Complete Arcana

[Turkagent]

Someone in my group wants to use complete arcana for a one shot I'm doing since my regular group isn't here. I don't mind but i recall a discussion on this forum about something overpowered in that book. Any quick help I can get?

[Dusk Eclipse]

Complete Arcane or Unearthed Arcana? They are different books which covers distinctive topics.

Complete Atrcane covers magic using characters, and gives a lot of new spells, feats, prg.classes and base classes geared towards arcane characters, it has some pretty nice things such as Suel Arcanamach, Whirling Blade, Warlock; but it also has some abusable stuff like Craft contigent spell and thought bottle.

Unearthed arcana on the other hand is essentially a book of houserules, almost all it's contents are variants, classes, races even whole systems.

[Enterti]

Personally I would say allow it, unless someone is going for thought bottle shennigans(exp reset button) or Initiate of the 7x veil(most powerful defensive casting prestige in the game IMO) its pretty good.

This is assuming you are talking about complete arcane of course.

[Manateee]

It's as inconsistently balanced as anything in 3e. If you're going to ban the whole book, that's a weak reason to do so.

[Quietus]

You'd be better off asking him what it is he wants to use from it, and then ask us about that. In general, most of what comes out of a given book will actually be *underpowered*, with a couple of noteworthy items that are much too strong.

[Grendus]

Complete Arcane is... well, it's a book for spellcasters. Most of it isn't anything worse than core, with a few exceptions. Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil is badly overpowered (as in, kill your enemies with an immediate action overpowered). Sublime Chord, while itself no more overpowered than a Sorcerer, can be dangerous in things like theurge builds, so keep an eye on anyone who wants to use that one. Contingent Spells are very dangerous, being able to have spells automatically cast under certain conditions breaks the action economy badly. Beyond that, it's mostly fine. If you're OK with how imbalanced core is, Complete Arcane isn't too bad.

[Red_Dog]

Complete Arcana is definitely weaker one in a long chain of various "Arcane oriented supplements". Besides 7th Veil everything else there is rather Ok, if not a "power for flavor" exchange.

*It does have cool(not powerful, cool) monsters for lvl IX summoning such as Elemental Monolith... but I am really unsure of what else. If you speak proper elemental language you can tell them to use Power Attack and not suck heh ^^*

P.S. I guess the only other obvious potential for abuse are Warlock's UMD and Item creation Shenaniganery. But than again, that's all they have so I'd let them be = P

P.S.2. Grendus is right about Craft Contingency Spell. Though depending on a level, a character crafting such spell will most likely still be more powerful heh

[Big Fau]

Complete Arcana is definitely weaker one in a long chain of various "Arcane oriented supplements". Besides 7th Veil everything else there is rather Ok, if not a "power for flavor" exchange.

*It does have cool(not powerful, cool) monsters for lvl IX summoning such as Elemental Monolith... but I am really unsure of what else. If you speak proper elemental language you can tell them to use Power Attack and not suck heh ^^*

P.S. I guess the only other obvious potential for abuse are Warlock's UMD and Item creation Shenaniganery. But than again, that's all they have so I'd let them be = P

P.S.2. Grendus is right about Craft Contingency Spell. Though depending on a level, a character crafting such spell will most likely still be more powerful heh

You are forgetting Mage of the Arcane Order.

[Red_Dog]

You are forgetting Mage of the Arcane Order.

Meh, I don't think so. The true purpose of that class is to back pedal your way into it using a Sorc, so you can get extra spells. As a wizard PrC its Ok. I mean nothing wizard wouldn't already have anyway = \ And even for a Sorc, its a close close close call on slowing his progression and Just just getting the 9lvl spells[or even not? I forget of the top of my head].

[dextercorvia]

Meh, I don't think so. The true purpose of that class is to back pedal your way into it using a Sorc, so you can get extra spells. As a wizard PrC its Ok. I mean nothing wizard wouldn't already have anyway = \ And even for a Sorc, its a close close close call on slowing his progression and Just just getting the 9lvl spells[or even not? I forget of the top of my head].

MotAO fully advances casting. Still it is a powerful PrC, but not overpowered.

Wild Mage+Practiced Spellcaster can cause havoc if you aren't prepared for it. Still, it usually just amounts to more dakka.

[Ryu_Bonkosi]

Other than IotSFV, the Thought Bottle, and at times Craft Contingent Spell the book should be fine.

[FMArthur]

Yeah. You should pretty much never allow an IotSV or Craft Contingent Spell because they are thoroughly broken and they make already-rigged spellcasters borderline invincible with no effort.

You should allow the rest of the book on account of its interesting and appropriately-powered base classes (Wu Jen will overall be less powerful than a sorcerer and the other two are just fun tier 4 blasters whose powers are literally subsets of sorcerers' and wizards' abilities), the Obtain Familiar feat, the neat Sudden X metamagic line, Sculpt Spell, and Mage Slayer. These aren't overpowered things and they all improve the variety of the game in a harmless fun way.

[hex0]

You can even play a Sublime Chord/IotSFV that crafts contingent spells!

[dextercorvia]

You can even play a Sublime Chord/IotSFV that crafts contingent spells!

For almost free with a Thought Bottle.