Pact Magic
The multiverse is full of spirits, godlings, supernatural entities, strange constructs, and other unexplainable beings of great power and undecipherable ambitions. You are a mere mortal, an adventurer with a not-insignificant set of skills and a talent for getting yourself into jams where you need a little (or a lot) more power than you have. You have a problem, and those beings of power have the answer – it’s time to make a pact. This is the premise behind Secrets of Pact Magic and Villains of Pact Magic, two OGL 3.5 supplements totaling over five hundred pages by Dario Nardi, which take an exhaustive look at the classes, races, feats, rules, and mythology behind pact magic.
Players and Dungeon Masters who have continued to play OGL 3.5 and Pathfinder should welcome Secrets of Pact Magic and Villains of Pact Magic into their role-playing libraries. Both books are professionally written and laid out, and have the look and feel of something produced by Wizards themselves. Most importantly, though, they are the definitive collection of information about how to use pact magic as a player and how to incorporate pact magic into a campaign as a DM. The end result are two volumes that are interesting to read and cannot help but produce cool game ideas.
To understand why these two books are good additions to a gamer’s library, it is important to understand the information in each book. Secrets of Pact Magic is a kind of Player’s Handbook that features five races, including the Atlan, near humans with inborn ties to pact magic; Demon Eyes, a race of mortals cursed with pact markings in the womb; and three others. It also contains eight different classes, each of which uses pact magic to devastating effect in and out of battle. These classes include Empyrean Monk, a martial artist enhanced by pact magic; and the Warbinder, a fighter/pact mage who uses pact magic to lead others in battle. Even more importantly, Secrets of Pact Magic has ways that other spellcasting classes can enter into a pact and take advantage of the powers in the book.
Secrets of Pact Magic also contains thirty-three pages of prestige classes, racial paragon levels and twenty pages of new skills and feats, all of which deal with pact magic. In addition, there are pages of details on the different types of pact mages, what drives them, and character concepts to build them. There is even a chapter on different pro- and anti-pact magic organizations characters can join in a campaign.
Then the rubber hits the road with many pages of mechanics on how to bind a spirit and use it. Spirits are complex entities, belonging to one of thirteen constellations, and each has a legend (how they came into being), a name, symbolic elements which represent them, and a title. Those looking to bind a spirit must make a Summoning Check which represents your character’s ability to form a circle, include the proper elements to tell the spirit’s story, and perform the proper rituals. Success means that the binder gains a new set of powers they can use in and out of battle. In its quest to include absolutely everything about pact magic it can, Secrets of Pact Magic includes nearly one hundred pages of spirits ranging from first to ninth level.
Not to be outdone, Villains of Pact Magic is the Dungeon Master’s Guide of pact magic. It picks up where Secrets of Pact Magic left off and provides more of everything. For instance, Villains includes four more classes that can be used by the players or for villains, including the Exorcist and the Templar. It also includes twenty-seven more spirits, more feats, skills and character customization options, and far more spells useful to binders.
Perhaps the most interesting part of Villains of Pact Magic book, though, is the villains themselves. While the book does a great job of giving DMs, and players for that matter, new character options to play with, it does arguably a better job giving DMs bad guys who use pact magic. These bad guys include the Agents of Purity, a group of religious extremists who hunt down and kill pact-magic users, the Nightfang Cults, a group of twisted fairy folk that would like nothing better to do that torment pact-magic users for eternity, and the Lords of Darkness, a group of Cyclops constructs from another plane.
If that weren’t enough, there is an entire chapter devoted to puzzles, traps, and quests for pact magic users. DMs can use these traps and puzzles to challenge (and infuriate) player characters as well as the bad guys themselves.
While players and DMs may like the whos of pact magic, in the end, some DMs may be just as thankful for the hows and whats of pact magic included in Secrets of Pact Magic and Villains of Pact Magic. Sprinkled throughout the books are various tips on how pact magic can be included in a campaign, reasons why the player characters might not have heard about it before, tips on the nature of spirits and of pact magic itself, etc. By their nature, players can be inquisitive and having this information makes life much easier for the DM.
With all that being said, if the two books have any weakness, it would be the art. The covers are a bit trippy and don’t immediately appear connected with pact magic. The interior art feels a bit generic, and though the pictures do have summoning circles and pact ruins, don’t really feel that unique.
Still, the pact magic books stand apart because of their writing and information, and quite frankly, the professionalism of their layout more than makes up for the art. Whether it’s because Dario is a professor and is used to textbooks, he’s a talented writer, or he had good editing, the books manage to present a lot of information without feeling like an info dump. That’s quite a skill for over five hundred pages of information.
All in all, players and DMs looking to bring something fresh into their fantasy games need to look no further than Secrets of Pact Magic and Villains of Pact Magic. They contain a little something for everyone.
Want to learn more about Pact Magic? Read on…
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- Know Direction: Secrets of Pact Magic Discussion
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