The Gaming Den

Recently i bought some of the Quintessential X II by Mongoose. This is a sort of review. I can do a more in-depth review of a particular book by request.

All books begin with a chapter on Career Paths. These are cool options where if you meet some criteria you gain a bonus and a corresponding penalty. Some are horrible. Some are pretty good. Most are simply indifferent.

After that we get the Multiclassing chapter. I stopped reading these pretty soon when I read Monk10/Bard10 as a viable and "cool" character. You also get a sort of substitution level but I didn't read long enough to care.

Then we get Prestige Classes, which are generally meh. And some mundane and magic items that we don't care about. And we finish with a chapter on new rules that generally suck. Yay.


* Druids win. They get a PrC that doesn't advance spells or wildshape or anything else. And it requires you to set two feats on fire. The benefit is that, at first level, you get to cast any spell without losing it by maybe succeeding on a Spellcraft check and taking (or dealing) some damage. The DC to cast, say, Shapechange after taking 1HP of damage is 151 so you won't be doing that a lot. But you can deal 45 points of damage to a Tendriculos that doesn't even care and cast it for free. Spilling blood is even part of the actual casting. Go Infinite Ammo Code!

* Wizards win. There's a Career Path called The Warrior. It requires Str13 and a couple of Feats/Skills you'd take anyway. If you take a -2 penalty on attack rolls for touch attack spells, you get to add your Str mod on every damage die of the spell. Now, the design intent was obvious. No player would ever take a Wizard with a higher strength because he's a Wizard, not a Fighter. So this is a cute +1 bonus to Chill Touch. Well, not quite. Between Shapechanging into a Zodar, casting Giant Size and generally buffing yourself up, you can have a Strength of 110 for a modifier of +50. Then you cast something like a Sudden Empowered Schorching Ray and deal 37d6+37*50= average 1979.5 damage



In general, I wouldn't allow these if I was DM.

What's this? Druids and Wizards being the best? Wait a second, something's wrong here...

Where's the totally broken Rogue and Cleric abilities? WHERE?!?!?

Brobdingnagian at [unixtime wrote:1181770596[/unixtime]]What's this? Druids and Wizards being the best? Wait a second, something's wrong here...

Where's the totally broken Rogue and Cleric abilities? WHERE?!?!?

Best I found for Clerics is a weird Career Path where you get a +1 unnamed bonus to CL for every attack that hits you and inflicts damage. So if you can cheese out Magic Jar + Shrink Item you can have a bunch of toy Hydras ping you and gain +60 Caster Level on your next Divine spell.

I haven't read Rogues yet.

The 'hits you and you gain power' thing is cool, but there's gotta be a way for it to work in pen and paper.

-Crissa

shirak at [unixtime wrote:1181766975[/unixtime]]
* Wizards win. There's a Career Path called The Warrior. It requires Str13 and a couple of Feats/Skills you'd take anyway. If you take a -2 penalty on attack rolls for touch attack spells, you get to add your Str mod on every damage die of the spell. Now, the design intent was obvious. No player would ever take a Wizard with a higher strength because he's a Wizard, not a Fighter. So this is a cute +1 bonus to Chill Touch. Well, not quite. Between Shapechanging into a Zodar, casting Giant Size and generally buffing yourself up, you can have a Strength of 110 for a modifier of +50. Then you cast something like a Sudden Empowered Schorching Ray and deal 37d6+37*50= average 1979.5 damage

Except scorching ray isn't a touch attack; it's a ranged touch attack.

Zherog at [unixtime wrote:1181836733[/unixtime]]

Except scorching ray isn't a touch attack; it's a ranged touch attack.

SRD wrote:
Some attacks disregard armor, including shields and natural armor. In these cases, the attacker makes a touch attack roll (either ranged or melee).

It's difficult for me to see how one would interpret this in any way other than "ranged touch attacks are a kind of touch attack".

That is, as usual, consequence of the fact that WotC writers should take a basic logic course, and stems from the fact the scorching ray's attack form is technically "ray" and rules for spell attacks (such as the feat in Complete Arcane I believe is called Spell Specialization) treat "touches" and "rays" as different.

micah at [unixtime wrote:1181848639[/unixtime]]It's difficult for me to see how one would interpret this in any way other than "ranged touch attacks are a kind of touch attack".

Couldn't have put it better myself.


Rogues: As far as I am concerned, Rogues have two class features that matter: Skills and Sneak Attack (note for the nitpickers. This is in the context of selecting a PrC. I know Rogues rock already). Any PrC that doesn't advance them both is a specialized case (like 8/10 Wizard PrCs). Anything else is unacceptable.
Given this, the book sucks. The Career paths are a great way to gain a conditional Circumstance bonus to various things. There are like five of +1 to attack rolls ones. Two Career Paths actually advance SA by +1d6, one requires you to do the Assassin's Death Attack routine and waste three rounds, the other only works on the Surprise Round.
The only half-way interesting PrC is the Walker in Darkness. This is a special PrC, in the same way that some kids are special. Yeah. You can get some mileage out of it if you can get the See in Darkness ability of the Baatezu. I think you are supposed to cheese out Time Stop + Deeper Darkness because almost all your abilities require you to spend a round in darkness doing nothing.
Btw, the guy who wrote this thing did a great job with nomenclature. Lots of authentic sounding slang terms being tossed around. But he didn't get UMD because he seriously suggests Rogues should pay 1200 GP for a Stinking Cloud effect that is not even as good as Stinking Cloud!

In conclusion: What a sucky book. I'd rather stab enemies, thank you.