The Book of Eldritch Magic
The Book of Eldritch Magic is a D20 System product by Monte Cook..For those who don't follow names too closely, Monte Cook was one of the three main developers behind the D&D 3rd Edition game and author of the Dungeon Masters Guide. The Book of Eldritch Magic is Monte's first product published under his Malhavoc Press imprint, and comes to us in the wake of the announcement that he will no longer be working directly for Wizards of the Coast.
Many independent D20 System vendors have made significant mistakes in recent products with respect to consistency with the rules. Such mistakes are aggravating for those hoping to make use of the material as they have to screen and edit the material before making use of it. Given this, having a respected writer of the D&D 3rd edition game writing D20 System material promises to be a boon.
However, I recognize Monte Cook as more than just a rules guru. I recognize him as a considerable creative talent. He made several significant contributions to the AD&D 2nd edition Plansescape line, including the epic and moody adventure Dead Gods, which I consider to be one of the best RPG adventure products ever written.
To Download or Not to Download?
That is the Question
Needless to say, my hopes for this product and future products in from Malhavoc Press are high. But this product is interesting in another way. Monte is distributing the Book of Eldritch Magic (and presumably future products under the Malhavoc imprint) as a downloadable PDF file. The Book of Eldritch magic is being sold through Monte Cook's website, www.montecook.com.
For some people, this format may not be the best in the world. Some people want something they can hold in their hand for their money. Printing the file is an option for those with the resources, but the added cost many dilute some of the value of the product, and a professionally printed product will usually be a lot nicer than a mere printout.
However, for some (myself included), electronic format is a good thing. I own and a laptop computer and use it during games. In second edition's heyday, I was a big fan of the Core Rules 2.0, not just for the utilities, but for having all of the rulebooks available at the touch of a button, and for being able to copy and paste text for use in my game notes. Loss of having the rulebooks on my laptop was perhaps the bitterest pill to swallow in switching to D&D 3e. The System Reference Document has helped to allay some of the associated problems, but is not complete enough that I would feel leaving behind the books, and I still have to lug around any other supplements I wish to use, and a couple little 96-128 page booklets begin to add up pretty quickly, not to mention hardbounds like Relics & Rituals and the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book that have no SRD-equivalent.
Distributing RPG products as electronic downloads is not a new thing by any means. Hero Games and Cumberland Games (among others) have been distributing material in this manner for quite some time. Many of the herd of D20 System publishers have distributed this way as well, though the ease of distributing this way and lack of ability in many cases to look at a printed product before you buy may lead some buyers to be wary of the many unknown names that will be joining the D20 System rat race in this fashion. But Monte Cook is by no means an unknown; the low price tag combined with the familiar and well regarded name could very well make Malhavoc's items quite a hit - and quire a bargain.
Having addressed this central issue, let's move on to the book (file?) itself.
A First Look
The Book of Eldritch Magic is a 36-page PDF document. It can be downloaded for $5.00 US, and for those who are not familiar with the PDF format, it can be viewed using the free Acrobat viewer. The download process was relatively painless. It does require a credit card, and on approval it forwards you to a page with a URL with a link to the product that persists for the next 24 hours. Unlike Wizards of the Coast ESDs, there is no intermediate download program to download. However, it didn't seem to want to play well with Netscape and GoZilla, so I had to download through Explorer with no promise of resuming the download if it got interrupted.
The document itself includes a title page dominated by a graphic depicting some sort of hieroglyphics, and one page containing the obligatory Open Gaming License. The pages are in color with some low to median quality graphics, primarily depicting sorcerers engaging in various spellcasting activities. Each page has a color design in the header (which is probably the major drain on ink for anyone printing it out) as well as a lighter color watermark in the margin.
The text is of average density. The text in the document is NOT locked, so you can copy and paste snippets into your own documents. However, that is about all you can do (legally). The only section that is explicitly Open Game Content is the Magic Construct template and examples at the end of the book.
A Deeper Look
The Book of Eldritch Magic is primarily targeted at arcane spellcasters. It contains new feats, prestige classes, spells and magic items, and a new template. Though there is a fair proportion of magic items that are of use to other classes, the first three sections are primarily of use by wizards, sorcerers, bards, and assassins.
New Feats: The feats feature a new type of feat, Eldritch. These feats all have fairly high ability score requirements. Some of these feats are somewhat like metamagic feats in that they affect your spells, but they do not add to the level cost of your spells - much like the Spell Focus and Spell Penetration. Other feats grant the character magical spell-like abilities The only real reason for this designation being separate from the general designation is that if a class (primarily wizard) grants you access to a metamagic or item creation feat, you may take an Eldritch feat instead.
The feats in the book are:
- Conjure Mastery - enhances the physical ability scores of summoned creatures.
- Etch Object Rune - allows you to inscribe a rune on an object, which can then be discharged similar to a scroll.
- Item Image - This feat allows you to place a tattoo on yourself of someone else that lets you store a specific magic item in the tattoo.
- Lace Spell: Elemental Energies - lets you enhance one of your spells that takes a single target to do extra elemental damage.
- Lace Spell: Enemy Bane - Enhances the damage of damaging spells against a given enemy type. The list of enemies you must select from is similar to the one provided for bane weapons in the D&D 3e DMG.
- Lace Spell: Holy/Unholy - This changes the designation of your spell to good or evil (pick one and only one); creatures of the opposite alignment must save against a higher DC.
- Lace Spell: Lawful/Chaotic - This similar to the above, save that this feat adds the lawful or chaotic designator to your spells.
- Manufacture Magical Poison - This item creation feat lets you create magical poisons, a new item type discussed later in the book.
- Mirror Sight - this feat gives you a spell like ability to use a mirror as a scrying device to see someone you are familiar with if they are reflected in a mirror, or for you to view what is reflected in a mirror you are familiar with.
Overall, the feats are solid playable additions to a campaign, and will be very interesting to players of arcane spellcasters. At first glance, some of the eldritch feats will seem a bit powerful compared to some metamagic feats, but when contrasted against Spell Focus and Spell Penetration they seem balanced.
New Prestige Classes: There are three new prestige classes in The Book of Eldritch Magic. The Embermage is a fire-themed arcane spellcaster. The Graven One is an arcane spellcaster that inscribes runes and tattoos on their flesh to grant them special magical abilities. The Mirror Master is (as you might guess) a mirror-themed arcane spellcaster with some interesting abilities.
These prestige classes all share the same basic approach. They have some significant abilities, including many spell-like abilities, and they continue in spellcasting progression in their old spellcasting class for every odd level in the new class. This is a nice compromise that makes the classes playable and should be a model for future prestige classes of this sort. Prestige classes for spellcasters that don't have continued spellcasting advancement are looked on with trepidation by players of arcane spellcasters, as giving up a level of spellcasting is seldom worth it, and giving up multiple levels is almost never a worthwhile investment unless the abilities granted are truly significant. On the other hand, classes that allow full spellcasting advancement (like the loremaster) need to have very tepid abilities lest they become too attractive.
The prestige classes have strong themes and imaginative implementation. They promise to add a lot of flavor to a campaign. Though players seeking something a little different in a spellcaster may be attracted to these prestige classes, as a DM I saw instant potential for use of these classes as flavorful swords-and-sorcery style villains. Design-wise, I think these are the best prestige classes that Monte Cook has put out. Considering the caliber of some of his material he has written for the Dragon, that is saying a lot.
New Spells: Featuring over 60 new spells and spanning 15 pages, the spells section is the biggest part of the book. All of the spells are accessible to arcane spellcasters (and most of them for the Sorcerer/Wizard list) but many of them are cross listed for other classes, including some new spells available for assassins.
Many of the spells follow specific themes. The most prevalent of these are the mirror spells (which are oriented towards the mirror master prestige class), the mark spells (places a mark on the target that grants them special abilities associated with an element or a energy type), mixed element attack spells (e.g., Cold Scream does cold and sonic attack damage, Flaming Corrosion does acid and fire damage.) Some of the teleport related spells are simply the spell reflections of psionic abilities that were presented in the Psionics Handbook.
Many of the spells don't fall into specific categories, and many of them are creative and / or useful. Some examples are:
- Bone Tattoo - the spell creates a skull and bones pattern on the skin of the target, which gives them spell resistance against some effects that skeletons are immune to and causes mindless undead to ignore the target.
- Chains of Vengeance - Target is bound up in flaming chains. Anyone who tries to help free the target gets burned too.
- Enchanting flavor - this cantrip changes a meal giving it an enchanting flavor that gives a bonus to a single charisma based check against the diners.
Magic Items: This is the first section of the book that provides material that is of significant use for classes other than arcane spellcaster. Included among the material is a number of magical weapons. The Bleeding Sword inflicts disease on a struck enemy, the Flayer Flail inflicts confusion, and the K'terron Witchblade dazes an enemy. The Tentacle Blade can extend giving an additional 5 feet of reach to the weapon. Another major theme is a flurry of magical vehicles (much akin to the Apparatus of Kwalish) which are given their own section.
As with the spell selection, many of the items in the magic item selection are imaginative, useful, or both. Some follow a theme. For example, a variety of rods of branding are listed. For example, the Rod of Branding (Brandthrall) places a temporary brand on a helpless victim that acts like a dominate person spell. A Rod of Branding (Silence) prevents the target from speaking. Among the interesting non-themed items are:
- Book of Roses - grants the user a permanent freedom of movement effect, but it ends if the user ever harms a rose plant, even inadvertently.
- Ring of Blue Conjures / Ring of Red Conjures - Gives creatures summoned by the wearer a glowing aura that grants bonuses to AC, constitution, and strength.
- Bookrod - Acts as a spellbook with unlimited capacity. The catch (or boon if you are afraid of spells falling into enemy hands) - you can't read spells places in the rod by any other user.
- Pipes of Power - These pipes allow a character to transfer XP to a spellcaster for the purposes of item creation.
- Spellstealer - A gauntlet that can steal a prepared spell and then release it as if the glove wearer was casting it.
A fairly simple item that caught my attention was the Mirror of Vanity. While it is in the character's possession, it boosts their charisma. That isn't incredibly special in and of itself. However, you will notice that this item is mentioned in the Dungeon Master's Guide. On page 50, look at the gear for the stock NPC bard... it has a Mirror of Vanity. I was wondering what this item does (my guess was right). However, seeing it here makes me wonder how many other items in the book came from the DMG cutting room floor.
In addition to the section of magical vehicles, a section is devoted to a new sort of magic item, magic poisons. Magic poisons are concoctions that have various magical effects. Some effects are totally separate from effect of the poison, others are linked to the effects of another poison. Typically these mixtures are added to non-magical poisons, but those whose effects aren't linked to the poison's effects can be used by themselves by adding them to an inert paste.
Some of the magical poisons are:
- Delusion - the victim does not notice that any damage has been done by the poison.
- Demonseed - if the victim is killed by the poison, if later raised the victim is possessed by a demon.
- Memory Key - the victim must make a save or be stripped of a specific memory.
I noticed a few editorial mistakes in this section. For example, the first Rod of Branding contains the text desrcribing the duration of the brand, but this text is garbled in the rest of the Rod of Branding descriptions. Similarly, the Staff of the Icy Heart has the Greater Mark of Fire ability; presumably it should have been the Greater Mark of Frost.
New Template: The last section is a new creature template: Magical Construct. The template is used to make a construct resembling existing corporeal creatures. They aren't generally as nasty as golems: they don't have DR or immunities other than those common to constructs. However, they do get a pretty significant boost in AC and the template can grant a special attack. Not to mention that the construct retains most of special abilities of the creature it was designed around. Think dragons. Think beholders. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
In addition to the template, two sample creatures are provided created with the template: A stone dire tiger (sounds like something out of the old Herculoids cartoon...) and an eleven-headed brass hydra.
Summary and Conclusions
I consider this to be a first rate product at a first rate price. The few errors are minor, and for a product primarily composed of "crunchy bits", it displays a lot of imagination. As I browsed through it, the potential for use of items in the book is great. The players will doubtless appreciate the feats and spells, and the prestige classes, spells, magic items, and template scream to be used as flavor or central components in a campaign.
If you are the type of person who is chomping at the bit for Tome and Blood, you should consider picking this product up. It has a plentiful assortment of good, useful ideas for arcane spellcasters. Though I realize that there are some people out there that will not appreciate the format, the price you pay is rather meager.
-Alan D. Kohler
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