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Deities and Demigods
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<blockquote data-quote="Vanuslux" data-source="post: 2009296" data-attributes="member: 937"><p>Deities and Demigods was another book I was quite eager to get my hands on. Deities play an important part in my campaign and I had high hopes that this book would contain the tools and inspiration I needed to really bring depth and life to all things divine. </p><p></p><p>Appearances - It's a beautiful 224 page hardcover book. It's definitely not hard to look at. Most of the interior art is great, if a bit comic bookish. I do, however, dislike the representations of the holy symbols. I feel like they are much too detailed and intricate. They look great, but do little to inspire me as to how they might realistically appear if they were etched into metal or wood rather than scrawled in fine tipped pens. </p><p></p><p>Contents - </p><p></p><p>Chapter 1 - Deities in Your Game: This chapter offers 20 pages of exposition on the nature of godhood and the different concepts of divinity. Just as importantly, it offers advise on how deities might affect your campaign and how to build a pantheon. It wasn't a terrible chapter, but nothing wholly innovative or all that helpful to anyone but an amateur. Things like telling me that a chaotic good barbarian shouldn't be forced to choose a chaotic evil deity strike me as insults to my intelligence and the chapter rarely rises above that level of obviousness.</p><p></p><p>Chapter 2 - Deities Defined: This 32-page chapter is where we get the mechanics to stat up the Gods. We're introduced to such underdeveloped concepts as divine rank and salient abilities. How are ability scores for deities determined? Just what does 70 ranks in Appraise mean? Basically, the chapter tells us to just take 20 Outsider hit dice and pile on 40 character levels or so. That's not the case with every deity, but that's the general rule of thumb. Other than codifying godlike powers into salient abilities and some useful reference charts, this chapter isn't really very helpful when it comes to creating deities. It's really just an over long explanation of how to use the stats for the gods already given in the book. </p><p></p><p>Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, & 7 - Various Pantheons: I'm lumping all these chapters together because they're all pretty much the same. Deities' stats with an occasional monster or prestige class for spice. We get the D&D pantheon (Ehlonna, Hextor, Vecna, etc), the Olympian pantheon (Zeus, Aprodite, Hades, etc), the Pharaonic pantheon (Bast, Osiris, Set, etc), the Asgardian pantheon (Odin, Thor, Loki, etc), and a small set of odds and ends. The descriptions of the deities, though short, are nicely done and appear mechanically sound as far as I can tell. It's really hard to judge given that each deity has nearly a page of mega-powerful stats. One thing is plain, however, and that is that you do not want to go toe to toe with gods until you are hitting the 40-60 level range. Which begs the question of what is the point of all these stats? At what point in a campaign does it become relevant that St. Cuthbert has Profession (lawyer) of +85? How often does a party want to try to fight something with an AC of 69 and an Attack Bonus of 62? </p><p></p><p>Appendix I - Domains and Spells: Basically a compilation of domains, which is kind of handy even if it is pretty scant. There is also a handful of spells of varying quality. Nothing impressive and it's a short section. </p><p></p><p>Appendix II - Divine Ascension: Basically a how-to on handling characters graduating into Godhood. Some nice ideas, but really this section just tells us to make it up as we go along. </p><p></p><p>In Conclusion - I paid $30 for this? It's not that the book is useless. It does have some good stuff in it. But only about 5% of it has any relevance to the players, and that's counting the feats that are reprinted from previous books. There's not a whole lot more for DM's, unless you're running a game in which the PCs are gods or epic-level characters of great magnitude. With its very narrow focus on stats for those beings which may as well remain undefined, it's hard to recommend this book. In fact, I would actively discourage most consumers to pass it up for a less glamorous but more useful and economical product.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Vanuslux, post: 2009296, member: 937"] Deities and Demigods was another book I was quite eager to get my hands on. Deities play an important part in my campaign and I had high hopes that this book would contain the tools and inspiration I needed to really bring depth and life to all things divine. Appearances - It's a beautiful 224 page hardcover book. It's definitely not hard to look at. Most of the interior art is great, if a bit comic bookish. I do, however, dislike the representations of the holy symbols. I feel like they are much too detailed and intricate. They look great, but do little to inspire me as to how they might realistically appear if they were etched into metal or wood rather than scrawled in fine tipped pens. Contents - Chapter 1 - Deities in Your Game: This chapter offers 20 pages of exposition on the nature of godhood and the different concepts of divinity. Just as importantly, it offers advise on how deities might affect your campaign and how to build a pantheon. It wasn't a terrible chapter, but nothing wholly innovative or all that helpful to anyone but an amateur. Things like telling me that a chaotic good barbarian shouldn't be forced to choose a chaotic evil deity strike me as insults to my intelligence and the chapter rarely rises above that level of obviousness. Chapter 2 - Deities Defined: This 32-page chapter is where we get the mechanics to stat up the Gods. We're introduced to such underdeveloped concepts as divine rank and salient abilities. How are ability scores for deities determined? Just what does 70 ranks in Appraise mean? Basically, the chapter tells us to just take 20 Outsider hit dice and pile on 40 character levels or so. That's not the case with every deity, but that's the general rule of thumb. Other than codifying godlike powers into salient abilities and some useful reference charts, this chapter isn't really very helpful when it comes to creating deities. It's really just an over long explanation of how to use the stats for the gods already given in the book. Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, & 7 - Various Pantheons: I'm lumping all these chapters together because they're all pretty much the same. Deities' stats with an occasional monster or prestige class for spice. We get the D&D pantheon (Ehlonna, Hextor, Vecna, etc), the Olympian pantheon (Zeus, Aprodite, Hades, etc), the Pharaonic pantheon (Bast, Osiris, Set, etc), the Asgardian pantheon (Odin, Thor, Loki, etc), and a small set of odds and ends. The descriptions of the deities, though short, are nicely done and appear mechanically sound as far as I can tell. It's really hard to judge given that each deity has nearly a page of mega-powerful stats. One thing is plain, however, and that is that you do not want to go toe to toe with gods until you are hitting the 40-60 level range. Which begs the question of what is the point of all these stats? At what point in a campaign does it become relevant that St. Cuthbert has Profession (lawyer) of +85? How often does a party want to try to fight something with an AC of 69 and an Attack Bonus of 62? Appendix I - Domains and Spells: Basically a compilation of domains, which is kind of handy even if it is pretty scant. There is also a handful of spells of varying quality. Nothing impressive and it's a short section. Appendix II - Divine Ascension: Basically a how-to on handling characters graduating into Godhood. Some nice ideas, but really this section just tells us to make it up as we go along. In Conclusion - I paid $30 for this? It's not that the book is useless. It does have some good stuff in it. But only about 5% of it has any relevance to the players, and that's counting the feats that are reprinted from previous books. There's not a whole lot more for DM's, unless you're running a game in which the PCs are gods or epic-level characters of great magnitude. With its very narrow focus on stats for those beings which may as well remain undefined, it's hard to recommend this book. In fact, I would actively discourage most consumers to pass it up for a less glamorous but more useful and economical product. [/QUOTE]
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