Customer Reviews

Relics & Rituals (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.0 Fantasy Roleplaying, Scarred Lands)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was a bit skeptical about this book, especially since I was not impressed with the Creature Collection (by this same publisher). I mostly bought it to check out the tattoo magic rules and new spells. Once I started reading this book I read halfway though it before my wife finally pried it away from me so I could do some chores! While I found the prestige classes and artifacts interesting to read, none of them will see play in my campaigns. The classes are too specialized for any of my players, and the artifacts are unbalancing (like all artifacts...) But the SPELLS!!! They were great! And the rules for ritual magic and tatoos will be put into play immediately! I liked the little Scarred Lands specific blurbs about the items and spells, because they triggered tons of great adventure ideas. Some DMs prefer generic stuff, but I say bring on the neat historical details! I can edit them for my world if they stink, and I can be inspired by them if they are good (and most of the Scarred Lands descriptive stuff here seems very good, unlike with the Creature Collection). Some great feats were here as well. And ritual magic makes metamagic feats finally useful to my players! None of them would waste the higher level spell slots to use them before, so nobody took the feats. Thank you, Relics and Rituals!

This is definitely a worthwhile buy if you're willing to incorporate material that isn't canon published by the D&D publisher. There are many creative ideas here, including those for tattoo and ritual magic. One downside is that it has a heavy leaning to the Scarred Lands setting. This is no obstacle if you are willing to rename or rework some spells/artifacts. This book is especially nice for druids, paladins, bards, and to a lesser extent rangers. They seem to get many of their own spells instead of overlapping wizard/cleric spells which the Player's Handbook seems to do. It also has about 8 new prestige classes.

The reason I give it 4 instead of 5 stars is because the layout isn't as eyecatching as official D&D material, and the art is of dubious quality, not to mention lacking colors. This should not be a strong deterrant to purchasing this useful book, but should be noted. Overall, a very useful buy.

Relics and Rituals holds an amazing wealth of ideas for any campaign, not just one set in SSS's Scarred Lands setting. The spells and magic items are very good, and over 2/3rds can be used without modification. The rest only take a little tinkering to fit in your game world. Being based on 3E fan contributions after the Official Rules have come out, they are all consistent with the d20 System, and are well balanced. Also, there are a number of prestige classes (fun ideas, probably the weakest area of the book, and they still have potential), rules on Ritual Magic (great plot devices), rules on Tattoo magic (that blend in very nicely with the official rules), and some interesting Artifacts. All in all, I'd have to say that I highly recommend this book to any active gaming group, and hope that SSS continues to release quality products like this one!

The best of the Open Gaming Licence, by far. This book details 7 new prestege classes (Most of which are very campaign specific), 220 new spells (Most of which are not grossly over or under powered), new magic rules for ritual magic (The best of the book), and a huge list of new magic items (Without costs sadly). It is my wish in reviews, no matter how much I like a book, to talk about the bad points of the book. Because me blabbering on about how "cool" something is, really doesn't tell you anything. But this book was GREAT. The only problem I have had with it is this. The new prestege classes are very much tied to White Wolf's "Scarred Lands" campaign setting. For my personal campaign I could only use two. Also the magic items do not list the costs to buy them under the standard 3rd Edition pricing system. This is because the "Scarred Lands" are going to use a different pricing system, or so White Wolf says. But beyond that, this book is GREAT. If you are playing any form of spellcaster in the new system, and you cannot wait for "Tome & Blood." I would suggest picking up this book. For [the money] it is a steal.

I must admit that the Sword and Sorcery supplements are very good supplements to the D&D lineup and prove that the open gaming liscense is in fact a great idea. As long as the quality retains the high values of the Sword and Sorcery books I can see no downfall to the liscense. That having been said the newest book by the studio, Relics and Rituals, is a great book. Most people by now are probably wondering why I only gave it three stars if I think this book is great. Firstly, let me add a qualifier and say this is a great book if you don't let the contents get out of hand. The spells and magic items may be of limited use to some who do not use the gods of the Scarred Lands setting and the book over all is very powerful. Many of the magic items are more powerful than the basic ones in the DMG but actually have a lower level listed for creation. All of the spells in here can be altered to fit an existing realm or personally created one just by switching names, but that takes a lot of time. The flavor text in this book is wonderful and makes the book worth reading if nothing else than to get ideas for your own setting. While a great source of spells and magic items, it fails to add anything to the game itself except ritual magic, which isn't all that great. Overall the book is useful if you either need new spells to entertain the players or just want to spice up your games, but otherwise will end up sitting around collecting dust like the previous wizard compendiums for 2nd edition. Moreover it has the same problems that those compendiums have, over powered spells and magic items that if not carefully used can easily make your life as a DM a living hell.

For those that are NOT familiar with the idea, WOTC has offered an 'Open Game License' to any publisher that would like to contribute to the further growth of the d20 system that has been implemented with D&D3Ed.

Sword and Sorcery Studios is one of the leaders in the race to see who will dominate the d20 market (outside of WOTC). With White Wolf Games as Publisher/Printer of their materials they stand a good chance.

Relics and Rituals is quite a valiant effort in the area of expanding spells, prestige classes and items for D&D3Ed.

As an overview, R&R presents several well designed new Presitge classes included the Crypt-Lord, a necromancer who has taken things just a TAD too far... and aims to become a PC Lich... Next comes a gaggle of new spells... Tattoo magic is particularly nice... and then *screeching halt* some grossly overpowered magic items...

All in all though, R&R is an excellent addition to the market and to th d20 system in general. Despite a few flaws it should make playing a caster in your campaign something to be excited about... and may... just may... change the way you look at magic in your game.

Finally, SSS has stated their manifesto to be "3rd Edition D&D with a 1st Edition feel"... with that goal in mind... I'd say they are succeeding.

First, if you didn't know this, Sword and Sorcery Studio is an offshoot of White Wolf...or so I've heard.

Second, the Scarred Lands setting is their grim'n'gritty campaign setting, which is actually kind of interesting.

Third, this is a fun and useful book, thought not a must-buy.

It can be divided up into several parts. You have your prestige classes, all of which are magic-based. Then there are a whole bunch of spells, followed by rituals and tattoo magic. Rituals are cooperative spells, done by several (N)PCs, and all have an XP cost. Tattoos are spell effects that are, well, tattooed onto the wearer, and usable under certain conditions. Then you get your magic items and then artifacts, both minor and major.

What's good? Well, it's chock full of information. You can pick and choose at your leisure from the multiplicity of choices they give you. The flavor text is nice, and gives a decent idea of what the Scarred Lands are like. The layout and art are also pretty good, as well; it's very easy to read?

What's bad? I didn't like the prestige classes one bit. Granted, that's due mostly to personal bias rather than quality, but I thought the Vigilant prestige class was kind of overpowered. Some the spells are kind of overpowered, too. Heck, that's pretty much what this book is: Overpowered. Granted, that isn't necessarily a bad thing, but to some people, it's not going to be what they're looking for.

All in all, it's a good book that can be really useful, but it's not essential.

This book fleshes out several areas, such as ritual magic, and provides a host of new spells and magical items.

The spells are, for the most part, workable and not out of balance with the rest of the campaign world. Many of the Prestige Classes are out of whack, but that is a trend that Scarred Lands is just echoing from a great many of the D&D 3 class sourcebooks.

Most of the magical items are overpowered and are not well explained as to function.

The section on Ritual Magic is good and provides a new set of options of characters, particularly at a low level, who would like to stack metamagic feats but lack spell levels to do so. The rules are fair and balanced, but often-times are not clearly explained.

True Rituals are interesting, but difficult to incorperate for anyone other than Dungeon Master as a plot-hook.

If you are a Dungeon Master looking for an interesting expansion to the magical rules, I can recommend this book just for its sections on ritual magic, even neglecting the spells (which aren't half bad).

For players, there really isn't a need.

Let me start off by restating what a few other reviewers have said about this release: many of the prestige classes, spells and magic items presented here are powerful. That said, this book creates a slew of new options for DM's to use in their campaigns. There are literally 100's of new spells and magic items that range from the mundane to the very interesting. There are even several new Minor and Major artifacts for your perusal. The benefit of this sourcebook is that the players can have a wider range of spells available, as well as the dm, in order to specialize their characters. That being said, the villians can have them to present new challenges to the characters. The same can be said of the magic items. While many of the ideas presented are interesting and quite possibly very useful, they also tend to be powerful and may need to be used very carefully in order to not unbalance a game. As for the appearance, the book is well done, obviously a quality piece of work. I was very pleased with it's appearance and overall layout. A good work for DM's to inject some new blood into their campaigns, just watch where you place some of the goodies.

Relics & Rituals" has some good stuff contained within its covers, but most of it is mediocre at best. I thought the majority of the spells were rather uninteresting (including the flavor text) and could use a little bit more work on them; also, it seems like a great many of the spells are for both arcane and divine spellcasters (personally, I prefer that each type of casters have a somewhat unique spell list). Enough about the spells, let's talk about the prestige classes... then again, let's not (somewhat interesting, but grossly over powered). Magic items? (see comment about prestige classes) The most interesting part of this book is ritual and tattoo magic; I'm actually implement this part into my campaign world. All in all, "Relics & Rituals" is an ok source book. If you want more magic, you should definitely buy this book; if not, you can safely pass on this one.