Pyramid Review: The Wheel of Time Roleplaying Game

Pyramid Review

The Wheel of Time Roleplaying Game

Published by Wizards of the Coast

Written by Charles Ryan, Steven Long, Christian Moore and Owen K.C. Stephens

320 color pages; $39.95

The Wheel of Time Roleplaying Game is a standalone game based on the d20 system rules and set in the world of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time novels. Unlike most d20 games, it does not require the three core rulebooks, because the majority of the applicable rules in the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master's Guide are reprinted. While most of the core d20 mechanics are unchanged, several important features make the Wheel of Time setting unique.

First and foremost, the standard d20 magic system has been completely replaced. The One Power, as magic is called, is broken up into spells called weaves. Weaves are grouped into Talents, such as Elementalism, Healing, and Illusion. The Conjunction Talent, for example, contains the weaves Bond Warder, Compulsion, False Trail, Pass Bond, Sense Shadowspawn, and Trace. Each Talent must be mastered before its weaves can be learned. Like d20 spells, weaves have levels, and channelers get a number of weave slots per day. Each weave is composed of one or more of the five Affinities: Air, Water, Fire, Earth and Spirit. If a channeler has mastered all of a weave's component Affinities, she casts it using a slot one level lower, but if she has mastered none of them, she must use a slot one level higher.

What makes The One Power different . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.



Article publication date: November 2, 2001

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