Heroes of the Jade Oath: Anybody Heard of this?

[CowardlyPaladin]

A friend of mine had a copy this odd game called Heroes of the Jade Oath which I thought was a Pathfinder themed take on Oriental Adventures with a focus on the Wuxia genre, but when I looked it online I found out that this game has a rather weird history. Apparently it was originally a 3rd party source for Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved (itself a 3rd Party Source for 3rd edition) that was released years after Arcana Evolved went out of print evidently because the designers just were big fans of the systems. So there is a beta version of the game which is much longer and more in depth along with the current Pathfinder version.

So I loved Arcana Evolved, I thought it was a wealth of interesting new mechanical ideas, which in typical Monte Cook fashion were about 60% innovative and 40% nonsense. But whatever else you might say about it, it certainly wasn't boring, and seems to have majorly influenced the design of Pathfinder and 5E.

What prompted me to make this post was...nobody seems to have heard of this game. When I google it, I mostly just find it being sold but absolutely no discussion of the book. As a fan of 3rd party material and a Chinese history student, I was personally rather pleased by the amount of material in this book, it is incredibly dense, but it seems to have had absolutely no impact, I can't find anybody who talks about it.


So I was just wondering, does anybody have any opinions on this game? Any fans, critics, anybody find any of the classes or options interesting? I'm personally intrigued by the Enlightened Scholar because i'm always a fan of Confucius/Taoist style magic in fantasy, though the class doesn't seem to make any sense to me personally

[The Cap'n]

*blows dust off GitPG Forums account*

Someone has invoked the name of Arcana Evolved, and I have been summoned to nerd out about my favorite d20 game, which I still run twice a month, albeit mashed up with other 3.5/PF sources.

I actually own this book, both the beta .pdf that is Arcana Evolved compatible, and the eventual Pathfinder physical book, but I'll confess that I've not gotten a great deal of play out of it. Which is a shame, because I remember the days when this was just Frank Carr's cool homebrew setting we'd discuss on the Okay Your Turn forums and a few articles on diamondthrone.com.

Coincidentally, I was just looking through the AE version of this book a few weeks ago for things to throw into my current game. One of my players is a mind witch with the Power of the Name feat and a thing for debuff magic, so I was looking at adding the Quanghol and Bakemono spell templates to the list of player options. Also, one of the main evil gods in my setting has an association with centipedes, so I was reviewing the centipede totem warrior. Unfortunately, much as I found it interesting, I never grokked the Enlightened Scholar class mechanics, and while the Kusa, alternate Monk, and Demon Hunter were easier to understand, the subclasses for each of them seemed to vary wildly in power and flavor text. Really, the AE version of the book needed another Development pass, but I understand that economically, it was the smarter play to convert the final product to Pathfinder mid-stream.

To be honest, while I own the Pathfinder version, I've not really read it over as thoroughly as the AE one. I can try to give it a proper read through to compare it if you've the enthusiasm for a lengthy discussion.

[CowardlyPaladin]

Yeah that is why I was so intrigued by the system, because it is an addition to an already mechanically experimental system like Arcana Evolved. I only have access to the Pathfinder version, how is it for Arcana Evolved. Based on free samples i've seen online the classes seem to be quite expansive but I too have a hard time imagining them. How would the new classes fit into the game ect

[StSword]

I didn't realize they had gone far enough to make a book for the AE version.

Pity, I would have loved to own that book, I'm still fond of AE.

[iceifur]

For anyone interested in checking out the OGL mechanics of Heroes of the Jade Oath (PF version), they can be found on the Spheres of Power wiki.

No setting stuff, but it does have the classes, races, feats, equipment, and similar crunch.

[CowardlyPaladin]

I didn't realize they had gone far enough to make a book for the AE version.

Pity, I would have loved to own that book, I'm still fond of AE.

I think you can find it online somewhere as a PDF, though I don't know where. Apparently there was an AE beta then the final was pathfinder

[CowardlyPaladin]

So i just picked up the Beta for the Arcana Evolved version online, its massively dense. Can anybody wrap their head around what the Enlightened Scholar actually does as a class?

[StSword]

Huh, just found that the beta AE version is still on sale online, coolness, I'll have to take advantage of that.

Anyway, to answer the question, the Enlightened Scholar it seems intended for a support role, since it has several abilities about helping other people do better, so rather like a bard, and like a bard it can also do magic or fight if need be.

[The Cap'n]

I still haven't fully grokked the Enlightened Scholar, but it appears the goal was to make a class that sort of split the difference between the monk, bard and akashic while at the same time providing a means to build a wide variety of very specific cultural and religious archetypes of what it means to be learned and wise.

Looking over the two versions, it seems that the AE version provided the Wei Tan knowledge tree to give the class alchemy, which was removed in the Pathfinder version to preserve the alchemist's role (not that Pathfinder would do the same, as eventually many classes could dabble in alchemy). It also appears that they added three PF specific knowledge trees not in the AE version, the Guan Liao, Junzi, and Xiao Ren.

I think the weirdest thing at the time the AE version was printed was the way in which the folk magic knowledge tree actually gave the class a casting progression in a piecemeal way. PF classes like the Vigilante and Medium, or the variant multiclassing for spellcasting classes would do something similar in PF later, but at the time, this was somewhat innovative. It's interesting that since AE's lesser casters have 7 levels of spells, getting a full caster progression is more expensive for an AE Enlightened Scholar than a PF one. I've yet to do a detailed analysis of the folk magic spell lists of the two versions, but it will be interesting to see the differences in the two.

I was honestly surprised that since the Enlightened Scholar gets 13 knowledge tree abilities, that so few of the trees actually let you commit solely to a single path for the whole 20 level build. The small number of abilities in some trees encourages you to mix and match them. My lack of cultural knowledge of what each tree is doing makes this hard for me to understand what combinations actually make sense for a single character, roleplaying wise.

Also, despite owning this book for over a decade, I somehow just completely missed the magical conveyance ability and the true implications of it until this read through. Combining this with some of the money and equipment granting powers of the PF version lets you play a character whose extravagant wealth and gadgets are their super power in a way you don't see often in a game where wealth by level is part of character balance. I'm curious if this would actually work well in game.

Still not sure how I feel about the class, but I'll keep noodling it and maybe try to build a few NPCs.

[CowardlyPaladin]

I still haven't fully grokked the Enlightened Scholar, but it appears the goal was to make a class that sort of split the difference between the monk, bard and akashic while at the same time providing a means to build a wide variety of very specific cultural and religious archetypes of what it means to be learned and wise.

Looking over the two versions, it seems that the AE version provided the Wei Tan knowledge tree to give the class alchemy, which was removed in the Pathfinder version to preserve the alchemist's role (not that Pathfinder would do the same, as eventually many classes could dabble in alchemy). It also appears that they added three PF specific knowledge trees not in the AE version, the Guan Liao, Junzi, and Xiao Ren.

I think the weirdest thing at the time the AE version was printed was the way in which the folk magic knowledge tree actually gave the class a casting progression in a piecemeal way. PF classes like the Vigilante and Medium, or the variant multiclassing for spellcasting classes would do something similar in PF later, but at the time, this was somewhat innovative. It's interesting that since AE's lesser casters have 7 levels of spells, getting a full caster progression is more expensive for an AE Enlightened Scholar than a PF one. I've yet to do a detailed analysis of the folk magic spell lists of the two versions, but it will be interesting to see the differences in the two.

I was honestly surprised that since the Enlightened Scholar gets 13 knowledge tree abilities, that so few of the trees actually let you commit solely to a single path for the whole 20 level build. The small number of abilities in some trees encourages you to mix and match them. My lack of cultural knowledge of what each tree is doing makes this hard for me to understand what combinations actually make sense for a single character, roleplaying wise.

Also, despite owning this book for over a decade, I somehow just completely missed the magical conveyance ability and the true implications of it until this read through. Combining this with some of the money and equipment granting powers of the PF version lets you play a character whose extravagant wealth and gadgets are their super power in a way you don't see often in a game where wealth by level is part of character balance. I'm curious if this would actually work well in game.

Still not sure how I feel about the class, but I'll keep noodling it and maybe try to build a few NPCs.

one of the things that confuses me about the Enlightened Scholar is that one of their paths is "you get 9 levels of Spellcasting" which like to me...why would you ever not take that? I guess that makes more sense if you are meant to spec into multiple paths at once rather than commit to one


What do you think of the other classes in the book? Also the link to your Arcana Evolved game isn't working in you sig sadly.

[The Cap'n]

Re: Enlightened Scholar Casting
The AE version says there's a chart that covers the spell progression depending on how many times you take it, but it seems to be missing. I believe the Pathfinder version caps its casting at 6th level spells like the Bard's progression. That said, you are right that no single class ability can really compete with the opportunity to have another level of spellcasting, even with an extremely limited list. Apparently the AE version cobbles together a list of descriptors and schools, but doesn't actually get simple spells, which is also extremely odd.

Re: Classes
As to the rest of the classes, I really want to like the Demon Hunter, but it has three things that set me back. Firstly, that I'm not steeped in the source material, so I'm not sure how best to implement it in my games (this goes for the whole book, really). Secondly, the subclasses, while quite flavorful, are asymmetric in design, and somewhat hard for me to imagine as balanced against one another. In one class, we have two social-skill focused paths (on a 2+int skill points multiple attribute dependent class), a summoner, a shapeshifter, a ghost hunter, and a curse specialist with a familiar, all built on a not-quite ranger chassis. However, of all the classes, this is the one I'm most tempted to actually playtest in a game, as I think it adds something neat to the proceedings that AE doesn't already have.

The Kensai is yet another attempt to build a one-true-fighting-style martial class, this time with a selectively full BAB, a scaling magical weapon, and combat rites. It's probably fine. Except for that ability they can take where they spend chi to give someone else levels in the class temporarily. That's a painpoint if it happens mid-combat to a player who isn't really into math. Worse, since the Kensai now has to take a level reduction of half the levels gained, that means that player is doing math on their own character sheet rather than helping his fellow player he just dumped several levels on understand what just happened and how it works.

The Kusa is about what I expect from a ninja/shadowdancer/assassin mashup base class. I'm not sure how I feel about them being able to manufacture paper bombs on the fly like the PF alchemist, but it does give them an AoE damage/concealment generating ability that is on-brand.

The Monk...it is kinda cool that it has archetypes, but I kinda feel like there's some niche protection issues. I think there's a spectrum of characters that crosses through all of the classes presented here, and sometimes you get characters who have very similar abilities. The warrior monks seem very like the Kensai, and the scholarly ones seem very like the Enlightened Scholar, and so on. Overall, it just blurs the identity of all the classes to have monk archetypes that overlap them. You could easily put it the other way around, but Monk, by virtue of being listed alphabetically, is where I realized this was an issue.

The Totem Warrior subclasses are neat. I like Horse and Monkey. Elephant and Tiger have the same issues most animals outside the normal CR range for totem companions in the core book have, so that's expected. Mantis has a power that I think was meant to be immunity to flanking but then switches gears mid-paragraph to give them a feinting bonus for being able to turn their head around backward, which...what? Centipede is fine. Still, I'm extremely biased in favor of the class, as I've had a lot of fun DMing totem warriors over the years, and have written up a dozen varieties myself.

The Xia (Ancestors) Champion is an okay subclass. My players still irrationally hate the champion class as an "NPC" class, so this will never see use at my table unless I run one as an NPC.

I would not allow the witch subclasses into my game personally. As much as I love the flavor of the witch class, the subclasses have always been very uneven. I've Gmed for solid Iron, Mind, and Winter witch characters. Wood is in the middle, people look at it and then decide to play something else, but at a glance, the Sea and Wind have issues. I feel like the way the 5-Elements, Dragon and Jade witches presented here all have access to powers that span a wide variety of energy types makes them flat-out better than those in the core book for versatility. The Ghost Witch also provides a lot of effects that AE holds at a high value (etherealness, ghost touch) as manifestations that can be taken at low level, so it might have odd ripple effects on how the game works. Also, it may be a case of overspecialization where the class may suffer when you aren't dealing with ghosts. Oh, and standard disclaimer about not knowing enough about the source material to feel comfortable using these. I've honestly been thinking the AE witch class needs to be renamed to distance it from real-world connotations entirely, rather than bring in associations with other real world religions, but that's a whole other knot to unravel.

[The Cap'n]

Also, I've removed the dead link from my signature.

[CowardlyPaladin]

Yeah that is why its so hard for me to get my head around this book and why it keeps fascinating me, each of the classes are more like spiderwebs of other classes than full traditional classes so its very hard to wrap your head around it. I mean how would you ever tier these classes. Like the Enlightened Scholar can be an akashic/Monk hybrid. Or a 6th level caster. Each of the monks are like whole different classes so it can be very confusing, especially with two systems. My instinct is that there are some unique ideas here but its very hard for me to like...mentally put it together with any of the classes. Like how would these classes look if you ran them with other Arcana Evolved Classes or try to move them to pathfinder/3.5 (except for the Witch obviously).

Speaking of which how did you mix Arcana Evolved and 3.5? My current game is 3.5/Pathfinder/Arcana Evolved.

[The Cap'n]

My mix of AE, 3.5 and PF has evolved, if you will pardon the pun, through long-time play and the influence of my game group. I'm currently on my fourth long-term game in the same setting, and every time we've convened a new game, the house rules have changed. At this point, there's so much dated information and alternate, abandoned rules that my wiki is no longer especially navigable. Honestly, it’s been a 12 year process of the players trying to steer the game more toward generic D&D, and whittling me down incrementally until only the spell system and feats remain mostly intact.

As neatly as I can summarize:

AE is the Core Rulebook unless specifically overridden by a house rule.

Alignment does not exist, but your relationship to cosmic forces like gods or totem animals, or oaths may change the way you interact with magic that involves those forces.

Feats are as AE, with an additional approved list from 3.5 sources. Fighter is not an allowed class, but any martial class that gets a “Bonus feat” class ability can take “Fighter Bonus Feats”. PF feats are case-by-case approvals

Skills work like in Pathfinder (1 point for 1 rank, +3 for a class skill), but we have a custom list that includes a conversion chart. Non-permanent magical changes to Intelligence do not add or subtract skill ranks.

Equipment as per AE, but with Cold Iron and Adamantine added back in. We use the DR rule from Pathfinder where enhancement bonuses overcome special materials and alignment DR as well. Mundane or alchemical items from 3.5/PF sources are often available. Exotic materials from other sources are by DM approval.

Spells are mostly as per the MCAE core book with one significant house rule. For purposes of access and spell preparation, any spell that can be cast as "any element" or "any energy", you must specify an element or energy type at the time of preparation. If you have access to multiple energy types, you must prepare them as if they were separate spells. Sorcerous blast was houseruled so that you can cast the diminished, normal, and heightened version with whatever elemental/energy type you have it prepared as. Spells from sources outside the core book, especially those in Spell Treasury, are subject to DM approval.

Player Species Humans as per Pathfinder. Everything else homebrew or variants. We conformed to PF’s standards for starting ability scores, and about half of the major species have 3-level species classes. Given the current ongoing issues with D&D’s views on “race” this whole subsystem may just get tossed the next time I run a game.

Classes The list of classes I use is constantly evolving. I’ve made modifications for perceived balance or quality of life purposes to virtually every class I’ve used, and even produced a couple solid homebrew classes. The most significant and well received changes I’ve made were to the Greenbond, which I rewrote into a replacement “Cleric”, and the Magister, which now has a simple spell access, plus any complex or exotic spells they have paid to scribe into a spellbook at the usual wizard costs (x3 for exotics).

That said, there have been failures. My homebrew druid and ranger have been pointedly ignored for 12 years, and while I allowed Dragon Shaman (PHB2), Alchemist and Spiritualist at various points, I would probably not use them again. While I’d been using the 3.5 Barbarian, Monk, and Rogue as NPCs for years, the players in my current game talked me into using the Pathfinder Monk and Rogue, which has worked out fine. My players have been vocal about their dislike of the Akashic, Champion, and Ritual Warrior, and we unanimously decided not to allow Oathsworn or Totem Speaker from the beginning.

Mechanics we don't use: tracking encumbrance/rations/arrows, Ceremonial feats both costing money and deatctivating in an anti-magic field, PF-style favored class bonuses, and traits.

I'd be interested to hear what elements of AE you've kept going in your own hybrid game as well.