Secrets of Skelos
- Thread starter LilithsThrall
- Start date
Bough the book.. a little review.
I must start by saying that the book struck both ends of the meter for me. There are variety of things that I really liked - and then there are stuff I really disliked. It is a good book - especially if you don't have the Scrolls of Skelos - but it could have been even better...
The Good Stuff:
Cosmic Sorcery and Serpent Magic rock. Many new Cosmic spells are..well..cosmic, just the right kind of stuff for stargazing Mythos mages contemplating the mysteries of the universe. Most of the Serpent Magic is very thematical and good for Stygian sorcerers and serpent people.
Some individual spells are very nice. Few from Frost Magic and Immortality are very atmospheric and cool with sound mechanics. Library rules are nice.
Greater spell components etc. provide way to manufacture magical stuff without it costing a zillion and give side goals for sorcerers and alchemists.
The stuff about different campaigns, Dreamlands and the Outer Dark at the end of the book is very good.
The cult power idea is good...
The Bad Stuff:
..but poorly implemented. It does not properly take in to account a campaign where the players would actually be leading an organization. Still, it was a good base that only required a little tweaking.
The book is soft-cover even though it has more pages than the Bestiary. It has already started to twist and I've only had it for a few weeks. I had gladly paid a few euros more to have it with hard covers.
Some of the crunch is really poor. Master of Death, a prestige class for undead sorcerer, is a good example. Undead usually have HD of d12 - this is the basic assumption coming with the undead template. This prestige class has HD of d6? The feats "Agents" and "Henchmen" are simply stoopid. They add a parallel system to Leadership within the game, but the benefits are much worse than simply taking Leadership. Yes, you can most likely take Leadership and those feats but... why build own system for a few feats? A much more elegant decision would have been for those feats to somehow act in concert with regular Leadership rules and scores.
Flame Magic and Frost Magic are to a large extent completely useless. I will use Incinerating Gaze, a Flame Magic spell available in the Secrets preview as an example. The spell costs 3 PPs and a standard action. The effect is that the sorcerer may cause one point of damage per Cha modifier as a free action every round. The effect continues for one round per scholar level. In order to cast the spell, the sorcerer must have first cast two other spells - Heart of Flames and Inferno Heat - which are pretty useless and cost additional 6 Power Points. So, in order to cause a few points of fire damage per round for a few rounds, the sorcerer must spend 9 Power Points. Why would anyone use a such lame spell with a such huge cost? It is just complete waste of Power Points and spell slots.
Edit - Brainfart. I had said that the book is soft cover even though it has less pages then Bestiary. Should have been the opposite - it has MORE pages than Bestiary.
I must start by saying that the book struck both ends of the meter for me. There are variety of things that I really liked - and then there are stuff I really disliked. It is a good book - especially if you don't have the Scrolls of Skelos - but it could have been even better...
The Good Stuff:
Cosmic Sorcery and Serpent Magic rock. Many new Cosmic spells are..well..cosmic, just the right kind of stuff for stargazing Mythos mages contemplating the mysteries of the universe. Most of the Serpent Magic is very thematical and good for Stygian sorcerers and serpent people.
Some individual spells are very nice. Few from Frost Magic and Immortality are very atmospheric and cool with sound mechanics. Library rules are nice.
Greater spell components etc. provide way to manufacture magical stuff without it costing a zillion and give side goals for sorcerers and alchemists.
The stuff about different campaigns, Dreamlands and the Outer Dark at the end of the book is very good.
The cult power idea is good...
The Bad Stuff:
..but poorly implemented. It does not properly take in to account a campaign where the players would actually be leading an organization. Still, it was a good base that only required a little tweaking.
The book is soft-cover even though it has more pages than the Bestiary. It has already started to twist and I've only had it for a few weeks. I had gladly paid a few euros more to have it with hard covers.
Some of the crunch is really poor. Master of Death, a prestige class for undead sorcerer, is a good example. Undead usually have HD of d12 - this is the basic assumption coming with the undead template. This prestige class has HD of d6? The feats "Agents" and "Henchmen" are simply stoopid. They add a parallel system to Leadership within the game, but the benefits are much worse than simply taking Leadership. Yes, you can most likely take Leadership and those feats but... why build own system for a few feats? A much more elegant decision would have been for those feats to somehow act in concert with regular Leadership rules and scores.
Flame Magic and Frost Magic are to a large extent completely useless. I will use Incinerating Gaze, a Flame Magic spell available in the Secrets preview as an example. The spell costs 3 PPs and a standard action. The effect is that the sorcerer may cause one point of damage per Cha modifier as a free action every round. The effect continues for one round per scholar level. In order to cast the spell, the sorcerer must have first cast two other spells - Heart of Flames and Inferno Heat - which are pretty useless and cost additional 6 Power Points. So, in order to cause a few points of fire damage per round for a few rounds, the sorcerer must spend 9 Power Points. Why would anyone use a such lame spell with a such huge cost? It is just complete waste of Power Points and spell slots.
Edit - Brainfart. I had said that the book is soft cover even though it has less pages then Bestiary. Should have been the opposite - it has MORE pages than Bestiary.
One thing I've wondered about is whether people have played with the new sorcery styles. It does seem like there was an effort made to keep some or all of them under tight rein to avoid a D&D feel. Some of the high level spells have cool effects, but I wonder if it's remotely plausible to ever cast them given the requirements in PP or other.
Majesic 7 wrote:
Mine still OK. As for hardbacks, almost every book published between Conan 2nd Ed and the Bestiary has a really poor binding. I had my 2nd Ed replaced (but with another squared binding of poor quality, not the rounded new version), but my Return to the Road of Kings isn't going too well and two of my Elric books (Magic of the Y.K and the Companion-both hardbacks), are starting to fall apart.
Mine still OK. As for hardbacks, almost every book published between Conan 2nd Ed and the Bestiary has a really poor binding. I had my 2nd Ed replaced (but with another squared binding of poor quality, not the rounded new version), but my Return to the Road of Kings isn't going too well and two of my Elric books (Magic of the Y.K and the Companion-both hardbacks), are starting to fall apart.
That's why I liked the book! You all know by now what I think of d20 "crunchy bits"! :wink:
Simply because not everyone has a "gamist" approach. I belong to the kind of players that always found optimization in RPGs sadly boring. Even more when the system is completely non realistic and non cinematic, as it is the case with D20. Some people just like lame spells, funny feats or not so perfect characters. There's must be room for everyone in the game. This being said, I can say I'm not using Flame and Frost magics either!
Hervé said:
Perhaps I've been using mine more already? My Return to the Road of the Kings is just fine. Bestiary is the only other Second Edition hardback I have.
Emm, I didn't say "poor in crunch" as in having a little of it - but that much of the crunch in the book has been made badly. That is a different thing. I like fluffy books - hey, RttRotK doesn't have any crunch at all - but if there is crunch in the book, I expect it to be _good_ crunch.
Meh, not wanting to use completely useless game mechanics is pretty far from being a munchkin. There is a difference between choosing something that is atmospheric but not optimized and choosing something that is just complete waste of limited resources of your character. First would be choosing Skill Focus (Perform: Lute) (hey, it can be useful at some point and it really makes you better with the lute..) and the second taking the Incinerating Gaze or Weapon Focus (Toothpick). Toothpick would actually be vastly superior to the Incinerating Gaze since you could coat it with poison and score a critical with it.
Stygian Devout
Mongoose
I wish it could have been a bit more comprehensive and included the Sea Witchery style as well as some of the spells scattered about the other sourcebooks.
new favorite spell name : The Hour Of Your Birth, The Hour Of Your Death
new favorite spell name : The Hour Of Your Birth, The Hour Of Your Death
WeakAsAKhitan
Mongoose
He is. Xaltotun too.
Stygian Devout
Mongoose
One of the additions I liked was how the section on cults was expanded and, like the Knowledge:Mystery skill, provides benefits that translate directly into character goodies, like free spells, bonuses to MA, etc. The cult of Skelos is a good example of that...
Stygian Devout said:
Yes, I liked the part where you get to use the cult's resources. I'm not sure about the cult feats. Some cults are also misrepresented. Like the cults of Asura and Ibis have a sorcerous power rank of 2. These two cults both have at least one sorcerer of 20th level Hardathus and Kalanthes respectively. When you read the sorcerous power rank descriptios, rank 2 seems rather weak and inapropriate in my opinion:
Sorcerous power 2: cult has a working knowledge of magic possessing at least two sorcery styles, it has a library with a maximum of 15 ranks in several subjects, most powerful sorcerer is level 12.
Sorcerous power 4: great mastery of magic, it has at least five styles, library with 30 ranks, at least one 20th level sorcerer.
For both the Aquilonian Asuran and Ibis cults, sorcerous power should be 4.
