Muck Smilei Magic is a term that typically refers to a type of magic trick or illusion that involves manipulating or transforming objects using quick and precise hand movements. This form of magic often requires dexterity, speed, and skillful execution to create the illusion of objects appearing or disappearing, changing shape or color, or even levitating. The term "Muck Smilei" is believed to have originated from a combination of the words "muck," meaning to manipulate or handle with skill, and "smilei," which is a reference to the use of sleight of hand or cunning in magic tricks. Together, "Muck Smilei" signifies the use of skillful hand movements to create magical effects. Muck Smilei Magic can be traced back to ancient civilizations, where it was used for entertainment purposes and to mesmerize audiences. Over the years, the techniques and tricks have evolved and been passed down through generations of magicians, each adding their own creative flair to the art form.
I agree with Vocenoctum. All three classes are very easily portable into any campaign. Pact Binders are meant to be a secretive cult that no one's ever heard of. Shadowcasters are just another kind of wizard and truenamers are pretty much the same. Specialists in Power Word wizards.
The character can completely choose which trade he is going to be the jack of in a given day, and though he ll never be as good as the full-time employees of that class, the binder still does a better job of filling a niche than other class that have to cover all bases all the times. Of course, there are plenty of subpar works here as well Scott Roller s tome of truenaming on page 264 and his chain on page 271 are very simplistic line drawings that seem to have been colored in with colored pencils, and Michael Phillippi s shadowcaster on page 111 seems very out of proportion.
Over the years, the techniques and tricks have evolved and been passed down through generations of magicians, each adding their own creative flair to the art form. Some popular Muck Smilei Magic tricks include card manipulations, where a magician can make cards appear, disappear, or change in an instant. Other tricks involve the use of small objects, such as coins or balls, which seem to vanish from one hand and reappear in the other.
Tome of magoc
By Matthew Sernett, Ari Marmell, David Noonan, and Robert J. Schwalb
Wizards of the Coast product number 953657200
Tome of Magic is one of the heftier books I've seen by Wizards of the Coast in a long time; weighing in at 288 pages, it stands out from the crowd in its size alone (especially since the 160-page books seems to have become the standard at WotC for hardcovers). It's also somewhat different in that it's pretty much three different, standalone books slapped together, each covering a variant magic system: pact magic, shadow magic, and truename magic.
The cover art is a Todd Lockwood piece, and while I'm as much of a Lockwood fan as anyone else, I have to say this is pretty substandard for a man of his considerable talents. On the front cover we have a human male practitioner of pact magic, with an overlay in blue-green energy of the vestige he's bound. Of the three figures, he's probably the best rendered, which isn't saying a whole lot because even here the detail is kind of sparse (partially due to the poor lighting of the piece). On the back, we have a female elf shadowcaster with a typically elven svelte-yet-busty figure - and the roundest head I've ever seen on an elf. I almost wonder if she has the mumps or something. Still, she's better than the truenamer behind her, because he reminds me more than anything else of Cornelius, the evolved chimpanzee scientist from "The Planet of the Apes" - it must be his funky hairstyle and whiskers. While as a whole the piece is much better than anything I could do myself, it seems like Todd phoned this one in; it's not one of his better works, and I'm surprised that Art Directors Stacy Longstreet and Karin Jaques let it stand as is.
The interior artwork is a bit better, with a total of 19 different artists contributing 91 full-color illustrations, 32 diagrams, and cartographer Mike Schley providing 7 full-color maps. Four of the paintings (the ones at the chapter beginnings) are full-page, but otherwise the tendency here is for much smaller pictures than normal. There are some really good pieces in here; I particularly liked Howard Lyon's portrait of Luxx on page 64 (I like the way she's leaning on her Small skeletal minion) and his witch slayer on page 69 (who bears a rather striking resemblance to Holtz, the vampire hunter from Angel), Eric Polak's illustration of Mialee using beckon person on an enemy mage on page 257 (most of the time Mialee ends up looking pretty goofy; this is one of her better representations - plus, I like the look of horror on the enemy mage's face, and his posture shows he's struggling hard to stop himself from getting closer), and Steve Prescott's simply hideous oracle on page 283 (the picture speaks for itself, but I was really impressed that all of the details are spot-on from the description). Of course, there are plenty of subpar works here as well: Scott Roller's tome of truenaming on page 264 and his chain on page 271 are very simplistic line drawings that seem to have been colored in with colored pencils, and Michael Phillippi's shadowcaster on page 111 seems very out of proportion. Also, the seal in Lucio Parillo's illustration of the binder on page 8 is way too small; according to the information about seals in the pact magic chapter, a seal must be at least 5 feet across, but this one looks to be about a foot and a half in diameter. In addition, each vestige's seal is supposed to be unique, but if you look, Agares (on page 21) and Andras (on page 22) have the exact same seal! (So much for being unique.) All in all, the average or below-average works seem to outnumber the exceptional pieces somewhat, making for a rather disappointing collection, as far as the art goes.
Since Tome of Magic is basically three books in one, I'll explore each chapter in detail. Before that, though, a general word on the overall quality of the proofreading and editing jobs: both could use a little more effort. (Okay, so that's seven words.) I noted misspelled words ("doppleganger" instead of "doppelganger," "drakness" instead of "darkness," "ettect" instead of "effect"), incorrect words ("object" instead of "objects," "warhammers" instead of "warhammer," "who once of this chamber" instead of "who once lived in this chamber"), improper punctuation ("PC's" instead of "PCs'," a missing closing parenthesis), missing words in a sentence, several instances where a spell name wasn't italicized, a stat block left "Languages" (one of the entry headers) in non-bold font, an extraneous "carriage return" bumping a sentence onto a new line, a couple places where extraneous blank lines show up in multi-line stat block entries, and the morphic cadences on pages 204-205 weren't alphabetized. Granted, in a 288-page book, that isn't too bad, but I still found it a bit disappointing, especially when coupled with some of the formatting and conceptual errors that made it past Editors Chris Thomasson, M. Alexander Jurkat, and Penny Williams and Editing Manager Kim Mohan. Specifically, I'm talking about things like:
The term "exceptional reach" is used on page 25 without defining it - just how long must a weapon be to have "exceptional reach?"
One of Chupoclops' granted abilities is a "poison bite," but nowhere does it mention the effects of the poison.
The description of the anima mage prestige class says that vestige metamagic starts at 4th level, but Table 1-3 has it starting at 5th level instead. (I'd go with the table on this one.)
Page 50 has a reference to "Dantalion's seal" on page 28, which should be Dantalion's sign on page 29.
The Shadow Servant table and descriptions on page 122 don't match up when it comes to cold resistance; I'd imagine the table was correct here as well.
On page 155, the Shadow Silk Armor table has a major tabbing error: from the second column on, all of the headers are off by one tab. It should read "Cost, Armor Bonus, Maximum Dex Bonus, Armor Check Penalty, Arcane Spell Failure Chance, Speed (20 ft.) (30 ft.)" - not "Armor Cost, Maximum Bonus, Armor Dex Bonus, Arcane Spell Check Penalty, Speed Failure Chance, (20 ft.) (30 ft.)," which is clearly nonsensical.
On page 195, why does a nonmagical object's truename have a DC 25 Truespeak check, when magic items start at a base DC 15 (and then add a +2 for each level of the item's caster)? Shouldn't nonmagic items be at DC 15? (I don't understand why the truename for a nonmagical scroll [DC 25] would be so much more difficult than a scroll with a 1st-level spell on it [DC 17], or why it takes a scroll with a 3rd-level spell on it [caster level 5] to finally gain the truename complexity of a scroll without any spells on it [DC 25].)
There's another tabbing error on the table on page 216, fortunately this time only affecting one row (the Disciple of the Word's 7th-level special ability).
The bulwark of reality spell blurb on page 254 doesn't match the spell description on page 256 - does it grant an AC bonus equal to half your level (+5 minimum), or a straight +6 armor bonus?
The warp truename spell's truename component is correctly speaking the enemy's truename, yet the italicized description of the spellcasting process says "you intentionally mispronounce your enemy's truename." Which is it?
All in all, a bit too many problem areas for my taste, especially in a $39.95 book.
As for the three new types of magic, none of them struck me as particularly needed, but if you're looking for something different, well, they all certainly qualify. In a nutshell, pact magic deals with making a pact with powerful entities that somehow managed to fall completely out of the Universe (or Multiverse, or whatever). Called "vestiges," these are beings that no longer have any way of interacting with the world anymore, so they grant aspects of their power to those who can contact them by tracing their "seals" on the ground. (Yeah, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me either.) The "pact" aspect of this deal is that the vestige agrees to imbue part of its "outside the boundaries of space and time" essence into the binder, providing it with a handful of spell-like abilities that can be used over the next 24 hours (many of them not more often than once every five rounds), and depending upon the binder's success (or lack thereof) at a binding check, he may have to follow certain restrictions for the next day. For example, while influenced by Laraje, you're not allowed to attack elves (including all elven subraces). As you gain levels in the binder class (and some of the prestige classes in the chapter as well), you gain the ability to enter a pact with more than one vestige at a time, so the binder can probably be best described as a handful of spell-like abilities that you juggle through, in turn, until it's time to reuse some of the ones you used before. I suppose in that aspect it's a pretty versatile class - you can, after all, enter into a different pact or set of pacts each day, and thus gain spell-like abilities more in line with those that you're likely to need each day - but to me the whole concept seems just a bit silly, and I don't really buy the entering arguments for a vestige in the first place. Pact magic seems to me to be rather "forced," as if the author (and I'm not sure who wrote what) had this nifty concept for a spell-like ability-based class, but had a hard time coming up for a justification as to how to implement it. Of the three new magic systems, pact magic comes in second on my own list of preferences.
The next new type of magic, shadow magic, is my favorite of the three. It seems the most well rooted in previously established D&D lore (or at least previous explanations as to how the D&D cosmology works), and it also has the benefit of containing my favorite prestige class in the whole book, the shadowsmith (more on him in a bit). Shadowcasters, though, are just another way to divvy up spells; a shadowcaster casts "fundamentals" (cantrips) and "mysteries" (spells) of different "paths" (perhaps the best correlation would be "spell schools"), but it all really just boils down to "here's a bunch of shadow-related spells, and instead of just being a specialist wizard focused on shadows and using the existing spell system, here's a completely new magic system to play with." The one really cool mechanic that I like is the way that bonus feats are tied in to the specific "mysteries" that you learn to cast - you have to choose between focusing your shadow magic into narrow paths (which allows you to get to the more powerful stuff) or pick and choose from a wider selection of paths, which will grant you more bonus feats. That's a pretty neat mechanic, and it makes for some difficult choices. The prestige classes are naturally all shadow-related (the noctumancer is the "mystic theurge" of the shadowcaster world; the shadowblade is a combat specialist with ties to shadow; the master of shadows is a spellcaster that gains control of a shadow elemental), but I really like the shadowsmith, who pulls and molds shadowstuff into weapons and equipment. (It is a little odd that shadowsmiths completely forgo learning the "fundamentals" - described in the shadowcaster section as "basic powers" that "must be mastered" before moving on to "mysteries" - and just jump straight to mastering the "mysteries," though.) There is also some material in here based upon articles first published in Dragon, which I thought was pretty cool.
Finally, there's truename magic, easily my least favorite chapter in the book. While the author (again, I'm not sure which one) does a good job making a case that truename magic has already existed to an extent in D&D through things like the various power word spells, the whole concept just fails to grab me. The fact that players running truenamer PCs are encouraged to make up words like "borukanthalau'quirialahn'imaushanathir" for use at the gaming table just makes me roll my eyes. The new magic system is really what gets me about this one; this time, we're using "utterances" instead of "spells," and they're grouped into three categories: those that affect a single creature, those that affect objects, and those that affect the landscape. The "single creature" ones all have a "reversed" version that usually (but not always) has a logical opposite effect from the effect that occurs when you cast your utterance forwards. I just wish they had separate names for those, since "reversed breath of recovery" doesn't sound nearly as threatening as "paralysis," nor does "reversed seek the sky" sound as dire as "plummet." Again, it just seems "forced" - "Hey, truenames exist in fantasy fiction, let's try to find a way to force it into a D&D game! I've got it: we'll just pick a couple of standard spells, slap a new name on them, shuffle them into a new way of categorization, and call it good!" Then there are the goofy prestige class concepts. My favorite example here is the fiendbinder, who studies the truenames of fiends in order to bind them to service. Okay, cool concept so far. It takes 8 hours to perform the ritual to summon a fiend; okay, I'm liking it. At the end of the ritual, you make a Truespeak check to see if you can force it to do your bidding; if the check fails - and here I'm quoting directly from the book - "the fiend gleefully resists (and might even mock you)." Oh, horrors! A sarcastic fiend! I'd imagine a botched attempt to summon a demon and force it to do my bidding would probably result in my bloody and immediate evisceration, not a round or two of gentle teasing. I guess they're just not making fiends like they used to.
On the plus side, each of the three main chapters has not only a new core class, but half a dozen or so prestige classes (with sample NPCs for each), new monsters, several adventure sites, new magic items tied into the concepts of the new type of magic, and so on. On the down side, the stat blocks in Tome of Magic are pretty poor. Here's my "unofficial errata" list; see what you think.
p. 54, Raeleus, male tiefling wizard 5/binder 3/anima mage 1: Binding checks should be at 1d20+10, not 1d20+8 (+4 for effective binder level, +2 Cha, +4 from Skilled Pact Making feat).
p. 58, Kybrin, female dwarf binder 7/knight of the sacred seal 2: +1 heavy crossbow attacks should be listed as "Ranged," not "Melee." Skills should include dwarven racial bonus on Craft checks related to stone/metal (since Craft can be used untrained).
p. 67, Luxx, doppelganger binder 8/cleric 1/Tenebrous apostate 3: Should have +2 on saves against supernatural abilities, not just +1. (This is from the Defense against the Supernatural feat.) Rebuke undead should be done at caster level 11th, not 9th (binding Tenebrous provides 8 levels as a binder 8, +2 levels as a Tenebrous apostate 3, and +1 level as a Cleric 1). Rebuke undead damage should be 2d6+14, not 2d6+12 (+11 as cleric equivalent level, +3 Cha). "Vessel of emptiness (up to 10d6)" makes no sense; vessel of emptiness allows Luxx to effectively dimension door once/day for up to 25 feet away. AC should be 29, not 28 (+1 Dex, +9 +1 glamered full plate, +4 +2 heavy wooden shield, +4 natural, +1 dodge bonus from Visage of the Dead special ability as a Tenebrous apostate 3). Touch AC should be 12, not 11 (+1 Dex, +1 dodge).
p. 71, Croius Malther, male human ranger 4/cleric 3/witch slayer 5: Will should be +9, not +7 (+1 as Rgr4, +3 as Clr3, +4 as WtS5, +1 Wis). "Slippery mind" should be listed under "Saves," not "Resist."
p. 71, Mercenaries, male human fighter 6: +1 longsword attacks should be at +11/+6 melee, not +9/+4 (+6 BAB, +3 Str, +1 Weapon Focus, +1 magic weapon).
p. 80, Deadly Dancer: 60 feet does not equal 10 squares! This should either be "60 ft. (12 squares)" or "50 ft. (10 squares)" - your guess is as good as mine.
p. 81, Deathshead: Touch AC should be 12, not 11 (+1 size, +1 Dex). Flat-footed AC should be 18, not 17 (+1 size, +7 natural).
p. 88, Other Bird Swarms: Flat-footed AC should be 14, not 12 (+4 size).
p. 93, Sir Michael Ambrose, male human fallen paladin 6/rogue 1/blackguard 4/witch slayer 5: Command undead should be usable 7/day, not 6/day (3 base + 4 Cha); at +4 to the check, not +3 (+4 Cha); and he should be able to control 2d6+6 HD of undead, not 2d6+5 (cleric equivalent level 2, +4 Cha). Lay on hands should cure 64 points/day, not 48/day (16 levels times +4 Cha bonus).
p. 96, Tamsin Cutterbuck, female gnome binder 10: No Will save DC is provided for her icy glare; should be DC 20 (10 + 1/2 binder level + Cha bonus = 10 + 5 + 5). Empower Supernatural Ability (Focalor's breath) is a useless feat, as Focalor's breath has no variable numeric effects (it always blinds for 1 round at a range of 30 feet). She shouldn't have any rebuke undead abilities. Effective Binder Level should be 10th (Balam) or 11th (Focalor), not just 10th (due to her Favored Vestige (Focalor) feat).
pp. 100-101, Seropaenean Guards, male and female aasimar fighter 4/paladin 4: Touch AC should be 11, not 10 (+1 deflection from ring). Turn undead damage should be 2d6+5, not 2d6+1 (cleric equivalent level 1 + 4 Cha). Spell-like abilities should be at Caster Level 8th, not 9th.
p. 102, Holy Watchers, advanced sanctified gargoyles: Initiative should be +1, not +2 (+1 Dex). "Senses" lists "Listen +4, Spot +4," yet "Skills" has Listen +6, Spot +5 (it should be the latter). Touch AC should be 10, not 11 (-1 size, +1 Dex). Flat-footed AC should be 15, not 16 (-1 size, +6 natural). Light ray ranged attacks should be at +7 ranged touch, not +8 (+7 BAB, -1 size, +1 Dex). Hide should be at +4, not +6 (5 ranks, -4 size, +1 Dex, +2 racial).
p. 104, Jailer, male hill giant fighter 10: +4 greatsword attacks should be at +37/+32/+27/+22 melee, not +36/+31/+26/+21 (+19 BAB, -1 size, +13 Str, +2 Greater Weapon Focus, +4 magic weapon). +4 greatsword damage should be 2d8+25/19-20, not 3d6+25/17-20 (a Medium greatsword does 1d10 base damage, so a Large one does 2d8; Jailer doesn't have Improved Critical (greatsword), so the crit range stays at 19-20).
pp. 104-105, Seropaenean Officers, female or male human cleric 7/witch slayer 5: "Senses" shows "Listen +14, Spot +12," but "Skills" has them the other way around (Listen +12, Spot +14). Pick one, I guess. "Slippery mind" should be listed under "Saves," not "Resist."
p. 106, Elite Guard (unprepared), female or male human rogue 5/assassin 8: There should be no hit point drop when unprepared, as none of their preparations increases hp in any way. Masterwork spiked chain attacks should be at +15/+10 melee, not +14/+9 (+9 BAB, +4 Dex due to Weapon Finesse, +1 Weapon Focus, +1 masterwork).
pp. 106-107, Eiliera, female human necromancer 5/cleric 5/true necromancer 6: Rebuke undead should be usable 8 times/day, not 7/day (3 base + 1 Cha + 4 Extra Turning feat); she should rebuke 2d6+14, not 2d6+13, HD of undead (2d6 base +1 Cha + 11 effective cleric levels, +2 necromantic prowess). Her create undead spell-like ability should be at CL 11th, not CL 8th (CL 5 as a Clr5, +4 as TNc6, +2 necromantic prowess as it's a spell-like ability mimicking a necromancy spell).
p. 135, Lozruet, female drow fighter 6/shadowsmith 7: +1 frost rapier damage should be 1d6+5/15-20 plus 1d6 cold, not 1d6+4/15-20 plus 1d6 cold (+2 Str, +2 Weapon Specialization, +1 magic weapon). Stats have her creating a +2 composite longbow (with 20 arrows!), but Shadow Craft specifically states a shadowcrafter can't create items or weapons possessing movable or flexible parts, so a bow of any type isn't possible. Furthermore, you can only create 2 items, so the 20 arrows are out of the question. She'd be better off shadow crafting a +2 javelin or +2 dart.
pp. 162-163, Genie, Khayal: The Special Quality "elemental endurance" is not explained, and "Shadow Bound (Su)" is explained but not listed as a Special Quality. Are these the same thing, or did two different balls get dropped?
p. 166, Elder Shadow Elemental: Touch AC should be 15, not 14 (-2 size, +6 Dex, +1 deflection).
p. 174, Geoffrey Moer, male lich necromancer 3/shadowcaster 11: Wizard spells/day should be 5/4/3, not 4/3/2 (4/2/1 as a Wiz3, 0/1/1 for Int 18, 1/1/1 for school specialization). "Immune" line missing "cold, electricity, polymorph."
p. 179, Ghostly Sorcerer, male human ghost sorcerer 3: "Senses" lists Spot +7, but "Skills" has Spot +9. Which is it?
p. 180, Shadar-Kai Sentries, male shadar-kai rogue 2: Masterwork shortbow damage should be 1d6, not 1d6+1 (it's not a composite shortbow, so the +1 Str bonus doesn't apply).
p. 183, Bilous Crow, male human necromancer 7: Spells/day should be 5/6/5/3/2, not 4/6/4/2/1 (4/4/3/2/1 as a Wiz7, 0/1/1/0/0 for Int 15, 1/1/1/1/1 as a specialist wizard).
p. 183, Rat Familiar: BAB should be +3 (as master), not +0. Grapple should be -9, not -12 (+3 BAB, -8 size, -4 Str). Bite attacks should be at +7 melee, not +4 (+3 BAB, +2 size, +2 Dex with Weapon Finesse). Skills should include Concentration +10, Knowledge (arcana) +10, Knowledge (the planes) +10, Spellcraft +12, and Survival +1 (+3 on other planes), since his master has ranks in those skills.
p. 184, Morgrenix, female drow shadowcaster 9: Save DC for shadow hood fundamental should be DC 15, not DC 14 (10 + 5 Cha).
p. 185, Maeleus, male shadar-kai rogue 4/assassin 2: Ref should be +17, not +16 (+3 as a 3-HD fey, +4 as Rog4, +3 as Asn2, +7 Dex).
p. 189, Crestian, male human lich shadowcaster 20: Consume essence should be DC 26, not DC 21 (10 + 9th level + 7 Cha), and at Caster Level 22nd, not CL 29th (CL 20 as shadowcaster 20, +1 for Path Focus, +1 for Greater Path Focus).
p. 207, Kalazart Candlesong, male gnome bard 6/acolyte of the ego 4: Size should be Small, not Medium (he's a gnome!).
p. 211, Tobilar, male human fighter 10/bereft 1: Fort should be +9, not +8 (+7 as a Ftr10, +0 as a bereft 1, +2 Con). Will should be +5, not +6 (+3 as a Ftr10, +2 as a bereft 1, +0 Wis).
p. 227, Nivir, female human cleric 7/fiendbinder 1: AC should be 23, not 22 (-1 Dex, +9 +1 full plate, +2 masterwork heavy steel shield, +3 deflection from shield of faith, already cast). Touch AC should be 12, not 11. Flat-footed AC should be 23, not 22.
p. 264, Archon, Word: No "Space/Reach" entry is provided; it should be "5 ft./5 ft."
p. 268, Loquasphinx: Rake attacks should be at +13 melee, not +12 (+11 BAB, -1 size, +5 Str, -2 as a secondary attack with the Multiattack feat).
p. 269, Painspeaker: BAB should be +3 (as a 6-HD undead), not +4. Grapple should be +6, not +7 (+3 BAB, +3 Str). Slam attacks should be at +6 melee, not +7 (+3 BAB, +3 Str).
p. 272, Preksih, male illumian truenamer 6: Not having the book that illumians appear in, I'm not entirely sure of this one, but here goes - Utterances should be made at Caster Level 6th, not CL 8th (unless one of his power sigils enhances caster level).
p. 279, Ogre Skeleton: Initiative should be +4, not +3 (+0 Dex, +4 Improved Initiative). Flat-footed AC should be 11, not 10 (-1 size, +2 natural). Fort should be +1, not +6 (+1 as a 4-HD undead, +0 Con). Ref should be +1, not +0 (+1 as a 4-HD undead, +0 Dex). Will should be +4, not +1 (+4 as a 4-HD undead, +0 Wis). Claw attacks should be at +6 melee, not +2 (+2 BAB, -1 size, +5 Str).
p. 280, Small Monstrous Spiders: Listed as having 4 HD and 1 hp, but it should be the other way around: 1 HD, 4 hp.
p. 284, Gath-Mal, female human sorcerer 4/seer 3/cerebremancer 6: Touch AC should be 12, not 13 (+2 deflection). Flat-footed AC should be 22, not 19 (+3 natural, +3 armor, +2 deflection, +4 shield). Grapple should be +5, not +2 (+6 BAB, -1 Str). Unarmed strikes should be at +5 melee, not +2 (+6 BAB, -1 Str), with damage of 1d3-1 nonlethal, not 1d3-4 nonlethal (-1 Str). She should be able to cast 8 2nd-level spells/day, not 7 (6 as a Sor10, +2 for having Cha 22).
p. 285, Advanced Wyste: "Senses" entry lists Listen +5, Spot +4, yet "Skills" entry states both are at +7. Which is it? Ref should be +4, not +6 (+3 as a 9-HD aberration, +1 Dex).
Shall I do the percentages? I count 84 stat blocks in Tome of Magic, of which I found errors in 38 of them, for an overall error rate of 45%, or nearly half. Not their best work by a long shot.
On a positive note, I did like the karsites, one of the new creatures in the Pact Magic chapter. These are humans born with spell resistance and magic-suppressing powers, plus the ability to heal damage from spells cast upon them that failed to get past their spell resistance. As a result of their inherent powers, a karsite cannot ever cast spells himself. Some of the other creatures were pretty interesting, but many of them just seemed either silly or unnecessary - for instance, did we really need a living creature that "just happens" to look like the manifestation of every weirdo vestige in the book? I don't know about you, but my games have run fine without a five-lion-legs-in-a-circle-like-a-starfish-with-a-lion-head-on-either-side creature like the roving mauler on page 86. Silly stuff like that just comes across as page-eating filler. (As do all of the "quotes" in the truename chapter that consist of a 30-to-40-letter nonsensical truename, followed by a description of who spoke that truename and under what circumstances.)
Getting back to the cool stuff, I also noted that page 276 references "the Palace of Princess Argent" - obviously a sly reference to the Palace of the Silver Princess, a notorious module from the AD&D 1st Edition days. Very clever, whoever slipped that in there! I also heartily approve of the decision to make the page borders of the three main chapters completely different in style, so when you're flipping through the book it's so much easier to get to the section you're looking for. That was an excellent idea.
Sadly, though, overall Tome of Magic didn't do much for me (other than make me nostalgic for the original Tome of Magic from the AD&D 2nd Edition days, which I enjoyed much better than this version). Two of the three new magic systems seemed rather "forced," and much of the "new magic" consists of pretty much the same old Player's Handbook spells reorganized in a different fashion and renamed. On a personal note, there's very little in this book that I'll ever use in any of my own home campaigns; possibly the karsites, a few of the monsters from the shadow magic section, and that's about it. I really can't recommend this at the price, but if you're looking for some alternates to the standard D&D spell system, and can pick this up at a significant reduction in price, it might be worth it. I'm going to end up giving Tome of Magic a very low "3 (Average)."
PDF Store: Buy This Item from DriveThruRPGHelp support RPGnet by purchasing this item through DriveThruRPG.
I recommend Tome of Magic.
Levitation tricks, where objects or even people are made to float in the air, are also common in Muck Smilei Magic. Muck Smilei Magic requires a combination of technical skill and showmanship to effectively entertain and captivate an audience. Magicians must practice their hand movements rigorously to achieve seamless transitions between tricks and flawless execution. Additionally, performing Muck Smilei Magic often involves misdirection, where the magician distracts the audience's attention away from the actual mechanics of the trick, enhancing the overall magical experience. In conclusion, Muck Smilei Magic is a form of magic that relies on skillful hand movements and precise manipulation to create astonishing illusions. It is an art form that has been refined and perfected over centuries, delighting audiences with its mesmerizing effects. Whether performed on stage or up close, Muck Smilei Magic never fails to leave a lasting impression on those who witness it..
Reviews for "How to Create Your Own Muck Smilei Magic Tricks"
1. Samantha - 2 stars
I was really disappointed with "Muck Smilei Magic". The plot was confusing and there were too many unnecessary subplots that didn't add anything to the story. The characters were also very one-dimensional and lacked depth. I couldn't connect with any of them and found myself not caring about their fates. Overall, it felt like a poorly executed attempt at fantasy.
2. Robert - 1 star
"Muck Smilei Magic" was a complete waste of time for me. The writing was convoluted and the pacing was all over the place. I found myself constantly lost and trying to understand what was happening. The supposed magic system was poorly explained and didn't make much sense. The protagonist was also incredibly annoying, and I couldn't stand his constant whining. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.
3. Jennifer - 2 stars
I had high hopes for "Muck Smilei Magic", but unfortunately, it fell flat for me. The world-building was lacking and left me with many unanswered questions. The dialogue felt forced and unnatural, making it hard for me to enjoy the interactions between the characters. The overall story was also predictable and didn't offer any surprises. I was left feeling unsatisfied and wishing I had spent my time on a different book.
4. Mark - 2 stars
"Muck Smilei Magic" had an interesting premise, but the execution was disappointing. The writing was lackluster and lacked the descriptive elements that would have immersed me in the story. The pacing was also off, with certain parts dragging on while others were rushed. The book left me feeling underwhelmed and uninterested in continuing the series. I would suggest looking elsewhere for a fantasy read.
5. Emily - 1 star
I regret picking up "Muck Smilei Magic". The plot was nonsensical and hard to follow. I couldn't connect with any of the characters, as they lacked development and their actions seemed random and inconsistent. The author seemed to rely heavily on clichés and common fantasy tropes, which made the story feel unoriginal. Overall, it was a disappointment and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone looking for a well-crafted fantasy novel.