| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Dargoth |
Posted - 10 Oct 2006 : 08:26:56
We also have Complete Champion coming out next year
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Champion-Ed-Stark/dp/0786940344/sr=1-2/qid=1160465110/ref=sr_1_2/104-1482795-6759905?ie=UTF8&s=books |
| 23 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| scererar |
Posted - 02 Jun 2007 : 07:05:42
thanks for the review. I think that I will skip this one |
| Purple Dragon Knight |
Posted - 02 Jun 2007 : 05:14:09
Great review Knight!
Geez... I think I might log in to Amazon and cancel Complete Champion and Drow of the Underdark... hope it's not too late. I dread the same things you dread (i.e. I don't want to open unworkable, unappealing-to-the-players cans of worms...) |
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 01 Jun 2007 : 22:30:32
Spent some quality time with this book at the FLGS today and yesterday to get a better impression of it. Here are some thoughts, based on what I noticed reading through it.
First off, I really like the affiliation mechanic. While I don't want rules to replace roleplaying, I like having a guideline for how organizations interact with members, and I like having incentive for people that may not have put much thought into organizations for their PCs to be part of to join. In fact, affiliations are a lot like regional feats to me, a rule that helps support giving your PC some back ground material.
That having been said, this book could have been called "Complete Religious Affiliation" and it would have been pretty close to the mark. Way too much of a good thing, especially considering most of these have to do with the "Core" pantheon, so it would take a bit of work to make them worthwhile in a Realms campaign. The affiliations that aren't "Core" are "Domain" churches, i.e. churches that are focused around an philosophy and not a god, i.e. something not relevant to the Realms.
After I got out of the first 40 (!) pages or so and finally got out of the affiliations, I figured, "okay, feats, PrCs, spells, and magic items from here on out." Not so. More affiliations to be found within the PrC section. Wow.
Some of the substitution levels are okay, but far from inspiring. Way too utilitarian, and its not so much that I don't like the game effects or that I think they are unbalanced, but they just don't do much other than say "trade this for that."
The fact that fighters and wizards get a substitution ability that requires them to trade out one of their bonus feats immediately makes me ask the question, "why not just make this alternate ability a feat then?." And again, one of the fighter abilities, for example, is to give you the ability to align your weapon on one of your alignment axies once per day, or some such. And that's pretty much how it reads.
No, "You pray over the weapons you have with you when you first way up, and ask your god's favor in case you need to fight his enemies." Just, "you can align your weapons."
When it comes to feats, I really like the domain feats. I like the ability to get more powerful abilities based on one of your god's interests, and it dovetails nicely with divine feats and the like. I also like that there are more divine feats and wild feats in this book. These are all really good ideas from Complete Divine, and I like to see more of them.
On the other hand, the reserve feats in this one rubbed me the wrong way. First off, I liked the idea of reserve feats being an "arcane" thing. It makes sense to me that arcane spellcasters can draw magical energy and use it to do things that aren't quite "formal" spells. On the other hand, one of the differences (besides the healing/no healing) between divine and arcane spells in my mind has been that divine spells are "solutions" to a given problem presented to the priest, whereas arcane spells are raw magic shaped by whatever spell the spellcaster uses.
Not only does it feel like it blurs the line between the two to let divine casters use these, but it also kind of seems, well, disrespectful, maybe? If a wizard syphons off a bit of power from the fireball spell he hasn't used yet to shoot some sparks, its just rechanneling magical energy that HE has summoned. But if you ask Ilmater for the blessing he bestowed upon St. Sollars during his trials, and then say "oh, I don't need the whole blessing, I'll just break off a little piece," it just seems . . . I don't know . . . wrong somehow. Maybe its just me.
Also, I'm still rolling this one around in my head. It doesn't seem right, but I want to figure out WHY it doesn't seem right to me. Game mechanics wise, I don't think its a problem, but one of the reserve feats lets you keep a healing spell in reserve and allows you to heal X amount of damage up to half of someone's hit points, but you can never use the reserve feat to heal them to higher than half (i.e. if they want more hp you have to use a real healing spell). So a cleric could get this feat, always keep a healing spell in reserve, and heal theoretically an unlimited number of people up to half their hit points. Yeah, they can't make someone like new again, but they can make an infinate number of people "okay" again. It just feels so open ended, and I'm not sure why its nagging at me, but if feels like from a roleplaying aspect there is an issue with this idea.
The first three PrCs actually seem pretty interesting, but will mainly be of use to nature minded priests. One of them follows a druid like code but kind of gives the character more cleric like powers, like turning plants and such. One is a druid that gets monkish unarmed attacks. For the most part, I like the first three, and they are the kind of PrCs I kind of expected in Races of the Wild.
The Ordained Champion and Santified One are almost exactly the same concepts as the Divine Disciple and the Divine Champion, but with different mechanics. Way too similar to really need both, so I would go with the FR presented classes, which limits the usefulness of these two. Oddly, the "shadow" classes are almost like the "shadowbane" classes from Complete Adventurer, except specifically for Pelor's church (complete with a new affiliation for the "shadow" side of Pelor's church).
That leaves the unimpressive Mythic Exemplar (discussed above when the preview came out), the Squire of Legend which is, oddly enough, a PrC more or less for cohorts of the Mythic Exemplars, and the "paragnostic" PrCs, which tie into an affiliation given earlier in the book about people that value knowledge above the goals of specific gods, etc.
Honestly, I wish they had gone the route of Complete Mage and taken a new class introduced in Complete Divine and introduced some PrCs to help specialize its roles at higher level. I honestly think that the Favored Soul would have been a really good cantidate for this, with some specialized favored soul PrCs for various "types" of gods (rather than specific ones) and a "synergized" favored soul/cleric PrC like Ultimate Magus to represent a favored soul that undergoes formal training to maximize their service to their god. And maybe one or two to help flesh out the unique and interesting Spirit Shaman from Complete Divine as well.
As far as the spells go, some of them looked okay, or interesting to specialize a given cleric of a certain god with, but none of them jumped out as "this is something they should have done a long time ago," though I'll admit, its harder to recall specifics of spells after skimming the chapter than it is the other material.
The special holy symbols are an interesting idea, I just hope someone comes up with some Realms ones to use in future products, since these are all very specific. As far as magic items go, despite my earlier objection to having something that kind of the same for arcane and divine casters, the Domain Staff idea, which is essentially like the runestaff idea from the Magic Item Compendium, is really cool, in my opinion. I think I like it because it still follows a divine "theme." A domain staff is consecrated to the spells of a certain domain, and you can sacrifice your prepared spells to activate one of the domain spells of the same level that you sacrificed. For some reason, I like this idea, especially thinking of having a large temple with a domain staff for all of the domains associated with a given god sitting in its vault. Great thing to lend out to divine casters on a mission.
All in all, I wasn't thrilled with this. I'm not against the "second round" of "Complete" books, as I really liked Complete Mage and thought Complete Scoundrel was a fun book. But this one doesn't do much for me, and it opens some cans of worms that I'm not sure I really want to deal with. This may remain one of the few D&D books that I don't end up picking up.
I realize that its hard to write really great, gripping "generic" material, but given how much of this is tied to "core" concepts, its hard to get excited about it, especially when there are already a lot of similar concepts in Realms books, thus obviating the need to convert it over to the Realms. In all honesty, there were a very few fun PrCs, some useful feats, probably some good spells, and a cool idea for magic items, but overall, I just feel like this thing was specifically NOT marketed to me at all. And much like the Drow of the Underdark book, I have to point out that a lot of the stuff that doesn't seem to be of much benefit to a FR fan doesn't seem to be much more relevant to an Eberron fan either.
So I guess I hope that someone picks up the ideas that I liked from this and incorporates them into a book that has more in it that is compelling, otherwise I'm not likely to get this unless one of my players really likes a concept and I decide to work it into the campaign.
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| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 16 May 2007 : 02:10:06
You know, I'm really torn on this whole thing. I just read the interview in the Product Spotlight on WOTC's site, and it really seems like most of the book is tied to the "core" pantheon. The affiliations, the PrC, even the special holy symbol magic items. Sure, I'm an inventive DM, and I could likely convert them, but will they be so compelling that I will want to? Plus, divinely associated PrCs for some reason trigger this reaction in me more than others, but I really don't want to take Pelor's leftovers for Lathander, if you catch my meaning.
The reason I'm torn is I do like the domain feats idea, and there are bound to be a few spells in the book that might seem useful. But I don't know if everything else in the book will really make it worthwile for just those concepts. |
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 13 May 2007 : 05:32:22
I'm kind of interested to see if one of the PrCs is like Ultimate Magus, where you could merge a favored soul's ability with a "formally trained" divine caster, kind of representing someone born with a god's favor that formalized their training, without hosing their FS spell casting or (if they are also a cleric) their turning ability. |
| Dargoth |
Posted - 12 May 2007 : 06:05:00
So hwta do you guys think of Complete Champion?
The Devotion Domain feats look like they might be interesting
Im thinking a modified version of the Mythic Exemplar PrC might be interesting instead of Heros for Paragons you replace them with mortals who have become gods ie Mystra (Midnight), Cyric, Kelemvor, Bane, Bhaal and Mykrul need to come up with new grantd powers though |
| Bakra |
Posted - 08 May 2007 : 18:57:22
quote:
Originally posted by warlockco
I have to just say wow, on looking the excerpts.
I think I have found one of the all time worst PrCs ever there: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20070504a&page=3
Average BAB but POOR Saves for all 3 saves. And as a first look, the class abilities aren't anything to write home to mom about either.
I have to agree with you. Mythic exemplar, a prestige class with a plus one bonus to a saving throwing depending on the path a player chooses to follow at first level. There is no other perk for being first level in this prc, no attack bonus, no special ability (choosing a path is not a special ability) and no + 1 to existing spellcasting level.
You do get a nifty d8 hitpoints.
After reviewing these excerpts, I think I will purchase this at a used bookstore...and only after the errata comes out for it.
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| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 08 May 2007 : 03:23:26
To be honest, I don't know if I'll get this, but I really liked CS and CM, in part because a lot of the archetypes for the PrCs were general enough to easily fit in my campaigns, but evocative enough to acutally be of use. CM does have the whole Abjurant Champion issue though . . . its got a lot of useful information if you have anyone interested in Warlocks though.
While I liked Complete Divine, I feel like it suffered a bit from trying to detail Core deities without going into Greyhawk lore, and I think this one might suffer even more from that same problem. I'm not sure if there is enough imagination seizing information for me to want to get it, as most of the innovation seems to be about creating things like affiliations for core deities.
I guess I'll wait and see how it turns out. |
| warlockco |
Posted - 08 May 2007 : 02:17:21
quote:
Originally posted by KnightErrantJR
I'll be interested in seeing what else is in it, but if all the god information is heavily "core" skewed, I'm not sure I'm "in" on this one.
Reasons why I haven't bothered with Scoundrel and Mage yet. |
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 07 May 2007 : 23:40:32
Not to mention its predicated on a new group of beings in the "Core" pantheon that aren't likely to be well liked by the Greyhawk fans, don't really seem to fit in well in either Forgotten Realms or Eberron, and seem a bit complicated for someone that wants the "GH Lite" Core setting as their backdrop. They thing just seems way over specialized to appeal to many people, but I could be wrong.
On the other hand, I do like the concept of the Domain feats, since sometimes it feels like domains just get kind of lost in the shuffle as part of the cleric's abilities, and I like divine feats for those times when you just don't run into any undead and yet you don't want to feel like your turning ability is going to waste.
I'll be interested in seeing what else is in it, but if all the god information is heavily "core" skewed, I'm not sure I'm "in" on this one. |
| warlockco |
Posted - 07 May 2007 : 23:22:37
I have to just say wow, on looking the excerpts.
I think I have found one of the all time worst PrCs ever there: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20070504a&page=3
Average BAB but POOR Saves for all 3 saves. And as a first look, the class abilities aren't anything to write home to mom about either. |
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 05 May 2007 : 18:52:55
I'm wondering if this is the last one as well. Since this is essentially "Complete Divine II," and we have seen Compete Scoundrel (Complete Adventurer II) and Complete Mage (Complete Arcane II), I was expecting some kind of "Complete Warrior II" as well, but there isn't anything on the horizon (and I'd be really surprised to see a "Complete Psionic II" down the road).
I know this is one of the best selling series of books, so I'm wondering if they just didn't get the "warrior" one of the schedule this year. Since its obvious their other big seller, the Monster Manual, will be coming out on a yearly basis, I didn't think they would let this one go quite yet. |
| Kiaransalyn |
Posted - 05 May 2007 : 18:42:25
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Don't forget Complete Honorable Mention! 
Maybe there will be the Complete Henchman in the future.
I wonder if the final book in the 'Complete' series (so that a keen fan can complete their Complete collection (until the Revised and Updated Complete series is issued)) will be the Complete Fool?
Yrs, etc
The not quite Complete Cynic.  |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 05 May 2007 : 17:05:08
quote:
Originally posted by Kiaransalyn
quote:
Originally posted by Dargoth
We also have Complete Champion coming out next year
Hmm, 'Complete Champion' this sounds like a tautology to me.
Does this mean I should be breathlessly awaiting the arrival of Complete Runner-up next year as well? Or maybe Complete Loser?
Don't forget Complete Honorable Mention! |
| Kiaransalyn |
Posted - 05 May 2007 : 10:48:53
quote:
Originally posted by Dargoth
We also have Complete Champion coming out next year
Hmm, 'Complete Champion' this sounds like a tautology to me.
Does this mean I should be breathlessly awaiting the arrival of Complete Runner-up next year as well? Or maybe Complete Loser? |
| Dargoth |
Posted - 05 May 2007 : 07:28:41
The 3 of the spells previewed could be useful if added to an Initiate of X feat
Bewildering mischance (Beshaba)
Spiritual Guardian (Helm)
Healing Circle (Ilmater) |
| Chosen of Bane |
Posted - 03 May 2007 : 23:31:21
I tend not to like the PrC's that give a Wiz or Sorc a domain because I think an arcanist with the healing domain should never happen. Just my opinion though. I see to much power/versatility in a wizard/sorcerer that casts Heal. |
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 03 May 2007 : 23:25:37
There are some interesting alternate class features listed for sorcerers, but I'm leary of any of them that appear too good to leave the standard option as viable. The divine companion lets you summon a divine spirit to store arcane energy for you to use later, and this spirit can't be harmed in any way, replacing a familiar.
Another ability lets you give up some of your spell capacity to gain a domain and domain spell like a cleric does (signifying that you might have a divine source for your natural magical talent).
Not really sold on this one. |
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 03 May 2007 : 23:20:37
Some more information on this one in this month's previews:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20070503a |
| KnightErrantJR |
Posted - 10 Oct 2006 : 16:04:55
Actually, he mentioned this one back in the Dragon Magazine article that they did talking about what goes on at WOTC, and from what it says in that article, Complete Champion has to do with "Champions of a cause," i.e. characters like clerics, paladins, and divine casters. |
| Chosen of Moradin |
Posted - 10 Oct 2006 : 14:39:02
Well, I think that it will be a companion to Complete Warrior, as Complete Mage is a companion to Complete Arcane. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 10 Oct 2006 : 11:07:34
What the heck is this one supposed to cover? |
| Beirnadri Magranth |
Posted - 10 Oct 2006 : 08:43:39
hmm Ed Stark is the main author listed for that work. Thats weird because he hasnt done much 3ed stuff besides complete warrior.
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