MCAU + Arx
Aug. 2nd, 2003 06:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothComic day today, but not much came in, so I picked up 'Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed', his own attempt at D+D 3.0+i. 'No elves! No Dwarves!' proclaimed the back, but I bought it despite such pretension, since I'd heard it had an all new magic system and classes and lots of neat feats from a review.
And it does. But it's also goofy. It looks like it's based on Anime instead of Tolkien, really -- cat people, little teeny fairies, city-destroying 'exotic' spells, and magic users who ALL carry staves. Every last one! Spellswords who slice through magic! Oathsworn who... [giggle]
Hee hee. Heeheehee. HEEHEEHEEHEE. BWA HA HA HA HA HA!
I'm sorry, the Oathsworn are just too goofy for words. They're like one of the stupid filler prestige classes promoted to monk-replacement. Same with Totemites and Witches. It's just... silly. A lot of the class abilities and equipment is also silly, in an overcomplicated, poorly-thought out way. Let's have the armor bonus from the armor change when someone's flatfooted! Let's have attacks which ignore magical enhancement bonuses but not dex or armor! Let's have a class ability that adds +1 AC when attacked by metal!
Clumsy and unprofessional... but there's a lot of content there, and it probably *will* play significantly differently from D+D, I guess. Still, Monte Cook == not my favorite person, and this didn't change anything.
I've also started playing Arx Fatalis, because I was jonesing for a PC RPG and saw snowwy playing it. It seems pretty okay, although I'm getting a little impatient about not having any useful spells.
And it does. But it's also goofy. It looks like it's based on Anime instead of Tolkien, really -- cat people, little teeny fairies, city-destroying 'exotic' spells, and magic users who ALL carry staves. Every last one! Spellswords who slice through magic! Oathsworn who... [giggle]
Hee hee. Heeheehee. HEEHEEHEEHEE. BWA HA HA HA HA HA!
I'm sorry, the Oathsworn are just too goofy for words. They're like one of the stupid filler prestige classes promoted to monk-replacement. Same with Totemites and Witches. It's just... silly. A lot of the class abilities and equipment is also silly, in an overcomplicated, poorly-thought out way. Let's have the armor bonus from the armor change when someone's flatfooted! Let's have attacks which ignore magical enhancement bonuses but not dex or armor! Let's have a class ability that adds +1 AC when attacked by metal!
Clumsy and unprofessional... but there's a lot of content there, and it probably *will* play significantly differently from D+D, I guess. Still, Monte Cook == not my favorite person, and this didn't change anything.
I've also started playing Arx Fatalis, because I was jonesing for a PC RPG and saw snowwy playing it. It seems pretty okay, although I'm getting a little impatient about not having any useful spells.
