An absolute GEM of a paladin sourcebook (PDF)...

The Sigil

Mr. 3000 (Words per post)
DISCLAIMER: I have no affiliation whatsoever with the company, Malladin's Gate Press, that released this book. I have not been solicited by them to put this here. I honestly think the book is THIS good...

With all of the ranting going on about the BoVD and what might go into a Book of Exalted Deeds/Book of the Righteous, I stumbled across this little beauty on RPGNow.com today... "Forgotten Heroes - Paladins." http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=292&

Let me just say, "wow." This is a spartan book - no pretty cover, no pretty graphics - but the content is VERY well done. Plenty of "seasoning" (Fluff/cream) to go with the meat (crunch) but VERY meaty book.

A quick review (identical to the one I posted at RPGNow):
----------------------------------------
QUICK HIT: Model of fantastic - if spartan - sourcebook for paladins. In the top three "classbooks" I've seen from any d20 Publisher, print or PDF. No, not "paladin classbooks", "Classbooks" - for ANY class.

Excellent book... one of the better ones I've seen to date. Don't let the plain text look fool you - the writing is superb. It lacks some of the artistic polish of other offerings here, but the content is A+ stuff.

This book contains several variant paladin core classes (20 levels' worth) to start you off - paladins who focus in healing or smiting evil or defending the innocent. Each is a slight tweak on the basic paladin class.

The prestige class selection is good - well-detailed and 5 levels apiece. Nearly every one is well thought-out in terms of both abilities and how it fits into a campaign. There are even a couple of classes for campaigns with firearms (not that I use firearms, but nice touch).

In addition you have sections detailing further Feats for your paladin - well thought-out, flavorful Feats, and new paladin spells are included as well.

The "Tests of Faith" section is also excellent - it provides a means for a paladin to "prove himself" to himself - or fail to do so - with appropriate bonuses (or penalties) if his faith is found to be true (or lacking). Also included is a section on expanding the paladin's Smite Evil ability - a wonderfully flavorful section. Abilities for armor and shields round out the selection of goodies with a few other extras thrown in.

All in all, a wonderfully comprehensive book on paladins - easily the best one I've seen to date (not that there are many). I was VERY pleased to find this little gem. If you are considering playing a paladin - or a DM looking for a way to differentiate Paladin Joe from Paladin Bob, I can't recommend this book highly enough. Best of all, I saw no glaring balance problems (granted, I haven't had time to playtest everything) in any of the material presented - a huge plus.

Even if you're not inclined to play a paladin, pick this up - you just might want to play one when you're done.

--Spencer "The Sigil" Cooley
 

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I've added the product in the d20 database. Brush it up and put in a review for it Sigil. Sometimes it's really hard to tell what's good or bad, but there are gems such as Joe's Book of Enchantment.
 



I checked the publisher's website, and their next product focuses on the Abjuration school of magic. An interesting take on putting out magic product' it'll be interesting to see how it goes.
 

Thanks for the heads up on this book. I would have never seen it otherwise, but I've now only had it a short time, and I'm very impressed with it. I run a game that has a paladin in it, and the player has been very disappointed with the lack of material about his class available to him (it seems that November is the big month for paladins, with both Path of Faith and the Quintessential Paladin coming out then). But this book will do more than tide us over until then. It's the first class book (excepting FFG's excellent Path books) that has made me want to break out the character sheets and make up some new characters.

So thanks again for the good word. My campaign will definately be the better for it.
 

Krug said:
I've added the product in the d20 database. Brush it up and put in a review for it Sigil. Sometimes it's really hard to tell what's good or bad, but there are gems such as Joe's Book of Enchantment.
Am brushing up the review now - I try to keep comments short at RPGNow (for the attention-span challenged) but I do longer reviews here (since I expect the reader here wants a nice long review). :)

If you've been over to RPGNow, you'll also notice why I did the "QUICK HIT" - more recent comments on things tend to show up on the front page with the first line or so of text in the review and I want to give people enough info right there for them to become interested in the comment. :)

--The Sigil
 


Eridanis said:
I checked the publisher's website, and their next product focuses on the Abjuration school of magic. An interesting take on putting out magic product' it'll be interesting to see how it goes.
This comment confused me so for anyone who may have misread, Eridanis is referring to Malladin's Gate Press' next book.

I'm curious, how many pages is the paladin book? Neither MGP's or RPGNow's websites give any indication.

Joe Mucchiello
Famed author of Joe's Book of Enchantment
Throwing Dice Games
http://www.throwingdice.com
 

It's 62 pages... 7 pages at the end are character sheet (including spell sheet) and the obligatory 1 page of OGL. Throw in 1 page cover and 1 page ToC and you have a total of 52 pages of meaty goodness.

Some cuts from the table of contents...

INTRODUCTION 2

PATHS OF THE RIGHTEOUS 4
SUB-CLASSES 4
PRESTIGE CLASSES 11

METHODS OF THE JUST 28
NEW USES FOR OLD SKILLS 28
FEATS 29

TESTS OF FAITH 32

POWERS OF THE FAITHFUL 33
PALADIN SPELLS 33

DIVINE SMITES 38
WHAT IS A SMITE? 38
POSITIVE ENERGY 38
NEW SMITE EVIL RULES 38

DIVINE CHANNELLING 40

SOUL WEAPONS 43

VOW QUESTS 46

GEAS 47

GAMES MASTERS’ SECTION 50

The GM section discusses how to incorporate all the stuff in the rest of the book and is 4 pages long.

I will have a more detailed review worked up and posted in the reviews section of ENWorld later today (I hope).

--The Sigil
 

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