One of the most important ideas for any RPG product is that the style (i.e. the idea) and the substance (i.e. the mechanics) need to complement each other. If you have good substance but poor style, you end up with something useful but boring. Good style and bad substance make for a great idea that’s executed poorly. It takes both to make an excellent product.

Class Codex: the Spellwright is a book that has good style and substance to it.

Before we begin, let’s overview the PDF itself: twelve pages long, it has one page each for the front and back covers, one for the credits/ToC/legal, and one for the OGL, leaving us with eight pages of material. There are no bookmarks, but I can’t hold that against a PDF this small. The pages have borders, and we do get bits of the cover illustration used as the occasional interior piece of artwork, but again I can’t fault the PDF for not having a printer-friendly version; there’s simply no need when you’re looking at less than ten pages of stuff that you’d actually print.

In terms of style, what we have here is a spellcaster who uses cards to work their magic. Now, I’ll be honest here: I’m not someone who plays a lot of card-based games, particularly where trading/collectible card games are concerned. So it’s entirely possible that I’m missing out on some of the nuance here. I have a vague understanding of the “trap card” reference in the product description, for instance, but it’s entirely possible that there are some Yu-Gi-Oh or Magic: the Gathering references that I’m missing. Even so, the concept of “card magic” is ubiquitous enough in gaming circles (largely thanks to those two series, as well as several others in the same vein) that I’m familiar with the basic concept. In terms of the idea at play, this one is solid: the cards are the medium with which you utilize your magic.

It’s the substance where we see exactly what this means in the context of Pathfinder First Edition. The spellwright base class is a full-progression arcane spellcaster, utilizing the sorcerer/wizard list for their spells. An Intelligence-based class, they prepare their spells, and have the same BAB and save progressions as a wizard (though I’m quite pleased with them receiving 4 + Int bonus skill points rather than the traditional 2 + Int bonus; I’m of the opinion that 2 is far too few for any class), as well as no armor proficiencies and very few weapon proficiencies. All of that sounds a lot like a wizard, except that they have to prepare their spells on written cards instead of in their minds, wielding them as somatic components when they cast their spells (and, incidentally, using expensive material components when they prepare their spells, rather than cast them), and prepare their spells from a card catalogue instead of a spellbook.

Now, by itself, all of that sounds so much like a standard wizard that you’re probably wondering if this shouldn’t just be an archetype, or maybe even just a flavorful description with no real mechanical changes. But it’s the class features where the spellwright distinguished itself; although it never actually says so, this class comes across almost like a hybrid of the wizard and the magus.

The major way this is true is that spellwrights have an arcane pool, which they can spend to retain not just to retain a spell card after it’s used, but also to retain a scroll when they use the magic in it. It also serves as a power source for several of their “spellwright technique” class features, which they gain at every even-numbered level. More impressively, a spellwright not only gains the ability to cast spells in light armor (at 7th level) and medium armor (at 13th level), but can also add two spells from the cleric or psychic spell lists to his own spell list at every odd-numbered level. If that sounds too powerful, remember that they don’t automatically gain these spells in their card catalogue; they just gain the ability to add them. An enhanced ability to utilize arcane scrolls (choosing one of three possible benefits as a swift action when using them) rounds things out before getting to the capstone, which further increases what they can do with scrolls.

By itself that’s impressive, but it’s the spellwright techniques that present the real meat of the class. Split into twenty-one basic techniques and thirteen greater techniques, these are like rogue talents in that you pick and choose which ones you want as you level up, though you’re unable to select the greater techniques until 10th level and there are some that have others as prerequisites. Here you’ll find abilities such as being able to use your spell cards as daggers, with further techniques to increase their weapon-like abilities. And if that sounds bad for a half-BAB class, there’s a greater technique that allows you to treat your class level as your BAB when wielding your spell cards; this is a genius ability that can potentially change the way you play a spellwright character! And yes, there are spellwright techniques here for making “trap” cards, which basically store a spell in them until their activation conditions go off.

I have to admit that I’m very impressed with the array of spellwright techniques; they cover little things from making your card catalogue very hard to damage to allowing potions to be utilized with nearly the same efficiency as scrolls normally are to utilizing arcane pool points to power arcanist reservoir abilities and vice versa in case you’re playing a multiclass character (and yes, you can use the spellwright’s arcane pool in conjunction with a magus’s arcane pool; this is an inherent part of the arcane pool ability and doesn’t require taking a spellwright technique). There are a lot of variable options here, enough that you can easily play different spellwrights in very different ways (and yes, there are techniques to not only allow you to throw your cards, but charge them with energy, or even a touch-range spell, as well, allowing you to play a Gambit-like character).

It’s after this that we get a few pages of supplementary material, starting with spellwright favored class bonuses for various races. This section made me quirk a brow, because it’s where we start to see the one place where I found fault with this product. There are favored class bonuses for each of the seven Core races, and the three new races from other Golden Glyph Publishing books: the lagos, mineralite, and scyleen (a sidebar openly points out that these are from other GGG books). Now, there’s nothing wrong with a publisher promoting cross-product compatibility; my issue is that more could have been done here. While I don’t expect to see every race from the Advanced Race Guide to be here, the lack of anything outside of the Core races and the publisher’s own was a bit surprising. There’s no spellwright favored class bonuses for, say, aasimars and tieflings? None for catfolk or kitsunes? Dhampirs or changelings? More could have been done.

After this comes ten new mundane items and two magic ones. I’ll compliment the mundane items for being smartly-written: a lot of products would have glossed over the use of the spell cards and card catalogue, but they each get their own entry here, specifying things like their hardness and hit points, how much they cost, etc. Throw in little things like ink, pens, a scrivener’s kit, etc. and this nicely rounds out the class’s tools. The two magic items also nicely cover a niche, as one allows for expanded use of cards, and the other makes new (blank) cards ex nihilo.

A single new spell comes next, a 0-level spell that allows for copying pages. It also nicely rounds out the class, though the pedant in me notes that it’s only on the bard, sorcerer/wizard, and cleric/oracle spell lists. Surely the magus could have used this too? Or the occultist? Or the psychic? This spell is useful and its status as an endlessly-castable 0-level spell doesn’t seem likely to unbalance anything, so why not let other classes have it?

Two new archetypes round the product out. The first is the planescaller, which trades out much of the ability to manipulate scrolls (as well as gaining new spells from the cleric or psychic spell lists) in exchange for being able to use a summon monster spell. This is considerably buffed from the basic version of the spell, however, as it requires only a standard action to cast, remains for 10 minutes per caster level, and the level of the summon monster spell and number of summon monster cards that can be used goes up by one for every two class levels. If that sounds like it’s unbalancing, the power has a limit: it costs one arcane pool point per level of the spell to use this special monster summoning card. The spellwright can also use self-buffing spells (i.e. they target “you”) on monsters summoned this way. Later abilities trade out the use of armor to switch places with your monster when you’re targeted by a spell, and at 20th level can apply the Advanced simple template to these monsters.

I’m of two minds about this particular archetype, if for no other reason than it’s so different from the summoner base class. There’s no use of an eidolon (which is probably a good thing) nor any option to, say, utilize eidolon evolutions on summoned monsters (which seems like a missed opportunity). Ultimately, what you get out of this archetype will depend a lot on if you think the summoner class is something to be avoided or to be emulated.

The second archetype here, the talismanist, is much briefer. It essentially swaps out the spellwrights arcane spells for divine spells, and allows for arcane or psychic spells to be periodically added to their spell list, the same way the base class does for divine or psychic spells. A bit basic, but the variety is nice. Unfortunately, this technically can’t be combined with the planescaller archetype, since both trade out the enhanced understanding ability (i.e. adding a cleric or psychic spell to the base class’s spell list). I’d be tempted to simply handwave this contradiction away, since it’s clear that the talismanist version of this ability (“arcane guidance”) fulfills the same purpose, and so is obviously what’s traded out if you want a combined planescaller talismanist.

That’s where the product ends…and it brings me back to my major complaint from before, because more could have been done here. While saying “it left me wanting more” is usually a compliment, it’s this product’s single biggest weakness, because while the design space it left blank isn’t overwhelming, it is notable. Right off the bat, I can think of several things that should have been included in this product but weren’t.

The biggest offender are feats. There’s simply no excuse for not having a feat called Extra Spellwright Technique here that does what it says on the tin. Go to aonprd.com, click the “Search” feature, set it to search only feats, and have it search for the word “extra.” While there’ll be a lot of mishits, you’ll see that literally every class with a selectable pool of abilities has a feat to let them take more. Extra Discovery. Extra Hex. Extra Rage Power. Extra Rogue Talent. (As written, the Extra Arcane Pool feat, from Ultimate Magic, works for the spellwright just as much as it does for the magus, but it should still have been reprinted here.) How about a feat to let a character (not necessarily just a spellwright) use their spellcasting ability modifier when casting a spell from a scroll (probably a number of times per day equal to their casting stat modifier)? Technically scrolls use the default minimum modifier to set their DC (i.e. they’re treated as if the casting stat modifier was 10 + the spell level), which is going to be hideously low. For a class that focuses on scrolls so much, not having something like this feels like an oversight. Perhaps one to let the bonus from Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus be used with scrolls also? These are just some off-the-cuff ideas, and I’m sure there are other feats that could expand directly on what this class can do, but as of right now there aren’t any.

While not having feats is the big offender among what’s not here, it’s not the only one. Others include presenting this class under the variant multiclassing rules from Pathfinder Unchained, and giving us a simple class template version of it, from the Monster Codex. These are important because they’re two of the easiest ways for GMs to make quick-and-easy NPCs using what’s here, instead of having to build them from the ground up. The former would make it incredibly easy to swap out a few feats from an existing NPC in exchange for some spellwright abilities, whereas the latter is useful if you want to make a higher-level monster into a spellwright without throwing their CR out of whack.

And there’s still design space left unused! Remember the Background Generator tables from Ultimate Campaign? They had class-specific tables that you could use to help figure out who your character was, including determining if they had a story feat or a particular trait; how about one of those for the spellwright? No new traits or story feats would need to be written, just a table of background ideas that coordinate with the ones that we already have (and don’t tread on any of the existing class tables). Likewise, while mythic abilities aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, adding even one new spellwright-specific mythic ability (presumably for the archmage path, though making them universal in order not to pigeonhole a character is viable also) at 1st, 3rd, and 6th tier each would have been a nice way to expand on a spellwright’s options if they’re part of a campaign that’s going in that direction (and now I want to make a “Wrath of the Spellwrighteous” joke).

Ultimately, the spellwright is a great class. It takes a popular idea and brings it to Pathfinder in a way that keeps the style intact while simultaneously grounding it with rock-solid mechanics that not only make it viable, but do so in a way that allows it to be played in several different styles depending on which techniques your character takes. It’s also nicely rounded by the supporting mechanics…but not as much as it should be.

Now, adding in everything I lamented was missing (expanded favored class bonuses, feats, variant multiclassing, a simple class template, a background table, and mythic options) would no doubt increase the size of this book, and probably drive the price up commensurately, but I have a hard time imagining that it wouldn’t be worth it. This class is already a good one, and expanding its options would make it truly great. Hopefully we’ll see a revision at some point in the future.