I figured since I mentioned Complete Arcane
several times in my Complete Mage review because Complete Mage builds on the information in Complete Arcane, that it would be worth taking another look at Complete Arcane. This book is set up very similar to Complete Mage but it does have it’s differences and it’s own benefits.
Chapter one introduces three new classes. The War Mage is an offensive minded magicuser who’s fit for the battlefield and the Wu Jen is an elemental focused mage that I believe modifies a similar class that was introduced in Oriental Adventures. I don’t own that product so I can’t say for sure. The most interesting new class is the Warlock. These are supernatural beings that invoke magic through force of will. They don’t receive spells but instead receive invocations, which also modify the Warlocks eldritch blast, which is a ranged attack that the Warlock can impart. Warlock’s are generally evil so these make for some interesting nemises, and their eldritch blast can get quite powerful at higher levels.
Chapter two is the meat of the book and these are all of the prestige classes. There’s nineteen in all and while some aren’t too interesting, they all can be used in a magic oriented adventure. Most of my players stick to the basic classes and rarely do they venture too much outside of the prestige classes introduced in Dungeon Master’s Guide. What I end up using these prestige classes for are the bad guys because they’re basically ready made templates. I thought the Blood Magus had the most interesting story behind it. It’s a mage who has been killed, then revived and have a great appreciation for the blood running through their veins. The Wild Mage is also introduced, although they’re handled quite differently from the old 2E wild magic.
Chapter three introduces a variety of new feats including some draconic feats that are probably built on in Dragon Magic. Chapter four has a ton of new spells and it also includes all of the Warlocks invocations. Fireburst is a nice offensive second level spell and I also liked Mass Fire Shield, which is fifth level. There’s a vareity of spells of all levels and there’s a ton here. The down side is, if you own the Spell Compendium, you’re going to have some duplication here since some of the spells in that product were originally in Complete Arcane.
Chapter five are the magic items. There’s a ton of rods, staves and wands and there’s also some new detail on spell books. The Staff of Mastery (hold person, dominate monster amongst other spell like affects) was cool as was the Staff of Opening.
Chapter six introduces some new monsters. The elemental monoliths were particularly interesting (and there was a new spell that allows you to summon them).
Chapter seven talks about arcane campaigns. It talks about how your run of the mill city would view the appearance of a particular kind of mage and then it also goes into some detail on each of the specialist mages. There’s a section on spell duels and even some background stuff on arcane organizations.
Complete Arcane is a solid product. If you want an idea for a unique, magically oriented bad guy, then this is a great book to have. I thought the spells were a little better then Complete Mage and the magic items gave me some nice ideas. I give this a solid four out of five stars.