1001 Spells gives you—yes, you guessed it—1001 spells, that will help you realize the vision you've had for your spellcaster.
From spells that are cast as move, swift and immediate actions to maw of the purple worm which lets you swallow your opponents whole, or just have your dragon tattoo bite him instead. 1001 Spells brings you at least a hundred spells for each level of casting, from cantrips to orisons all the way up to the world changing spells of 9th level, making your character's spellbook truly unique.
Its a fat book full of spells. How are you going to say no to that?
I have the rant that fat high quality hardcover books like this and Deep Magic can come out but barely anything dedicated to martials and their options come along and when they do its a small PDF or something but other than that it's a good book.
Being a caster can feel limiting when you have a theme or a mode of operating that you want to do but there just aren't any spells at the level you want. Magi are starved for touch spells that isn't Shocking Grasp to liven up your spellstrike class feature and I feel like I always have the same spell list as a cleric. So a bunch of new spells are great for realizing your schtick or expressing more of your class features or style, and this product delivers that in a lot of ways. You can also hide the book from your players so that you can supply them with spells in the form of old dusty tomes buried at the bottom of a dungeon, an eccentric hermit that discovered a new spell, or an ancient prayer sung by natives worshiping a similar god. With a list of diverse and fun spells the possibilities become endless.
As for the power level. Well nothing as bad as the Core Rulebook but there are a few that look like they can be dangerous if misread or used in wands. Nothing too far out but still there. They are few and far between taking a serious min-maxer to find but takes one or two bannings instead of chucking out the entire book. Other than that the book is pretty much perfect for what it is and I'd recommend it to anyone. Five stars.
As you may have expected, this book is completed loaded with spells. And when you add hundreds of spells to your game, spellcasting gets a lot more interesting. You get a lot more customization and flavor with your characters.
Of course, you've got some slightly overpowered spells that plenty of people are going to want, but this is no different than core spells. Just make sure you run these spells by your GM.
As a bonus treat (which is slightly outdated with the Shaman), this book has full support for inquisitor, witch, summoner spells, and alchemist formulae books. As icing on the cake, this book has full Hero Lab support!
This book's format is simple and intuitive. Bookmarks are included (necessary for a book this massive).
The art isn't anything spectacular, but it definitely serves its role as a way to keep the book easy on the eyes.
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Summary: 5 stars. If you want more spells, it's simple: Get this book! This title isn't kidding when it says it has over a thousand spells!
1001 spells is the type of resource that both dms and players can really appreciate. It can add fun, grant new combat options (consuming line of acid), offensive spells (giant boulders), aid negotiation (zone of parley) or sabotages an enemy’s roll (utter failure). There is a lot of flavor here, and even if you don’t want to add all of them in, you will find some that are useful and others that you just have to let into your games (wildblast, when you want the element of a blast spell entirely randomized).
I question that some may be over-powered (a level 1 cleric spell that grants +2 bab to a target); but this is always inevitable in these types of books. I say this because the typical 3.5-pathfinder spell list, is a bit bland and some spells are better than others, so good new spells with effects we aren’t familiar with may seem too powerful. The standard spell list, after a few years of gaming is old, regurgitated and boring. Add over a thousand spells, and magic gets interesting. Because of these new spells, they may not always be the right level or may be more powerful than a group or dm is used to. So when introducing these spells, I recommend a dm takes care and chooses which ones come in and adjusts spell level as need be. This doesn’t have to be done though, as it is well organised and there are sections for alchemists, witches and magi spells.
With all these spells there is certainly plenty to add as scrolls or in old wizard books in long sealed away dungeons. Or, to make available only to secret orders (until the players kill them and take their stuff). Some like wildblast are begging to be added to wands, and others could be attuned to amulets (wall of light), gloves (unarm foe, a disarm via blast spell), or even a musical instrument (stunning note). I was surprised there wasn’t a section discussing the spells or making suggestions on which ones would make excellent magic items, but it is the type of book to give you the tools and let you experiment.
If spellcasting is getting a bit repetitive with the same old spells used over and over, 1001 spells will liven up spellcasting in your games. You could also try to use this book to the fullest and throw out the standard spell list and only use what is in here. Ha! That will make the magic of a game original, that is for sure. Now I just have to work out which ones I am going to add in.
I don't have time to wax episodic over the usefulness of this book for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Even if you only use 10% of the material within, that is still a hundred uses!
All I can really do is ask the question, why hasn't every Pathfinder gamer purchased this book yet?
...Other than the fact it is sold out. I am sure that will change. :-)
This pdf is 291 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 2 pages of advertisement and 1 page SRD, leaving a whopping 285 pages of content!
The compilation starts off with very extensive lists of the spells - the vast array of excellent spells provided so far by the 101-series. I did reviews for all of them, so my individual scores were:
Apart from the content from the individual files, we also get additional content: the APG and UM get full support with Alchemist formulae, Inquisitor spells, Summoner spells and Witch spells and yes, even Magus spell-lists, providing a great support for the new classes and making sure they also get their share of the pie.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are excellent, I didn't notice any significant amount of hick-ups - quite a feat for a book of this length. Layout adheres to RiP's old, rune-covered b/w-2-column standard and the artworks are stock and mostly repeated from the series, although I actually did notice some pieces I couldn't recall encountering in the individual pdfs.
The pdf comes with extensive bookmarks, which is a necessity for a book of this length. Content-wise, the vast majority of these spells rocks and the added APG-support and UM-support as well as the hero-lab support provided make sure that this vast tome retains its usefulness.
However, that's also where a part of my criticism falls: While spell-lists for the new classes are included, the entries of the individual spells don't feature this information (i.e. they only read clr, sor/wiz etc.), which is a pity. While I realize that including this information in the spell-lists would have been a tremendous amount of work, I would have loved to see it nevertheless, as it would have felt like it integrated the support for the new books instead of adding it via appendices. The additional Hero-lab support, for everyone using the software, is awesome. By the way: If you have purchased all individual 10 101-spells pdfs, you can get this compilation for free by shooting an e-mail @ Rite Publishing - stellar support for the customers! So, how to rate this one? While the minor gripe I had is unfortunate, you still get more than 1000 spells for less than 20 bucks. Now if that is not an awesome bang-for-buck ratio, I don't know what is. Add to that the high individual scores the component pdfs garnered from me and I'll settle for a final verdict of 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 - excellent, almost perfect compendium of spells at an unbeatable price for the vast amount of content provided.
We have finished layout now we just need to finalize the cover layout, barcodes (I got that from C7 today), and am awaiting the wrap around cover layout for print.
So then, this book will contain no spells-by-level lists for new classes from the Advanced Player's Guide and Ultimate Magic, it'll just list them for the base classes from the Core Rulebook?
So then, this book will contain no spells-by-level lists for new classes from the Advanced Player's Guide and Ultimate Magic, it'll just list them for the base classes from the Core Rulebook?
I personally can confirm that it will have spell lists for the new classes.
Because my god did they take awhile to make and check.
I am sad having bought all of the individual parts of this to re-purchase the whole, feels like dobule dipping. However, the quality of the product, in my humble opinion, is so high, that I will gladly, don't tell the wife, fork over some more money to get a nice bound version of this, and a single consolidated copy of the awesome spell lists.
Discount for previous purchasers of all 10 PDFs?
Also, any plans or ideas on incorporating this into Hero Lab?
I am sad having bought all of the individual parts of this to re-purchase the whole, feels like dobule dipping. However, the quality of the product, in my humble opinion, is so high, that I will gladly, don't tell the wife, fork over some more money to get a nice bound version of this, and a single consolidated copy of the awesome spell lists.
Discount for previous purchasers of all 10 PDFs?
Also, any plans or ideas on incorporating this into Hero Lab?
Looking forward to getting my copy!
Cheers,
James
The answer to all of this is Yes, Shoot me an email at worldsmith at gmail dot com and I will go into more detail.
I am sad having bought all of the individual parts of this to re-purchase the whole, feels like dobule dipping. However, the quality of the product, in my humble opinion, is so high, that I will gladly, don't tell the wife, fork over some more money to get a nice bound version of this, and a single consolidated copy of the awesome spell lists.
Discount for previous purchasers of all 10 PDFs?
Also, any plans or ideas on incorporating this into Hero Lab?
Looking forward to getting my copy!
Cheers,
James
The answer to all of this is Yes, Shoot me an email at worldsmith at gmail dot com and I will go into more detail.
Something I need to be clear on the discount will be on the PDF compilation not the print version, I don't control costs on the Print version as it is published by Cubicle Seven, I get exactly three copies of this book, I do not have personal stock, and they usually arrive after perorder copies have been filed.
Also Paizo's preorder of the print copy already has a better discount on the book than buying direct from Cubicle Seven.
I hope to talk to Dom from Cubicle Seven on monday or tuesday, The holiday, my personal moving, and the 1st of the month deadlines left me no time for a skype conversation.
That is a bummer but I know you will not send out a bad product. One of the reasons I preordered the book. Rite Publishing is 1 of only 3 companies I will preorder from. Most of the time I wait for Dark Mistress and End. to review it.
I am waiting on Cubicle Seven to verify that it has gone to print, from there it will be shipped from the printer to PSI, who then ship to distributors like Alliance who then ship to places like Paizo.
I don't guess at ETA's as all of the above are out of my hands.
Any word from Cubible Seven verifying it has gone to the printers?
Got a reply this morning (sorry I am quite sick wit the flu)
"1001 Spells is due to get into the warehouse on 24 January." Now mind you that still has to filter from the fullfilment warehouse through the distribution network, then out to store fronts like Paizo and FLGS
I have an email into C7 asking that very question Andrew, also waiting on my 3 complimentary print copies of the book (one goes to hugo, one goes to me, the other will go to dave paul the editor).
It takes about 3-7 days to get an email response from Cubicle Seven on something like this because they will have to contact PSI, who will then contact them back, and then C7 will contact me, and no they don't do anything on the weekend, and they are in england so different time zones cause delays.
The joys of running a company accross 10 time zones. Any chance we can get it by Valentimes Day?
Sadly I have not idea or control over how long it will take to get from the PSI warehouse to Alliance distribution to Paizo. I am using this as my test bed for timing how long that takes.
PDF will be available tomorrow included with it is the Hero Lab data files.