Complete Divine Excerpts - good news for Greyhawk fans

MerricB · May 3, 2004

Wizards have just posted three excerpts from Complete Divine:

The Entropmancer - a prestige class
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20040502a

What Happens After You Die - from chapter 6, The Divine World
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20040502a&page=2

Several Domains - from chapter 7, Domains and Spells
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20040502a&page=3

The following World of Greyhawk deities that haven't previously been referenced in the Core Rules have new domains assigned to them in that last excerpt:

Bralm (pact)
Celestian (oracle)
Cyndor (oracle)
Geshtai (weather)
Inculabos (pestilence)
Istus (oracle)
Mougol (oracle)
Rao (purification)
Tharizdun (madness)
Trithereon (summoner)
Wastri (purification)

The following Domains are listed:

Madness, Mind, Mysticism, Oracle, Pact, Pestilence, Purification, Summoner, Weather

(I guess that's the latter half of the domains).

Cheers!

MerricB · May 3, 2004

Notes on the Prestige Class writeup:

The sample characters seem to remain, however the descriptions of the powers are shortened, with several uses of "See prestige class power entry for more details." This seems a good change to me - I like having the sample characters, but reducing the space they take up in the book is excellent.

Other than that, it seems a really interesting class! Great fun for a DM to use as a villain.

Notes on the "What happens after you die" excerpt:

Hmm. Not much to say.

Notes on the Domains:

Cool! Some of the new spells and domains seem very nice.

Death Pact[M, X]*: Deity brings you back from the dead automatically.

Huh? what's up with that one? I like the idea of it muchly, though.

Cheers!

Cheers!

Li Shenron · May 3, 2004

MerricB said:
The following World of Greyhawk deities that haven't previously been referenced in the Core Rules have new domains assigned to them in that last excerpt

I think it should have been done before. I am not a fan of Greyhawk, but the 19 PHB deities offer quite a limited choice for the characters, and there should have been a broader core pantheon. D&Dg didn't add anything, and neither DotF (except for mentioning many almost-totally unusable monsters deities). Even if I wasn't either a fan of FR, I have been using the Faerunian pantheon from F&P since a long time because it offered a much larger diversity.

shilsen · May 3, 2004

Minor note - the Madness domain power is greatly weakened in comparison to what it was before. The new version is arguably more of a negative power than a positive one, but almost anything would be better than the original. The way it was set up in DotF (and before that in Monte's RttToEE), oen added half the class level to Wis for purposes of extra spells and DCs. So a 12th lvl cleric with the Madness domain, for example, had +6 to Wis for those purposes. Good thing they changed it.

MerricB · May 3, 2004

Li Shenron said:
I think it should have been done before. I am not a fan of Greyhawk, but the 19 PHB deities offer quite a limited choice for the characters, and there should have been a broader core pantheon.

I see a lot of the lack of (usable) information about deities in 3E as part of Wizards' learning process about the game, as influenced by a possible bias against Greyhawk.

Deities and Demigods actually had some good advice on using deities in your game, but that advice was overwhelmed by the game statistics for the deities - statistics that most campaigns would never use.

It looks like at least some of that advice is making its way into Complete Divine, as evidenced by 'the Divine World' excerpt. I hope it's as good as I want it to be.

Cheers!

MerricB · May 3, 2004

shilsen said:
Minor note - the Madness domain power is greatly weakened in comparison to what it was before. The new version is arguably more of a negative power than a positive one, but almost anything would be better than the original. The way it was set up in DotF (and before that in Monte's RttToEE), oen added half the class level to Wis for purposes of extra spells and DCs. So a 12th lvl cleric with the Madness domain, for example, had +6 to Wis for those purposes. Good thing they changed it.

I'll say! Well, it's part of the overall move in 3.5E to restrict ridiculous DCs for spells.

Cheers!

Felon · May 3, 2004

I see they still haven't decided if it's better for domain powers to grant bonuses to certain skills or to simply make them into class skills.

Nightfall · May 3, 2004

Yes good news for GH people. Decent news for the rest of us. So far I will say this book has some stuff I might use. Much like CW.

Nightfall · May 3, 2004

Felon said:
I see they still haven't decided if it's better for domain powers to grant bonuses to certain skills or to simply make them into class skills.

So they flip flop. Big deal. It's not like they have to be one or the other...

MerricB · May 3, 2004

Felon said:
I see they still haven't decided if it's better for domain powers to grant bonuses to certain skills or to simply make them into class skills.

Actually, I think that having both approaches makes things very interesting indeed.

Consider this: A cleric of Olidammara can take Trickery and Mind as domains.

The result? Bluff, Disguise and Hide are now class skills, and a +2 on Bluff, Diplomacy and Sense Motive!

The synergies that are created really make choosing the domains have an interesting effect on your character.

Cheers!

Complete Divine Excerpts - good news for Greyhawk fans

MerricB

Eternal Optimist

MerricB

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Li Shenron

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shilsen

Adventurer

MerricB

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MerricB

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Felon

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Nightfall

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Nightfall

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MerricB

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