Game: The Book of Eldritch Might
Publisher: Malhavoc Press
Series: d20
Reviewer: migo
Review Dated: 2nd, March 2005
Reviewer’s Rating: 8/10 [ Really good ]
Total Score: 33
Average Score: 6.60
This review originally appeared on RPG.net
This book is essentially a splat book, the “front” and “back” “covers” (pages 1 and 48) are full colour and the illustration is quite appropriate. The “interior” contents are black and white up to page 45, 46 and 47 are ads for other Malhavoc Press products, one notable being “The Complete Book of Eldritch Might” which is 224 pages, so I assume it has at least the contents of this book as well as CBOEM 2 and 3. I would factor that in to the decision to buy this PDF. There were a few illustrations throughout the book to spice things up but it’s mostly text content. I really liked the layout, it had nice style to it but it wasn’t intrusive. Speaking of intrusive, unlike some RPG books the background is all white which makes for easy reading and economical printing. There wasn’t anything that jumped out and really grabbed me about the style, but it was very professionally done so it gets a 4 out of 5 on style.
Contents, it’s a splat book so it gets straight into the crunch after a neat introduction from Malhavoc. Overall I liked that while most of the content was just useful stats they sneaked in some flavour content here and there so it’s not as bland as some splat books can be.
Chapter one is Eldritch Feats. 11 feats are provided, a few of them are really neat, I particularly liked Mirror Sight which allows you to look into a mirror and see out another one. That’s definitely cool and something you usually don’t see in feats. I liked the Lace Spell feats as well, but as there were four of them which were pretty similar I wish they’d just done it as a single feat with four variations of it, I think they could have probably cut a page by doing so, either making it a bit quicker of a read or getting a few more feats in. The one thing I really didn’t like about the feats is that they all had really high ability requirements to be eligible to get them, requirements were usually 17 with one that required 15 and the other that required 19(!). That’s just a bit high for a system which randomly generates stats. I would probably houserule that the stat needed to be four less than what was listed and they’d be just about perfect. Other than that I don’t really have gripes with the feats.
Chapter 2 is Prestige Classes. Three new prestige classes are offered, Ember Mage, Graven One and The Mirror Master. The Ember Mage has some similarities to the fire mage prestige class in the DMG but there’s still plenty that sets it appart. The most significant aspect of these three prestige classes is they really have flavour to them. They also have some neat abilities, for instance the Ember Mage essentially has burning blood so he can chose to cut himself and deal fire damage to everyone within 5 feet, at higher levels this is automatic if someone within 5 feet cuts him. The Graven One is essentially a tattood wizard who can get some pretty neat tattoos out of it. The Graven One makes use of several of the feats provided in chapter one. A couple abilities really stood out to me, one was being able to create a tattoo that allowed the Graven One to deal 1 Con damage (no save) any time he deals damage with an attack or spell for 24 hours after which the tattoo fades (although it could be re-applied each day, at the expense of the other tattoos that are also available which might be more useful in some situations). The Mirror Master obviously makes use of the aforementioned Mirror Sight feat, he has other powers that make use of mirors, such as re-rolling saves vs gaze attacks (a Medusa’s worst nightmare). At higher levels the Mirror Master can step through mirrors mimicking dimension door, teleport and plane shift. All the prestige classes gain new spells on odd levels. All the prestige classes were well balanced, they have some powerful abilities at higher levels, but that’s what high level characters are supposed to have anyway. I’d definitely consider using any of these classes. That’s a nice improvement over the DMG where I’d only really consider the Arcane Trickster or the Archmage at epic levels.
Chapter 3 is Spells, 15 pages of new spells. Most of the spells are for Wizards and Sorcerers but a few spells are also provided for other spellcasting classes as well if they are appropriate. Like the prestige classes and the feats these spells have flavour. Some are entirely new, like Guilt which causes evil creatures to lose one action while others are variations on existing spells, such as a couple variations on lightning bolt. Several of the spells are also specifically targetted for the prestige classes – there are quite a few mirror and tattoo/mark spells, new fire spells while there weren’t too noticable as they were included in other elemental spells. Most of the spells are combat oriented, they’re familiar in some fashions but they have some interesting twists to them. Any group will be able to find quite a few useful spells, although depending on play styles some will be able to make use of more than others.
Chapter 4 is Magic Items. There’s also a fair amount of magic items, none are completely useless but some are obviously more useful than others. A few of them are variations of existing items but most are completely new. I found the most useful items would be the rods of branding, which can impose a certain effect (depending on the type of rod) that lasts 5d10 days and offers no save (although it requires a target that can be coup de graced, and can only be used once a day). Some of the powers could be quite useful, such as a domination effect for enemies. The True Rest rod was also notable, as for the duration it prevents the person branded from being raised, animated or turned into an undead, I imagine it would be a very useful item for Vampire hunters, as it basically ensures that any of the members that fall won’t rise as Vampires.
Chapter 5 is Magical Constructs. Constructs are similar to Golems, but the Magical Construct is a template that can be applied to any monster or animal. It provides rules for creating constructs as well, the first thing I thought of when I read this is that it was Trobriand’s wet dream. Anyone who’s read Undermountain will know what I’m talking about. Needless to say, it’s cool.
The appendix includes the OGL, as well as a random rune generator. It provides options for 31,160 different runes/tattoos in just two pages. Both GMs and players will find it handy just for adding some unique distinguishing characteristics, and obviously Graven Ones will love it as well.
This is following a rather depressing trend in RPG products these days of not including an index. A spell index is integrated into the table of contents, as are the feats and prestige classes, but the magic items section gets the shaft in this department. This would have been a good use of the extra page provided if the Lace Spell feats had been condensed. As it is it’s still quite usable as everything is listed categorically and alphabetically, but it seems that RPG makers are forgetting how useful a good, complete index can be, or they just don’t care – I hope it’s the former.
Considering it’s a splat book the content is quite good, there’s a lot of material to work with from the 42 or so pages of actual content, but the lack of an index really bugs me as a good index makes the content more accessible and a bad or non-existent one makes it less accessible. So it gets a 4 out of 5 on substance.
