Complete Mage Critique & Review

[Fwib]

Battlecaster Defense (Tactical): Requirse combat casting, and gives you a bunch of abilities that are pretty lame... except for Safe Retreat. If you cast a spell defensively, your movement doesn't provoke AoOs from people who were threatening you when you cast it. Might be worthwhile for someone who absolutely loves his touch attacks, but otherwise it's silly and useless.

It is worse than that, since you don't get the AoO protection until the following round, so you can't cast(standard action)+run-away(move action) - you have to stand there and get full-attacked if you want to use the feat the following round - madness.

[Zherog]

1161816668[/unixtime]]
Chapter 1: Fundamentals (of castrating yourself with a spork)

This chapter is filled with flavor and advice. In case you haven't heard of by now, this flavor and advice sucks. Badly. Whoever wrote this chapter probablly finished by falling over and drowning in a puddle of his own drool.

Ready to piss yourself laughing? Or, maybe that would be shit yourself from crying so hard. One of the two.

The dude who wrote this chapter is the same dude that wrote the "empty levels suck" article on the website.

This is thirty pages of useless, if not HARMFUL material. I think my ass would be offended if I wiped myself with it.

[NineInchNall]

And apparently a lot of his advice was changed after the fact.

[Zherog]

I haven't seen that comment; I do know he had to rush, because he was hired at the last minute to replace another freelancer who couldn't write the chapter because of a family emergency.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Quick question:

From the SRD:


Nauseated: Experiencing stomach distress. Nauseated creatures are unable to attack, cast spells, concentrate on spells, or do anything else requiring attention. The only action such a character can take is a single move action per turn.


Stunned: A stunned creature drops everything held, can’t take actions, takes a –2 penalty to AC, and loses his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any).



Why in the name of all that's good in the world would you rather nauseate people than stun them?

[User3]

Nice work, everybody. You don't see reviews like this on any other forum besides the Gaming Den.

****************

I really like the Unseen Seer PrC. A lot of people think you need to dip into a rogue-like class to fulfill the hefty skill requirements. Balderdash. A wizard 5 / harper mage X prefix will get you in with minimal fuss and a sole feat requirement of Extend Spell (everybody wants that one at wizard 5 anyway).

Once in, you get 10 levels of 6 skill ranks/level using the rogue's skill list. Awesome. One thing that's left unsaid in the prerequisites is that your wizard would be a fool to go all 10 levels of the PrC without taking the Practiced Spellcaster feat to smooth over the loss in CL (but note: the class is 10/10 in spellcaster level progression).

[Username17]

I don't know what possible family emergency you could have that would prevent you from writing down:

These are the spells that fvcking kill people. You will learn them and use them because they make people who make attack rolls feel small in the pants:

• Color Spray
  
• Sleep
  
• Web
  
• Glitterdust
  
• Ghoul Touch
  
• Deep Slumber
  
• Hold Person
  
• Stinking Cloud
  
• Charm Monster
  
• Phantasmal Killer
  
• Solid Fog
  
• Fear

And you know what? They are all in four fvcking schools of Magic so the rest (Abjuration, Transmutation, and Evocation) are totally expendable. Seriously. Go nuts.

Anyway, the advice in there about zombies being immune to illusions is just weird. I have no idea what that's about.

---

Now, the use for the Ultimate Magus. It's really simple actually. You go 1st-9th level as a Wizard and like it. Then at 10th level you take a level of Bard. Then at 11th level you take a level of Sublime Chord. Now your caster level in all classes is 11, and you're an 11th level character throwing several kinds of 5th level spells. Not impressive, right?

Well the key is that you then start a throw down into Ultimate Magus. For the rest of your life you can add a level to any class you want. So you're 2 levels behind in Wizard, in exchange for which your caster level is going up by a lot. By the mythical 20th level you cast spells at a very high level (since levels 2,3,5,6,8,and 9 of the class effectively add two to your caster level). Do you care? No. But for theoretical bullshit at high levels it pays for itself.

-Username17

[AlphaNerd]

These are the spells that fvcking kill people. You will learn them and use them because they make people who make attack rolls feel small in the pants:

In other words, cast spells that eliminate monsters wholesale from the battle, or remove their options or actions. Simple enough.

[NineInchNall]

1161880003[/unixtime]]I haven't seen that comment; I do know he had to rush, because he was hired at the last minute to replace another freelancer who couldn't write the chapter because of a family emergency.

From the WotC thread"

I was pointed to this thread from another message board after revealing that I helped work on the first Chapter. I won't pretend to have read all the posts here, but what I can tell you is...

• I have to take complete responsibility for limited wish. I never realized the full potential of that spell (until recently).
• Every one of my archetype suggestions that included the polymorph spell were removed.
• My warrior archetype included Power Attack as a good feat choice. Not sure why it was flipped into the "feats to avoid" section.
• I'm a fan of the geomancer with Divine Metamagic and Persistent Spell, or the booster bard with Metamagic Song and Persistent Spell. It seems both suggestions were removed.
• There's little pieces of advice here and there that appear to be different, but I'd have to comb through both documents to nail them all down. To be honest, I don't plan on doing that.

• Based on the finished illustrations, my art orders seem pretty accurate.

I already revealed elsewhere that I was asked to help work on this chapter at the last minute (due to a genuine emergency suffered by another writer). I didn't write everything so I'm not qualified to answer all your questions. What I can say is that my writing was edited in places, which is expected (despite the last minute deadline). Some of my advice was kept, some was not. The individual school descriptions read the way I remember them, but those aren't geared towards advice.

Aside from that, there's not much else to add. Freelance writers are given strict format guidelines, even in an advice chapter. I'm sure the editors at Wizards had their reasons for changing the material in places, but I'm not privy to their thoughts. This might not be the answer people were looking for, but there's not much to tell.

I hope that helps.

Kolja

[User3]

Good god. He's a prominent WotC D&D designer and he doesn't understand the vast utility of Limited Wish?

I read what he wrote about the spell. Jesus freakin' christ.

[Dragon_Child]

Frank, I'm going to have to disagree a bit on Ultimate Magus. Not because what you said doesn't work, or it's bad, but because, well, it's pretty much just using the Word loop all over again. The Ultimate Magus isn't really the problem, so much as the Sublime Chord is.

[Username17]

Why in the name of all that's good in the world would you rather nauseate people than stun them?

Because lots of creatures are immune to Stunning, but nothing in all of D&D is immune to being Nauseated.

The assumption is that anything that Nauseates will do so with a Fort Save, and undead and such are immune to effects that allow a Fort Save and don't affect objects. But if you happen to have a Nauseate effect appended to an attack that does raw damage to a target rather than "a creature" you can affect objects with it and nauseate the undead and golems and shit.

-Username17

[Dragon_Child]

Unfortunately, the Nauseating Fist is specifically a necromancy attack. So it doesn't work on undead nor constructs. I don't think there is a point to it.

[Username17]

It's for... flip flip flip Fighting Elementals!

Whatever

-Username17

[Imban]

You can take both if you're willing to burn a feat on Stunning Fist. And use both in the same round, on the same attack.

[Crissa]

Wouldn't Abjurant Champion be good for a Paladin or Fighter who has some sort of access to spells, rather than someone who has spells and just happens to have a higher BAB?

-Crissa

[Username17]

Wouldn't Abjurant Champion be good for a Paladin or Fighter who has some sort of access to spells, rather than someone who has spells and just happens to have a higher BAB?

Nope.

The thing is that people keep thinking that getting BAB is like getting caster levls. And I guess it is. But it's just the caster levels, it's not the class level for purposes of spells known.

That is, a Fighter needs a BAB of about his level in order to have a possibility of hitting his opponents. But it's not enough. He also needs abiltiies. In short, getting extra BAB is just like pumping up your level for purposes of bypassing SR - it's necessary, but it's not sufficient. You also need spells with a Save DC and an effect that you give a damn about at your level.

So the Abjurant Champion lets you cast shield as a Swift action and have it last all combat. So what? If you're a Fighter, you can just have a shield.

Levels in AC don't actually give you fighter abilities that keep you alive or Fighter Abilities that allow you to kill opponents. It's just lame from the standpoint of punching enemies in the head or taking a punch.

But for the 10th level Wizard on the go, it's not bad. You pick up some BAB, you get 3 hit points a level, you pick up the ability to throw Magic Circles down as a swift action, and... well that's it. But you're a Wizard, you don't care. The abilities you need to compete come from your spellcasting, and that advances.

Fighters get kicked in the nuts. Wizards get a small plate of pistachios. But Wizards already ordered a pizza, so hey - free pistachios.

-Username17

[MrWaeseL]

Good god. He's a prominent WotC D&D designer and he doesn't understand the vast utility of Limited Wish?

I read what he wrote about the spell. Jesus freakin' christ.

What did he write about it?

[Imban]

That, as a generalist, you fvcking suck if you ever cast it. Sigh.

[Username17]

Commence the HURTING:

As a generalist, here are the spells to use:

Magic Missile
Invisibility
Dispel Magic
Dimension Door
Hold Monster
True Seeing
Greater Teleport
Horrid Wilting
Wish

I know you're already scratching your head on this one. Seriously, true seeing? The spell that is lower level and better if it's cast by the guy in the plate mail? Yeah. OK... Magic Missile? WTF? There's no logic to these suggestions. He suggests the direct damage spell you get after there's already no possible use for direct damage (horrid wilting) and the one you get before you are allowed to do enough damage or affect enough targets to give a damn (magic missile), but not the one that fits in the middle and has a big enough damage and area and range that you actually care sometimes (fireball), while suggesting a bunch of spells that Clerics use better and so on and so forth. But here's the real pain, Spells to Avoid:

Antimagic Field
Limited Wish
Permanency

Do you follow the logic here? If so, you're the only one on the planet. He's against spending XP, but he wants you to prepare Wish every day. He doesn't want you to prepare AMF because it shorts out your own abilities, even though this is a team game and AMF is about changing the playing field of high level play in a manner that benefits Rogues.

In short, while Permanency is stylistic choice (in that if you can even temporarily jack your caster level to 30 all your permanent spells are impossible to dispel anyway), the other two spells it tells you to avoid are in fact totally crazy awesome, and specifically tailored for the type of character they are telling you to avoid them with.

I mean, the stupid goes on. The next listing is the Necromaster, and while I admit to being perhaps biased and not the intended reader of the article (having cowritten the fvcking Revised Necromancer Handbook), I was frankly apalled. The suggestions are to avoid Fell Animate because you shouldn't have any trouble making Zombies (Fell Animate makes zombies for free starting at level 5 and you can't even make zombies for money with the normal spell until level 7), and it suggests that you invest in such fantastic spells as Ghoul Gauntlet and Summon Undead III. Remember, you should avoid create undead, apparenly because it's the spell that allows you to make creatures with the Corpse template and we wouldn't want Necromancers to have nice things.

-Username17

[NineInchNall]

1161905651[/unixtime]]I mean, the stupid goes on. The next listing is the Necromaster, and while I admit to being perhaps biased and not the intended reader of the article (having cowritten the fvcking Revised Necromancer Handbook), I was frankly apalled. The suggestions are to avoid Fell Animate because you shouldn't have any trouble making Zombies (Fell Animate makes zombies for free starting at level 5 and you can't even make zombies for money with the normal spell until level 7), and it suggests that you invest in such fantastic spells as Ghoul Gauntlet and Summon Undead III. Remember, you should avoid create undead, apparenly because it's the spell that allows you to make creatures with the Corpse template and we wouldn't want Necromancers to have nice things.

*snicker* Pun. *snicker*

Well, we don't want necromancers to have nice things because that would be playing effectively. One really does get the idea that the "advice" that is presented in this chapter is intended to cause caster players to squander their potential power. I submit that this is being done so that other character classes seem less underpowered. Who's willing to lay money that the Complete Martial and Complete Scoundrel may actually have intentionally good advice?

[Iaimeki]

1161908746[/unixtime]]Well, we don't want necromancers to have nice things because that would be playing effectively. One really does get the idea that the "advice" that is presented in this chapter is intended to cause caster players to squander their potential power. I submit that this is being done so that other character classes seem less underpowered. Who's willing to lay money that the Complete Martial and Complete Scoundrel may actually have intentionally good advice?

I don't think WotC is that smart. I think they really believe the things they say.

[Iaimeki]

And this is the last part of my review. So much of this book makes me cringe.

Chapter Four: Spells:

Adamantine Wings: Suck! It's a faster version of overland flight with some irrelevant extra abilities no one will ever use. That's worth an increase of two levels? Not hardly.

Allied Footsteps: Useful in some strange circumstances, at least if your DM likes violating the cardinal rule of "keep the party together so no one has to sit around bored while gaming."

Animate Weapon: Suck! You turn a weapon into an animated object that does damage; but get this, it's concentration duration.

Arboreal Transformation: This spell is decent enough for 9th-level: it's no time stop, but it's a save-and-get screwed that's hard to work around with resurrection and has a nasty effect on a successful save. Unfortunately, you're still a wu jen.

Arcane Fusion, both versions: It's another Quickening bypass for sorcerers. How many of these do we have now, and how many do we need?

Arcane Turmoil: Another low-level limited dispel, but this one adds to the fun with a minor screw-casters effect.

Aspect of the Icy Hunter: Suck! Another one of the polymorph replacement spells that makes you into a specific monster, and further evidence that WotC really does hate sorcerers. What I fail to understand is why you would ever waste a 4th-level spell slot to turn into a CR 5 monster.

Attentive Alarm: If you're going to use alarm, this spell is better.

Battlecry: Suck! This is a bunch of effects that don't add up to a 4th-level effect. Also, you're still a bard.

Blackrot: This spells adds to the fun for spikes-abusing druids if they can find a way to Persistent it or have some prep time (*cough* teleport ambush *cough*).

Bloodletting: Suck! Dumb, overcomplex, and tedious bookkeeping: a winning combination.

Boiling Blood: Suck! A weak damage spell for transmutation.

Bothersome Babble: Suck! You keep a target from speaking. Seriously, that's all. It doesn't even interfere with spell-casting if they can manage Concentration check any caster worth their salt will have no trouble with at any relevant level.

Cacophonic Alarm: Suck! Like alarm, but sucky. As if it wasn't bad enough already that you're a bard.

Caterwaul: Suck! This spell lasts one round. Have they looked at the core spells recently?

Catsfeet: Suck! Verbal component with a Move Silently check? Irrelevantly small list of skills? Stupid!

Caustic Mire: Evokers get to feel just a bit more useless than they already do. Combine this spell with the usual suspects like solid fog or even entangle, since spells the reduce movement speed stack the good way: pretty soon your enemies will be crawling to you at 5'/round, taking 2d6 each round for the privilege, while you conjure up stuff to kill them.

Caustic Smoke: A weak version of acid fog, but maybe useful in low-level kill combinations with other disabling spells.

Channeled Lifetheft: Suck! Bizarre mechanics and overleveled for its effects.

Channeled Sound Blast: Suck! It's better than cone of cold, but that's like saying it's better than repeatedly slamming your head in a car door.

Choking Cobwebs: Interesting effect, but far overleveled at 7th.

Climbing Tree: Replaces Climb in some specialized circumstances.

Coat of Arms: Suck! It's shield, but with useless added abilities that increase it to 5th-level; no thanks.

Combined Talent: This is a good bard spell with many and varied uses. Unfortunately, you're still a bard.

Critical Strike: Another spell with this name? Sigh. Negating concealment isn't bad, per se, but it's not good either.

Cryptwarden's Grasp: Maybe useful for killing things with low Cha.

Crystalline Memories: Suck! I can't even figure out exactly what looking at the crystalline memories is supposed to do. This spell is made of stupid.

Dawnburst: Something like faerie fire and glitterdust. More invisibility counters are never useless.

Deadly Lahar: Suck! Are you sad you've been using evocation yet? This spell's damage is a waste of time, but the damage and the chance to slow are still better than any evocation around this level.

Deadly Sunstroke: Suck! Even with caster level boosts to put you up to 20d6, that's 70 damage. 70 damage, at 17th level. It does +50% damage to plants and undead; except I don't think it actually affects undead, since it can only target creatures, and undead, as we all know but WotC doesn't remember, are immune to any spell that allows a Fort save and doesn't affect objects.

Deafening Blast: Suck! Deafening for a 3rd-level spell is a waste.

Death's Call: It's a cheap anti-swarm spell. Given that swarms will kill you if you don't have a counter available, this spell is nice enough because it's 1st level.

Deathsight: This spell makes death attack, if not useful, at least playable.

Deceptive Facade: A fun illusion.

Dimension Jumper, both versions: The lesser version 30-ft. teleportation as a move action for 1 round/level, cast as a swift action with no somatic component. I can see this spell being useful for escaping conjurations, grapples, and similar such traps. You have better things to do with a 9th-level slot than the greater version. I expect the lesser version to show up in shadow pounce builds.

Discordant Malediction: Suck! Irrelevant damage and Concentration checks for spell-casting.

Doublespeak: This is another fun illusion. Unfortunately, you're still a bard.

Dreaded Form of the Eye Tyrant: Suck! You turn into a beholder, only you're suckier than a normal beholder. Beholders are CR 13, this spell is 8th-level, you do the math.

Elemental Eye: Cute spying spell, but you're still a wu jen.

Endless Slumber: Hold monster is 5th level. Why would you ever cast this spell.

Enduring Scrutiny: This is a cute divination, with some interesting uses.

Energy Adaptation: Potentially useful, if possibly over-costed at 7th level.

Escalating Enfeeblement: Combine this with waves of exhaustion, Quicken, and Sudden Maximize, and you have an expensive insta-paralysis combo for anything with less than 16 Str that's not immune to fatigue. I'm not sure that's good, but I suspect that with metamagic abuse it could be made scary.

False Lie: More amusing than good. Also, you're still a bard.

Familiar Refuge: Overcosted, but might see some use as a strategy in high-level wizard duels.

Fever Dream: Suck! Complicated interactions with other spells that I don't care to figure out, and worthless effects.

Finger of Agony: This is a decent nauseation spell, because immunity against it is rare.

Fire and Brimstone: Suck! Worthless damage. But you don't you feel bad that you're an evoker and the conjurer can do whatever you do, only with fewer problems with saves, evasion, and spell resistance?

Flaying Tendrils: You grow tentacles and can eat people's brains. Normally useless, but would be a nice addition to a grapple wizard.

Form of the Threefold Beast: Suck! CR 7, 5th-level spell. Next!

Genius Loci: Another great way for prep casters to create massive piles of creatures that will do their bidding.

Ghost Lantern: Gives a way for casters without darkvision to walk around underground without immediately revealing their presence to everything in line of sight.

Great Worm of the Earth: This spell might as well be titled golem killer, because that's what it does. It also works on giants and other creatures with poor Reflex saves.

Guided Path: Vague spell with not much effect. Oh, and you're still a bard.

Heart of Air/Earth/Fire/Water: These are sickeningly powerful buff spells with 1 hr./level durations. As if that wasn't enough, having any two active gives you light fortification and all four give you heavy fortification. Air is best for druids, who get flight speeds from wild shape. Earth all but replaces stoneskin: not only is it equal or lower level and longer duration, but it doesn't require any material component! Every gish and druid is now going to be walking around with at least 150 hp of DR 10/adamantine now. Fire replaces longstrider and give fire resistance; despite being the highest level, it's also the weakest of all. Water replaces not only replaces water breathing for oneself, it also gives sorcerers and wizards access to freedom of movement for 1 round/level as a swift action. Every druid, wu jen, and sorcerer/wizard with an ambition to melee is going to be walking around with these spells on all the time, and even ones who aren't will want earth and water as powerful defenses.

Hood of the Cobra: Suck! The best effect of this spell is the Con damage, but there are better ways to do that.

Horrid Sickness: Nauseation for a bunch of things; like finger of agony, it's decent because the immunity is so rare.

Immediate Assistance: Another useful bard spell, but you're still a bard.

Incendiary Grease: Suck! Like normal grease, but flammable. Unfortunately, that's a penalty, not a benefit.

Incendiary Surge: Suck! It's like fireball, but 4th level. What a waste.

Interminable Echo: Suck! Irrelevant damage and secondary effects.

Jet of Steam: Suck! It's burning hands, only a line.

Karmic Aura/Backlash/Retribution: The first two are swift actions, but the effects are so worthless I don't see how they're worth casting. Penalty points for interactions with the other spells. The third one might be worth casting, since stunning matters, but is probably overcosted. Only two Suck!s here.

Lash of Force: Suck! This has got to be one of the most pathetic 9th-level spells in existence: 15d6 and 5d6 aren't even on the same scale as typical damage from 17th-level characters.

Lighting Leap: Suck! A combination of teleportation and weak damage. Unfortunately, it's weak damage.

Lingering Chorus: A necessary spell for bards who plan to use bardic music, since you can actually stack it now. Why is this illusion? Never mind, I don't want to know.

Lingering Flames: This is an upgrade to fireball someone might use: drop solid fog, then this spell. If you have enough ways to halve your enemy's movement, caustic mire makes this spell even better.

Luminous Swarm: It's like offensive blur. I guess it's noxt bad.

Magic Savant: Makes bards as good at UMD as rogues. Well, I suppose they needed to be able to do something.

Mask of the Ideal: More minor stacking skill boosts.

Melf's Slumber Arrows: This spell takes a standard action. Why are you casting it instead of a spell that actually hurts your enemies?

Mordenkainen's Trusted Bloodhound: Suck! Overcosted for what it does: there are divinations that have a similar effect but are better at these levels.

Mysterious Redirection: Complicated, but it casts as a swift action and against opponents with low Will saves can be a near-complete defense against weapon attacks.

Near Horizon: Rangers might use this spell if they know they're going to be conducting a long-distance ranged battle.

Necrotic Curse: Suck! If battlefield healing was relevant, this spell might matter; but it's at best a small chance at blocking heal.

Nightmare Terrain: This spell gives a shadow illusion to some classes that didn't have one, which may come up in some builds. It also offers a battlefield control spell to illusion that doesn't rely on enemies not making their saves (though that helps), which may or may not be good.

Otiluke's Suppressing Field: Broken! This spell screams out for caster-level-boosting abuse. With appropriate manipulations and lots of 4th-levels slots, you might get an effective AMF that only works on your enemies' stuff. Of course, this spell also has, "will cause massive rules issues" written all over it: for a simple example, if someone with an AMF up doesn't succeed on their caster level check to beat your otiluke's suppressing field, which spell gets suppressed? Who knows! The rules arguments will be fun for the whole family!

Otto's Imperative Ambulation: Suck! As far as I can tell, this spell is all but strictly worse than suggestion. Oh, and you're still a bard.

Painful Echoes: Suck! Another pathetic damage spell with stupid interactions.

Pall of Twilight: It's like darkness, only with a strange added effect. It might see some use for charactes with darkvision.

Phantasmal Strangler: This spell can take a target out of combat for five rounds, so it's decent at its level.

Prickling Torment: Suck! The penalties it creates are too small for its level.

Prismatic Aura: Suck! It's like blur with an added prismatic effect, but if you actually come under nonreach melee attack, it's doubtful you'll live long enough to make your enemies care.

Prismatic Bow: Suck! You have real ultimate power— why are you shooting people with a bow?

Prismatic Deluge: Suck! Why not just cast any of the AoE spells that kill people available by the time you're casting 9th-level spells, rather than rolling the dice with a chance to suck?

Rain of Spines: Suck! This doesn't hold a candle to similar sorcerer/wizard battlefield control spells. Oh, and you're a wu jen.

Rary's Arcane Conversion: Good! You can swap out a spell you had prepared for the perfect spell to solve the problem you have. It costs a 6th-level slot to do it, but every high-level wizard will have this spell prepped.

Reaving Aura: Suck! When has disposing of downed enemies ever been a problem?

Rebirth of Iron: This is an anti-rust monster and rusting grasp spell. If your DM idolizes Gygax and so is fond of destroying your equipment that way, this spell can get it back.

Repelling Shield: Suck! Two levels higher than shield for a useless effect.

Resinous Tar: This spell works well when combined with a way of knocking small opponents prone.

Resonating Agony: Suck! This spell would almost be useful if it didn't require being a 6th-level bard, which means that your save DCs are far behind the curve.

Resounding Thunder: Suck! Useless damage and deafening.

Retributive Enervation: Another melee wizard spell, this one is dangerous to opponents who aren't immune.

Retributive Image: Suck! Major image, only you take damage you won't care about.

Rusted Blade: Suck! The wielder gets a chance to do 1d3 Dex and 1d3 Con damage to each target struck with the weapon, but the duration is too short and the effect too small for anyone to care.

Seed of Undeath, both versions: Suck! The lesser version is a cheap way of preventing your enemies from getting raised. The greater version is more or less the same, except your enemies will have resurrection. There are better ways to do both. You can also zombie-ize your minions when they fall in battle, but you still don't care.

Shape of the Hellspawned Stalker: Suck! See previous comments on similar spells.

Smoky Confinement: Another way to tokenize enemies, if you want to keep them around for some reason.

Spellcaster's Bane: Suck! If counterspelling was ever smart, someone might care. But it isn't.

Steal Summoning: Might be useful if you have a way of maintaining concentration on spells without needing to do it yourself. Without that, it's better used as a way to counter summoning as an immediate action: grab control and then let the summon dissipate.

Storm of Fire and Ice: Suck! It's an upgraded version of ice storm. Like ice storm, it sucks.

Storm of Needles: It's untyped damage with a 15d4 cap as a 4th-level spell. "Good" is strong, but it's at least decent. Of course, you're still a wu jen.

Summon Component: Suck! Does anyone keep track of spell components? I suppose if your DM hates you, this might come up sometime.

Summon Weapon: Suck! See summon component.

Tactical Teleportation: A team of shadow pouncers could do horrible things with this spell. As it is, the ability to move everyone around where you want them can be decent.

Tenacious Dispelling: Suck! It's limited dispel magic, with a bonus you'll never notice.

Torrent of Tears: This spell is decently crippling for its level, though not outstanding.

Touch of the Graveborn: Probably not useful in general, but with appropriate cheese this could be powerful.

Touch of Vecna: Isn't mind-affecting, so might work on some otherwise-immunes. Other than that, not much difference from hold monster.

Touch of Years: 3 Str, Dex, and Con drain isn't bad per se for a 4th-level spell, but the ability to run away and wait for your enemy to die has some definite uses.

Towerwing Thunderhead: Suck! You get wind wall, fog cloud, and a minor boost to damage spell from a 9th-level spell. Even the ability to see inside it yourself doesn't really save this spell.

Toxic Tongue: Suck! If you weren't an assassin, with save DCs that didn't matter, this spell might matter, but you are.

Transcend Mortality: Broken! Being dead is at most a minor inconvenience for a 17th-level wu jen: 50,000 gp brings you back. Given the lethality of high-level caster duels, I can see this spell being useful even when played the way they expected it. However, there's a little spell called AMF, that you can arrange to stand under when the duration of this spell is about to run out to avoid that nasty hangover.

True Casting: Suck! How many versions of this stupid "bonus to overcome spell resistance" spell have we seen printed now, all worthless?

Unicorn Blood, Heart, and Horn: Blood is no mindblank, but charm and compulsion immunity for 10 min./level at 9th-level is nothing to sneeze at. Depending on how your DM is wending through the forest of wild shape rules, Heart ranges from good (you get a speed of 60 ft. and magic circle against evil with unicorn blood and DR 5/evil with both other spells) to exceptional (+4 Str, Dex, and Con with an all-day duration that works when you're wild-shaped, and all the other benefits). Horn isn't good in itself, but it's not bad when assisting the other two spells. These spells will also be staples of melee sorcerers/wizards and druids.

Unseen Strike: Interesting, but probably too expensive and easily counterable when you get it.

Unyielding Form of Inevitable Death: Suck! It's another stupid polymorph spell.

Vecna's Malevolent Whisper: Suck! There's no good way to use this spell: the window is too small even at 7th level to make it worth guessing with a 4th-level slot, and it gets smaller as levels increase.

Vigilant Slumber: Assassins, bards, and sorcerers/wizards get to wake up free. Of course, having their sleep disturbed still screws them, but at least it screws them less.

Vital Strike: Suck! You get to sneak attack. Once. Give me a break.

I'd count the number of awful spells, but it would just make me feel bad.

Warlocks also get new invocations. No one cares.

Chapter Five: Magic Items: I have high hopes for this chapter to offer up something broken. Or maybe useful.

Deadwalker's Ring: This ring is made of pure awesome. Your undead get +2 hp/HD. It doesn't stack with desecrate, but if you're making undead, +2 hp/HD at the low low price of 4,000 gp is priceless.

Ring of Arcane Supremacy: Another thing to add into combinations to render spell resistance irrelevant. Who cares?

Ring of Enduring Arcana: This is also made of awesome. A frequent objection to characters using all day spells is the risk of them getting dispelled. For 6,000 gp, your spells get a +4 bonus to their dispelling DC—if you happen to be a druid or cleric using a bead of karma to boost your all day buffs already, it's doubtful you'll ever get dispelled again, with a +8 net bonus above your character level.

Ring of Instant Escape: You can teleport 1/day to dodge area attacks. This doesn't excite me, though maybe it should.

Ring of Mighty Summons: Your summons get maximum hp/HD, but last half as long. Provided you have some way to increase your summon durations, you want this item if you're a serious summoner.

Spellguard Rings: It's too bad they don't define "immune." Does this actually allow you to walk through your ally's wall of force or not have your powers suppressed by their AMF? If it does, it's cheap at twice the price.

Rod of Eldritch Power: Useless! It's a warlock item, enough said.

Rod of Elemental Might: Useless! It's a wu jen item, enough said.

Rod of Magical Precision: Combining this rod with solid fog and a way to locate enemies inside it and you get to nuke your enemies without ever fearing retaliation.

Rod of Many Wands: With metamagic spell trigger (the class ability or the feat) and this item, you can turn cash into obscene amounts of damage (or level draining, with enervation). That's also about all this item is good for.

Rod of Shadowblending: Useless! It's the shadowcraft mage ability, only without everything that makes it good.

Rod of Spell Channeling: Useless! You can send non-touch spells through your familiar, but it has to be within 60 ft. of you so that ability is all but useless.

Rod of Spellholding: Useless! You can put a touch spell in the rod, then cast other spells. It's basically just more short duration buffing, but it's not all that useful even for that.

Warbringer's Rod: Useless! It's like a ring of spellstoring for bull's strength and bear's endurance; which means it's useless.

Staff: This entire section can be summarized the way all staffs can be summarized: way too expensive for what they do.

Amulet of Spell Conversion: Let's an arcane caster switch out a prepared spell once per day. As I've stated before, this ability is awesome, so this is a must-have piece of equipment for every wizard, though it's not cheap at 18,000 gp.

Cloak of Comfort: Useless! It's endure elements on a cloak of resistance. Why not just cast the spell?

Familiar's Belt: Useless! It's a familiar/holding transportation device. Again, who cares?

Heward's Fortifying Bedroll: If your DM is one of these mean types who has ninjas attack you every night to make sure you're fighting "four encounters per day," this item lets you get the benefits of eight hours sleep in one hour, for 3,000 gp. Unfortunately, you can only use one every other 48 hours, so WotC hasn't decisively removed the stupid whining about casters not being overpowered.

Horizon Goggles: Continuing in a grand tradition, this item replaces Far Shot for 8,000 gp, and also increases ray ranges.

Metamagic Wandgrip: Useless! It's a weak version of metamagic spell trigger, with only one feat available, which makes it useless.

Murderer's Gloves: Useless! You turn invisible after making a sneak attack, which is just not exciting.

Quill of Scribing: It writes scrolls so you don't have to. If you never get any downtime, ever, this item might be useful to you.

Steadying Robe: Useless! You don't need to make Concentration checks for violent movement. If for some reason those checks are a regular occurrence and you can't muster enough Concentration to beat them by the time you can afford this item, something is weird about your campaign, and chances are you'd still be better off buying an item that gives a bonus to Concentration checks with the same money.

Stormrider Boots: Useless! Adds irrelevant extra damage if you have Spring Attack, once per day.

Optional Components: You can set cash on fire to gain minor metamagic benefits with spells. Some of them might be useful for prep casters, so they can add a metamagic feat to a particular spell without knowing ahead of time, but generally it's better to carry appropriate metamagic rods. Primal essence substitutes for other expensive material components and also might be worth carrying around.

Chapter Six: Besides more stupid, this chapter also contains magical locations. While some of the art is pretty and the abilities are decent, the appearance of these things is more or less up to DM whim so there's not much in discussing them.

[NineInchNall]

Aspect of the Icy Hunter: Suck! Another one of the polymorph replacement spells that makes you into a specific monster, and further evidence that WotC really does hate sorcerers. What I fail to understand is why you would ever waste a 4th-level spell slot to turn into a CR 5 monster.

Dreaded Form of the Eye Tyrant: Suck! You turn into a beholder, only you're suckier than a normal beholder. Beholders are CR 13, this spell is 8th-level, you do the math.

You see? This is the sh1t I'm talking about.

Ring of Mighty Summons: Your summons get maximum hp/HD, but last half as long. Provided you have some way to increase your summon durations, you want this item if you're a serious summoner.

Okay, so the ring gives my summons more hp so they last longer. Yay.

Wait, it halves the duration, so they actually last shorter. WTF, mate?

[RandomCasualty]

1161910137[/unixtime]]
Dreaded Form of the Eye Tyrant: Suck! You turn into a beholder, only you're suckier than a normal beholder. Beholders are CR 13, this spell is 8th-level, you do the math.

Actually, this spell is really powerful. The main feature is the 150 ft. antimagic cone that you can project.

Easy combo. Open Bar forcecage + AMF cone + archer. Almost any creature is screwed by that.

I can think of a lot of great uses for an antimagic cone.