This work is a compilation of three previous (3rd Edition) books for D&D, the Books of Eldritch Might, the first two of which I owned but had never gotten around to reading. The compilation gathers all the material from all three, updates it to v3.5, and puts some fancy hardcovers on the whole.
This is a 224-page balck and white hardcover. It cost £22, so was very expensive, but the text size is unusually small - this book is packed. There are nine chapters and an appendix.
Chapter One presents alternative Bard and Sorcerer classes. The Bard class is not much different from the original, except that their spell-casting and Bardic Music features are replaced with spellsong abilities, which are similar to magic, but subtly different. The Sorcerer gains higher hit dice (d6), more skill points (4/level), and seems to lose nothing. This is all balanced by them having to use a new spell-list, which has fewer spells on it, and has a number of the most useful spells (haste and fly, for example) increased in level. So, they become a bit more powerful in one area, but become noticably less useful in the main one associated with their class.
The new classes are fine, although I prefer the new Bard to the new Sorcerer. I doubt I would use either in a game I was running, however; I don't see anything wrong with the existing classes. This chapter is 13 pages long, much of which is taken up with the Sorcerer spell-list.
Chapter 2 consists of eight pages of Feats. These are fine, and several are quite interesting. But, they're just feats.
Chapter 3 , in seventeen pages, presents eight new Prestige Classes. These are all good, being both balanced and flavourful. I like them. Again, though, they're just prestige classes, so not exactly stunning.
Chapter 4 presents Soul Magic, a variant of magic that consists of spells that exist solely to be cast. Sort of like the eight great spells in Diskworld. This is good stuff, and material that I would strongly consider dropping into a game I ran to add a bit of wonder to proceedings. This chapter is only four pages long, but that is easily sufficient to present what needs said about the subject.
Chapter 5 deals with Magic Locales. There are seven such locations, in 37 pages, including such delights as the Nexus (a door to other worlds), the City in the Storm (a flying city surrounded by a permanent tempest), and so forth. Each is presented with a description, two suggested uses, adventure hooks, associated characters, and cross-references to materials elsewhere in the book. This is interesting, but probably not something that I'm ever going to use.
Chapter 6 presents the Spellsongs, companion material to the variant Bard. This chapter runs to fourteen pages, which are invaluable if the new Bard is used, and useless if not.
Chapter 7 presents the new Spells. This, for me, is the meat of the book, and the main reason I bought it. The spells here range from the dull (Disdain the Divine gives a bonus to save against divine spells) to the fascinating (Gestalt merges two creatures into a bizarre amalgamation). They are, for the most part, well balanced (although Plunge Deep to the Core, which at 2nd level allows characters to ignore one source of damage reduction, seems rather too powerful). These spells will, with a handful of exceptions, be being immediately added to my current campaign. There are 65 pages of new spells.
Chapter 8 presents new Magic Items, some of which will also be added to my game forthwith. For the most part, these items are more interesting, although often of lesser utility, than their counterparts in the DMG. These are also well-balanced, although I noted a couple of changes that should have been made from 3e to 3.5e, but that weren't (references to nine-tenths cover, for instance), but there were only a few. Chapter 8 lasts 26 pages.
Chapter 9 presents 18 pages of new monsters. These are fine, but, as with feats and prestige classes, hardly exciting.
The Appendix includes a very useful random rune generator. It also includes coversion guidelines for using this book with Arcana Unearthed, which is also very useful, but only to those using that game.
This book has the singular distinction of being the first (non-Monstrous Compendium) third-party sourcebook I will be adding to one of my D&D campaigns. The material here is useful, well-balanced, and interesting. This book, therefore, is highly recommended to those looking for more arcane materials to add to their campaigns.
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