The GM reviews the Errata and has the following notes:
Hengeyokai fixes are fine - no flying hengeyokai anyways in Drakara as initial PCs, but maybe as replacements...
Elemental Mastery: They wise up! But they don't go far enough - and I believe that with the bulk of a wu jen's spells NOT being elemental in nature, unlike say a Shugenja's, that the rule I came up with is reasonable. A wu jen gets few hit points and skill points (other than they should have decent INT so their spells and skill points both benefit from being based no the same ability score). I like my rule, and will keep it - one advantage of staying with the wu jen class for many levels is the accumulation of mastery over various elements, and when casting or resisting spells of those elements, gaining the DC and saves of +2 that mastery gives. A wu jen will still be casting numerous non-elemental spells over the course of time, where no matter how many elements he has mastered, he won't be getting a bonus... And the spell secrets are neat, but not overwhelmingly powerful, not enough by themselves to keep a wu jen advancing just as a wu jen instead of perhaps taking a prestige class that grants something useful every level. This way, a truly dedicated wu jen can, at 20th level, have mastered all 5 elements - whereas a character who got as far as 10th level wu jen would have mastered 3.
Also note - for mastery purposes, an 'All' spell actually counts as the element selected when it is cast. For instance, a Master of Fire would get the DC and save bonus with respect to Elemental Burst - Fire, but not with respect to Elemental Burst - Wood.
For offensive purposes, mastery of each additional element is less effective - the wu jen, after all, can only prepare so many spell, and as long as at least one element is mastered, can choose to prepare mostly spells of that type and get the benefit with most of his prepared spells in that manner. But each additional element does add flexibility, and at different levels of spells, different elements are more useful to have mastered. For instance, if you have mastered Metal, you may notice that there are not that many metal spells at low levels which actually have a DC/save - certainly Iron Scarf doesn't, and that is the primary 1st level metal attack spell. But Entangling Scarf at 2nd level does require a save...
Defensively, of course, each additional element mastered gives the wu jen that much greater security - because the wu jen may be able to control which spells he prepares, but he cannot (usually) control which spells he has to save against! And I like the idea of a wu jen adding new elements of mastery as levels are gained, and gradually mastering most of them. In essence, what the wu jen is getting is a Spell Focus (Element) feat at 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th levels, which I think reflects the priorities of the class as well as complementing nicely the spell secrets and taboos the wu jen has.
SO I am sticking with my more generous rule - but I am glad to see they discarded the original version too; they just should have done so sooner! (If they had done that pre-publication, I'd have stuck with their new version; I only created my version because the old-style version was, in my opinion, lame and bogus!)
The random prestige class corrections look fine to me, though obviously haven't reviewed them with the book handy.
Ditto the weapon and spell stuff...
(Note - Scales of the Lizard => 1 minute per level, much better than 2 rounds per level! Ditto some other "X rounds per levels" durations becoming 1 minute per level.)
Ditto the monsters stuff... (Have to check Bakemono Fortitude saves, looks like they got worse!)
So, looks reasonable in general, I am a bit surprised that they left out some of the stuff from earlier errata regarding OA such as their version of Isawa shugenja school spells...
-- Ernie III
-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Mitzman
Subject: Re: FYI: New errata sheet for 3rd ED OA at the following...
Yeah. Took a quick look. This changes things a tad for Wu-Jen. More specifically: instead of receiving elemental mastery of element X whenever they acquired all the spells of element X, now they simply acquire one elemental mastery at 6th level, instead of a spell secret, and none thereafter. It effectively allows Wu-Jen to, at least, learn one element without needing to worry about losing it when they gain access to a new level of spells, but never more then one element, and they lose a spell secret.
Ernie's modified O.A. system for Wu-Jen is FAR more generous in all respects.
Still, Ernie, if you decide to go with this instead (which does address the main issue you had with the old system of spell master) let me know.
Jon
OA Errata sheet, even has something about Elemental Mastery in it... http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/er/er20021006a