#ultimate magic

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Book Review: Ultimate Magic

And we’re back with another series of book reviews, and today we’re looking at what I consider one of the top tier hardbacks of first edition Pathfinder: Ultimate Magic.

The first of six books to carry the Ultimate title, this series definitely had the same vibe as the “Complete” series for D&D in 3.5 with their focus on a particular element of the fantasy world, namely combat, politics, fantastical nature, equipment, general campaign advice, and of course, magic.

I think I love this book as much as I do because it took a lot of what Advanced Player’s Guide introduced and fleshed it out. Archetypes started to become more refined and experimental, the new classes from APG started getting their own archetypes (at least the spellcasting ones did), and we got more and more ways to customize and utilize characters, not to mention some useful guidelines and optional systems.

All of this to say that if the APG is where Pathfinder found it’s own identity, Ultimate Magic and it’s follow-ups is where it fleshed that identity out.

So, getting right into it, our first chapter is on new options for spellcasters, including a new class! (this would set the precedent that all Ultimate books aside from Equipment and Campaign each introduce one new base class.) In this case, the Magus! This class was a genuine take on taking the concept of a “gish” or a mixed martial and spellcasting character, and making it a full class instead of something that one had to multiclass into and take prestige classes like eldritch knight to achieve. The result was a very effective and fun mid-power caster with abilities that reward the player for being both a caster and melee combatant, and even set some lovely precedents with it’s arcane pool ability.

After the magus is established, We move on to new options for other classes. These include the first wave or archetypes for the classes from the APG, like the various weird science aspects of the alchemist, to the new masterpiece mechanic for bards, variant channeling for clerics, animal and terrain domains for druids, inquisitions for inquisitors, vows for monks bolstering their ki pool by accepting restrictions, oaths for paladins, the entire trap system for rangers that started with one archetype but would later spread to so many other archetypes for other classes, wildblooded modifications for sorcerer bloodlines, useful guidelines for creating the eidolon you want for summoner, and of course, arcane discoveries for wizards. All of these alongside the myriad of new archetypes and other options like bloodlines and mysteries would help flesh out the many paths magic could take in the system and setting, and would continue to influence it later on.

The next chapter offers us new ways to master magic, including new subsystems, as well as guidelines for existing systems. Firstly we have spellblights, a form of semi-permanent curses brought about by wild magic, mostly by causing weird or hindering effects when they try to cast spells, but others are in effect constantly.

Next is Spell duels, a system for modified combat where spellcasters compete against each other, sometimes, demonstrating their prowess. Many are decided by incapacitating the opposition, but the system allows for modifications in goals. Additionally, taking inspiration from the magical duel in the movie The Raven (which inspired a lot of spells that became rpg staples, fun fact), the duel system allows for dueling counters, in which casters can counterspell enemy magic much more flexibly than readying an action to cast dispel magic or the same or diametrically-opposed spells. This is encouraged to be described as coming up with creative solutions to undermining a foe’s spell, much like the aforementioned movie. (Seriously, go look up the duel scene from The Raven, it’s so good.)

Next is a section on binding outsiders, that classic action of many a spellcaster, and gives guidelines on how to use anathema substances to show power over the spirit and appropriate payments to entice them, and a list of common outsiders of the different types and how they react to such efforts.

Then we have building and modifying constructs, another activity that powerful high-level mages with gold to burn might consider. Not only does the section have a list of modifications to make constructs stronger or stranger, (including my favorite, construct armor to make yourself a magical Iron Man armor), but also a guideline for pricing constructs not just based on CR, but also on how that changes by modifying the CR with these mods and also templates. (such as applying the young template repeatedly to shrink a giant construct down to be suitable for making armor for your wizard)

Somewhat less impressive is the section on new familiars with the benefits they offer their master. It’s not particularly impressive but it does parallel the new set of animal companions for druids found earlier in the book, including vermin familiars to go with the vermin companions.

The section on spellbooks mostly is filled with examples of pre-built spellbooks, but it also introduces a new rule about preparation rituals, where having a spellbook with such a ritual in the margenelia provides a benefit when a mage prepares their magic using the book.

Perhaps the most important and useful section of this chapter, however, is the fleshed out guidelines for homebrewing your own spells. Sure, the core book had the general guideline of find a spell somewhat similar to the idea you have and go from there, but this section actually talks about things like deciding damage, saves, bonus types, and so on. Many of the spells I have built for both this blog and my patreon were made referencing this guideline.

Next is the chapter on feats, adding new options for spellcasters as well as those that face spellcasters. Of particular note is the metamagic feats that allow a caster to alter spells of particular damage types or functions, such as burning spells adding some persistent pain to acid and fire, or entangling foes in ice with rime spell. We also see fun curious abilities that can be tied to specific spellcaster options, like adding sunlight or moonlight energies to a druid’s summons, or implanting a delayed bomb into another creature (usually a zombie created by a reanimator alchemist), and so on. Definitely a good selection of feats.

We then come to the chapter on an optional subsystem: Words of Power, in which spellcasters of any class learn individual words of magical power that they can combine in different ways before applying to a spell slot of appropriate final level and then casting. It’s a neat idea for a subsystem that can be rewarding to a player that wishes their spells were more flexible on the fly. That being said, I personally find being able to cast a diverse selection of wildly different spells more versatile than knowing four ways to change an elemental blast.

Finally is the chapter on new spells, and while not as robust as the new spells in the APG, there are a lot of what would become iconic parts of the game, as well as specialized magics one might not expect to see save for in specific campaigns. We have everything from single-target parallels to the big alignment-based blast spells, animating a nearby tree to strike at nearby foes, as well as spells primarily meant for the qinggong monk archetype in this book but available to true casters as well. The selection of spells is honestly a very good addition to the game overall.

Much like in previous installments, the book boasts impressive art throughout its pages. The cover sports the iconic oracle and magus fighting off a horde of skeletons with their spells, and the chapter headers contain scenes of the various iconics working their magic in various ways, sometimes successfully, sometimes struggling. My personal favorite is the one for the spell chapter that depicts the iconic cleric casting create demiplane to create a safe haven where a child of destiny can be kept safely out of the hands of a great evil. Meanwhile, throughout the book is plenty of art of character examples representing various archetypes throughout the book, as well as magical scenes.

Overall, this book is definitely one worthy of the shelf, particularly if you love playing spellcasting characters. Not only does it offer a lot of fun options for the abilities of the player characters themselves, but also rich subsystems that add more flavor and options to the game overall. Building spells and fiddling with the high-level mechanics of constructs and called outsiders are certainly impressive feats to delve into, and the guidelines herein certainly reward the players with lots of mechanical benefits and flavorful roleplaying opportunities.

On the other hand, there are a few things that do vex me about the book. The first two things have to deal with the spellbook section. Firstly, there are a handful of cantrips and minor spells in the pre-generated spellbooks that straight up got left out of the final edit of the book, and had to be released online later as errata. Secondly, while the section gave us preparation rituals… it gave no rules for how to acquire them at all. Did they cost gold? Do they require skill checks to research? Nobody knows, because as-written the only way to get such a ritual in your spellbook is for the GM to give you one, and they’re the final arbiter on the power level of what you get.

Another thing that bothers me is the construct armor modification for constructs. If we take it purely as-written, when the construct is worn it basically only functions as a set of breastplate with a massive bonus health pool attached to protect you, which kinda makes the armor not fulfill the purpose of wearing a badass robot suit. Certainly you can interpret the vague wording in a more interesting way such as allowing the wearer to use their own actions to trigger the armor’s special abilities, as well as benefiting from the physical ability scores of the armor, but the fact the wording was this vague make the armor a minor point of contention.

Despite those minor flaws though, I do love this book for what it did to expand the precedent established by the Advanced Player’s Guide, and set some precedents of their own. For example: No more prestige classes. Did you notice that? After the APG, the only time you see prestige classes are in books that actively deal with the setting itself rather than rules that could in theory be used in any setting.

That will do for today though. This week is only getting started though. Look forward to more as the week progresses!

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Subsystems and You 15: Binding Outsiders

(art by SamabyArt on DeviantArt)

Today’s subject is less of a subsystem per se, instead being more of an expansion on the details of an already existing system, and that is the intricacies of summoning, binding, and negotiating with outsiders via the planar binding spells.

Calling spells in general are much more powerful than basic summoning in that in theory any outsider can be conjured as long as they meet the hit die limit of the spell version, and they conjure the outsider for much longer, albeit with a specific task in mind and bargaining.

This system originally showed up in Ultimate Magic, but it mostly focuses on the specifics of planar binding in all it’s forms rather than the planar ally spells mostly used by divine casters. This is because planar ally is limited to conjuring outsiders that serve the caster’s deity specifically, meaning that aside from negotiating payment, the conjured being is mostly inclined to help.

Planar binding, however, yanks an outsider from whatever they were doing, which is not contusive to a positive start to negotiations even if the caster and entity are on the same page morality-wise, so the caster must negotiate payment, browbeat, or otherwise really work to get what they want, assuming the outsider doesn’t just break free.

So let’s get into it!

The info first focuses on the concept of a true name, which when used to address an outsider offers a lot of leverage in binding them. The system offers skill check DCs for researching the secret name of an outsider that the character wishes to call upon, but you can also forgo this to make such a thing a quest reward or even impossible depending on the being in question.

Next up, the article points out that since planar binding definitely counts as coercion even if the outsider would be otherwise be predisposed to like and aid the character, one must be either extremely accommodating to the desires and goals of the outsider they wish to bind (picking a creature to call based on the task in question as well as being willing to provide aid and rewards in return), or full-force domineering with the threat of destruction or suffering to back it up (many fiends will straight-up not respond to anything else). Trying to act as an equal in a relationship with an inherent power imbalance is a recipe for disaster, no matter how distasteful it might feel.

And so this section has broad strokes of what each outsider type (at time of the writing) likes, and what substances and implements they find distasteful and anathema to threaten with and leverage against them for that purpose.

They then go into further detail with each specific outsider type and all known members at time of writing, giving more details on their specific role and goals, and what will impress them. Elementals, for example, respond best to demonstrations of the opposite element or undermining their connection to their own (such as levitating an earth elemental off the ground), or how qlippoth almost never bargain, needing to be browbeaten into service and constantly controlled, or how handmaiden devils might ask for child sacrifices in exchange for service).

Now, the list of guidelines for outsiders is a bit out of date now, what with whole new outsider types and individual species having come out since then, but the provided guidelines are useful for thinking about how the newer outsiders would act and what they would ask for or demand.

Planar Binding is a lot more risky than the planar ally spells, but it can be very rewarding if used correctly, and this guideline is useful for roleplaying actually going out and doing so.

With that, though, we can probably end here. We’ve got one more entry this week though, so look forward to that!

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Subsystems and You 14

(art by ArtofReza on DeviantArt)

Spellblights

While it may vary a lot in terms of power level and how integral it is to the setting, magic is a pretty wonderful thing. It might be the words of creation harnessed, the will of the gifted manifested, or even a form of energy that some can tap into (sometimes with deleterious effects as a side effect) and so on.

In a lot of settings, however, magic is a wild force. Sure, it can be somewhat tamed with spells and rituals, but like ink splashing out of a dropped container, sometimes not only does magic go wild, it but it stains the things it touches.

These are spellblights, magical curses that latch onto mages when their spells encounter problems, like a computer program encountering a fatal exception, leading to a persistent bug that affects them and their spellcasting in various ways, some minor but annoying, others stronger and more pressing.

Many of these spellblights affect behavior, such compelling the victim to prepare their spells in a certain way or cast certain spells repeatedly. Others afflict them with psychosomatic reactions to casting spells, anything from causing the caster to ignore targets they’ve already cast spells upon even though they remain threatening, to hallucinating that otherworldly predators have taken notice of their magic and are hunting them.

Others cause actual physical changes to the caster’s body, such as altering their eyes to invert their reaction to light and shadow, or causing them to temporarily flicker in and out of phase with reality after casting.

However, while they are all by definition curses, the fact that there is no malice behind them somewhat easier to cure. Spells like restoration, heal and the like are all good options, while eldritch auge can be cured with a remove disease spell, and caster croak can amusingly be broken by the caster using the shout spell to force their airways to open up.

But with all of these blights, one has to ask how one can come to be afflicted, and it varies. This is an optional rule set, so there’s no one set way. The most common choices are having areas that straight up are cursed with unstable magic, making casting risky therein, or by outright afflicting them deliberately with curse spells. Both bestow curse and it’s variants, as well as specific spells that inflict specific blights are available.

However, there are other potential options that are definitely up to GM fiat, such as flavoring antimagic fields not as null magic, but magical pollution that prevents concise spell creation. Another option is making spellblight a consequence of making mistakes in casting, such as rolling arcane spell failure, fumbling the crafting of an item or the activation of the same. Heck, getting hit by spell turning might cause the magic to unravel a bit on return. This is where things get out into the weeds, so your GM will have final say as to what can cause a spellblight and when the risk manifests.

Some spellblights have slight positive side effects that can be used to the caster’s advantage in the right circumstances, but there’s even another optional sub-subsystem here where a caster may choose to turn other conditions they possess into ammo for certain spells, usually at the risk of failure. Turn your bleeding into greater inflict wound spells, for example. However, I would personally not use this or limit it to conditions brought on by the spellblights if at all, because a sufficiently diverse spellcaster can potentially eliminate the need for spells that heal conditions by removing them themselves and getting a buff to a spell out of it.

And that’s spellblights! It’s a neat way to provide some risk to spellcasting in settings with the possibility of wild magic or damaged magic. But that’s only the beginning of what subsystems await us this week, so keep an eye out!

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Fun with Feats 10: Words of Power Feats

A long time ago, we talked about the Words of Power system from Ultimate Magic, a system that replaces the classic Vancian magic system with one that lets a caster mix and match a handful of spell words to create different effects, such as combining fire and blast to replicate a fireball, or healing and single target to heal another from afar, and so on.

While it’s been a while since we’ve touched on that alternate magic system, today we’re looking at a small handful of feats associated with it.

The first is called Experimental Spellcaster, and could be called a “gateway” feat, as it grants the ability to burn spell slots to cast words of power, albeit in a minor way, knowing all target words, but only a few effect and meta words. This could represent a spellcaster that is interested in using words of power in a setting where both traditional casting and this system coexist, to say nothing of being a way to experiment with the system as a player. The feat can even be taken repeatedly to increase the number of effect and meta words known.

The next two feats revolve around those who already have access to words of power. The first of these is Extra Word, which grants access to two new effect words, and given it’s availability to limited word casters like spontaneous casters, is essentially a words of power version of the Expanded Arcana feat.

The second is Meta Word Mastery, which grants access to a single new meta word, and additional uses of meta words in your spells per day.

 If you’re looking to try Words of Power, these feats are essential to integrating with that subsystem.

That will do for today, but stay tuned for more!

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Subsystems and You 5: Words of Power

Spellcasting is such a power trip in games, as you unleash mighty powers to protect yourself, defeat foes, or otherwise alter reality.

However, given how spellcasting in most rpgs works, it can often feel a bit limiting, like you’re just unleashing canned effects rather than rewriting reality to suit your whims.

Enter the Words of Power alternative spellcasting system from Ultimate Magic. With it, a spellcaster has no set spell list, but rather a list of powerful mystical words they can use to compose customizable spells.

In this way, the system seeks to emulate those fantasy settings where learning even one word of magic can make one powerful, even more so as their vocabulary expands. It makes me think back to the truenamer class from the late 3.5 D&D supplement Tome of Magic.

Though each class handles their words differently, there are essentially three types of words, namely effect words, meta words, and target words, the first determining an effect the spell has, the second altering those effects in some way, and the third determining how the spell determines its targets. The words are combined together to determine the required spell slot to cast the spell slot, though most target words have an effective level of zero unless boosted using the boost meta word.

By far the classes that gain the most benefit from this system are prepared divine casters, whom gain full access all of the words associated with their class, and can arrange them using their spell slots as normal, whereas prepared arcane casters must pick and choose how to prepare individual word spells, and spontaneous casters have a limited pool of known words to draw upon.

While the words can be used to replicate many spells that are in the core rule book, I can’t help but feel the system favors divine casters over their arcane counterparts, and prepared casters over spontaneous. Sure, you get the tools to create a variety of spells, but this mix and match approach really heavily favors blasting and combat spells, with certain words only really being useful when used by themselves, at which point they seem to just take up space if you’re playing on a limited word list.

Additionally, the system has no support for spellcasting classes that came out later, particularly not psychic casters, though I imagine it would be simple enough to convert them, such as mediums who take the archmage or hierophant spirit that day gaining actual normal system spells similar to how clerics and druids get ordinary domain spells for those spell slots.

 That being said, it’s a neat system that, despite needing some work, does change up the classic Vancian casting that has been a part of the system and its predecessors for so long. But how does one integrate it into your setting?

In some settings, words of power might completely replace normal spellcasting, while in others, it may be simply another one of the various magical techniques, limited by choice, class, region, philosophy, and any other reasons you might come up with. Perhaps in your setting only oracles use the subsystem, speaking their spells with the literal “words of the gods”. Or in another setting, the subsystem is limited to one lost continent where the study of magic evolved completely differently than the rest of the world.

 The end result is a new way of casting that you might find to experiment with in your campaigns, and certainly worthy of consideration.

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Subsystems and You 4: Building and Modifying Constructs

If there’s anything that can be learned from conjuration, enchantment, and necromancy, it’s that players and characters alike love having allies, including or especially monstrous ones, at their side. Few such allies are more of an investment, however, than constructs, as with the exception of a few specific archetypes and options, such beings are the product of time and lots of resources.

I’ll go into how constructs fit into fantasy adventuring in a different entry, suffice to say for now that constructs, particularly powerful ones, are a labor of blood, sweat, and tears requiring plenty of downtime to complete, not to mention the wealth to construct their bodies.

Thankfully, the subject of today’s entry, the section on constructs in Ultimate Magic, provides the breakdown of how construct CR and abilities relate to their creation cost. (And by extension, how changing the CR with inherent templates can alter that cost, such as adding the young template to make a smaller version of the base, useful if you need to shrink down a construct to make armor out of it.)

The real meat of the section, however, is the section on construct modifications, which can help customize your constructs to better suit your needs.

 These modifications range from basic stuff, such as improving the armor, resilience, and abilities of such constructs, or adding weapons and natural attacks to the construct; to more advanced modifications which almost count as magical items in their own right.

These range from adding necromantic heart or brain chambers to a construct to increase its vitality and intellect, crystal eyes to let the master see through with scrying magic, building hollow sections filled with dangerous substances to provide backlash against attacking foes, and the like.

My personal favorite, however, is construct armor, allowing the creator to wear a same-sized construct as a suit of armor, adding its hp to the creator’s, in addition to the various immunities and resistances. The text says that the worn construct cannot take independent actions, which some have taken to mean you cannot activate any of the construct’s special abilities, but I disagree. From my perspective this means that the armor cannot act with its own set of actions, and the wearer must use their own actions to use any abilities from their armor. This modification in particular is perfect for an Iron Man build, or for any character based on running around in magical power armor.

 In general, this system makes for a great way for the construct-crafting enthusiast to make their constructs more unique, everything from simply adding a massive warax to a golem’s arm to having a vast collection of construct armors for every situation. Regardless, there is fun to be had here, and canny players and NPCs alike will explore it!

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Subsystems and You 1: Duels and Spell Duels

The combat system of pathfinder is pretty robust, and provides a solid foundation for all but the most massive battles, but occasionally you need a way to emulate a formal duel between two individuals, which is where today’s entry comes in.

Originally conceived as spell duels for a way for spellcasters to display their prowess, more traditional duels between all sorts of classes became available in later books.

Regardless of who is fighting them, duels have a long tradition of being a way to solve disagreements or prove the prowess of, though they need not end in death or bloodshed.

Before a duel, both sides must agree on what the terms of the duel are, such as to the death, or to subdual of one combatant, or even less conflict-oriented duels involving displays of power or skill for a crowd. Unless agreed upon beforehand, attacking bystanders (particularly to the exclusion of the foe they are dueling), or receiving aid or harm from said onlookers is considered poor form, and if at least one side intent on upholding the terms of the duel realizes this, the duel is considered annulled, and the situation continues on as appropriate, possibly escalating to combat or other conflict.

 Even when they do result in death, duels are far more than just combat involving only two or more figures. Quick reactions alone are not always enough to determining who has the upper hand in acting, as some may attempt to intimidate or psyche out foes to gain the upper hand. Furthermore, due to the focus on only a few opponents, combatants can take time to study their foes and attempt to dodge away or parry a foes strikes.

Even magic users can get in on this action, able to ready one of their own spells or a dispel as a counterspell against foes. This requires quick wits and identification skill on the part of the caster, but if done successfully, is a much more flexible form of counterspelling, only requiring a prepared spell or spell slot of equal or higher level to counteract the enemy’s magic. While this can be interpreted as expending raw arcane energy to negate the magic of a foe, why be boring? Coming up with ways of how your chosen spell negated the other is half the fun, such as firing a fireball through the rift in space where a creature would be summoned, collapsing it with an explosion, or a sonic shriek to disrupt the casting of a spell, and so on.

With all these special rules in mind, the participants continue to try to achieve the win conditions of the duel until one wins, they opt to end it, or to break the agreement.

 And that’s Duels! Later on Psychic Duels and Verbal Duels would be introduced, but those have drastically different rules compared to these first two types, so we’ll cover them in a future entry.

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“Ultimate Magic” Review

I’m just going to keep plugging along, haha. Next up: “Ultimate Magic”.

This is the last book in the “Merlin’s Dragon” Trilogy. This follows directly after “Doomraga’s Revenge”, picking up on the cliffhanger and continuing on with the rising action and the meat of this book. Which is basically defeat Rhita Gawr and that freakish creature of his Doomraga. Unfortunately Basilgarrad finds himself utterly alone in this battle, Merlin and Rhia (once Avalon’s greatest advocates and defenders) have disappeared and cannot be found. Basilgarrad has implored Krystallus to find his father but Krystallus, being as stubborn as Merlin himself, has refused. Although, he did give Basilgarrad an enchanted map--perhaps a subtle hint that there is a way to find his father without him getting involved. However, with Avalon’s fate on the line, everyone is getting involved, one way or another.

I really liked how this book sort of rounded out the trilogy. It brought back all the tension and suspense of “Doomraga’s Revenge” and brought us, as the readers, to the true climax of the series. It brought back old themes--especially with Merlin and Krystallus as father and son--and a truly epic battle between good and evil. This one kept me glued to the pages, just to see what action would happen next. I also really liked the ending, just because of the hints that Merlin throws at Basilgarrad, almost like a preview of what is to come of Merlin’s Avalon and Merlin’s dragon. It made me pumped for the next trilogy, which will be posted shortly, I promise!