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Book of Arcane Magic (PFRPG)
4 Winds Fantasy Gaming
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Print/PDF Bundle:
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$14.35
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PDF:
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$8.21
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The Book of Arcane Magic is a Pathfinder Roleplaying Game-compatible sourcebook for bards, sorcerers and wizards. There are over 100 new spells, from minor cantrips to 9th-level spells; eleven colleges of magic and bardic schools; ten new bloodlines for sorcerers—including the brand new Nightmarish bloodline; ten new familiars, including the brand new Clockwork Familiar; and many new magic items.
The Book of Arcane Magic is a great resource for both players and Game Masters, in low-magic or high-magic settings. Includes sidebars and GM suggestions for incorporating spells, feats, colleges of magic and more into ANY campaign setting!
Stand out from the crowd with a College-Trained Wizard, a bard that is a graduate of Giacomo's Jester School, or a sorcerer with the Genie bloodline!
Are there errors or omissions in this product information? Got corrections? Let us know at
webmaster@paizo.com.
Product Reviews
Average product rating:
 
(3.0)
based on
5
reviews
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review.
I have not yet played with the book only read it, so this is my impression of it with out play test.
This book is 70 pages long.
Cover, ToC etc (5 pages)
Chapter 1 - Spells (28 pages)
Spell lists for Bards, Sorc/Wizard for the new spells.(5 pages)
Spells there is just over 100 new spells. (23 pages) There is a few very interesting ones to a couple silly/odd ones. All and all they seem pretty well done and balanced.
Chapter 2 - Collages of Magic. (11 pages)
8 Wizard collages and 3 bardic schools. There is a couple of paragraphs about each one and then a couple of feats for each collage and a few general feats. It finishes with a few pages of examples NPC's graduates (with stat blocks and backgrounds)
Chapter 3 - Sorcerer Bloodlines. (9 pages)
There is ten new bloodlines. Bestial(magical beast), Divine(deity), Feline, Fiendish(evil outsider), Genie, Lycanthropic, Mixed, Monstrous, Nightmarish, and Scaly. It finishes with a couple of complete NPC's. For the most part they are interesting and seem on par with the existing bloodlines.
Chapter 4 - Familiars (6 pages)
Introduces 9 more traditional familiars as well as several example clockwork familiars. Some nice additions as options to familiars.
Chapter 5 - Magic Items. (5 pages)
Several new interesting magic items. Some from the new spells, others to support new thing(like clockwork familiars) and a few clever items.
The final 5 pages are. 1 page for which spells to add to divine casters. OGL, ad for future products, blank page and back cover.
Closing thoughts. I liked this book, I thought the PDF price was high for the page count and print cost though. If you are looking for some new arcane spells or Sorc bloodlines this book is worth checking out. I would normally give a 3.5 star to this product if I could. I dropped it to a 3 because of the price of the PDF.
There are some interesting bloodlines and spells in this book, but I'm not sure for the price that this is worth a little bit of inspiration, and I have to say, most of the book doesn't grab me.
Part of why I look at a lot of Pathfinder compatible books is to see how well I can move onto fully Pathfinder material from 3.5. In order to really get that feel of replacing old material. This isn't really imaginative or inspiring enough to make me push old 3.5 material out of the way.
Overall, its not a bad product, but you should really think about how much you want to mine arcane material before you purchase this product.
This was the first book I purchased from this company and my opinion of it and the company behind it has not changed. New spells, new bloodlines and new ideas for your wizards, bards and sorcerers make this book one that bears consideration.
This product has a broad approach to arcane magic hitting everything from numerous spells to new sorcerer bloodlines to familiars. The spells are workman-like but there are some beauties like the 9th level spell Nevermore that erases all memory of the target's existence from the world. Moving onto sorcerer bloodlines we find an ecletic collection. Some are silly or step on territory covered by previously published bloodlines but they all appeared to be balanced. I like the new familiars presented. They are what you would expect...an array of small animals but some are clever. The familiar constructs offer something innovative for those bored with the traditional familiar. The authors offer a word of caution about the feats in the book and I would take them at their word...the new feats are often drastically powerful and can upset a game. Overall I liked the product but you need to keep an eye out for what you let in your game.
I was excited to get this at first. Upon reading through the pdf I ended up feeling like it was lacking. The bloodlines where good and by far the best part of this sourcebook. I only found about 20% of the spells to be useful and of any playable worth. So be warned if your looking to boost the spells in your arcane casters book. Most will not be better then the solid ones from the core rule book. The colleges where not bad but each one only got a few paragraphs. I wish they would have expanded more on each. I was not impressed at all with the new familiars, except for the clockwork one. The new magic items where so-so nothing really stood out to me.
Product Discussion
30
posts.
See all discussion for this product.
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Aside from Nightmarish and Genie, what are the bloodlines available for sorcerers? And is the Genie bloodline a "generic genie", or does it distinguish between the djinn, the efreet, the marid, and the dao/earth genie types?
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The elf on the right sure looks cool casting that pink spell. He's totally out about it. Good for him!
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Bellona wrote:
Aside from Nightmarish and Genie, what are the bloodlines available for sorcerers?
The others are bestial, divine, feline, fiendish, lycanthropic, mixed, monstrous, and scaly.
Quote:
And is the Genie bloodline a "generic genie", or does it distinguish between the djinn, the efreet, the marid, and the dao/earth genie types?
Some of the powers are generic regardless of ancestry, some depend on which genie type the character is descended from.
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Any chance for a short description of the nightmarish and mixed bloodlines?
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In the case of Mixed bloodlines, the characters ancestors displayed a remarkable lack of prejudices. The powers given are varied and don't follow any particular theme. OTOH it doesn't actually matter what the ancestry was - it's the same progression regardless. IMO the bloodline might have been better served by allowing optional selections from other bloodlines at the lower levels instead of the fixed powers granted as written.
The Nightmarish bloodline is basically Far Realms Aberration descent with the WotC identifying marks filed off. Insanity, tentacles, Cthuloid horror. Maybe fitting for something tainted by Dagon in Golarion instead of the Far Realm.
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