Customer Reviews

Secrets of Pact Magic

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This is my first review on Amazon, so please be gentle.
I bought this book from the author at "Strategicon" in Los Angeles.
I was a bit skeptical about the introduction of an entirely new magic system at first, but after playing a session at the convention, all of my misgivings melted away. The author has masterfully compiled ancient folk magics, legends, and summonings from myriad sources to create this really great system called 'pact magic'. The gist is this: every day, you summon a 'spirit' which is something in between a ghost and a lesser deity. This spirit then grants you a specific set of supernatural abilities and stat/save bonuses that remain until you disjoin from the spirit, or the end of the day. The result is an EXTREMELY versatile set of character options.

I absolutely recommend this book to any fan of Dungeons and Dragons.

I have bought this book at the author website pactmagic.com (buy there it is cheaper and it is a great website too!) and I have been transfered into a realm of possibilities and gameplay like never before.
I have always wanted to play a binder and this book has fulfilled all that I can think of.
It is to the point with a wonderfully done layout, very easy to use during gameplay. contains wealth of options that appeal to me as somebody who is not strategic in nature, and yet is amazingly versatile for those who engage in strategy. Some of my friends who swear on strategic game play played with it and had a blast doing that with this book.
I feel the author created a whole new world. Especially liked the stories that placed me in with the characters in their respective world allowing for much better gameplay and kick started my imagination like no dry descriptions can do! I have the book near my bed as bed time reading too!
The book is a must buy as far as I am concerned and will top the book stack during game play above the player handbook!
Had many days of game play already and I find it perfectly balanced, innovative in style and content, and a joy to use.
I can only hope the author will continue publishing this level of books in the future for my enjoyment!

In one sentence: this book is packed with good stuff and is worth the price.

Some specifics:

D&D players may know of Pact Magic and the binding of spirits (called "vestiges" in "official" D&D products from Wizards of the Coast) from the article in Dragon Magazine #341 or they may know them 3E "Tome of Magic." Unfortunately, the Dragon article presented only two vestiges, and "Tome of Magic: Pact, Shadow, and True Name Magic (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying Supplement)" presented only 32. Yes, "only" 32, compared to AT LEAST 99 spirits in "SSecrets of Pact Magic."

The spirits in this book aren't written off with just a few lines of description and a paragraph or two of powers accompanied by (in "Tome" and Dragon Magazine," at least) horrible side effects. More than fifty of them from "1st level" to "Epic level" are meticulously described, with the spirit's seal (usually), an opening paragraph which gives us a quick summary of the spirit, an accompanying story from the spirit's "life" ranging in length from one paragraph to about a page, the DC to "bind" the spirit into your own body (or into an object), the favored allies and favored enemies of the spirit, possible side-effects from binding that particular spirit to you, and, of course, the powers which the spirit bestows upon you for (usually) 24 hours while it is bound to you. The descriptions end with a few sentences of flavor text which may be read to players as they learn more and more about a particular spirit through Bardic Lore, Binder Lore, or any of several Knowledge checks, all with a DC equal to that required to bind the spirit.

These spirit-granted powers aren't just useless manifestations of the spirit's personal neuroses, as they sometimes seem to be in "Tome of Magic," with few in-game advantages which outweigh the handicaps imposed by binding a "vestige." The spirits in "Secrets of Pact Magic" grant REALLY USEFUL POWERS, such as gaining a bonus to all d20 rolls when certain conditions are met, being able to use abilities or skills which would otherwise require a feat or different character class -- one spirit, for instance, grants "death attack," normally reserved for Assassins, who are, by definition ALWAYS capital "E" Evil in D&D; this spirit permits a Neutral (or even a Good) character to gain the death attack ability for a day (although actually using it might cause a subtle alignment shift).

Based by Professor Nardi on REAL Medieval and Renaissance spirit summoning guides, these spirits provide almost anything a character could want as a personal ability, even if only for a day, even if there's a risk, sometimes a GREAT risk, involved in the binding.

Professor Nardi has divided his spirits into several categories. Most of them fall into 13 "constellations," a term with astrological significance which should not be allowed to hang up a DM or player's reading; the most important impact of "constellations" of spirit organization are that if you take a feat to gain greater power from one constellation, you can never take that feat for the "opposite" constellation, with the mysterious 13th constellation of "Shadow" standing in opposition to all of the others.

Some spirits are "anima" spirits (principally "nature" spirits to our way of thinking), and these have their own sets of feats which allow the binder of those spirits great powers -- for a day.

Beyond all of the others are Epic level spirits, which may be summoned only by a binder of 21st level or higher ... except for what I regard as one of the coolest classes in the book -- the "Occult Priest," the spirit-binding tradition's answer to the Ur-priest, whose seizes divine spells and wields them for his own benefit. The Occult Priest goes a little bit further, and aspires to godhood itself! An Occult Priest who survives to 12th level is automatically "godscursed," and will be denied entry into the afterlife to which he might otherwise aspire, becoming a spirit himself, instead, and probably a weak one who will go insane with a few years of wandering the cosmic vastness of ... well ... of wherever spirits *are,* and their location is a matter of some debate in the world of binders presented in "Secrets of Pact Magic." Fortunately for the Occult Priest, however, at 10th level he gains the ability to "detect acolyte" and began surrounding himself with loyal followers (hopefully) reducing the chance of his premature death. Should he survive to 20th level, the Occult Priest hits the cosmic jackpot, acquiring his own "gnostic self," becoming a semi-divine outsider (presumably a "native" outsider in D&D terms), AND at this level he may be brought back to life after death if resurrected within a week of dying. Along the way, at 15th level, the Occult Priest gains the ability to bind an Epic level spirit to himself, but receiving only one of its powers, not the four usually offered to a binder.

The Epic powers offered by the six described by Dr. Nardi are very literally awesome, and include immunity to magic directed at yourself for 24 hours, 24 hours of the ability to "dominate monster" (which includes pretty much anything which can think, however great or small its intelligence); the power to create "pod people" (EXACTLY like those in all of the various incarnations of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"); "eternal youth" -- which at last confers immunity to aging for 24 hours; the ability to "create life" (which is also a high-level druidic spell, not out of synch with the powers of some canonical D&D character and prestige classes which can create their own demiplanes; and so on). Big, Big, BIG mojo!

Of course, the Occult Priest isn't the only class. There are seven other 20-level alternate core classes, such as the Empyrean Monk, who can use his bound spirit to enhance his monk abilities; the Foe Hunter, who does not have a *personal* "favored enemy," but who instead acquires the favored enemy of whatever spirit he has bound to himself (a thief-hunter or a lawfully commissioned privateer might bind Damian Darkstar, "Prisoner of the Void," whose favored enemies are brigands, pirates, thieves, robbers, and anyone who has the sneak attack ability while someone who hates humans might want to bind Lord Saruga, "the Soul Eater," whose favored enemies are -- duh -- humans; of course, in his mortal life he was a lizardfolk priest who was devoured by his own bodyguards while in the process of sacking a human city and eating the inhabitants); the Pact Warrior acquires tremendous combat abilities by binding different levels of spirits instead of acquiring one combat feat after another. And so on!

Thee are 23 prestige classes which are very well-balanced when compared with the MANY DOZENS of (mostly useless) prestige classes in D&D / d20 /OGL games. One prestige class allows simultaneous increases in effective spellcaster level and effective binder level; three others provide a big bonus for summoning (respectively) demons, devils, or celestial spirits; the Binder Sage is a jumped-up Loremaster -- unless there's a typo in the class description, the level in the prestige class is multiplied by TWO when calculating rolls to "remember" lore; the Undying Spirit is (at various levels) resistant to disease, to poison, to critical hits, and, at the height of his powers, impossible to kill by normal means as long as he has at least two hit points remaining when an attack is made against him; the Temporal Binder competes against Time itself, acquiring the ability to move at above-normal speeds, growing more youthful, and ultimately doubling his normal lifespan. And so on!

Professor Nardi's background stories for those spirits which have them (some don't -- one with the ability to time travel simply erases all details of his life as a mortal and as a spirit in past, present and future). These personal histories become grist for the mill of the five-level Binder Sage prestige class, who make it their life's work to interrogate as many spirits as possible to glean information about spirits, pacts and spirit binding from *anyplace* it might be found, and they acquire the ability to LITERALLY "sniff out" such lore. What do they do with their knowledge? They write it down in "gnostic tomes," arcane books protected with powerful spells (or sometimes just with the ability to glow in the dark and permit reading at night). The Mask Adept prestige class is also interested in the histories of spirits, but for a completely different reason: they masquerade as significant figures from the (more or less) mortal life of a spirit in order to persuade it to service (or to stop helping a Mask Adept's enemy). And so on!

There are communal spirits which provide an identical (and usually very desirable) benefit to all within a certain radius, not unlike the "mythals" of the Forgotten Realms, while the Anima spirits grant an individual the ability to survive, and even thrive, in a wide range of environments. Thee are spirits which will bind ONLY with members of an organization (what is currently called "an affiliation" in D&D jargon). And there are monsters. Very, very, VERY dangerous monsters. Want to go toe-to-toe with something called "a priest eater"? How about something called "a god eater"?! There are seductive spirits called Telchines which offer dreamers the knowledge to acquire what they most desire, only to find that the Telchines lead mortals into insanity with their insidious dream-powers.

As a DM, I can say that would be truly excited to play some of these spirits in encounters with my players. The aforementioned Damian Darkstar, "Prisoner of the Void," for example, is a space pilot trapped just at the edge of the event horizon of a "darkstar" (think: "black hole"). Translating this into D&D terms, we can imagine him as someone whose spelljamming ship became trapped in a region even more deadly and horrifying than a sargasso. The ONLY escape available to Damian Darkstar is to allow his spirit to be briefly bound to mortals (or maybe to a construct); when not bound, he is trapped in his own personal, inescapable Hell. Professor Nardi is not without wit, either: the story of Mana, "Beholder of Lost Magic" (who may actually *be* a beholder), hopes to teach her personal variety of magic to mortals, but she is supplanted in her wise father Gorub's affections by the interloper Vance, who is to teach magic to mortals forever after. To those who know a bit about the history of fantasy roleplaying games, the story of Mana becomes a huge inside joke when the "o" is dropped from Gorub's name; as for the princely teacher Vance, a taste of HIS variety of magic may be found in "Tales of the Dying Earth," while Mana's system may be found in the "Compleat Arduin: Book One - The Rules." It's really funny only to those of us who, like Professor Nardi, and like this reviewer, have been around since DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Rules for Fantastic Medieval Role Playing Adventure Game Campaigns was a supplement to Chainmail: Rules for Medieval Miniatures (Dungeons and Dragons) wargaming rules, and not vice versa, and who can remember when D&D was NOT "the only game in town," but only one among a dozen or more competing gaming systems.

What more is there to say about "Secrets of Pact Magic"? There three new races (with sensible origins stories), a bunch of new spells (no surprise there), new magic items (no surprise there, either!) and three classes of feats, the ordinary ones, Anima feats, and Epic feats. What is marvelous about these feats is that they are NOT knock-offs of feats found in a dozen other books; unlike Book of Vile Darkness (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.0 Fantasy Roleplaying Supplement) and Book of Exalted Deeds (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying Supplement),
the feats in this book are NOT interchangeable with the feats of another books just be changing a verb here or a noun there. Most of these feats are original and they are RELEVANT to the subject matter of the book.

Finally, "Secrets of Pact Magic" goes far, far, FAR beyond almost *anything* published by Wizards of the Coast, because it has not one, but TWO indices (which is two more than Wizards usually provides, no matter how expensive a book may be) -- the first index is a general one and he second is for creatures (i.e. "monsters"). As if THAT isn't enough, the main spirits are well summarized in a two page spread on pages 68 and 69, immediately before the section which describes them; this chart names the spirits, states their nickname or title, gives their "level," and presents the powers which each grants, AND the page number on which the spirit is fully presented. As if that wasn't enough, the Table of Contents actually lists the contents -- an amazing advance in game book publishing!

Secrets of Pact Magic lists for $39.85, a steep price for a book, but the binding appears solid, the paper is very high quality, the borders, although decorated, do not occupy vast areas wherein a purchaser might want to see actual text. Here and there the graphic design is changed to highlight something specific, such as the starry sky background for the spirit known as "The Dreamseed of the Far-Realm Telchines," the Epic spirit which can turn dreamers into "pod people."

The book's 335 pages aren't enough to do more than scratch the surface of this vast subject, and Professor Nardi repeatedly presents open-ended sections which the intelligent DM may use to design new spirits, new items, etc. He has also set up a website for players and DMs to exchange lore and share their own spirit designs. (OMG -- a game designer who thinks that his readers are actually capable of independent thought and individual creativity! I'll bet this guy actually READS the term papers of his students.) Also available at the website (www.radiancehouse.com) is a disc of the book.

Even if you don't want to incorporate pact magic and spirit binding into your own game, the book's backstories may be used as lore in many situations: Gwenolyn's Ghost, "The Haunting Lover," for example, might just as well be a "haunt" in any inn or boarding house (or bordello) in ANY campaign in ANY game world. For a gaming group whose players enjoy intellectual challenges and philosophical conundrums, many of the spirits in this book open up vast possibilities. "The Guardian of Lonely Eternities," for example, is a machine shaped like an arch which controls the flow of time in the multiverse (sound familiar, Mr. Spock?). Forty-Two, "The Sentient Machine," was built untold eons ago by 42 gnome artificers who wanted to build a machine (a computer, as it turned out), which could explain "the meaning of the multiverse" (or perhaps just the meanings of "Life, the Universe, and Everything"); tended century after century by 42 constructs who labored long after the gnomes had died and even the gods had forgotten it, Forty-Two labored on until it was discovered by a party of explorers which included a priestess who asked her god what to do with the machine. It was then that the gods realized that Forty-Two, having accumulated vast stores of knowledge, and having what were, in effect forty-two worshippers, had become a demi-god. Enraged, all the gods attacked Forty-Two and celestials and fiends worked side by side to tear it apart. A rat ran off with a single gear, and hidden away in the rat's lair, this last remnant of Forty-Two began to turn and slowly began rebuilding itself. "It was at this time that Forty-two determined the answer to the gnomes' question. Alas, no one was present to hear, and the answer paradoxically precluded Forty-Two's own existence, destroying it forever." From that poignant event, a "spirit" -- a "vestige" in D&D lingo -- came into being, and its summoning seal is found at one place only, the Spellwright Academy, which labors to perfect the use of magic. Thus, only members of this affiliation may bind the spirit of Forty-Two. That limitation, however, doesn't preclude a Binder Sage or a Mask Adept learning of Forty-Two and spreading word of its existence, even if only the Spellwrights can bind it.

Gentle Reader, book buyer, *thinker,* Professor Nardi's book assumes that you are more than a vegged-out blob which must be spoon-fed every little datum. If only for that reason gamers should buy this book, perhaps inspiring larger publishers to upgrade the material which *they* publish.

I rate this book with five stars. ***** It deserves six.

This book is a must buy for anyone who would like to play a Binder class. The concepts introduced are slightly different from the WotC version of Pact Magic, but is easily incorporated.

In the vein of Psionics, the are classes here that create monk-like, thief-like, fighter-like, and sorcerer-like binding classes, as well as other new concepts. This makes for some interesting possibilities.

The fluff is cheesy, but this book certainly makes the binder concept more playable.

As the publisher loses money if you buy from Amazon, I would suggest buying from his site instead (pactmagic DOT com). It costs less there anyway.