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Go Neil, go. Not certain if I'd use this in a game - although I am running an Age of Worms adventure path and it might make a very interesting "substitution" along the way. (Insert evil DM laugh). The spores ability sounds vaguely familiar to me (Calling on the spirit of Evan. . .)
While I thought the idea for the Schools of Magic was great - the mechanic really shouldn't have been there at all. What I mean is that this article was obviously written for people who can't shake out of 2nd ed where there was what 20+ schools with the schools of philosophy (standard ones), schools of effect, and schools of thaumaturgy. In 3.5 there are 8 schools and Universal (everything else) and no spell belongs in more than one school. Even Ghostwalk (3.0 I know but still serves as an example) specifically stated that ghost spells were not a separate school and treated more themeatically similar to a descriptor. There are much better ways to capture the flavor of specific dedicated study than to use the label of schools of magic and follow pattterns real similar to specialization. Colligiate Wizard (from Complete Arcane) was a way of handling benefits of specific study and couls have served as a model for a better mechanic, so too could many of the options that equate to domains. Sorry just had to vent because I really think this is going to open up a huge can of worms by confusing something that was designed specifically to accomplish something. Descriptors and types are one fo the best ways to maintain differences and combinations of spells that are similar - adding in somethingn else to the equation just serves to make it more confusing.
We decided to check with the elf and when the "wife" who was having an affair with him showed up to state heer husband had been killed - she ended up spilling everything. So we set up to protect them that night and Ziki showed up and nearly killed my Kalashtar soulknife/psion with a sneak attack (good thing she missed). Fight ensued and we kicked her butt. Pretty much ended after the fight when the "guards" came and paid us our "fee". Like I said the DM didn't put in a lot of prep time (any) to figure things out. Very anti-climatic IMO.
I'm 47 - looks like the 3rd oldest on this thread (so far). Started gaming early 1st ed AD&D when I was 18, or was it 17. The meory is the second thing to go, I forgot what the first was. First character was a wizard with a whopping 8 Int. Second was a human figher, Boom-Boom Broomski 18 (09) Str, 17 Dex and 5 Int. Broke a thief's hand when he caught him picking his pocket. The DM said "You broke his hand, why." The reply was "What is outside the pocket is yours what is inside the pocket is mine." Real fun character.
We just ran it last weekend. Our first Eberron game. The DM read the adventure about 30 minutes before we started. I had just brought it to the game since it was for PC levels that were real close to our starting level (3rd level). Real rough game - DM wasn't ready (always a bad thing). I didn't help by not knowing the rules for manifesters (it was my first manifesting class character) so I ended up augmenting powers that I couldn't since my PC was only a 1st level psion. Kalashtar with 2 levels of soulknife (using racial substitution level at 1st level). Basically in the final fight (the only encounter of the game) my PC stepped back from engagment with the protaganist and used Mind Thrust for 2d10 each attempt. Should have only been 1d10 since it wasn't augmentable yet. Regardless it was a very effective attack. After the game I read the adventure and when we debriefed it, it was pointed out how the DM didn't use the bad guy to the best advantage - hence the short fight. The DM also didn't play the encounters so there really was only a bunch of moving here and moving there and essentially none of the intrigue that is an inherent part of the adventure. We'll see how the DM fares Saturday when he gets his second attempt and hopefully a better prepared event. After reading the adventure - it really is a great one IMO, not your dungeon crawl hack and slash style. There is a lot of intrigue and interaction that should be done. |
