Advanced Arcana, Volume II (PFRPG) PDF

Following on from the first volume of Advanced Arcana, this one starts with a similar letter to a student who has now completed his first year at Aubergrave Academy of Magecraft. Likewise, the foreword to the book proper reveals that it was written by the same academically-minded mage, Kabaz Anvitz. This time, he says, he wants to concentrate on useful spells rather than those picked to challenge commonly-accepted principles of magical thought... but of course, he's ended up doing that as well. For a start, he explains - in a wonderful mix of in-character theory and game mechanics - just why a wizard 'prepares' spells in advance in terms of how spell energy is stored and used. At least, a rationale for the game mechanic! It's always been something that bugged me - ok, it's the game rule but why does it have to be like that?

This book presents over an hundred new spells ranging from first to ninth level, and the underlying theme of many of them is the idea of spells which can have more than one effect depending on anything from caster whim to the conditions under which it is cast. There are more of the multi-part or 'segmented' spells introduced in the first volume, which require several spell slots and require extended casting time as well. A full explanation of the mechanic is provided in case you do not have access to Advanced Arcana I, however, and then expands it to encompass layered segmented spells and variable segmented spells, which are new to this book. There are also notes on various ways to introduce new spells into your campaign, a process that causes some GMs no end of difficulty whilst others take it in their stride. The problem of introducing new spells to spontaneous casters who are not limited as to how many spells they know just how many they can cast in a day is also covered. These notes should help enable all GMs to handle novel spells with confidence.

Explanations done, the spells are presented first as spell lists for each spell-using class and then alphabetically with full descriptions. An example of a variable segmented spell is Ardesalf's instant biography which inscribes facts about the target being into a blank book or scroll, the more times cast (one to five times) the more you find out about your target... and there are many more innovative and interesting spells to be found here.

The Appendices are well worth reading too. The first contains notes on some of the distinguished mages who devised the spells herein. Perhaps they will turn up in your campaign, or merely be legends young wizards hear about during their training. The second deals with spellbook customisation. Perhaps a wizard would like a fancy binding or wants to write his spells on something other than paper, parchment or vellum... here are some ideas, their costs and their properties. Oh, and don't forget the ink... Other appendices deal with really wierd familiars (how about a bookworm?), alternate arcane bonds and exotic spell components - if you use one of these along with whatever's required for the spell you are casting, you may get some fascinating additional effects.

This is the sort of book that makes you wish magic were real... but inasmuch as it is within your game, it makes an excellent addition to magical knowledge!

This pdf is 108 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, 1 page advertisement, 1 page back cover, leaving 103 pages of content, so let's check out the sequel to one of my most favorite magic-books for PFRPG.

In line with its predecessor, Advanced Arcana II kicks off with an aptly-written IC-introduction before going into a rather interesting discussion on some basics of spellcasting and introducing new spells into a given campaign. Instead of just shrugging their shoulders, the NNW-guys provide quite a neat variety of options. If you as a DM e.g. want to limit the amount of spells available to druids, clerics and similar divine spell-casters, there actually is a table herein and it turns out to be a valid approach. Information to buy this book in-game, research the spells, find them etc. is given in extensive detail.

Even better, we get a new kind of spell-class - spells that have different effects depending on the age of the caster (and yeah aberrations, dragons etc. are covered as well): An example would be a spell that tells you something about past, present or future depending on a caster's age or a curse that actually increases in power when uttered by older characters. While at first this might seem strange, these spells make for good reasons to actually play old/venerable etc. casters and explain a bit the respect given to old, fragile and yet powerful geezers. Much to my extreme enjoyment, my favorite innovation from Advanced Arcana I comes back with a vengeance - Segmented Spells!

Segmented spells take up more than one spell-slot and have to be cast in succession. How meta-magic etc. influences these spells and their detailed rules are covered along some cool extensions - the segmented spells in this book are more complex than I anticipated: Most of them can be aborted at some time during the casting of the spell, making the results somewhat less powerful and adding to the customizability of the respective spells. It should also be noted that segmented spells can be cast by multiple cooperating spellcasters and that the rules governing this cooperation are just as rock-solid as you'd expect them to be, making ritualistic spell-casting a valid and rewarding option in combat. Even better, segmented spells are not only high-level spells anymore and even the regular spells contained herein usually have more than one option of usage, somewhat similar to fire-shield, but often with even more modularity. offering multiple rather different effects. It should also be noted that the pdf has went with the times and includes spell-lists for the classes from APG, the magus etc., further enhancing the utility of the book.

Not stopping with basic spell-casting supremacy, the pdf also excels with regards to fluff by providing background stories for the archmages that loaned their names to the respective spells, introducing e.g. a paranoid abjurer and a dread necromancer that devised an extremely lengthy spell that is sure to annihilate his foes if they cannot find him first. Spellbooks are expanded upon as well - rules for uncommon bindings and prices for e.g. copper pages make spellbooks more versatile and somewhat lessen a DM's inhibition of targeting spellbooks of PCs - neat!Special inks like lich bile, gorgon blood etc. are covered in their very own section, adding somewhat minor meta-magic effects to any spells written in them, adding to the academic, esoteric flair of wizards. The poor witches are not forgotten either and get a selection of 6 new familiars, including intelligent oozes, bookworms and minor swarms of biting insects. Not stopping even there, the book also offers us a selection of alternate arcane bonds, e.g. to the elements, locations, spirits and even spellbooks. Oh, have I mentioned the appendix with a rather large amount of alternate spell components of disturbing body-parts ranging from doppelganger hearts to dragon#s teeth and their effects on spells cast?

Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. The pdf comes with a printer-friendly version and features the used parchment-look and 2-column standard by NNW. The stock-artworks are nothing to write home about, but the vast array of bookmarks that enhances navigation is something I did enjoy about this book. At 103 pages, no glitches and extensive bookmarks are an impressive thing to pull off. Recently, I haven't been too impressed with many of NNW's offerings. This one is different: Well-thought out, I actually did not consider even one of the spells over-powered. The fluff that suffuses the respective spells adds another, cool dimension to the crunch while material components, familiars etc. constitute an awesome bonus of cool options that are sure to enrich your gaming experience.

The fact that this book manages to incorporate the mostly ignored age categories into the spell-casting process while adding a vast array of expertly-crafted, complex segmented spells and versatile spells that include a plethora of options. All while keeping the balance. Alex Riggs and Joshua Zaback have created a worthy successor to one of my favorite magic books ever and deliver more pages than you could ask for at the low price of 5 bucks, all chock-full of magic, imaginative goodness. If you're even remotely into magic and look for a book of complex spells that offers options upon options while providing advice on handling the introduction of new spells, this book is for you. In fact, I consider this book one of the best examples of work on the field of spells currently out there.

If you're bored by standard spells and want to check out magic that does things a bit differently, be sure to check this out. In fact, If you only buy 2 books from NNW - buy this and its predecessor - they are excellent examples that show what the necromancers can do when they set their minds to it. My final verdict of this stellar pdf will be 5 stars and the Endzeitgeist seal of approval.

Endzeitgeist out.

I generally don’t agree with the sentiment that spellcasters, particularly wizards, are overpowered. To me, that’s something that’s true more on paper than in actual game-play. However, it’s undeniable that contemporary spell-design does think this way. Simply put, spells are designed to have one specific effect and no other; indeed, many spells will devote considerable space to telling you what they can’t do. That’s understandable, but ironically it takes some of the magic away from spellcasting. What’s happened to spells that have wide and creative applications?

The answer is simple: they’ve all migrated to Advanced Arcana II, by Necromancers of the Northwest.

Okay, the above sentiment is an exaggeration, but only slightly. Whereas most supplements that introduce new spells are just a hodge-podge collection of spells thrown together, Advanced Arcana II, like its predecessor volume, has several new themes to what it presents. We’ll go over these, but first let’s take a look at the book’s technical construction.

Weighing in at just over a hundred pages in length, Advanced Arcana II hits all of the checkboxes that a PDF should. It contains full, nested bookmarks. It allows for copying and pasting (I’m pleased to say that there are virtually no errors with pasting copied text here). Moreover, there’s a printer-friendly version of the book, which is always a plus. That said, the printer-friendly version eliminates the page backgrounds, removes one page of ads near the end of the book, and sets the remaining colors to grey – however, it does keep the interior illustrations, simply graying them. I’d have preferred removing the artwork altogether, something I’m presuming they didn’t do because it’d require a ne layout.

In terms of artwork, the book makes a fairly good showing for itself. All of the pages are set on a cream-colored “parchment” background, which makes it look as though the book is an actual tome. Periodic full-color illustrations break up the text, all of which are CG stock art pieces (oddly, each piece is captioned with a copyright notice for the original creator – I’d have thought it’d be enough to note them in the credits page).

The book opens with a one-page in-character introduction, and then a four-page opening (which is also in-character). It’s after this that we’re given an introduction by the actual game designers. Advanced Arcana II, they tell us, is different from its predecessor volume in that it wants to deal with the mutable nature of spells. To this end, its largely concerning itself with three “types” of spells – the first of these are “modal” spells, which allow for spells to have different effects, but you can only choose one when you cast it (a la fire shield). The second are conditional spells, where the local conditions determine how effective a spell is (e.g. a spell that causes fear is more effective in dim light). Finally, we see the return of segmented spells here; spells that have to be cast multiple times in rapid succession to have their effect take place.

This is last idea is turned on its head, however, as it puts two new variations on that theme: the first are segmented spells that can be cast a differing (instead of a set) number of times, with the number of casting affecting the spell’s efficacy. The variation allows for layering effects to manifest with each casting of a segmented spell, allowing for stacking effects per casting.

Interestingly, the book then goes on to detail another theme that many of its spells deal with: age. Specifically, there are a number of spells here that deal with adding or draining age from a creature – it should be noted though that none of these spells have aging as a “cost” of casting the spell (something from older editions of the game, which I sort of miss). I have to commend the designers here, as they delve into the mechanics of aging in Pathfinder and make sure no aspect of this is overlooked. They deal with questions of aging modifiers to mental ability scores and physical ones, with how different sorts of creatures age (e.g. what to do if you’re uncertain of how a monster lives).

While it doesn’t call it out as its own section, per se, the book then delves into a series of optional rules, mostly in regards to adding new spells to your game. The book cogently notes that it can be awkward to have new spells just suddenly appear in your campaign, particularly for divine spellcasters who have access to the whole of their spell lists. To that end, the book presents several ideas, such as having rare spells costing more or being harder to scribe, to having a “spells known” like ability for divine spellcasters using non-Core spells, to just having an in-game Advanced Arcana II be available to peruse. There are a lot of good ideas here that are worth exploring.

Full spell lists are presented next, which make sure to cover all of the spellcasting classes in the Core Rulebook, APG, and Ultimate Magic, before we finally move on to the spells themselves. I should mention here that while most of the spells fall under the themes described above, there are still a handful that are presented that don’t match with any of them, something I thought was great for rounding out the material in the book.

If Advanced Arcana II had ended there, that would still have been a lot. Instead, however, the book has several appendices where we’re actually given even more material to work with. The book’s first appendix is another in-game treatise describing several of the spellcasters whose names appear the spells given earlier. It’s a slight shame that this section is entirely in-character, as I would have preferred a stat block, or at the very least an abbreviated line detailing their race, class, and levels.

The second appendix, however, was much more fun. Here we’re given a truly expansive section on customized spellbook designs. These allow for three basic parts: customized binding (the hardness), customized paper (the hit points), and customized inks. Customized ink represents changing the spells scribed in the spellbook, so that there are altered effects whenever such a spell is prepared. For example, if you scribe a spell in alchemical mercury, when you cast that specific spell after preparing it from that spellbook, you get a +2 bonus to beating spell resistance. I should also note that the sections on binding and pages also have several special abilities depending on the material used, in addition to altering hardness and hit points. The balancing mechanism here, of course, is that these are all expensive, all the moreso if you use multiple options.

The book’s third appendix presents a half-dozen new familiars. I have to admit that I really enjoy new familiars, so I was tickled by what was here. Some of these were mundane animals that were rather oddly overlooked until now (a dog, for example), while others were creatures you wouldn’t ordinarily think of (a goldfish), and others were outlandish (a swarm of magical flies). Each has a full stat block, an expansive description, and a notation on what their familiar benefit is (as these are all standard familiars, and not improved familiars).

Appendix four presents four new arcane bonds for wizards. These are an elemental bond (sub-typed by what element is chosen), a bond to a location (which can be changed, though not quickly), a bond with a particular spirit, and a bond to your spellbook. This last one, in particular, seemed apropos – I’m amazed it wasn’t offered in the Core Rulebook.

The book closes out with a final appendix of thirty optional material components that can be added to a spell to lend it some extra power. Most of these come from specific creatures, and likewise only affect certain groups of spells. For example, a kraken’s eye allows for any conjuration spell, affecting it as per the Widen Spell metamagic feat. A handy chart lists how much these can be purchased for.

Overall, Advanced Arcana II actually managed to top the high bar set by its predecessor, something I didn’t think was possible. While the book presents so many new spells, its innovations come from the fact that it stretches the boundaries of what its spells can do, from being augmented by local conditions to packing variable options into its effects to the sheer brilliance that are segmented spells. Add in things like the variant spellbook construction rules and the new familiars and arcane bonds, and there’s so much great stuff in here that it’s hard to justify not using this book in your game. I say, five stars to this book – it deserves every one of them. Pick it up and advance your game’s spellcasters!