Reviews: An Obscure One This Time.

Another writing project is my current obsession and I'll get into details about that later this week, but I do have some time for a review. But this will be a review that not everyone will understand; it's a bit specialized. The book I'm reviewing is the Tome of Magic, a supplement for the Dungeons and Dragons game, so it'll get more into technical details than most reviews will.

The Tome of Magic is basically a description of three new classes for the Dungeons and Dragons game, each with its own new type of magic system. Each one is related to the core systems, but they have their own methods casting "spells" or other, similar powers. With each class comes descriptions of specialized prestige classes that use that system, organizations related to or opposing to that system, new magic items, and even related monsters. For all intents and purposes, each of the three systems is its own book, so I'll review each one separately.

The first system is called pact magic. This system doesn't even count as a spell-casting system. Instead, its users, who are known as binders, summon powerful and mystical beings who exist between life and death, outside of time and space as normally conceived of. These creatures give the binder various abilities, including some spell-like powers. Instead of a normal wizard class, then, the class lets the binder imitate numerous class roles, based upon which creatures it bound with. They can be mini-spell casters, limited rogues, or even competent fighters. The concept is sound, even if the creatures are strange, but the story around the concept (called "fluff" in role-playing terms,) is very silly. Basically, all binders are often considered to be evil or dangerous, and there are even good classes like paladins who are willing to ally with evil classes and kill innocent binders just based on the concept. This makes no sense; paladins are in direct contact with their gods. Either the binders are really so dangerous that this violent extremism is necessary, in which case it probably shouldn't be a playable class or there should at least have some mechanical elements, or they're fine, and thus the good gods are perfectly willing to let their holiest warrior slaughter innocents.

The second system is probably my favorite. Dubbed shadow magic, it's the closest to normal magic, though the means of gaining spells is different. It has different paths of magic, and every level the caster can choose to advance to the better spells in a path or pick a new path. There's a choice here; advancing a path will get the caster more powerful spells faster, but a new path will give the caster new feats. Also, though the spells initially count as spells, as they gain levels, the lower level spell paths can be used more often and are easier to cast; they eventually turn into simple supernatural abilities that can be used out of a force of will. The spells themselves are designed around the concept of targeting individual targets instead of, say, blowing up everyone in a room with a fireball, but the tactics are relatively similar. The concept's fluff is also nice; it ties into the Shadow Plane, a unique element of the Dungeon and Dragon cosmology, and uses many obscure but interesting monsters and organizations inside the game.

The last set, however, was also the weakest. Truename magic, which works on the concept that everything in the universe has a unique word that define it, has a number of problems, starting with the mechanics. I'll try to explain it without getting technicals. The truename "spells" can be used more or less endlessly, but each use requires a skill check. Skill checks, in Dungeons and Dragons, raise by 1 every level. The DC to win a skill check, however, raises based on the CR (the level of a creature, which is usually the same as the player's level,) times 2. So just accomplishing anything and not being useless gets harder every single level. The only alternative is to use feats, magic items, and everything else just to balance out the inherent weakness of the class; a taboo in this system. The fluff isn't much better; these unique words are nonsensical collections of syllables, like "Basnublua'gah," and the system assumes that the casters will be using these words with every spell! This is about as annoying as expecting bards to sing every time they used their powers. I can't see myself using this spell system at all without some changes, starting with a complete renovation of the skill check and removing a lot of the nonsense about learning personal true names.

So, that's two out of three systems that are remotely useful. For a supplement, that's not too horrible. I can even see using a binder or shadow caster as an NPC in one of my games or playing as one should I be in a position to do so soon. I would have to say B- or C+ would be fair, given the general weakness of that last third.