Yeah baby, Grease and Glitterdust are back! When WotC remade D&D and published 4e, there were howls of outrage and nerdrage galore about the "new" wizard. He was no longer a god! I was one of those who really liked the new wizard, but still felt he could have been done better. More control, less damage would have been preferable. And some more varied magic. And now he is (finally) complete. Not only are some of the old-school spells brought back to life (although in more balanced versions) but he can finally summon and cast illusions (yeah yeah, I know about the Dragon Magazine article). The completeness is furthered by the inclusion of several interesting feats (I especially dig those that let a wizard improve his chosen implement), some cool paragon paths (I really want to play a summoner now) and some new builds. A very few things stand out as very unbalanced, most notably the new tome implement (Tome of Readiness + Improved Tome of Readiness) which allows a wizard to cast Sleep every combat. Might be really annoying with Second Implement (Orb). In general, I would say that this book is worth buying alone for the goodies for the wizard. This however does not mean that the rest of the book is bad. No sir.! While it seems that the Swordmage gets the short(est) end of the stick, the rest of the classes in AP (Warlock, Sorcerer, Bard) all get some great things. Aside from a plethora of cool powers and feats, an honorable mention goes to the new bard build (Prescient Bard, a ranged bard), the cosmic sorcerer (a good example of the increased complexity and flexibility of 4e classes) and the new warlock vestige pact (welcome back to the binder, just in a non-broken, non-silly form). Overall a great book that already is very popular with my arcane casters.
Rating:* * * * *
No comments:
Post a Comment