Hi guys. Sorry about the delay in posting this. New job...busy time of year, you know how it is. Anyway, here is my review of THE COMPLETE MAGE.

I've always been a fan of new books. I can't explain it. I get such a heady rush when I walk into my FLGS and see all the nice new shiny covers staring back at me. It feels like Christmas morning when I was a kid. I can't wait to tear open the package and see what is hiding under the wrapper. Sometimes it's a pair of socks, but other times it's a shiny new bike. I wouldn't say that THE COMPLETE MAGE is a shiny new bike, but it is definitely not a pair of socks. This book is more akin to a brand new toy. It will keep your interest for a while, and you will trot it out every now and then when you're bored, but it will eventually join all the other toys in a heap in your closet. I know that isn't a ringing endorsement for the book, but I will say that aspects of this book are fantastic, but as a whole it only rates a "pretty good" in my opinion. I guess that's enough preamble. Now it's time to look at the nuts and bolts of this product.

THE COMPLETE MAGE is 152 pages of material. It uses the standard layout that has been established in all the previous "Complete" books. The cover art was done by Matt Cavotta. The cover doesn't really do anything for me. It depicts an albino wizardess with her white mice familiars. It's not bad, but not stellar in my opinion.

Chapter 1 is called the fundamentals. It is 25 pages and gives a bit of a definition of magic. It compares arcane vs. divine, spontaneous casting vs. study, and delves into the origin of the warlock. Make no mistake this book definitely treats the warlock as a core class, and it does it well. One thing that I would like to mention is that this books brings up the idea of the fey as a power source for magic users. I find this an interesting track to take, and it kind of freshens up the image of the sorcerer and the warlock. The book delves into this a little later, and so will I.

chapter 1 continues on after the basic definition of magic to give advice on each school of magic that includes character traits for specialists, and suggested prohibited schools. This section is really only useful for newer players or those who haven't played a specialist before. I didn't find it particularly enlightening, and in fact I disagree with some of the choices that they suggest for prohibited school. Personally, there are very few times that I would suggest to a player that they forego the evocation school, and if I do I give a good reason why and suggest alternative ways to make up for the loss of such an overtly powerful school. This section doesn't do that. In a few cases they just out and out recommended barring the evocation school. I would suggest newer players take some of this advice with a grain of salt.

The final portion of Chapter 1 gives 9 archetypes that players can model their characters after. They are : The Blaster, The Booster, The Controller, The Generalist, The Necromaster, The Sniper, The Spy, The Strategist, and The Warrior. Once again, I can't say that I agree with some of the spell and feat choices that are recommended, for example Combat casting. I am of the opinion that Skill Focus: Concentration is a better feat to take, but this is only my opinion. This section is best suited to newer players.

Chapter 2 is called Character Options. It is only 17 pages, but I firmly believe that these are the best 17 pages in the book. The chapter starts off with alternate class abilities. I've never been a big fan of these in any of the previous material in which they were published, but the abilities in this book definitely made me look at them in a new light. This chapter provides a little something for every class...yes...every class, and they are all interesting. My personal favourites were "Arcane Grace" for the swashbuckler (lose the grace ability and gain the use of one of a number of listed spells 1/day), and "Elemental Companion" for the druid (gain an elemental instead of an animal companion). I really can't stress enough how much flavour I feel these abilities can add to any class. These were very well done.

The next portion of this chapter focuses on feats. This is where I really felt to book came into its own. Topping things off are 2 new heritage feat progressions: Fiendish and Fey (see...I promised more Fey stuff). The fiendish progression is fairly standard, but the Fey progression is definitely geared towards the warlock. There is a feat called "Fey Skin" that gives DR 1/cold iron +1 for every other fey feat that you take...and it stacks with a warlock's DR...and a human warlock could have it at 1st level. A 1st level character with DR 2/cold iron is pretty cool, and probably a headache for many DMs.

The next portion of the chapter addresses something new called reserve feats. A reserve feat allows a spell caster to preserve his spells by giving them a specific supernatural ability as long as they have the proper spell memorized. This is where the power creep in the current system . To fully explain this system I will give one of the feats as an example.

FIREY BURST (reserve)

Prerequisite: ability to cast 2nd level spells

Description

As long as you have a 2nd level spell with the fire descriptor memorized or an appropriate spell slot available you can launch a ball of fire with a 30 ft range and a 5' radius that deals 1d6 fire damage/ level of fire spell memorized. +1 Caster level for fire spells.

So basically, with this feat as long as you have a scorching ray memorized you can launch a 2d6 mini fireball. At 3rd level that is a great benefit. Were I playing a low level wizard I would never cast another spell. With enough of these feats a wizard (or sorcerer) has an inexhaustible magical arsenal. I'm not sure whether I would consider these feats "broken". I know that some of my friends was floored by it, but if you consider the power level that a wizard reaches when he gets a few levels under his belt this type of benefit pales in comparison. I think that these feats will be the topic of many heated discussions between game master and player for quite a while though. I was surprised with the variety of reserve feats that were presented in the book. All told there are 25 different reserve feats in the book. Honestly, I feel that if I were playing a wizard in a game at the moment I would almost buy the book purely for the reserve feats.

Chapter3 is all about the prestige classes. It is 39 pages of prestige classes. Some are hits, and some are misses. The bulk of them are "theurge" classes. Basically a melding of two classes. There is quite a variety from the eldritch theurge (wizard/warlock),and the ultimate magus (sorcerer/wizard), to the eldritch disciple (cleric/warlock). One of the most interesting (and debate causing) prestige classes is the Master Specialist.

The master specialist is the first prestige class that I have seen that you can enter with your 4th level. You have to be a specialist wizard to enter the class, but there is no negative side to the class. Most prestige classes that are built around the specialist wizards add in some sort of down side , such as adding another prohibited school, but this class doesn't feel the need to do that. The Master Specialist basically progresses about the same as a normal wizard, but at 4th, 7th, and 10th level you get "School Esoterica". These are small abilities that are specifically tied to the school that you have selected to specialize in. The minor esoterica range from bonuses to DC of spell to extra HP for summoned creatures, and it just gets better and better for the moderate and major school esoterica.

Another prestige class that I want to touch on is the Wild Soul, which is a wizard that has made a deal with the Fey (see, even more Fey stuff), and that has given him access to interesting powers. Two of the more interesting abilities of this class are Spontaneous Spells and Summon Seelie Ally. Spontaneous spells allow the wizard to swap out a spell of a given level for a spell of equal level or less on a specific list of spells dependant on whether you follow thee seelie (light side) or unseelie (dark side). The Summon Seelie Ally works like the summon nature's ally spells, except that you summon magical beasts and Fey. The wild soul gets access to this 3/day.

All in all, the prestige classes are fairly solid, and I think that a lot of them will see play, but I truly believe that a couple of them are real gems that no wizard would dare pass up.

Chapter 4 is spells and invocations. It is 35 pages, but I honestly don't have a lot to say about them. When compared to some of the spells from the Spell Compendium or even the PHB they seem a little flat. I do want to note a couple of great spells and an interesting concept though. One of the best spells I've seen in a while is Arcane Fusion. This is a 5th level sorcerer only spell that combines one 4 th level spell and one 1st level spell into one casting. I think that is fantastic. It only uses the 5th level spell slot to get 2 spells off. There is also an upgraded version called greater arcane fusion. It is an 8th level spell and it combines a 7th and a 4th level spell. I don't know of any reason why a sorcerer would NOT take this spell.

One of the interesting things that the designers have done with this book is to introduce spell sets. These are spells that have increased effects once all of the spells in the set have been cast on the subject. They introduced 2 sets in this book. The first is the "heart" spells. These are Heart of air (sor/wiz, drd, wu jen 2), Heart of water (sor/wiz, drd, wu jen 3), Heart of earth (sor/wiz, drd, wu jen 4), and Heart of Fire (sor/wiz, drd, wu jen 5). Each of these spells has an individual effect concerning the element that it is tied to, but when 2 or more are cast on one subject the subject gets increasing immunity to critical hits and sneak attacks.

The second set is the Unicorn Set (more fey stuff...will it ever stop). The spells in this set are Unicorn Horn (Sor/wiz, drd 3), Unicorn Blood (Sor/wiz, drd 5), and Unicorn heart (Sor/wiz, drd 7). When 2 or more of these spells are active on a subject they increase the effectiveness of each other, or provide a new ability depending which spells are active. I find this grouping of spells into set very interesting, and I think it could open up some interesting roleplaying when a big baddie completes all 4 of the elemental heart spells, or all 3 of the unicorn spells. I hope to see more of these.

Chapter 5 is magic items. This is a very skimpy section, only weighing in at 11 pages. This chapter is divided into magic items, new alchemical items, and alternate components. This leaves very little space for actual magic items. Most of the magic items in this book are rather...well meh. The only magic item that grabbed my attention was the Rod of Many Wands, or as it has become known...the wand shotgun. This rod has the capability to hold 3 wands and activate them all at once. It takes a full round action to activate them and it drains charges from each wand equal to the number of wands in the rod, so if fully loaded it takes 3 charges per wand to activate. One interesting thing that I realized was that if you have this rod it is actually cheaper to have 3 cure light wounds wands loaded into it as opposed to using a wand of cure serious wounds. 3 fully charged cure light wands are 2250 gp, but 1 cure serious wand with 16 charges (the equivalent of using 3 charges/wand) is 3600 gp. This makes this a good buy for the mid level party that finds 1d8 is just not enough healing.

Chapter 6 is Arcane Adventures. This is basically where I as a player lose interest in the book. This chapter is 20 pages of idea generators for DMs. Some of the locations are interesting, such as bigby's tomb, but as a player they weren't really useful to me. Most DM's will modify them in some way, but the do set a standard of what magical locations are all about.

So there it is. The good, the bad and the ugly. Let me know what you think, or if you have the book and feel that I've done it injustice fell free to post away

Thanks

B