Elemental Spells

[Persimmon]

Been playing a fair amount this summer and I must say we are enjoying the spells in the Elemental Spells supplement by James Ward and Jason Vey. Really good for druids and clerics with an elemental bent in particular. Our group has a dwarf cleric and he loves the earth related options. And it's nice to move away from giving everyone sleep and magic missile as the main low level offensive spells. Also, since we have Asian-derived settings and classes in our campaign, lots of these spells are good for shugenja and wu ren (Daoist Adepts in our game). With all the sales the Lords are running lately, this might be a good time to snatch this up if you don't already have it.

[Go0gleplex]

We've got opposite opinions on that one (and Tim knows the full depth of my ire on this one). Almost nothing in it matches what I consider to be elemental magic in name or concept. Especially nothing related to the five elements central to asian magic. I found the book title extremely misleading. It probably wouldn't have left such a sour taste if it have been named other than is, which is what spurred the big expansion of the Lost Grimoire at the start of the year.

It's not worthless, but things like four different rain spells that essentially do the same thing, incomplete effects missing save and effect information or requiring some judicious interpretation are fairly common throughout it. Some of the spells feel more shoe-horned to a class than a logical fit as if trying to balance out the number of spells between the spell casters. Overall, it is not one of the better books by the Trolls or any other OSR system out there in content, subject coverage, or editing. I rarely say this about something, but getting it on sale is about the only time you'll get your money's worth from it.

[Persimmon]

To each his own. We are enjoying it for just having new stuff to cast. And players are tailoring spells for character personalities more because they have altered spell selections to pick from. Fun for the druid to use water javelins or the for the gnome illusionist to drop a jade sphere on someone in the dark. I guess we've all played so long that having some shiny new spells to bust out is fun.

[Treebore]

Àfter the initial release disaster, I never looked at it again. Don't really need it, I have collected thousands of spells over the course of my game life.

[Mediapig71]

Just curious, not to dredge up bad memories, but what was the problem with the release on this one? (For what it's worth, I've been enjoying it myself.)

[Treebore]

Just curious, not to dredge up bad memories, but what was the problem with the release on this one? (For what it's worth, I've been enjoying it myself.)

It was the initial PDF release, once which I told Steve what a horrible mess it was, pulled it, then had Jason bring it up to its current standards.

[Mediapig71]

Got it... I see Jason's nbame in my version, so I guess I have the updated pdf. I quite like it!