One of the main reasons that my friends and I keep visiting the Gaming Den, are the awesome, entertaining, and spot-on critiques of the various WotC sourcebooks.
So I was wondering, does anybody plan on writing a review for the newest buzz-book, Complete Mage?
I started to last night, but didn't find my commentary to be as readworthy as Frank, Lago, Dragon Child, JoosephBT, Josh Kablack, etc. I might give it another go this weekend when I get some more time.
Ok, so I started tired and ranty. The perfect mood to be in while reading a book. I ended up surprised by Complete Mage. Not because it was good, no, but because I never thought a book could be so bad that reading it would make me seriously consider killing myself, to make the hurting stop.
Please.
Make the hurting stop.
DC's Complete Mage Review
The Cover
Oh, fuck. The cover. This is even worse than Mr T the cleric. Oh, fuck. I'm going to have nightmares about the albino ambiguously gendered ferretmancer. Seriously, is it a guy or a girl? I think I spot breasts, but the face is very masculine... and the hair, WTF. It looks like a freaking Twi'lek!
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.
Seriously, every single time I tried to read part of this chapter, something gigantically stupid would pop out at me. Like how sorcerers and wizards are jealous of how warlocks channel magic.
Like how conjurers prefer "reliable" creatures, so often ditch enchantment. How necromancers don't need illusions, because illusions are worthless on undead. How True Necromancer is worth taking.
This is thirty pages of useless, if not HARMFUL material. I think my ass would be offended if I wiped myself with it.
Chapter 2: Character Options (for the people we actually like)
These are variant class options. Some of these are good, some are not.
Arcane Hunter: You're a Ranger who has his first favored enemy being any arcane spellcaster. Not bad, actually. Not bad at all.
Arcane Stunt: You're a swashbuckler who can get a single level 1 or 2 SLA for one round. Thing is, people don't actually PLAY swashbucklers, so this one may as not exist.
Armored Mage You're a fighter. As if that wasn't insult enough, you lose medium and heavy armor profiency... but can cast spells in light armor of a level equal to your fighter level. Being a fighter is like shooting yourself in the head. Taking Armored Mage is like getting a dog to piss in the hole, afterwards.
Curse Breaker: You're a paladin who can Remove Curse instead of Remove Disease. Later on, you can spend two uses to Break Enchantment. Really, it's not bad. But I still wouldn't play a paladin to level 6.
Divine Counterspell: This is decent. You lose Turn Undead, but instead get the ability to counterspell a spell like you were using dispel magic 1 + cha mod times per day. You use 1d20 + your cleric level (or paladin level -3). You get a +2 bonus with 5 ranks in Knowledge: Arcana. It doesn't actually say if it allows you to get past the +10 cap, and is poorly worded. But still, worth considering at least. Somewhat. Maybe.
Divine Magician: You're a cleric with one domain, but get to add any abjuration, divination, or necromancy wizard spell of your choice to your spell list for each spell level. SIGN ME UP!
Elemental Companion: You're a druid who doesn't get an animal companion or wild empathy... but get an elemental to follow you around. At the very least, this is a lot better than getting an animal companion, it's about equal to what you could summon.
Focused Specialist: You're a wizard who loses a spell of each level, and an ADDITIONAL school of magic... but get two more specialist slots to fill up. So essentially, you're down three schools of magic and 1 spell slot of each level, but gain 3 spell slots of each level that must be used in your specialization. I'm not sure this is worth considering.
Soulwarp Strike: You're a monk. Yeah, ouch, tough. You lose a bonus feat, but get stunning fist... that instead nauseates people. It's also a necromancy effect. I'm wondering why you would ever take this, and not just say something like "Well, my stunning fist is really just making you sick".
Spell Reflection: Anyone who gets evasion, instead loses it and can instead reflect spells that have attack rolls, target you, and miss. It also has a limited uses per day. Yeah... I'll pass.
Spell Sense: You lose trap sense, but get a bonus to AC against spells and spell-like abilities. It's not that useful, of course not. But it's still better than the nothing of trap sense.
Spellbreaker Song: You don't get countersong, but can sing a song that gives spellcasters within 30 ft 20% spell failure chance if they have a verbal component. It has a duration of 3 rounds, and requires a standard action to activate, like all bardic music. Chances are, this will end up fucking over your own party more than the enemies. For all the people who think being Elan would be fun.
Stalwart Sorcerer: You get one less highest level spell known. You get two extra HP per sorcerer level, and martial weapon and weapon focus with one weapon for free. It suggests taking a fighter level for Armored Mage to go with this. Seriously. This stuff is making me lose my faith that we will ever, EVER see a good edition of D&D.
Onto feats. In case you haven't heard, reserve feats are introduced in this book. Basically, you get +1 caster level when casting a certain subtype of spell, and get an ability at-will depending on how strong of a spell you have memorized. Like if you have the Acidic Splatter feat, and a level 5 acid spell memorized, you get a 5d6 damage acid attack. If you have a level 9 acid spell memorized, you have a 9d6 acid attack. The general idea of Reserve Feats seem to be "Let's introduce a lot of fucking god-awful feats into the system, and hope people waste their time using them, so wizards will SEEM less overpowered."
Sadly, it'll probablly work.
So, onto feats:
Acidic Splatter (Reserve): You shoot a 1d6 / spell level acid orb. Noone cares.
Alacritous Cogitation: Proving that you can randomly flip open a dictionary to come up with feat names. You leave one spell slot open, and can cast any arcane spell you know of that level or lower as a full-round action. Can only be used once per day. Spending a feat to get one joker card per day? I think I'll pass.
Aquatic Breath (Reserve): As long as you have a water spell of 3rd level prepared, you can breathe normally in air and water. Funnily enough, you could just cast Water Brething (a 3rd level spell) instead. Hrum.
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.
Battle Caster Offense (Tactical): Also requires combat casting. Also totally sucks ass. Like the fighter-types, the fighter/mage types get no good things.
Blade of Force (Reserve): As a swift action, you can give a weapon +(reserved force spell level damage) on one attack. Very nice for charge-build wizards, I suppose.
Borne Aloft (Reserve): Requires you to prepare a level 5 air spell in reserve. Gives you 30 ft fly once per round. You fall after your flight. -sighs- Why bother?
Captivating Melody: You make a perform check and lose a bardic music use to get +2 DC on an illusion or enchantment spell. The perform DC is low, and at high levels you have plenty of bardic music uses. Unfortunately, you're still a bard, and your spells are still going to have lower DCs than the rest of the party. Still, it's not a bad feat in theory, or something.
Clap of Thunder (Reserve): Reserve feat, blah blah, sonic spells, blah blah, 1d6/spell level sonic touch attack and fort save for deafness. Yawn.
Cloudy Conjuration: Good lord, these names keep getting worse. When you cast a conjuration spell, you create a cloud of ssmoke either next to you or your target. The smoke sickens people while they're inside it, and is like fog cloud. The flavor text says it's for summoning creatures in a puff of smoke, or teleporting in a puff of smoke... but there's nothing against letting out a black fart when you throw an orb spells. Good lord.
Clutch of Earth (Reserve): You spend a standard action, and landbound people within 30 ft take a penalty to speed for one round. Of coure, they're already that close to you, so they can PROBABLLY REACH YOU ANYWAY. It gets worse. There's a FORTITUDE SAVE TO NEGATE, and passing it makes you immune for 24 hours. WHAT A WASTE!
Dazzling Illusion: When you cast an illusion, all enemies within 30 ft of you become dazzled for 1 round. Probablly not the best use of a feat, but hey, it can't really hurt.
Defending Spirit: Only available to Wu Jen. Will never be taken. If you use your Watchful Spirit class feature to reroll your init, you also get +2 AC the entire encounter. Extremely good, if Wu Jen were actually worth playing.
Delay Potion: You drink a potion, and then activate it within a few hours as a swift action. I'm not entirely sure this is worth a feat, but I can see it being very, very useful, with some things like potions of cure, enlarge, and invisibility.
Dimensional Jaunt (Reserve): 4th level spells, standard action to teleport (5 ft x highest level teleport spell). Really, really shitty. That sort of low-range teleportation isn't worth a feat!
Dimensional Reach (Reserve): You bring unattended objects to your hand. As a feat. As a fucking feat. You bring unattended items to your hand. As a standard action. And a fucking feat.
Drowning Glance (Reserve): You use a standard action to make someone exhausted for 1 round, fort save instead turns it into fatigue... and then they're immune to it. Uuurgh, what a fucking waste!
Elemental Adept: Another pointless Wu Jen class feature. You choose one spell, and can spontaneously cast it. ONE spell only. Totally not worth it.
Energy Abjuration: You gain energy resistance whenever you cast an abjuration spell, but only against the next energy attack. It's a pretty decent number, at least, so this feat is worth taking for people who cast lots of abjuration spells. Actually, it might not be all that worth while.
Energy Gestalt (Tactical): A neat idea, you cast two specific type of energy spells in a row, and get a special effect. It's nothing too major, though - you just mostly sicken people. Neat concept, but a let-down.
Face-Changer (Reserve): You can use Disguise Self at will, so long as you have a 3rd level glamer spell prepared. Yes, yes, you could just buy a really cheap hat of disguise, BUT... ... ... ok, there actually is no but.
Favored Magic Foe: You get +1 caster level on SR and +1 DCs against a specific type of creature. If you really, really want to focus on one type of creature, it may be worth picking up. Maybe.
Fearsome Necromancy: Anyone you hit with a necromancy effect is shaken, and it doesn't stack with other fear effects. Probablly the first feat I'd say is better than spell focus.
Fey Heritage: You get +3 will saves against enchantments. Also, you're a stupid-dumbass.
Fey Legacy: Requires level 9, and Fey Heritage. You get a bunch of SLAs 1/day that are just plain not worth two feats and don't scale well.
Fey Power: You get +1 caster level and save DCs of enchantments and invocations. Is this worth taking Fey Heritage for, though? If you want to max out your Charm Person or Invocations, maybe. But there are other good choices out there.
Fey Presence: Once again, a bunch of SLAs that don't scale well and aren't worth it.
Fey Skin: DR /cold iron of 1 + Fey Feats OTHER than Fey Heritage. Right... who the fuck would take enough feats to makr this worthwhile?
Fiendish Heritage: +4 fort saves vs poison, +1 saves against spells by good creatures. Unlike Fey Heritage, this one may actually be worth taking for the other stuff, if you're really into it.
Fiendish Legacy: 9th level, again, gives shitty SLAs... although the fact that you get Teleport here, and the fey-freak only gets Dimension Door makes him cry.
Fiendish Power: Evil spells and invocations get +1 caster level and DC. I could maybe see a warlock taking this one, actually.
Fiendish Persence: More. Shitty. SLAs. ARGH. JUST PLAY A FUCKING CASTER AND GET IT OVER WITH.
Fiendish Resistance: Acid and Fire resistance, only a really tiny, shitty amount. MAKE THE PAIN STOP!
Fiery Burst (Reserve): You shoot a tiny blast of fire. Noone cares, or is even hurt by it.
Hasty Spirit: What the FUCK is with all these god damn WU JEN FEATS? Total waste of space. Who cares about getting one free move action as a caster, or at least cares enough to spend a feat?
Hurricane Breath (Reserve): A bull rush check from afar, only it can push the creature back 5 ft max, and it's 1d20 + spell level. Yeah, while forcing enemies to provoke AoOs, there are MUCH better ways to go about it.
Insightful Divination: Cast a divination spell, get a (spell level +1) bonus to init and to the first save you make, lasts until you need to make a save. Not only is this probablly worse than improved initiative, it has really, really stupid mechanics.
Invisible Needle (Reserve): You shoot a tiny force needle. It deals 1d4 damage per spell level you have available, and requires a NORMAL ranged attack. Wizards, let me introduce you to something called alchemy items...
Magic Device Attunement: If you activate an item with UMD, you can use it for 24 hours without needing more checks. You can only use this for one item at a time. Yes, yes, you would likely be better off with Skill Focus, but why do you have to be so difficult?
Magic Disruption (Reserve): You can interrupt people's spells as an immediate action. They need to make a concentration check (DC 15 + highest level abjuration spell you can cast) or suffer -2 to save DC and caster level. Most enemies will pass this every single time... but an immediate action is pretty much free. It'll be useful against those casters that don't have concentration (ha!) or are just rolling unlucky.
Magic Sensitive (Reserve): You have detect magic at will. Yes, a cantrip. As a feat. Oh, wait, my bad - it has less range than Detect Magic. Something weaker than a cantrip as a feat.
Master of Undeath: You create an undead creature who doesn't count against your creation limit, but only follows you for a number of days equal to your caster level. While it can only be used on one undead at a time, it's still quite good. Necromancers, rejoice!
Melodic Casting: You can use Perform instead of Concentration, and can use magic items that you otherwise wouldn't while using bardic music. Really, this is something bards should get for free.
Metamagic School Focus: Three times per day, you get -1 metamagic cost with a specific school. The ways to abuse metamagic just keep stacking up.
Metamagic Spell Trigger Item: Expand extra charges, but apply metamagic to a staff! Joy of joys, this would be so abusable if staves wern't so god damn worthless.
Metamagic Vigor (Tactical): This is a feat that gives a tiny, tiny bonus to people who use metamagic spells. Those people are either so good as to not notice, or so crippling weak that nothing can help them.
Minor Shapeshift (Reserve): Spend a swift action, get a choice of benefit... including temp HP = to your HD, or +2 melee damage. Also, +1 caster level when casting polymorph spells. With this, the wizard can make the fighter ashamed of himself... well, even more ashamed.
Mystic Backlash (Reserve): You touch someone, and every time they cast a spell, they take damage a minor amount of damage that's never more than 9, and they also don't need to make a concentration check. Oh, an they also get a will save to make this effect last for only a round. As a level 9 wizard, don't you have SOMETHING better to do? If your enemy got off a spell, chances are, you're already dead!
Piercing Evocation: Flavor text, and I QUOTE: "Your evocation spells ingore an amount of energy resistance". Effect: 10 points of energy damage dealt by the spell becomes untyped. HEY DIPSHIT AUTHORS! THIS FEAT ONLY REALLY HELPS AGAINST IMMUNITIES, AND EVEN THEN, IS SO GOD DAMN WEAK THAT IT'S SUCH A TOTAL FUCKING WASTE OF TIME EVEN MAGIC MISSILE IS BETTER AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!
Ranged Recall: 3/day, you can reroll a missed spell attack roll at -5 penalty. For those people who just can't seem to get enough of the orb spells, for some reason.
Rapid Metamagic: It requires you to be a level 9 sorcerer... and then you can cast metamagic spells in the normal amount of time. Yes, it requires a FEAT for that. Yes, WOTC DOES hate sorcerers.
Residual Magic (Tactical): Meh. Some decent effects. I'm sure there's a way to abuse this, I just can't figure out how. You can cast a spell, then use an item of the same spell and act like you had casted it. Or cast a meta-magiced spell, and then cast the same spell again and have it count as being metamagiced.
Retributive Spell: +1 spell level metamagic. Cast a spell, and anytime someone hits you you can decide to blast them with the spell as a free action. Yeah, it sure as fuck sucks to be a fighter. But we knew that.
Shadow Veil (Reserve): You spend a standard action, to give someone -5 spot and 20% miss chance for one round, will negates. I'd rather have a wand of silent image, which anyone who isn't droolingly retarded (unlike, say, the authors) can use to even better effect.
Sickening Grasp (Reserve): Whoah. Any living creature you hit with a melee touch attack becomes sickened for several rounds, fort save reduces it to one round, and +1 caster level to necromancy spells. Actually very good, for someone who can't get enough of Ghoul Touch, Vampiric Touch, Slay Living, or Inflict spells.
Somatic Weaponry: You can cast spells when your hands are full, so long as you're holding a weapon. Yee-up, that's it.
Summon Elemental (Reserve): You summon an elemental at will, and can only have one of it. And it needs refreshed every few rounds. The elemental is also very weak - you need to be level 15 to summon a Large elemental, which can be normally summoned many, many levels earlier. I'd much rather blow the spell slot, and summon a BUNCH of them.
Sunlight Eyes (Reserve): You can see in any sort of darkness. Only, a very short distance. Really, how much does a CASTER care about that?
Touch of Distraction (Reserve): You can take a standard action to give a target -2 to its next attack roll or reflex save. You need to be level 5 to do this. Yes... it IS a fuckload worse than Aid Another. I never thought that that would be possible.
Toughening Transmutation: When you cast a transmutation spell, one target gets either DR 5/magic or +5 DR for one round. That is so weak and easily bypassed to be pretty much useless. The only transmutations you repeatedly cast in battle are save or dies!
Unsettling Enchantment: Anyone you cast an enchantment on takes -2 to attack rolls and AC for 1 round. Even if they fail. This feat actually HURTS high level casters who constantly get spells off. God-damnit WOTC!
Vengeful Spirit: Another. Fucking. Wu Jen. Feat. WHAT THE FUCK IS WITH THESE WU JEN FEATS? WHO ACTUALLY HAS EVER PLAYED A WU JEN?!
Wind-Guided Arrows (Reserve): As an immediate action, you can give a physical ranged attack +2 or -2 to hit. This one isn't all that bad, considering it can be used to buff up your allies as well as your enemies. Unfortunately, the range is REALLY short, and you have to be near the target. So it's mostly for defense actually
Winter's Blast (Reserve): The cold damage reserve feat. Why didn't they just make one feat, and call it ELEMENTAL TOTAL FUCKING WASTE OF TIME ? It would have saved paper.
More later, assuming I don't slit my wrists first. You people fucking owe me. I dredge through this stuff, so you don't have to!
Focused Specialist is the Power and the Glory. All who see it must bow. Focused Specialization is the last fvcking nail in the coffin of any argument that Sorcerers ever had any purpose under any circumstances.
It gives you 3 spells at first level. It gives 6 spells of each level in the long run. Does that sound familiar to you? It's the fvcking Sorcerer spellcasting progression. Except you get your new spell levels on time and you can still learn spells out of books.
The Specialist limitations are meaningless in the face of specializing in any vaguely general school. It is the way and the path, the greatest power creep ever printed.
Remember boys and girls, prohibited schools of magic don't even stop you from learning and casting spells of those schools. They just prevent you from gaining a spell of the prohibited school with you normal free 2 spells of each level (note: that's 4 spells per level total, so lowering your available schools for this purpose from 8 to 5 doesn't even do anything), and prevents your Wizard levels from allowing you to qualify for activating spell completion and spell trigger items for spells of those schools (unless you copied those spells into your spellbook). So if you have Apprenticeship and Use Magic Device, there is no drawback to specializing.
You'd be infuriated by how many people think the reserve feats are actually OVERpowered. They don't seem to realize the power loss represented by taking or using one of those feats.
BTW, the way to abuse Residual Metamagic is to use Shadowcraft Mage + Earth Spell. Cast a silent image heightened to 9th level (Earth Spell bumps this to 10th) to mimic a 9th level evocation/conjuration spell at 120% quasireality. Next round you silent image again, but this time you use Residual Metamagic to heighten it, getting you a 9th level spell from a 0th level spell slot.
Badabing.
Current pet peeves:
Misuse of "per se". It means "[in] itself", not "precisely". Learn English.
Malformed singular possessives. It's almost always supposed to be 's.
Frank wrote:It gives you 3 spells at first level. It gives 6 spells of each level in the long run. Does that sound familiar to you? It's the fvcking Sorcerer spellcasting progression. Except you get your new spell levels on time and you can still learn spells out of books.
I thought school specialization made it so that spells of prohibited schools were treated as not even on your spell list.
Current pet peeves:
Misuse of "per se". It means "[in] itself", not "precisely". Learn English.
Malformed singular possessives. It's almost always supposed to be 's.
FVCK. And I thought Dragon Magic was bad when I was going through it!
Armored Mage You're a fighter. As if that wasn't insult enough, you lose medium and heavy armor profiency... but can cast spells in light armor of a level equal to your fighter level. Being a fighter is like shooting yourself in the head. Taking Armored Mage is like getting a dog to piss in the hole, afterwards.
Y'know what the most insulting part of this is? I'd fvcking consider this for a fighter/mage if they didn't expect me to take fvcking Fighter for 9 fvcking levels and still somehow be a real arcane spellcaster.
Soulwarp Strike: I punch your stomach instead of go vulcan on you?
Divine Counterspell: I... Lose an ability that hardly ever works for one that can't possibly work? I think? It sounds like a great idea but the mechanics make no sense.
NineInchNall at [unixtime wrote:1161820063[/unixtime]]I thought school specialization made it so that spells of prohibited schools were treated as not even on your spell list.
Exactly!
...But learning spells from books and scrolls found in the game isn't restricted by spell list.
Rapid Metamagic: It requires you to be a level 9 sorcerer... and then you can cast metamagic spells in the normal amount of time. Yes, it requires a FEAT for that. Yes, WOTC DOES hate sorcerers.
Technically, this is actually love for Sorcerors. See, before Complete Mage came out, if you wanted to cast metamagic spells in the normal amount of time, you had to take a feat and jump through a fvcking ring of fire while fvcking yourself with a rusty spoon. That was also on fire.
I mean, it's still lame, but I rate legitimately good things that have the downside of being for sucky classes the same way I rate legitimately good things, simply because people actually play those classes for some reason.
Somatic Weaponry: You can cast spells when your hands are full, so long as you're holding a weapon. Yee-up, that's it.
Yeah, this feat is a "fine, I'll take it, shut up" for 5% of people or an "I don't care" for 95% of you. If your DM is one of those people who won't fvcking let you play Jozan because he uses a heavy mace in one hand and a heavy wooden shield in the other, you can take this and he shuts the fvck up.
Crissa at [unixtime wrote:1161821046[/unixtime]] Exactly!
...But learning spells from books and scrolls found in the game isn't restricted by spell list.
-Crissa
Really? But ... But ...
SRD wrote:Spells Copied from Another’s Spellbook or a Scroll A wizard can also add a spell to her book whenever she encounters one on a magic scroll or in another wizard’s spellbook. No matter what the spell’s source, the wizard must first decipher the magical writing (see Arcane Magical Writings, above). Next, she must spend a day studying the spell. At the end of the day, she must make a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + spell’s level). A wizard who has specialized in a school of spells gains a +2 bonus on the Spellcraft check if the new spell is from her specialty school. She cannot, however, learn any spells from her prohibited schools. If the check succeeds, the wizard understands the spell and can copy it into her spellbook (see Writing a New Spell into a Spellbook, below). The process leaves a spellbook that was copied from unharmed, but a spell successfully copied from a magic scroll disappears from the parchment.
Current pet peeves:
Misuse of "per se". It means "[in] itself", not "precisely". Learn English.
Malformed singular possessives. It's almost always supposed to be 's.
Ok, that takes the cake. I mean, the spell does *nothing* if the resistance is fixed/finite and you were going to beat it anyway. Of course, against immunities, or when you weren't going to deal enough damage, it "useful".
Yeah, what the hell is up with these alternate class features that objectively weaken characters across the board in nearly every situation. The Dragonscale Husk one is a great example. I'm particulary fond of PHB2's shapeshift Druid variant. Let's see, I get something flat out weaker than wild shape by giving up wild shape ... AND my animal companion. wtf, mate.
Current pet peeves:
Misuse of "per se". It means "[in] itself", not "precisely". Learn English.
Malformed singular possessives. It's almost always supposed to be 's.
Well, I've explained the reason you take Shapeshift or the Dragon Magic version of it, too. It has rules that are both not deep into crazy town and work without a fvcking chalkboard and a half hour lesson.
And if you want a gameplay experience that involves less insanity and/or needing to carefully explain the rules and all of the loopholes and flat-out holes to your DM, they both work. Shapeshift if you don't want to cast spells while shapechanged, and the Dragon Magic one if you do.
Yes, you'll be weaker, but considering that Wild Shape is one of those abilities that seriously allows you to straight-up cheat, I don't feel terribly sad recommending this.
Chapter 3: Prestige Classes (that you will never take
Lordhelpmelordhelpmelordhelpme.
Abjurant Champion: 5 level PrC that gives full casting and BAB, requires 1st level arcane spells, +5 BAB, and combat casting. Yeah, ouch. One of its class features gives you your Abjurant Champion level to armor bonuses from AC from spells, and gives Mage Armor as an example. Only Mage Armor isn't abjuration. Oops. Still, after five levels, you can get +7 deflection from Protection from Evil, and +9 shield from Shield. The rest of the class features are decent, but nothing to get all worked up about. Still, it's a very good PrC for hybrid characters, who need all the help they can get.
Eldritch Disciple: You need to be a cleric/warlock to get in. Joy. You get full warlock casting, 9/10 cleric casting, some selectible class features that function like divine feats, the best of which are a swift action shaken effect, and a +2 bonus on attack and damage rolls for a few rounds. You can also combine spellcasting and eldritch essences, although with -2 cleric caster levels, and -3 warlock ones, you'll have to work hard to make that useful. Personally, I just do not like the warlock class, and I think it sucks - so I wouldn't reccommend this PrC, either.
Eldritch Theurge: The warlock/arcanist. You have to enter as a 3/3. You get ten of each caster levels, DR and Fiendish Reislience like a warlock, and shoot out an eldritch blast that also fire an area spell (eldritch blast fireball?) in exchange for not applying another essence. This ability might sound good, but really, it's just adding a few extra dice onto one of your area spells - not a big deal, at all. You can later apply eldritch essence to arcane spells that have touch attacks, so you can use Scorching Ray, or Vampiric touch or whatever to deliver some bad statuses. Of course, this only has a limited number of uses per day. The last ability lets you apply touch spells to eldritch blasts like an essence... which isn't good, because it's STILL going to be a 30 ft range, with -3 caster levels, etc. This is much more playable than Eldritch Disciple but I'm still not convicned it's worth taking.
Elightened Spirit: You're a celestial warlock dude thing. You continue to get eldrtich blast, but no normal invocations. Instead, you get special, new invocations. And they ALL suck ass. +1 damage per die against undead or evil outsiders? Please. "Oh, you better watch out Mr Balor - I can deal 40 damage to you now! I bet you're scared!". The worst part is, there's no PROGRESSION for this PrC due to the lack of invocation progression. So at level 17, you're getting abilities you "should" have gotten at level 7. Just great. This PrC is so totally shitty, it makes me cry.
Holy Scourge: Requires level 3 arcane spells, gives 4/5th casting. Can you hear the warning klaxxons? Your spells deal +1 damage per spell level against evil creatures! Later, +2! unfortunately, I don't think anyone really cares. You can get... arcane smite. And be better against beating SR. Yes, you're giving up a caster level to be a good evoker against evil stuff. Yes, that's an entirely stupid thing to do, becaus generally, you don't want to be an evoker. I guess the PrC would be pretty nice for War Mages (layering on another +10 or so damage for -1 caster level, smiting with orb spells) who also have charisma anyway. But still, "It's shitty for wizards, but good for warmages, assuming you don't mind ALWAYS being an entire spell level behind!" says something, I think.
Lyric Thaumaturge: Requires you to be a level 5 bard. Gives 10/10 casting, more uses of bardic music (but not better STRENGTH, which means it'll be worthless), a bonus spell slot and spell known for each level, and the most confusing class feature I've ever seen. Spend a bardic music attempt, get +(spell level)d6 damage to a [Sonic] spell. Doesn't have to deal damage already, doesn't even have to have an area, or a target, or anything. How this is supposed to work makes my head hurt.
Master Specialist: You need to be a level 3 specialized wizard. There is no reason not to take this PrC. You get +2 caster level, and some MAJOR abilities for your chosen school. Like an enchanter gets no penalty for charming enemies in battle, then enemies have to make TWO saves against his enchantments (one at +5), and then all of his spells are stilled and silented. Good lord.
Nightmare Spinner: This book is MY nightmare. So you cast level 3 arcane spells, and have spent 4 cross class ranks on Bluff, Intimidate, and Sense Motive. Ouch. You get immunity to fear, an extremely shitty "inspire fear" effect, the ability to make your enemies shaken when they try to disbelieve you illusions (ONCE per 24 hours), your fear spells deal a tiny, tiny amount of non-lethal damage (3d6 for panicked guys? panicked guys are as good as DEAD anyway!) and at level 5, a low-DC save or die 3/day that's blocked by a ton of shit. And you have to lose a caster level to get all this. Just no, it's NOT worth it!
Ultimate Magus: The WOTC CharOp board keeps fapping over this PrC, so you right now it's completely and totally worthless, and only a mind-drooling idiot would like it. You need to go in as a Sorcerer 2/Wizard 3 or Sorc1/Wiz4, and you end up getting +17 caster levels from the PrC, divided equally. So at level 15, you're looking at something like sorc11/wiz11 casting. Yes, FOUR levels behind in each. In exchange, you get +4 caster level for all arcane spells, and can mix and match spellbook and spells known. But you're FOUR caster levels down. That means that no matter what the other guy is casting, your spells are TWO LEVELS LOWER. You'd seriously be better off playing a warlock, and I feel dirty that I said that. You'd think that the WOTC designers would maybe take a hint when they saw their example CR 9 character, and saw that her only useful attack was a 6d6 scorching ray.
Unseen Seer: Yeah, I wish I didn't have to see most of the stuff in this book. This requires 8 ranks in hide, search, and spot, as well as 4 in sense motive, and 1st level arcane spells. The example character goes in as a rogue 4/diviner 1. I really wonder if they expect people to do that. You get +4d6 sneak attack/skirmish/sudden strike, a bonus to caster level when casting divinations (HA!), nondetection at will, and 10 caster levels. So it's kind of like a Arcane Trickster. This is only worth taking if you totally ignore how they set up the characters, while trying to maximize your caster levels (using wizard, seer, and AT) while minimizng your rogue levels. Even then, why would anyone WANT to do it?
Wild Soul: Ten level PrC, 9/10th casting, blah blah. You get a list of spells that you can spontaneously cast, which aren't overly impressive, but still contain a few nice things. At lower level, there's nothing I consider a MUST have, but still. You can also use Summon Monster spells to summon some fey, and some fey-ish effects as long as you have a summoned fey out. Like most PrCs, it's just not worth the loss of caster level. And I usually love fey casters.
NEXT INSTALLMENT: Spells, Invocations, and Items... assuming I don't go crazy from reading this book, that is.
Y'know, Abjurant Champion seems pretty nice. You can take it without any Fighter levels simply by being an Elven or Outsider (Neraph? Sure.) Wizard 10 who burns a feat, and it's full casting and full BAB. Not noticing that goddamn Mage Armor isn't abjuration was pretty fvcking retarded though.
Its other abilities are meh to useless, with its 5th-level ability, Martial Arcanist, seeming like it might be handy, but really not being so at all, unless you decided to take up arcane casting for the first time in epic levels or something.
But hey, full casting, full BAB, and prereqs that don't make you cry tears of blood. That alone gets it a 5/5 levels long stamp in my book.
I wrote most of this earlier today before DragonChild's up. Mine is probably less humorous and certainly involves less ranting. I might do the spells later if DragonChild doesn't get there first.
Chapter 1: *yawn* Flavor text. More than that, dumb flavor text.
Chapter 2:
Alternative Class Features: I was surprised that most of these might even see play.
Arcane Hunter: Favored enemy (arcanists) is actually useful. I can see it being a solid choice in some campaigns.
Arcane Stunt: You can trade a near-useless ability for another near-useless ability.
Armored Mage: I'm sure this has some situational uses, but it's for gish, who are by definition gimped.
Curse Breaker: Useless for useless. No one cares!
Divine Counterspell: Suck! Counterspelling is stupid, take divine feats instead to use up those turn attempts.
Divine Magician: Its value depends largely on what deities, domains, and spells you're allowed. Possible situational usefulness.
Elemental Companion: Could be useful, depending on what kind of cheese you're aiming for.
Focused Specialist: Losing three schools bites, but if you don't expect to make it to high levels the extra spell power might be worth it since it will make your early life so much easier. Possibly also useful for weird variant builds like shadowcraft illusionists.
Soulwarp Strike: Well, it doesn't suck outright. But it's not much better, if at all, than Stunning Fist, and it's not a prereq for anything. Suck!
Spell Reflection: Would be useless if having multiple sources of evasion wasn't so fricking easy; as it is, maybe worth taking if you expect to get evasion from somewhere else.
Spell Sense: Trade in an ability that rarely matters, and matters less at higher levels, for one that might matter? I'm sold.
Spellbreaker Song: Useless for useless.
Stalwart Sorcerer: Suck! Gimp your casting further for irrelevant weapon abilities and some extra hp.
6/13 relevant, 3/13 useless, 3/13 irrelevant
Feats: Ah, this is more what I expected. Most of these are crap; the big gamers will come beat rip up your character sheet if you take any of them.
Acidic Splatter: Suck! Does irrelevant damage above 1st level.
Alacritous Cogitation: Being a wizard is all about having a massive pile of spells and the ability to pull from that pile the one spell that instantly solves the problem you're facing. This feat makes it easy to get that spell. I can see it being useful.
Aquatic Breath: Suck! You're a caster, just cast the fvcking spell, it lasts 2 hrs./level!
Battlecaster Defense: Suck! Complex, expensive, and worthless.
Battlecaster Offense: Suck! Totally anti-synergistic and expensive to boot.
Blade of Force: Suck! One attack is worthless, but at least it's a swift action; maybe some gish somewhere will take it, after crying themselves to sleep at having missed the boat to real ultimate power.
Borne Aloft: I can almost see taking this one, but I'd usually rather just cast fly or air walk.
Captivating Melody: Better than similar feats published in the past, and it stacks. Unfortunately, you're still a bard.
Clap of Thunder: Suck! See Acidic Splatter.
Cloudy Conjuration: What the fvck does "appears in conjuction with the spell taking effect (not before or after)," mean, anyways? Do you get the -2 to saves with your spell or not? Might be useful even if you don't, as a set-up with Quicken.
Clutch of Earth: Suck! Range is too short, save is too likely.
Dazzling Illusion: Suck! This feat has the special distinction of undercutting the major point of using illusions in the first place.
Defending Spirit: Not bad, but not good either. You're a wu jen, so you still feel ashamed when you realize the wizard has a spell list that's literally like five times yours, with better spells, and has better class features.
Delay Potion: Hey, it's like expensive swift-action buffing for non-casters. You can pay through the nose to get the same thing that casters get for free—I guess that's an improvement.
Dimensional Jaunt: I can see taking this spell with casters who don't have better teleport spells available.
Dimensional Reach: Suck! When would you use this? Can't an unseen servant do this for you?
Drowning Glance: Suck! A standard action to make something exhausted is a waste of time.
Elemental Adept: Suck! If there were any elemental spells worth casting often, this might not suck, but there aren't.
Energy Abjuration: Suck! Resist energy is 2nd-level and lasts 10 min./level; who are they kidding?
Energy Gestalt: Suck! Worthless benefits from spells you shouldn't be using anyways. The best use I can think of for this feat involves acid fog with incendiary cloud to mimic a weak version of stinking cloud, which makes me sad.
Face-Changer: Suck! Disguise self is 1st-level, by the time you have 3rd-level spells you can throw it around without even caring; presuming you aren't using alter self because it's so much better and so much more flexible.
Favored Magic Foe: Suck! It's like Spell Focus and Spell Penetration, only worse.
Fearsome Necromancy: The fear effect doesn't stack, but -2 to saves can make its way into Quicken combos.
Fey Heritage: It's about as bad as Iron Will, which is to say pretty good for this book, but what the fvck is up with the nonlawful requirement? Even aasimar and tieflings aren't required to be good and evil.
Fey Legacy: You might care you have these abilities. It's not a good use of the feat, but dimension door can used to escape force cage and SNA V can bring in some unicorns to heal you.
Fey Power: Suck! It's like Spell Focus, only it won't ever be a prereq for anything.
Fey Presence: Suck!
Fey Skin: Nothing but nothing in D&D can pierce DR/cold iron, so this might as well be DR/—. Unfortunately, it's still DR 1/feat, which is worthless. Suck!
Fiendish Heritage: This might almost be worthwhile if you expect to fight a lot of good creatures. If you're playing in a normal campaign, though, it's useless.
Fiendish Legacy: If you're not a caster, a feat for teleport is sadly plausible, given that boots of teleportation cost 49,000 gp, meaning you'll never see them until long after you've died for not having the spell.
Fiendish Power: If you're planning on making all your spells Evil by abusing something from the BoVD or something similar, this is decent. If not, it's worthless.
Fiendish Presence: Suck! You don't even care.
Fiendish Resistance: Suck! If this feat gave twice as much energy resistance, it might be worth considering. As it is, it's a good tool for mean DMs to make their advanced HD trolls tougher.
Fiery Burst: Suck! See Acidic Splatter.
Hasty Spirit: Extra move actions can be quite powerful. Unfortunately, you're still a wu jen.
Hurricane Breath: Suck! This spell might be useful except that it will never work on anything you care about.
Insightful Divination: Wait, what's this? Initiative bonuses are always powerful, and this bonus is not only significant, but it gets much stronger as you go up in level, where initiative becomes even more important. You also get a bonus on saves? Even better. Also, diviners are one of the few specialist wizards that don't start the game by sawing off one of their metaphorical arms. This feat isn't exactly good for most of the game, but you want it by the time you have foresight up all day.
Invisible Needle: Suck! You're a caster, which means your ranged attack will never hit.
Magic Device Attunement: Suck! This is like the skill feats: you might take it at first level, but as soon as you get a decent check from other sources, you will regret it.
Magic Disruption: Suck! No one will ever fail that Concentration check.
Magic Sensitive: Suck! Last I checked, permanency is a 5th-spell, that can duplicate this entire feat's effect at a cost of 500 XP. You get eight feats before 20th level, and 190,000 XP. Which is more cost effective?
Master of Undeath: You can create an undead creature that doesn't count towards your normal HD limit, it can be as badass as you want, and you keep control for days equal to your caster level. When it becomes uncontrolled, it's going to be after your head, but you don't care, because you had it commit suicide before that happened.
Melodic Casting: Ever heard of FSBNNN? I can guarantee you WotC hasn't. This is a must-have for anyone masochistic enough to play a bard. You'll still suck, but you'll suck less.
Metamagic School Focus: Suck! Metamagic is weak already and this feat doesn't improve it much. Maybe it will find its way into a few specialized builds abusing specific metamagic, like the shadowcraft illusionist.
Metamagic Spell Trigger: It's the abusive incantratrix/artificer trick, now available to the mass market, only more limited. You can still probably use it to turbo-enervation things to death, though.
Metamagic Vigor: Suck! Small bonus and unusual conditions: no one will care.
Minor Shapeshift: This feat is actually decent, especially if you're a gish. Its best ability is to negate your HD in damage every round, but +2 melee damage isn't bad either, since gish can do things like turn into hydra and launch twelve attacks at a go.
Mystic Backlash: Suck! Minor damage almost entirely negated by a caster's strongest save.
Piercing Evocation: Suck! As for its divine cousins, flamestrike and kin, resistance still prevents exactly as much damage as usual, but this doesn't even have the advantage of being half-useful against immunes.
Ranged Recall: Suck! Ranged touch attacks at 30' never miss anyways.
Rapid Metamagic: The PHB2 gave sorcerers the ability to use Quicken. Now, other spontaneous casters can get in on the act too for the price of a feat.
Residual Magic: Enduring potency is useless, but lingering metamagic might see some use in chain-Quickening or party buffing with Persistent polymorph or similar nonsense.
Retributive Spell: This is like contingency, but it goes off on your enemy. With appropriate choice of spells, this can easily be a "get out of melee free" card. Like high-level wizard combat wasn't crazy enough already.
Shadow Veil: Suck! There are so many better ways to get concealment.
Sickening Grasp: This might see some specialized uses for characters combining unarmed strikes with casting, since there doesn't seem to be any language restricting the number of times you can use it in a turn.
Somatic Weaponry: This feat's usefulness is highly depending on how strict your DM is and other such factors. It's also a cleric feat, since it allows you to sword-and-board with no difficulty.
Storm Bolt: Suck! See Acidic Splatter.
Summon Elemental: An elemental available at will is also known as a "free trap tripper." It can also be used for a variety of similar functions, such as looking into rooms before you go in (remember earthglide), and such.
Sunlight Eyes: This is the coveted ability to see in magical darkness. I don't know why it's coveted, but I suppose if you can find a way to get real darkness, you can blind all your enemies.
Touch of Distraction: Suck! No one cares about the penalties from this spell.
Toughening Transmutation: DR /magic sucks, but if you can get another form of damage reduction from somewhere and a source of low-level swift action transmutations, you can get pretty high damage reduction. I don't know for certain, but I suspect such a combination exists.
Unsettling Enchantment: This might have its uses, particularly at low levels, but remember how many things are immune to mind-affecting effects.
Vengeful Spirit: This might serve as a half-way decent counter to iaijutsu masters and similar enemies that unload massive damage attacks at the cost of not having many of them. Unfortunately, you're still a wu jen.
Wind-Guided Arrows: Suck! The bonus is tiny.
Winter's Blast: Suck! See Acidic Splatter.
37/65 useless, 5/65 for a class that makes me cry, 25/65 relevant, 3/65 good
Prestige Classes: What the fvck is up with separating the text from the table in this chapter? It makes understanding the PrCs annoying for no reason. Also, what the fvck is up with more mystic-theurge-like PrCs? Who ordered these? We all know mystic theurges and their kin suck.
Abjurant Champion: This class's concept is interesting and the implementation isn't horrible. (Though the confusion about mage armor amused me no end.) It definitely has a place in certain gish builds. Unfortunately, you're still a gish, which means that you gave up real ultimate power because you thought it would be cool to play with swords.
Eldritch Disciple: Suck! You're a multiclassed cleric/warlock. You're taking the suck of the warlock and diluting cleric to do it. The class features aren't bad, but nothing short of a miracle can save a cleric/warlock, and you don't even get full cleric casting. I can see this being used in warlock/ur priest builds, though, where instead you'll have all the awesome of ur-priest combined with being a not-awful warlock; I imagine that might be playable. I'd suggest warlock/paladin, but the stupid alignment restrictions prevent that and you'd still have lost the game because you decided to be a meleer.
Eldritch Theurge: Suck! You're a warlock/arcane caster, and that means you're not good at anything. You also have no class features to speak of. Spellblast is at least amusing to combine with antimagic field, though.
Enlightened Spirit: Suck! You're a good-themed warlock with no choices for your invocations, meaning you suck even more than a normal warlock.
Holy Scourge: Suck! This PrC has the unusual distinction of being worse than the usual PrC that costs casting advancement: you pick an annoying code of conduct and lose the ability to cast evil spells. Of course, all your abilities focus on doing damage, but you're an arcane spellcaster, so that's approximately your last priority in the world. It is hard to understate how awful this class is.
Lyric Thaumaturge: Suck! This PrC is abysmally bad. The appropriate meter of comparison is the Sublime Chord from CA, which was a take on this same concept that at least transformed a bard into a weak sorcerer. Of course, lyric thaumaturge isn't much worse than ordinary bard, so what this boils down to is that the bard class is awful.
Master Specialist: Notice that it's possible to enter this PrC at 4th level. I think WotC must have decided that specialists needed a huge power up, because that's what this is. (I'm curious how this interacts with the double-specialist racial substitutions from Races of Eberron.) There are two big things going on here.
The first is prereq chaining. Skill Focus (Spellcraft) is a prereq for archmage, a class which every optimized arcane caster should take a few levels in at some point; it also boosts the incantatrix's key metamagic abilities. Greater Spell Focus is likewise a prerequisite for some other specialized PrCs, like initiate of the sevenfold veil and shadowcrafter. If you go for both, you lose the wizard feat but pick up two feats, which is probably a net gain if you had to take Spell Focus anyways.
Most of the school esoterica are powerful, some of them exceptionally so. Minor abjuration, enchantment, illusion, and transmutation are all strong, offering stacking bonuses it's hard to get other ways or strong abilities. Moderate abjuration, conjuration, enchantment, illusion, and transmutation are all decent defensive abilities that trigger when you cast a spell from your school, and necromancy's is just insane. Of the major esoterica, abjuration allows you to do horrible things like put antimagic fields on your minions and party members, and conjuration gives free Quickening.
I don't know if this makes specializing good enough to be worth considering if you weren't planning on it anyways, but this PrC destroys red wizard of Thay and will automatically take its place in certain specialized wizard builds.
Nightmare Spinner: This PrC isn't good because it drops a level of casting, but its abilities are that strong anyways. You get a free extra illusion spell of every spell level, and deadly nightmare is a way of removing anything not immune to mind-affecting, death, and fear abilities from combat while giving up your standard action.
Ultimate Magus: Suck! This is the combined sorcerer/wizard PrC. If you enter it "optimally" (calling anything about this class optimal is a stretch) as wiz 4/sor 1, you'll end up a wiz 11/sor 11 at 15th level, and then cry as you realize that you're two entire spell levels behind a single-classed wizard and all you have to show for it are some weak sorcerer spells that the single-classed wizard can spam out just as well as you, because you only get so many actions in a day. You get some minor abilities, but nothing that makes up for your essential weakness.
Unseen Seer: This is a bizarre PrC that increases sneak attack, sudden strike, or skirmish damage, without requiring it. It also doesn't mention what happens if you don't have any such ability on entering the class. Because it offers full casting advancement, it's entirely possible this is a path into arcane trickster with no lost casting levels. Other than that, its abilities are neither particularly good or bad, but I expect it will make a decent dip for certain themed builds.
Wild Soul: Suck! This PrC drops a level of casting, and its class features don't make up for it. In this case, good gets the better deal: both the seelie spontaneous casting list and summons are better. Even the ability to convert prepared spells into timestop can't save this class, though.
This book really takes advantage of the new maximize filler principle. I think this is an experiment to see how much space they can completely waste and still get people to purchase their books.
Ultimate Magus: Actually, if'n you pick up Practiced Spellcaster for your Sorcerer (preferably Beguiler) casting, then you end up Wiz 13/Sorc 9, which ain't bad for costing you two caster levels. Why is this not bad? It's not bad because of Augmented Casting, the class's only redeeming value and actually a pretty sweet ability. Cast spells with metamagic by using the other side's spell slots to counter the LA? Sign me up. It's actually quite useful in a Shadowcraft Mage build, as you're normally too preoccupied by heightening your spells to be able to use other metamagics like Empower, Maximize, or Twin Spell.
Nightmare Spinner is a good one level dip AFTER gaining 9th level spells. The rest of its abilities lick taint.
Meh. There are a few things that some characters of mine might covet from this book, those being Elemental Companion, Summon Elemental, Residual Metamagic, and Abjurant Champion, but other than that, well, it's pretty disappointing.
Current pet peeves:
Misuse of "per se". It means "[in] itself", not "precisely". Learn English.
Malformed singular possessives. It's almost always supposed to be 's.
Oh, and am I the only one totally infuriated by the new PrC format? I really don't think that anyone needs five or six pages devoted to each PrC. And what's up with the magic item descriptions? How blatant can padding be?
Current pet peeves:
Misuse of "per se". It means "[in] itself", not "precisely". Learn English.
Malformed singular possessives. It's almost always supposed to be 's.
Dragon_Child wrote:Abjurant Champion: 5 level PrC that gives full casting and BAB, requires 1st level arcane spells, +5 BAB, and combat casting. Yeah, ouch. One of its class features gives you your Abjurant Champion level to armor bonuses from AC from spells, and gives Mage Armor as an example. Only Mage Armor isn't abjuration. Oops. Still, after five levels, you can get +7 deflection from Protection from Evil, and +9 shield from Shield. The rest of the class features are decent, but nothing to get all worked up about. Still, it's a very good PrC for hybrid characters, who need all the help they can get.
Interesting, but nobody noticed how this class actually doesn't give you any bonuses on AC from most spells. The class feature that gives you AC states that you gain a bonus with abjuration spells that provide a shield or armor bonus. So that's Shield and...? I haven't found any that apply but Shield and that one spell from SC. Also, it's interesting how you gain an ability that gives you an increased CL based on your BAB at lvl5. You know, it's because it would be imba if you got it at lvl1. Let's take their incredibly bad min/max egzample. Ftr4/Sor2/AbjCh5. So when i started on this path i was Ftr4/Sor2/AbjCh1 == CLvl 3. Imagine that i gained this ability now! I mean, my CLvl would soar to 6!!!! Yes, i still cast three 1st lvl spells(one has to be Shield), but THE POWER of CLvl 6!! raaaaaa, somebody stop me, i'm on a rampage.
Edit: Unrelated to AbjCh, Catsfeet spell is a swift spell that gives you a bonus to a Move Silently check you just rolled. It has a verbal component. So lets put it to a test. I'm sneaking past a guard and then SPEAK to be silent. I guess i'm just on a rant, but the spell is still fvcking tarded.
I might give it another go this weekend when I get some more time. 
