. I kinda like this spell, though it raises some rules questions (how does being turned into bone affect saves? The spell says it does, but I have no idea how that works.)
7th level:
Wound Conferral: Yet another "take damage, heal bros" with the caveat that you can add a 3rd guy who takes all the damage and is within touch range. Can backfire and kill you if you channel more HP than you have, unless you are a necromancer and the DM decides to be nice (yes it says this). You lose 7 points of constitution which each require 2 hours of rest to recover, throwing this into the "do not cast in battle" pile. Gaah.
8th level:
Death Shroud: Touch dudes, have them fail saves, they lose 20% hp per round until they die. If they hit you they share this fate. Requires a 5,000 gp gem to cast, and the effect is removable via powerful healing spells or dispel magic.
Life Force Transfer: Transfer someone's soul to a receptacle, make it into a magic item. Because Con damage sucks. There are some DM-fuck yous built in.
9th level:
Death Ward: Not to be confused with the spell that protects you against death effects, this spell wards a doorway as a symbol of death (saving throw vs death at -4 penalty, kills 2x level of creatures before expiring). There's a random bullshit chance that mortal wizards go insane, liches do not. I don't even know why when Wail of the Banshee is a thing which is referenced in this book.
Life Force Exchange: Permanently switch bodies with a dude, save vs. spells -6 negates. You don't have to involve yourself in the body swap.
Overall I'd rate these as some pretty cool and flavorful spells, much better than having to insert cancer into someone to make them a bitch.
Chapter 5: Death Priests
Fluff paragraph about Loviatar followed by a quick explanation of some real mythology deities your necromancer could worship. And Cthulhu, don't forget Cthulhu. Pretty sure Lovecraft portrays him and the rest of the Great Old Ones as morally neutral - good and evil being human concepts - but whatever. There's a short aside in how players would be totally uninterested in playing a death priest. To which I respond "What the hell are you smoking, and isn't it illegal?"
There are some kits. Priests of the God of the Dead can never fail to raise dead at 12th level and get a little pile of spheres. They also get some granted necromantic spells. They do have to remain celibate.
The murder priests can strangle people which is a DNS which takes place over 3 rounds of grappling. Also they get ranger stealth skills and invisbility. Holy shit these guys are awesome.
Plague priests are immune to disease and can spread it, but can't rebuke undead unless the undead were created by disease. Also you look diseased and take -1 to cha every level.
Flagellent priests lose turning/rebuking but get emotion as an SLA 1/2 levels. Note that they also get hit points from Con as though they were fighters.
The Lord of Undead gets +1 hp per hit die to any undead he animates and rebukes 3x as many. You have to sacrifice dead bodies. At higher levels, you can raise ghouls, ghasts, vampires, and liches after paying some money, and that's all the info you get. Maybe you become a lich at some vaguely determined time, it's not clear. But you are a ballin necromancer.
Tune in next time for priest spheres.
OgreBattle wrote:"And thus the denizens learned that hating Shadzar was the only thing they had in common, and with him gone they turned their venom upon each other"
-Sarpadian Empires, vol. I
It's been over a decade since I played 2e, but IIRC Item Saving Throws were in the DMG and "vs. crushing blow" was one of the save categories. Naturally, bone had a shittier save vs. crushing blow than metal.CapnTthePirateG wrote:
Transmute Bone to Steel: Cast on dead bodies, when animated as skeletons they have better hp and take only half damage from physical attacks. Can be inverted to turn weapons and armor into bone, making them weaker and easier to break. I kinda like this spell, though it raises some rules questions (how does being turned into bone affect saves? The spell says it does, but I have no idea how that works.)
Game On,
fbmf
Last edited by fbmf on Sat Feb 23, 2013 4:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
table 29:fbmf wrote:It's been over a decade since I played 2e, but IIRC Item Saving Throws were in the DMG and "vs. crushing blow" was one of the save categories. Naturally, bone had a shittier save vs. crushing blow than metal.CapnTthePirateG wrote:
Transmute Bone to Steel: Cast on dead bodies, when animated as skeletons they have better hp and take only half damage from physical attacks. Can be inverted to turn weapons and armor into bone, making them weaker and easier to break. I kinda like this spell, though it raises some rules questions (how does being turned into bone affect saves? The spell says it does, but I have no idea how that works.)
Game On,
fbmf
Acid
Crushing Blow
Disintegration
Fall
Magical Fire
Normal Fire
Cold
Lightning
Electricity
item: Bone or Ivory, etc
Play the game, not the rules.
good read (Note to self Maxus sucks a barrel of cocks.)
Swordslinger wrote:Or fuck it... I'm just going to get weapon specialization in my cock and whip people to death with it. Given all the enemies are total pussies, it seems like the appropriate thing to do.
Lewis Black wrote:If the people of New Zealand want to be part of our world, I believe they should hop off their islands, and push 'em closer.
-
CapnTthePirateG
- Duke
- Posts: 1545
- Joined: Fri Jul 17, 2009 2:07 am
-
CapnTthePirateG
- Duke
- Posts: 1545
- Joined: Fri Jul 17, 2009 2:07 am
Ok gang, priest sphere time. In the interests of brevity and forcing myself to get through the full review I'm just kinda going to not do spell by spell. Here goes.
So priests get a level 1 spell that makes a skeleton. a spell of EVIL that gives to-hit bonuses with touch attack spells (and is EVIL), a small pile of SoDs, some spells to buff undead, and some weird divinations like hearing heartbeats (but being deaf to everything else). The one seventh-level spell is death pact, which self-rezzes you but you age five years. Random NPCs can get around this with "unspeakable sacrifices" aka the DM boning you. It also notes that NPC wizards can use contingent wishes for something similar. Because I want to fuck around with wish in the land of the self-fuckery.
Chapter 7:Allies
Fluff paragraph. Did you know necromancers have apprentice, paid minions, and familiars. Neither did I, stop the presses. They also have undead minions, for shizzle. Necromancers can randomly call imp or quasit familiars, so that's something. They lay out some secret societies you probably don't care about, with the possible exception of the Anatomical Academy who exist to study medicine but get fucked over by not being priests. Then there's a pain cult, a lich cult, and a pestilence cult.
Chapter 8: Tools of the Trade
Necromancer themed magic items and poisons. There's a ring that blocks level drain, you want that shit. There's also a sword letting you drain strength and anything it kills rises as a shadow under your command. No, there's no control limit, go nuts. Can you do shadow over the sun in 2e? It closes with some tomes of dark lore you can hand out. There's actually some pretty cool stuff in this chapter.
Chapter 9:The Campaign
A sample adventure. Because someone on these boards constantly complained about how 2e NPCs had high stats while the game told you to accept your random rolls, dammit, let's take a look. These are also the stats for the guys in the fluff paragraphs.
First NPC, 20th level necromancer
Str: 12
Dex: 15
Con: 10
Int: 17
Wis: 19
Cha: 18
Seems a bit high.
An 11th level necromancer wizard:
Str: 15
Dex: 11
Con: 15
Int: 18
Wis: 16
Cha: 10
6th level human necro:
Str: 11
Dex: 11
Con: 10
Int: 15
Wis: 16
Cha: 14
5th fighter/16th necromancer:
Str: 16
Dex: 13
Con: 15
Int: 17
Wis: 16
Cha: 15
the 24th level lich priestess:
Str: 10
Dex: 12
Con: 15
Int: 18
Wis: 20
Cha: 16
and the 8th level priestess:
Str: 14
Dex: 13
Con: 15
Int: 12
Wis: 17
Cha: 13
Yeah that guy in the PHB with 9 strength can fuck right off.
The remainder of the book is appendices.
So, what are my final thoughts on the book?
It's certainly not as bad as some of the other books featured in OSSR. At the same time, it's not good either. The whole point of the book is that its power creep for the DM - but the DM doesn't really need power creep because he controls the world. At the same time the book likes to fuck over the guy who wants to be a necromancer, HARD, rather than actually try to present balanced or useful options. Worst case scenario, you actually weaken your PHB-only necromancer wizard because your DM informs you that finger of death was totally evil when you cast it on that dark-armored dude to save the orphanage and now you have an irresistable compulsion to fuck rabbits. Best case, you sexually satisfy your DM beforehand and pick up a grab bag of random-ass powers that make your dark wizard (or priest) far more badass. I will grant that a lot of the spells in the book have conceptual space that needed implementation. But this book rides the dick of NPCs>you so damn hard that it doesn't hold up very well in a modern environment.
So that's the book. Would anyone be interested in my Arcane Power review?
So priests get a level 1 spell that makes a skeleton. a spell of EVIL that gives to-hit bonuses with touch attack spells (and is EVIL), a small pile of SoDs, some spells to buff undead, and some weird divinations like hearing heartbeats (but being deaf to everything else). The one seventh-level spell is death pact, which self-rezzes you but you age five years. Random NPCs can get around this with "unspeakable sacrifices" aka the DM boning you. It also notes that NPC wizards can use contingent wishes for something similar. Because I want to fuck around with wish in the land of the self-fuckery.
Chapter 7:Allies
Fluff paragraph. Did you know necromancers have apprentice, paid minions, and familiars. Neither did I, stop the presses. They also have undead minions, for shizzle. Necromancers can randomly call imp or quasit familiars, so that's something. They lay out some secret societies you probably don't care about, with the possible exception of the Anatomical Academy who exist to study medicine but get fucked over by not being priests. Then there's a pain cult, a lich cult, and a pestilence cult.
Chapter 8: Tools of the Trade
Necromancer themed magic items and poisons. There's a ring that blocks level drain, you want that shit. There's also a sword letting you drain strength and anything it kills rises as a shadow under your command. No, there's no control limit, go nuts. Can you do shadow over the sun in 2e? It closes with some tomes of dark lore you can hand out. There's actually some pretty cool stuff in this chapter.
Chapter 9:The Campaign
A sample adventure. Because someone on these boards constantly complained about how 2e NPCs had high stats while the game told you to accept your random rolls, dammit, let's take a look. These are also the stats for the guys in the fluff paragraphs.
First NPC, 20th level necromancer
Str: 12
Dex: 15
Con: 10
Int: 17
Wis: 19
Cha: 18
Seems a bit high.
An 11th level necromancer wizard:
Str: 15
Dex: 11
Con: 15
Int: 18
Wis: 16
Cha: 10
6th level human necro:
Str: 11
Dex: 11
Con: 10
Int: 15
Wis: 16
Cha: 14
5th fighter/16th necromancer:
Str: 16
Dex: 13
Con: 15
Int: 17
Wis: 16
Cha: 15
the 24th level lich priestess:
Str: 10
Dex: 12
Con: 15
Int: 18
Wis: 20
Cha: 16
and the 8th level priestess:
Str: 14
Dex: 13
Con: 15
Int: 12
Wis: 17
Cha: 13
Yeah that guy in the PHB with 9 strength can fuck right off.
The remainder of the book is appendices.
So, what are my final thoughts on the book?
It's certainly not as bad as some of the other books featured in OSSR. At the same time, it's not good either. The whole point of the book is that its power creep for the DM - but the DM doesn't really need power creep because he controls the world. At the same time the book likes to fuck over the guy who wants to be a necromancer, HARD, rather than actually try to present balanced or useful options. Worst case scenario, you actually weaken your PHB-only necromancer wizard because your DM informs you that finger of death was totally evil when you cast it on that dark-armored dude to save the orphanage and now you have an irresistable compulsion to fuck rabbits. Best case, you sexually satisfy your DM beforehand and pick up a grab bag of random-ass powers that make your dark wizard (or priest) far more badass. I will grant that a lot of the spells in the book have conceptual space that needed implementation. But this book rides the dick of NPCs>you so damn hard that it doesn't hold up very well in a modern environment.
So that's the book. Would anyone be interested in my Arcane Power review?
OgreBattle wrote:"And thus the denizens learned that hating Shadzar was the only thing they had in common, and with him gone they turned their venom upon each other"
-Sarpadian Empires, vol. I
-
icyshadowlord
- Knight-Baron
- Posts: 717
- Joined: Thu Mar 24, 2011 12:52 pm
Then rocks fall and everyone dies.ishy wrote:What if it was called Baywatch?
"Lurker and fan of random stuff." - Icy's occupation
sabs wrote:And Yes, being Finnish makes you Evil.
virgil wrote:And has been successfully proven with Pathfinder, you can just say you improved the system from 3E without doing so and many will believe you to the bitter end.
-
Username17
- Serious Badass
- Posts: 29894
- Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Yes. That sounds reasonably interesting. Obviously don't do a power by power review of the fucking thing, because a hundred entries of "4d6+ Stat bonus and a bullshit shift effect" would make me chew off my nuts to escape. But I'd be interested in seeing someone go after that piece of shovelware.Would anyone be interested in my Arcane Power review?
-Username17
-
CapnTthePirateG
- Duke
- Posts: 1545
- Joined: Fri Jul 17, 2009 2:07 am
Nice. The reason the book is so pro-DMPC is that it's a DM book. Which it is because players have to play the good guys and the people they oppose have to be the bad guys. For reals. They totally believed that at TSRHQ.
Then they printed it like it was a DM book of useless DM trivia that wouldn't sell (because really, why would most DMs want evil opponents, and how many necromancers can you throw at PCs anyway) and they sold out faster than fuck and you couldn't buy one for trying. For years, second hand ones of these went for a small fortune. And they never reprinted it outside the digital compilation stuff seeing as it was selling for the wrong reasons.
Did I mention TSR went broke? Yeh. Get lycanthropy, become a wearbear, obviously all you'll want is a cure, not a rulebook of awesome wearbear tricks. Silly rabbit.
Then they printed it like it was a DM book of useless DM trivia that wouldn't sell (because really, why would most DMs want evil opponents, and how many necromancers can you throw at PCs anyway) and they sold out faster than fuck and you couldn't buy one for trying. For years, second hand ones of these went for a small fortune. And they never reprinted it outside the digital compilation stuff seeing as it was selling for the wrong reasons.
Did I mention TSR went broke? Yeh. Get lycanthropy, become a wearbear, obviously all you'll want is a cure, not a rulebook of awesome wearbear tricks. Silly rabbit.
PC, SJW, anti-fascist, not being a dick, or working on it, he/him.