Has anyone else seen this book? If so what are your thoughts.
For those of you who haven't I suggest you look around whether you like it or not it's very interesting at least. It details three new systems of magic. Not suppliments like the complete divine or arcane but completely new magic systems. Pact magic (binds a spirit to the character granting many ablilities and bonuses to the summoner) shadow magic (basically a very stealthy and powerful sorcerer whose dark spells become spell like and eventually supernatural abilities over time), and Truename magic (a caster that uses the ancient language of creation as spells but unlimited times per day, with the contingency that it is devilishly hard to pronounce the words themselves and every attempt may fail)
As someone who looked at (and still does) the psionic rules with disgust and scorn I found myself very surprized at my positive reaction to these new systems. In fact I'm trying out a shadowcaster soon in a campaign.
I always wanted to see new magic systems introduced that would add more flavor to the worlds without having a 6+ lvl NPC to take advantage of some prestigue class so they look and fell different from other casters. Actually I take that back, most prestige classes need a few lvls before they are different enough to notice so thats more like 9th or 10th lvl.
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Flavor? Absolutely. Recommendations with both introducing the systems into your campaign, as well as commoner reactions to these magics? Yup. Interesting and fairly well-balanced mechanics? *nods*
Yes, I agree with you Sexi, this was an absolutely wonderful book. I found Binding to be filled of "pagan intrigue," given the strong antithetical reactions listed by several religions (I personally suggest The Shadow, Aureon, and Dol Arrah as Eberron substitutes, keeping Blood of Vol out of the loop).
Shadowcasters also have great style, and despite their "small" selection of powers (compared to a wizard or sorceror) the diversity & feats vs. specialization and raw power mechanic was a good choice I feel.
I won't say much more, but felt Truenaming fit in just as nicely, and especially appreciate the measures they took to make this mechanic (entirely skill -based) accessible to the other base classes through feats and boosting items.
A few errata slips along the way made me frown a bit, but nothing enduring. I highly recommend this book to those with an eye for a different sytle caster, especially one a bit more capable of using a weapon and a more durable than a wizard/sorceror.
Hey Sexi, picked up this bad boy just a couple days ago and I love it! The Binder reeks of real-world mythological magic and all I could think of when I read about Truenamers was Earthsea by Ursula K. Leguin an awesome read! I had the 2nd editon Tome and 3rd has yet again improved on the old. I am NOT dissapointed that there is no basic Wild Mage class...sorry flashbacks to a death-by-wild-mage adventure. I like the idea of a Shadowswyft Shadowcaster, though such a combination would be difficult in terms of both rping and mechanics. For some reason I really want to play a binder...if only I had a gaming group!