OSSR: 4e Arcane Power

[CapnTthePirateG]

So, Arcane Power. When this book was released, it was right after the PHBII and after the fury of "hey, where the fuck are my druids/gnomes/ bards/necromancers/transmuters/summons/familiars/all the other shit I could do in D&D?" So it took them a year to hand out summons on the grounds of them not understanding how to balance summons or something. And when they finally dropped the PHB, it had the bard, 3 different flavors of druid, another divine class which was "blasty cleric who summons angels,"the barbarian, and a divine assassin class, and the sorceror, an arcane class which blasted things in a much different fashion than the other two arcane classes who blasted things. So there was still a little pile of character concepts (monk, necromancer, diabolist, etc) left in the dust. Furthermore, this was the time when the Orbizard ruled the land, with more silly power creep like the Deva race (+2 int +2 wis yo) and Adventurer's Vault providing all kinds of stupid items to lower saves.

So this book came out promising to fill some conceptual space which had been left undone. It lists itself as "Options for Bards, Sorcerers, Swordmages, Warlocks, and Wizards." So right there we've got two problems.

A) Note that of the five classes, only two are in the PHB I. So to get the full mileage out of this book, you're expected to buy PHBII and Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. This is unlike Martial Power where all the classes lived in the PHB and you got your money's worth out of the book. No, this book is going to saddle you with options for shit you don't care about.

B)There's another arcane class which never got mentioned again, the Artificer, from Eberron Campaign Setting. To my knowledge they never received splat support. So if this book was trying to support all the arcane...they failed super hard.

With that out of the way, let's drive into the crappile. I am not a drinker so I will be substituting Dr. Pepper. Don't hate.

Introduction
There's a page of introduction where it explains this book has cool things for Arcane characters. Also talk to your DM about changing your guy for cool options.

Chapter 1: Bards:
So the chapter opens with a new bard build: the prescient bard! You see into the future to shoot people with arrows. Naturally, it just throws alternate class features at you without telling you how to build the class. It takes Wis as a secondary stat, which is awesome (sarcasm) because Wis and Cha both affect will. So start dumpster diving for those +2 Wis/+2 Cha races!

Of more importance is that the authors provide only 1 at-will for ranged strikes, meaning that you better damn well enjoy shooting people for 1[w]+Cha damage and tripping people if they miss. Damn it, the at-will shows what's wrong with 4e powers right here: fiddly, annoying to track, and their effects are boring.

So looking through the powers, they are all over the place. There's a ranged attack which uses Int secondary, a Con secondary implement attack, and they all carry fiddly buff powers. And this is just the 1st-level encounter powers. Joy. No I don't own PHBII, why do you ask?

Oh, Haste returns granting a standard action to yourself or a bro at the cost of 1 of your minor 1/day.

And break enchantment is bard-only now and grants a saving throw.

There'a also an Attack 25 that grants a -5 penalty to saves, with a save ends. So team orbizard, go. Go. Go.

I'm not going to delve into all these powers, because they suffer from the 4e fluff/power problem where the fluff describes them as "Instant and Painful Death" and it turns out they do 2[W]+Int damage and slide som dude 4 squares.

And we have Paragon Paths, which is the perfect place to introduce the Arcane Power drinking game: every time they recycle 3e art, take a drink. First paragon path recycles Gimble the 3e PHB bard, so...glug!

So the first paragon path is about being a trickster and a liar. Which is naturally why the 11th level encounter power is a laser that you shoot at dudes and than when people stab that guy they turn invisible for six seconds. That's the stupidest trickster power ever. The lvl 20 power at least makes more sense by having dudes beat each other up.

Second path is: you are a bard. You shoot people with a bow. You can use a bow as an implement. You had to wait till 11th level for this ability. Fuck you. Strangely seems to focus on DPS despite being supposedly for leaders...but what the hell do I know?

3rd path: You are a bardic assassin. Also, they use the Suel Arcanamach art here. Drink. You basically have a shitty version of hunter's quarry you can trigger powers off of, but only from this class. Yay synergy!

4th path: You are a half-elf. You're a bard! You're a half-elf bard! And we don't care!

5th path: You can reroll shit and fuck around with die rolls. Level 20 has a power where you force all enemy attacks to auto-miss as a save ends.

6th path: It's that one bard/druid class thing from Complete Adventurer! Drink! You sing songs of pacifism which fight plague wind. You're also against damage, despite the fact that this is the edition where you can rip out people's souls in a totally nonlethal way. Le sigh. You do get to reroll missed attacks against will, so this is kinda useful. Your L20 is basically sleep but heals your bros, and they can't CdG it. Oh well.

And that ends the bard chapter.

Fuck it, I hate myself.

Chapter 2: Sorcerer

So, the sorceror. They blast things super hard. They have two new builds, which I'm given to understand use the same stats as the ones in the PHBII. There's storm magic, which gives you electricity resistance and shitty flight (when you roll a nat 20 on an attack you can push them back 1 square and fly 1+dex mod squares. WHO GIVES A FLYING FUCK?!) and cosmic magic which has some annoying fiddly phase change thing that gives you annoying fiddly bonuses like an aura of fire damage or teleporting away from missed attacks. Also, these randomly change when you are bloodied. Joy.

There's a pile of new powers too. Yes, many of these have rider effects based on your power source, most of which are annoying and fiddly to track and lock you into selections if you want to get the most out of your powers. There are some that don't, so you have some choice. Again, the vast majority are boring-ass 4e staples. There's a power that calls down rain to destroy conjurations or zones that have the fire keyword. I don't think it can put out normal fire by RAW. There's a weird-ass power where you make 4 clones of yourself that have 1 hp and you can inhabit for a +1 to hit for 1 energy type. It's weird. It's not good. There's also one polymorph power at Level 29 which turns you into a dragon. You gain a fly speed and a bite attack, and a breath weapon, and can still cast spells. The breath weapon deals the most damage of the other powers of this level.

Paragon path time!

First path: the cryokineticist from Frostburn shows up! Drink! It's called Blizzard Mage You freeze people and resist slowed/immobilized effects, which I didn't realize you cared about as an arcane ranged attacker. Huh. And you can slide people on a crit...dammit.

Celestial Scholar: Obligatory Celestial Powersource class. Instead of being able to just lock into a phase, you make one phase better. Sure, you can now change to any phase when you use a daily attack (instead of just going down the list) but you're still fiddling around with fiddly things for minor bonuses. Pass.

Dragon Guardian: Another dragon sorcerer class, which I'm sure wasn't in the PHBII despite that book having dragon magic sorcerers. I can't bring myself to care, as it focuses on close burst attacks.

Essence Mage: Become a glowy essence thingy 1/day. Deal more damage with powers that deal multiple types of damage, because there are so many (yes I know there's a feat, shh!). Well at least you do more damage with your e11.

Lightning Fury: You shoot people with lightning. WOOOO. You get a daily "utility" that boosts lightning damage for one encounter, and more lightning attacks.

Primordial Channeler: You shoot people with random energy for random benefits! I still don't care!

And that's the sorceror chapter. Next up: we pretend to care about the swordmage!

[hogarth]

As a side note, I have a wild magic sorcerer that I play in an extremely slow play-by-post 4E game. If I had access to Arcane Power when I built him, I probably would have gone with a storm magic sorcerer instead; trying to keep track of all the fiddly little details of the wild magic path (you get different one-round minor effects when you roll odd, or even, or 20, or 1, etc.) is incredibly annoying.

[Rawbeard]

I actually retconned the sorcerer I play in a 4E game from Wild to Storm exactly because of that fiddly shit after one session. I don't think that 'feature' was playtested at all. Holy annoying shitfuck. I picked Sorcerer because I really did not want to deal with anything that needs me to give a fuck about weird subsystems. I should have read more carefully. But for that I would need to give a fuck.

It is kinda fun, though. I think the braindamage from reopening my 4E files might be more severe than expected.

[Dean]

So the first paragon path is about being a trickster and a liar. Which is naturally why the 11th level encounter power is a laser that you shoot at dudes

Hilarious. 4E in brief.

[codeGlaze]

I actually retconned the sorcerer I play in a 4E game from Wild to Storm exactly because of that fiddly shit after one session. I don't think that 'feature' was playtested at all. Holy annoying shitfuck. I picked Sorcerer because I really did not want to deal with anything that needs me to give a fuck about weird subsystems. I should have read more carefully. But for that I would need to give a fuck.

It is kinda fun, though. I think the braindamage from reopening my 4E files might be more severe than expected.

I know the feeling. It is sort of fun... but then you realize that very little is going to change for the next X levels. xD

[Username17]

Everything about the Cunning Prevaricator makes no sense. It's supposed to be for Gnomes, but Gnomes don't Bard. At all. And their Utility power is something that triggers when an attack misses an ally and has special effects if the attack that triggered it hits. Because editing is for suckers. Certainly something that leaps out at you while reading Arcane Power is that the authors obviously don't play 4th edition D&D. Nevertheless, the absence of give-a-shit on the part of the people making the book coupled with the laughably total disconnect between game mechanics and flavor text makes this a truly iconic 4e book. Everything that was wrong with 4e is neatly summed up by the fact that Arcane Power exists.

That being said, I don't think Arcane Power really qualifies as "old school" by any but the most tortured definitions.

-Username17

[hogarth]

Essence Mage: Become a glowy essence thingy 1/day. Deal more damage with powers that deal multiple types of damage, because there are so many (yes I know there's a feat, shh!). Well at least you do more damage with your e11.

By sheer coincidence, I was looking at sorcerer paragon paths last weekend and I counted up all the level 1-15 sorcerer powers in PHB2 and Arcane Power that did multiple damage types. I believe I found three, if you include that one that comes with the Essence Mage path.

On the plus side, since 90% of 4E is spamming the same at-will power over and over and over and over and over again, you can just take the feat you mentioned and profit. So...hooray?

(I didn't bother counting past level 15 because there's no chance in hell that our 4E game will last that long.)

[Torko]

The artwork for the Bard's level 29 powers shows the party fighting...Orcs.

[fectin]

I'm fine with just calling all book reviews "OSSR: [book title]". It looks distinctive, and there's no downside.

[Lago PARANOIA]

What's the cutoff date for old-school fantasy roleplaying, you'd say?

My personal opinion: if it's newer than 5 years it's definitely not. Older than 10 years, definitely is. Between then... eh, it's a gray area. That definition includes every single 3.0E/3.5E D&D WotC book. But it will also include 4E D&D books in a few months. So who knows.

[hogarth]

What's the cutoff date for old-school fantasy roleplaying, you'd say?

In my opinion? Older than 3E. I've never heard the term "old school" applied to players of 3E D&D.

[Josh_Kablack]

Well we have had 4.5E (Essentials) and are on the verge of 5e(Next, please)...so it might be worth applying some enhanced interrogation techniques to those definitions and rolling with 4e as "Old-school"

[Mistborn]

What's the cutoff date for old-school fantasy roleplaying, you'd say?

My personal opinion: if it's newer than 5 years it's definitely not. Older than 10 years, definitely is. Between then... eh, it's a gray area. That definition includes every single 3.0E/3.5E D&D WotC book. But it will also include 4E D&D books in a few months. So who knows.

I'd like to make a motion that in the future we use SSR or Shitty Sourcebook Review for 4e material.

[CapnTthePirateG]

As reviewer, I'm coming down on the side of "there's a .5 edition, and this is before the great MMIII overhaul, and the essentials overhaul, and..." my point being that what is written in this book is kinda different than what's played today.

And now, we pretend to give a shit about:
Swordmage

So, the swordmage was the first expansion class released in the Forgotten Realms guide. It's a gish class that triggers off intelligence. Now, there is plenty of room in the game for gishes, but it's another "patch class" for mechanics which should have worked (the abomination of the multiclass system). But hey, you know, whatever floats your boat.

So rather than providing the paragraph needed to actually use this stuff (like they didn't do with the sorc and the bard), they just tell you to go out and get the Forgotten Realms book. Because everything is core.

As this is a "defender" class, it gets to do all of the marking shit. The build in this book teleports marked guys next to you when they try to stab one of your bros...after the attack resolves. They also grant combat advantage (think 3e flat-footed/flanked). Which is kind of cool.

There's a variety of powers involving stabbing people with blades of elemental glowy shit. Some of them have riders based on your aegis build thing. No, I don't have the FR guide. Utilities focus on teleporting around, getting defense, and mostly not actually being useful out of combat. Just like normal utilities. Hilariously, there's a force choke power which deals 1d10+Int force mod damage and immobilizes for a turn. FEEL THE POWER, BITCHES! There's some kinda cool stuff, like stabbing a guy and being able to auto-pinpoint his location. But overall this crap is so bland I'm actually happy to see a feather fall effect. Look what 4e has done. Also at level 22 you can fly around for 5 minutes. They also get another 1 hp clone effect, which is still meh because you can only hit once.

One thing I haven't mentioned about this book (and should have, I apologize) are the sidebars explaining [race][this class]. For instance, the sidebar I'm looking at now tries to support half-elves as swordmages, despite the fact that they don't get Int as one of their stats. They, um, "naturally appreciate the fusion of magic and swordplay" or some crap. It puts down a bunch of fluff, but also hilariously notes that some races are better than others (such as tiefling and eladrin wizards). I guess it's that "any race, any class" the devs promised us way back when 4e was released which mysteriously never materialized. Morons.

So, on to the paragon paths! Only thing I know about these guys is that wizards plunder their PPs all the time, so...

Arcane Hunter: You hate resistances, so you ignore them. Remember, this is something that you earn which is supposed to make you more like a legendary badass, and at the end of the day, you can...IGNORE DAMAGE RESISTANCE! DUN DUN DUN! The features are meh but useful, but this is seriously supposed to be treated as 3.5 would treat becoming something actually powerful like a Master of Shrouds or an Anima Mage, both of whom have scary and defining class features which can be used for purposes other than to kill things.

Sorry. Off topic.

Ghost Blade: You can walk paths unseen through reality, stepping between the planes at will. Oh, no, wait, you can only become insubstantial in a few specific circumstances, and then only for a round. Goddammit 4e.

Sage of Fate's Bonds: You, um, can see if people are married. Or somthing. And you're a master tactician. Basically you jank fools across the battlefield if they try to stab your bros. Could be playable.

Aegis Carver: You carve runes. In the air. With your sword. They quote some elf words - sorry, eladrin words - you don't care about. Defender stuff, but also put a sigil on a guy so that when your bros stab him (but not you, because you hate him that much), they get +2d6 damage.

Sword of Assault: You hit people with glowy shit. How is this different from any other swordmage? You have more DPS. Features look mechanically useful (use at-will as minor 1/battle, charge with encounter power on extra action), but it's so boring.

Ward Guardian: share your swordmage warding with everyone, hand out defense bonuses to bros if they cluster around you. Which defeats the point of the whole mark thing, as any artillery which is not retarded will simply bomb all your bros AND you. No, go ahead, keep marking dumbass.

And that ends that chapter. Now we FINALLY get to the PHB classes.

Warlock
Lago, I may need your help on this one. But if I recall correctly, when this book came out, warlock was one of the crap tier classes that no one fucking played because half the powers were unusable as they relied on a different stat than the one you wanted to use. The PHB warlock and PHB ranger are also notable for having pretty much the exact same class feature (prime shot, that damage bonus thing) but differing in powers. The ranger got the good shit and continued to get awesomer with each splat while it took years for the dumbasses at Wizards to give the starlocks (the build that thinks "hey, boost BOTH attack stats while having a third stat determine power! How is this not retarded?" The best part? THe dumb shits actually gave it int based attacks too. Morons.) So, how do they buff the warlock? Well, let's find out!

So there's a new warlock pact. It's called the vestige pact in an attempt to rip off the binder from 3e's Tome of Magic. You get a wacky at-will that changes riders based on what daily you used in that fight. It also curses things for you whilst dealing shitty psychic damage. Your pact boon also changes depending on the daily. So, track fiddly shit ahoy!

Another one of those stupid sidebars appears, explaining that tieflings are awesome warlocks who make Charisma pacts to avoid being like their ancestors who made hell pacts. No, they didn't have a Con bonus at the time despite having invented a Con school of warlocking. Fuck this stupid game.

So, powers. They are still split between Cha and Con. Also, some of them reference the dark pact which is also in...Forgotten Realms. Sigh. So the way it works is most of the powers have an Int rider that only functions if you've made that pact (you get 1, two if you take a feat which existed at the time...on WoTC's website). So really, your powers are kinda locked in. You still can't summon creatures, which is something that always irked me about characters who are supposed to SUMMON CREATURES TO MAKE PACTS WITH and is supported by the lore (Faustus had plenty of debils lying around). No, instead you deal 2d6+Cha damage and slide the target 1 square. Your ultimate powers? Blinding people (I am not joking), adding ongoing fire 5 to your at-will, adding a knock prone attack to your at-will, teleporting guys 25 feet, and a wall of fire which is conceptually cool but the wizard got at level 9. They will fear your dark might dammit...actually no they won't. You probably won't even get through their hit points in an hour.

Also, they have the nerve to give advice about how to assign ability scores. They actually treat boosting both Cha and Con as a viable strategy. Dumbfucks.

So, on to the paragon paths:

Dark Reckoner: You use drow magic to deal more damage. Your curse deals +1d6 necrotic damage. I understand necrotic is the most resisted type in the game. Your ult deals a pile of damage (we're using Lol terms, these powers are similar) while being fluffed as summoning up an undead priestess. It deals 4d8+Cha damage, with ongoing 10. I think I'd rather have a summon, it'd be cooler.

Entrancing Mystic: You are a master of controlling people, which is why you have no abilities which actually control people at all. I'm not even kidding. You can inflict save penalties on charm powers, get attack bonuses, cause stunning or ongoing psychic damage (they get to choose), slide people, and daze them when they try to hit you, but nothing about this path actually helps you entrance people or control their minds in a social context. The path is fluffed as "people are afraid of your power because you entrance them," but this path can't actually entrance people on it's own. Funnily enough, wizards take this path all the time with all the charm powers they got after this book was written.

God Fragment: Hello Escalation Mage! Drink! This is the vestige pact path, which is fluffed as commanding a dead god. What actually happens is you get a dominate power, a -2 to saves zone, and a straight-up damage nuke. Also more damage on crits. Of course, the game fluffs this as "you are starting to awaken the might of a dead god," making this all a little underwhelming. Still, it's mechanically good in 4e land, so you may as well throw it into the modern orbizard party build (it's still possible, just harder and needs more dumpster diving).

Hellbringer: Hello, Morthos the warlock! You shoot hellfire. you ignore fire resistance. You deal more damage on action point attacks. You get fire spells and an arcane gate which burns enemies if they move through it. Your ult deals less damage than the previous path's encounter power but knocks them prone. Sigh.

Hexer: You curse people longer, faster, and harder. It adds some fiddly crap to a curse (like sliding people when you hit them) and lets you pick a target rather than cursing the closest. Your spells also curse a lot of people. Boring and I'm not sure it's actually useful.

Master of the Starry Night: You, um, call down stars to burn dudes. Ok...what this path actually does is futz with your pact boon and fiddles with concealment. It also has one Con and one Cha attack power, so this path can fuck right off.

Sea Tyrant Oracle: You can see the future and receive visions, and that's why you get a pile of minor defensive bonuses. No, you don't get 3e style divinations or any actual mechanics for these visions, so, um, enjoy your 1/day +20 to initiative?

Storm Scourge: Someone was super high when they designed this class. It's a class based around lightning damage...that requires you to have the fey pact. HEY MORONS! THE FEY PACT FOCUSES ON PSYCHIC DAMAGE YOU FUCKING DIPSHITS I"M HAVING TROUBLE FINDING ANY WARLOCK LIGHTNING POWERS AT ALL GOD KNOWS YOU DIDN'T PRINT ANY IN THE LAST CHAPTER! Ok. But this class: sets your typeless eldritch blast to lightning damage (it's optional, but you don't care), gives a bunch of lightning attacks that add Cha AND Int to damage, and you gain lightning resistance and a weak lightning aura. This class is stupid and the authors should feel stupid. Also the blood elf in the art looks like it escaped WoW, only to release the lore is shittier in this new land and nothing makes any sense.

And that ends the warlock chapter. We have some, erm, interesting things in the wizard chapter to cover, so strap yourselves in. I might actually take up drinking.

[Maxus]

The fluff/mechanics divide is what turned me off of D&D 4e to begin with.

I once said that I was presented with the books AND the fanbase going "THIS IS SO EPIC AND AWESOME"

Their claim is even bigger bullshit a couple of years later.

[JigokuBosatsu]

Hahaha, holy crap, Maxus, where did you get that?

[CapnTthePirateG]

@Maxus: Always loved that pic. Remember when you posted it too.

Chapter 4:
Wizard

So finally we get to the wizard chapter. And we have some fun times awaiting us.

We get three new implement masteries: The Orb of Deception, which lets you randomly attack another guy after a missed attack with an illusion power (and add your cha to hit) 1/encounter, and a completely new implement, the Tome. There are two options: one which gives creatures you summon +Con to damage (1/encounter), and the actually interesting one, Tome of Readiness which lets you store wizard encounter attack powers and switch them out for other ones. Of course, you still don't care because it's wizard attack powers, but now you can be a wizard who just focuses INT and dumps everything else. You wouldn't at the time of this writing because Orb of Imposition was so damn good, but still...

This book also presents 4e's summoning rules. These first appeared in the PHB2 and my god they are awful. They're allied creatures with the summoner's bloodied value in HP (yes, this is half of a wizard's hit points), the summoner's defense values, and has no healing surges. They last until the end of the encounter. The wonderful thing about these powers is that you need to spend your actions for the creatures to take actions...and most of these are god-awful. The invoker from the PHBII at least had a bunch of summons with minor action attacks, however, you will be expected to give up your standard action for these things. Yes, actions are powerful in turn-based games but you also need something to do with your action.

Of course, keep in mind that they're still trying to figure out what the hell the wizard is supposed to do, as at this point it was pretty useless without the orb of imposition.

So, new wizard powers. They're trying to have illusion wizards and summoner wizards. Illusion wizards inflict piles of short-lived conditions along with psychic damage. Summoner wizards have annoying conjurations that occupy a space and deal piddly damage when someone moves away. Summoner wizards also get 1 summon at every daily attack level which trade your standard action for the ability to deal at-will level damage. They do get opportunity attacks, so they are somewhat useful for battlefield control until you realize you could just throw the enemies in an immobilization zone or something. They're also trying to bring in more riders based on the Implements from the PHB as though more pre-selection is good. Whatever.

Unlike most 4e classes, wizard utilities are sometimes useful out of combat too. I will not be counting skill boosts, as 4e's skill system is...I don't even know any more, but I hear "skill challenges" and scaling DCs and have no idea if it's functional. So let's see what marginal utility these utilities bring us:

2:Float: Float 6 inches above ground, ignore pressure-sensitive traps and bypass tremorsense. Eh.
Summon Shadow Servant: Summon a little snake for 5 mins which can sneak around and you can see through it's eyes. Cannot actually attack despite being a snake, which presumably has fangs.

6:Summon Iron Cohort: Summon a knight dude to take hits for you. It can also be an extra body to carry shit/trigger traps. Lasts 5 mins.

10:Summon Hammerfist Crusher: Summon that can only attack objects, which doesn't matter because the DM is encouraged to arbitrarily declare objects unbreakable.
True Seeing: See invisible shit like objects.

16: Phantom Mask: Mass disguise self for...5 minutes. Can adjust appearance at will.
Phase Shift:get phasing for a turn, walk through a wall. 1/day
Spectral Vision: MTP illusion in close burst 5 which can't actually alter objects but can disguise them. It's a start.
Summon Diamond Falcon: Summons a falcon which can carry bros around.

Level 22: Mordenkainen's Lucubration: No need to sustain things, they last for 5 mins (I feel like there's some utility value)
Phantom Legion: Summon 12 illusionary fake guys.
Wall of Force: Is a wall. Looks like you can make bridges and whatnot temporarily. Naturally only lasts 5 minutes.

And that's it for utility powers. The chapter also has silly sidebars about "arcane powers should need gestures and mystic words, but don't actually require them under the rules" and the usual "Dwarves CAN be wizards, for real!"

Now, get ready for what are in my opinion some of the worst Paragon Paths in the book.

Arcane Wayfarer: You are a master teleporter who can go anywhere. So, your features are...when you critical strike someone you teleport them 4 squares. Ok. When you spend an action point you teleport 4 squares. Ok. The 16th level feature, however, annoys me: You gain teleport 2 as a movement mode. So you, the ultimate master of teleportation, gain the ability to TELEPORT SLOWER THAN YOU WALK. The worst part is that there's a planeshifter PP in Manual of the Planes which gets an actually good teleport ability (it can use linked portal as a standard action utility power) and has similar attacks to this piece of shit. Also, the art's recycled. Fuck this stupid class.

Bonded Summoner: Recycles the art from the noctumancer from Tome of Magic, which is hilarious as not only does the art not involve summoning, but the ToM class uses shadow magic to counterspell people. Sigh. So what this actually does is give a pile of defensive buffs to your summons that people are probably not going to attack as the only benefit for killing them is that you lose a healing surge, whereas they could go murder your squishy ass instead. Maybe they need to eat an opportunity attack, but this is 4e - they have the HP to take it.

Hermetic Saboteur: You can buff traps. Also, you set psychic land mines for people. This is one of two illusion oaths in the book. The funny thing? The best Illusion path at the time, the Phiarlian Phantasmist, lived in the Eberron book. Gives save penalties and everything for powers that aren't just illusion. I don't even know.

Rimetongue Caller: Hello 3e Frost Mage! This class buffs your summoned critters to do more cold damage. In other words, if you want to summon stuff, take this class. If you're trying to make a Heroes of Shadow necromancer work...take this class.

Unseen Mage: The other illusion path and it is shit in a can, without the can. So this class starts off by talking about how you are always unseen and invisible and you're soo good at it. So you get the following abilities: When an invisibility power reaches the end of it's duration, roll a d20 and if you get a 10 or higher you get to stay invisible until the end of your next turn. Only way you could POSSIBLY cheese this is with Lord of Fate ED (we'll discuss it later). The invisibility also breaks if you attack, leading to an epic argument with your DM over whether that constitutes the end of the duration. Then, when you spend an action point to take another action, you turn invisible until the end of your next turn. Lastly, you add 1d6 damage to any arcane attack where you strike from invisbility...but you're an illusion wizard. You focus on inflicting conditions, so you just don't care. The encounter 11 cloaks you for a turn after you shoot a psychic blast, e12 cloaks you and all allies in a zone that you have to persist, and the daily 20 blasts a guy for psychic damage and makes you an your allies invisible to the target (save ends). I assume the target saves? Or, you could just take one of the invisibility powers from the PHB (which are sustained) and do everything this fucking class does but better.

Weaver of Chance: Randomly rolled BS class. Sucks dongs.

Chapter 6: Arcane Options
So this is the chapter with all the feats. It also has familiar rules (good lord are these stupid), magic tomes, new rituals, and arcane backgrounds.

I'm not reviewing all the feats because by and large they give piddly bonuses. A few, however, stand out.

There are piles of racial feats which support "this race must be this class." In fact, a lot of feats are better for classes whose races support their classes. Gnome Phantasmist used to stack with the Expertise feats and was basically a free powerup for gnome illusionists. Eladrin Swordmages (+2 int for an Int class) get a feat where if they use their racial teleport to step next to a guy they get a free attack. And so on. Then there are straight-up power creep feats such as Dual Implement Spellcaster (if you dual-wield implements, add the off-hand implement bonus to damage). Illusionists get a little pile of feats that give them Combat advantage, summoners get some feats that boost summons. There are feats that boost all implement abilities, of note is the Improved Tome of Readiness which as written let you trade out utility powers for more attacks. There are also some multiclass feats, some of which will never be taken as they require you to paragon multiclass, and no one does that ever. The only one that is MAYBE worthwhile is the sorcerous power which lets you add Strength or Dex to arcane power damage which I could MAYBE see being useful for a warlock/sorc multiclass build. Maybe.

Next is familiar feats. The rules for familars are weird and stupid, in that they become random glowy ghost shit that can't be targeted or interact with the world in any way. You can then make them active, where they have 1 hp, use your defenses, and can move 20 squares away before poofing back to you. Also, they still can't interact with the world. There's a short list of familiars, each with their own ability, and only the spider has the ability to move small objects. You will take the spider as it inflicts save penalties, and wasn't nerfed in the great save penalty nerf. There are also some feats you don't care about.

Lastly, there are hilarious references to "Climb checks" and the Infernal and Abyssal Languages which don't exist in 4e, lending credence to Frank's theory that the authors didn't play 4e. But I digress.

Next up, epic destinies. Most of these are blah. The Magister's ultimate ability is to cast a ritual as a standard action, as well as recycling the ultimate magus picture from Complete Mage. The archlich's immortality is broken and doesn't work. The Feyliege is supposedly master of the mind but can only dominate people for 5 seconds on a critical hit, as well as not actually getting any sort of, you know, kingly powers. Some kind of energy blasting class. The Lord of Fate, whose power was to force all attacks/saves/w/e to automatically be 10 (and thus was a super awesome orbizard). Funnily enough, it actually has an alignment prereq. I am not kidding. There's an illusion ED that sucks, and the sage of ages which gets random bullshit based on their arcana check rolls. Also may be able to cheese out unseen mage a bit better if I didn't despise the class. Oh, it also recycles the art for Brain Guy from the cover of Complete Arcane.

There's a short section of magic tomes. Possessing these adds spells to your wizard's spellbook. It doesn't explain what happens if you lose the tome.

There's a pile of new rituals. Imprisonment imprisons a helpless enemy as a level 28 ritual. This is considered overpowered when used by the magister as a standard action, but...YOU DON'T CARE BECAUSE THE VICTIM IS HELPLESS! The ritual also requires a release condition, so you say "when the sun explodes" and you're scot-free.

Other rituals:
You can grow a beast which doesn't buff it in combat. You can ward an area. There are more scrying rituals, more communes, etc. Fools' Gold and Unseen Servant seem like they're worth having around, as if you can get your arcana check up high enough you can use Fool's Gold to explode the economy.

Finally there's a short section on backgrounds, which is a thing you can write on your character sheet to get a bullshit skill bonus. And that ends the book.

HOWEVER, this is a 4e book, so there's lots of errata! Specifically, 5 whole pages of it. Well, at least it's not the PHB. And that concludes Arcane Power.

[Rawbeard]

4e's skill system is...I don't even know any more, but I hear "skill challenges" and scaling DCs and have no idea if it's functional.

Spoiler Alert: It's not.

[Maxus]

Hahaha, holy crap, Maxus, where did you get that?

4chan. Except it was made by some 4rries.

I corrected it.

[hogarth]

I'm not reviewing all the feats because by and large they give piddly bonuses. A few, however, stand out.

There's one sorcerer feat in particular that stood out for me.

In the PHB, there's a feat that gives you a +1 feat bonus to damage with lightning and thunder powers. And in Arcane Power, there's a sorcerer feat that gives you a +1 feat bonus to damage with lightning and thunder powers (+2 if you're bloodied).

That's right -- they ran out of ideas for fucking shitty feats that give you a +1 bonus, so they decided to go into reruns. Lazy assholes.

[RobbyPants]

Hahaha, holy crap, Maxus, where did you get that?

4chan. Except it was made by some 4rries.

I corrected it.

What did the original look like? Just a swap of the 3E and 4E pics?

[Archmage]

You can grow a beast which doesn't buff it in combat.

This was actually the ritual that broke 4e for me--the fact that you could make an animal larger, improving its strength, and it only affected its carrying capacity and not how hard it would hurt when it hit you in the face. Because it's not like carrying capacity and damage inflicted with physical strikes are both based on "ability to exert force" or anything.

[Maxus]

Hahaha, holy crap, Maxus, where did you get that?

4chan. Except it was made by some 4rries.

I corrected it.

What did the original look like? Just a swap of the 3E and 4E pics?

Yeah. More correctly, I changed the captions.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Lago, I may need your help on this one. But if I recall correctly, when this book came out, warlock was one of the crap tier classes that no one fucking played because half the powers were unusable as they relied on a different stat than the one you wanted to use.

Unlike classes like, say, the Cleric and the Battlemind the Warlock didn't exactly become good after this splatbook. It was a naked power-up across the board, but they still lagged pretty horribly in the 'usefulness' department.

The Warlock's ascension from 'worst class in the basic PHB' to 'top-tier' occurred over the lifespan of 4E D&D thanks to the steady trickle of material. Feats like Dual Pact and Sacrifice to Caiphon (sp?) didn't and don't do much on their own, but by the time Mordenkainen's Vault came around they could directly challenge Rangers and Wizards for the single-source DPR crown. They'd still lose, of course, but only barely.

That's a damn far cry from a class -- whose sole purpose was DPR --which nonetheless would would get its ass kicked in the DPR olympics by every other class in the core book.

[OgreBattle]

I wonder if there would have been a way to make Hybrid Fighter/Wizard work... like a special feat or something.