John Cooper
Explorer
COMPLETE CHAMPION
By Ed Stark, Chris Thomasson, Ari Marmell, Rhiannon Love, and Gary Astleford
Wizards of the Coast product number 955647200
160 pages, $29.95
The latest hardcover in the "Complete" series by Wizards of the Coast, Complete Champion is, as expected, focused on the divine. However, it isn't solely focused on those player characters capable of casting divine spells, like clerics, paladins, and rangers, but rather contains information useful for any character wishing to have a bit of a divine focus in his or her life. (That said, a good chunk of this book is of the most use to divine spellcasters.)
The cover art doesn't stray far from the rest of the series, being a 4-1/2" by 5" character portrait centered on the front cover of a book that is otherwise decked out to look like a magical tome. In this case, we have a human - probably either a paladin or a cleric; my money's on the paladin, judging by his sword - in heavy armor with accoutrements demonstrating his devotion to Pelor, the god of the sun. It's a well-done piece by artist Eric Polack, with some really nice detail on the armor (odd that his left hand is fully mailed, but his right hand is bare - is that normal?) and face (if you look, he's got a couple days' growth of beard), and the shape of Pelor's holy symbol in the background behind him. Unlike some of the other covers in this series, it's a "posed" shot rather than an action stance, but it's still a nice work.
The interior artwork consists of 58 full-color illustrations and 5 monochrome drawings by 12 different artists, as well as 4 color maps by cartographer Mike Schley, who seems to be doing quite a lot of the cartography in recent Wizards of the Coast books - congratulations, Mike! On the down side, quite a few of the 58 color illustrations are simply reprints of the holy symbols as found on pages 106-108 of the Player's Handbook. However, many of the other pieces are quite good, with my favorites including Howard Lyon's painting of a cleric of healing warding off undead on page 35 (nice shading, and rather creepy-looking undead - they look to be gith of some type); his divine barbarian, bard, fighter, and monk on page 47 and divine ranger, rogue, sorcerer, and wizard on page 50 (intricate detail on each, and I like the way each is posed in such a way as to demonstrate his or her particular focus); and Eric Deschamps' spiritual guardian on page 128, which manages to look both solidly built and ghostly ethereal at the same time. On the other hand, Eric makes the common mistake on page 49 of giving a roper wavy tentacles (they don't have tentacles, but fire strands of sticky silk like spiders do); David Griffith's female half-elf paragnostic apostle (one of the prestige classes in the book) on page 95 looks rather silly in her crotchless overpants and bald head; and Steve Argyle's female human sanctified one of Kord on page 104 looks preposterously skinny and weak for a woman supposedly devoted to the god of strength, and nothing in her dress or appearance even hints that she's also got 9 levels of barbarian. (Likewise, apparently her "greatsword" is on the same Ultra-Slim diet that she's on.) Despite some rather nice pieces, overall I'd have to rate the artwork in Complete Champion as slightly below Wizards of the Coast's average (which, it should be noted, is still higher than many third-party RPG companies out there).
Complete Champion is laid out as follows:
Likewise, the 11 prestige classes tended to kind of drone on, and none of them really struck out and grabbed me - I have a feeling that the prestige class creativity well is starting to dry up. Here, we're offered such retreads as Pelor's secret society of shadowstrikers and shadowspies, covering a bit of the same ground as the gray guards from Complete Scoundrel, and the one-prestige-class-fits-all sanctified one, which was apparently originally just the sanctified one of Kord before the authors decided to shoehorn Ehlonna, Olidammara, and Wee Jas into the prestige class as well. (Two of the sections didn't get updated; they still assume that Kord is the only choice.) There are several other multiple-path prestige classes as well, like the mythic exemplar and the squire of legend, each patterning their lives after one of six great heroes who brought down Tharizdun's machinations. Those two seem kind of silly to me - basically it's a set of game mechanics built around really powerful hero-worship, and the squire of legend is not only better suited for NPCs than PCs (the authors even admit so in the write-up of the prestige class), but they make for too powerful of an NPC, so they had to come up with rules disallowing a squire of legend from working with a PC for very long. Kind of makes you wonder what the whole point of it is, then, doesn't it?
While we're on the subject of prestige classes, that's where the stat blocks were to be found in this book. Overall, they weren't too bad; my "unofficial errata" section is going to be relatively short his time around. Here are my recommended changes:
There were also a few issues with some of the game mechanics. The Travel domain affiliation material, for example, gives you a +8 towards your affiliation score for discovering a place never traveled to before, but only a +2 for discovering a place never traveled to before and documenting your journey (for the benefit of others). Doesn't it seem like it should be the other way around? Also, one of the sorcerer's alternate class features allows you to swap out your familiar for a divine companion, into which you can cast spells to "charge" it (and then later draw on this energy for a variety of different effects), but there are no rules as to whether you can cast 0-level spells into it, and if so, how much spell energy a 0-level spell counts for (usually it's two 0-level spells equals one 1st-level spell, but this isn't addressed).
So far, this has been a rather negative review, but at least I've got the bad stuff out of the way. On the positive side, I really liked most of the new spells. Besides a slew of spells that can be cast to enhance various aspects of your ability to turn undead (in regards to more undead affected, higher levels of undead affected, doing physical damage to undead during turning attempts, and so on), I really liked the "fire and forget" healing spells like healing circle and seed of life. These are spells that a cleric casts that creates a sort of "healing pool" that his companions can draw on in subsequent rounds. While it isn't expressly explained in such terms, it effectively allows the cleric to drop a healing pool at the start of the battle and then get to wade into the hand-to-hand without having to spend every melee round in the "combat medic" role. Basically, it's "I did my part, now you spend your own actions healing your own damn selves! I've got orcs to wallop with my mace!"
Complete Champion also has several spells that "stack" upon themselves and other spells, kind of gaining synergy bonuses for multiple spell effects going on at once. For example, master cavalier is a simple spell that grants you a +10 bonus to Ride checks, but if you also have a phantom charge spell (which allows you and your mount to teleport 5 feet forward per 2 caster levels) and a war-mount spell (which grants a +2 bonus to your mount's natural attacks) in effect at the same time, your mount can walk on liquids or through the air. Likewise, forest child creates a wooden duplicate of you that you can control, forest eyes allows you to "see" through the senses of a nearby plant, and forest voice allows you to pass your voice from one plant to another similar plant, but having all three active at once doubles the duration and quadruples the range of the forest child duplicate. Confound hampers an enemy's ability to hit in combat (and makes it easier for you to hit him), and if cast again on the same target two rounds in a row the effects extend to your allies as well. It's pretty cool seeing such spell synergy written into the rules, and I wouldn't mind seeing much more of this concept in future books, as long as it makes sense and isn't just thrown in for the heck of it.
(I did wonder about one of the spells, though: spiritual guardian deals 1d8 points of force damage "+1 extra point per three caster levels (maximum +10)." Is this actually a spell that was written with 30th-level spellcasters in mind, or is that supposed to be +1 extra point per two caster levels?)
The "synergistic effect" concept carries over to the magic item chapter as well, with several sets of items working together to do more things if more than one of them are used at once. Examples here include the armor of the beast, ring of the beast, and mantle of the beast; the bastion of righteous war (a shield), blade of righteous war (a sword), and helm of righteous war; the bow of elvenkind and quiver of elvenkind; and the staff of the vagabond, cloak of the vagabond, robe of the vagabond, and sandals of the vagabond. The magic items, it should be noted, are in the new format from the Magic Item Compendium (which I just got - had I realized it, I'd have read and reviewed that one first), with recommended character levels for each item, making it easier to "balance" a PC's gear.
Complete Champion finishes off with a few sample holy quest suggestions and holy sites, the latter in the Dungeon Master's Guide II format that uses magical locations as form of treasure - basically, you go to the site, do whatever it is that triggers the beneficial effect, and then get some sort of bonus for a limited amount of time. Again, this is only going to appeal to those people that use those optional rules, and comes across as more "wasted space" (14 pages of it) for those who don't.
Complete Champion, in my mind, was not all that it could have been. While I don't necessarily demand new character classes in each new "Complete" book, I feel that if you're going to do away with that section, you should replace it with something of equal value, and I don't feel 40 pages of affiliation rules for the Greyhawk gods fits that bill. With a rather poor showing of prestige classes, slightly sub-par artwork, and some slipshod editing, I'm afraid all I can muster for Complete Champion is a fairly low "3 (average)."
By Ed Stark, Chris Thomasson, Ari Marmell, Rhiannon Love, and Gary Astleford
Wizards of the Coast product number 955647200
160 pages, $29.95
The latest hardcover in the "Complete" series by Wizards of the Coast, Complete Champion is, as expected, focused on the divine. However, it isn't solely focused on those player characters capable of casting divine spells, like clerics, paladins, and rangers, but rather contains information useful for any character wishing to have a bit of a divine focus in his or her life. (That said, a good chunk of this book is of the most use to divine spellcasters.)
The cover art doesn't stray far from the rest of the series, being a 4-1/2" by 5" character portrait centered on the front cover of a book that is otherwise decked out to look like a magical tome. In this case, we have a human - probably either a paladin or a cleric; my money's on the paladin, judging by his sword - in heavy armor with accoutrements demonstrating his devotion to Pelor, the god of the sun. It's a well-done piece by artist Eric Polack, with some really nice detail on the armor (odd that his left hand is fully mailed, but his right hand is bare - is that normal?) and face (if you look, he's got a couple days' growth of beard), and the shape of Pelor's holy symbol in the background behind him. Unlike some of the other covers in this series, it's a "posed" shot rather than an action stance, but it's still a nice work.
The interior artwork consists of 58 full-color illustrations and 5 monochrome drawings by 12 different artists, as well as 4 color maps by cartographer Mike Schley, who seems to be doing quite a lot of the cartography in recent Wizards of the Coast books - congratulations, Mike! On the down side, quite a few of the 58 color illustrations are simply reprints of the holy symbols as found on pages 106-108 of the Player's Handbook. However, many of the other pieces are quite good, with my favorites including Howard Lyon's painting of a cleric of healing warding off undead on page 35 (nice shading, and rather creepy-looking undead - they look to be gith of some type); his divine barbarian, bard, fighter, and monk on page 47 and divine ranger, rogue, sorcerer, and wizard on page 50 (intricate detail on each, and I like the way each is posed in such a way as to demonstrate his or her particular focus); and Eric Deschamps' spiritual guardian on page 128, which manages to look both solidly built and ghostly ethereal at the same time. On the other hand, Eric makes the common mistake on page 49 of giving a roper wavy tentacles (they don't have tentacles, but fire strands of sticky silk like spiders do); David Griffith's female half-elf paragnostic apostle (one of the prestige classes in the book) on page 95 looks rather silly in her crotchless overpants and bald head; and Steve Argyle's female human sanctified one of Kord on page 104 looks preposterously skinny and weak for a woman supposedly devoted to the god of strength, and nothing in her dress or appearance even hints that she's also got 9 levels of barbarian. (Likewise, apparently her "greatsword" is on the same Ultra-Slim diet that she's on.) Despite some rather nice pieces, overall I'd have to rate the artwork in Complete Champion as slightly below Wizards of the Coast's average (which, it should be noted, is still higher than many third-party RPG companies out there).
Complete Champion is laid out as follows:
- Introduction: One page letting you know what to expect from the book, what other books you'll need, and a sidebar explaining swift and immediate actions again
- Chapter 1 - Religion: 15 different churches of the standard Greyhawk deities written up as affiliations (from Player's Handbook II), and suggestions for creating churches of your own based on the cleric domains
- Chapter 2 - Divine Character Options: Alternate class features for each of the 11 primary classes except, oddly, the druid; 42 new feats; 4 new PC organizations; and 11 new prestige classes
- Chapter 3 - New Spells: 52 new spells
- Chapter 4 - Divine Items: A section on 22 power components (that increase the power of certain types of spells if added as a bonus material component during spellcasting), 19 special holy symbols, 2 domain-focused holy symbols, a suit of armor, 2 shields, 4 weapons, 15 items of clothing (which now includes rings), and 8 tools (which now includes wondrous items and staves)
- Chapter 5 - Divine Quests and Sites: 4 sample holy quests and 6 holy sites
Likewise, the 11 prestige classes tended to kind of drone on, and none of them really struck out and grabbed me - I have a feeling that the prestige class creativity well is starting to dry up. Here, we're offered such retreads as Pelor's secret society of shadowstrikers and shadowspies, covering a bit of the same ground as the gray guards from Complete Scoundrel, and the one-prestige-class-fits-all sanctified one, which was apparently originally just the sanctified one of Kord before the authors decided to shoehorn Ehlonna, Olidammara, and Wee Jas into the prestige class as well. (Two of the sections didn't get updated; they still assume that Kord is the only choice.) There are several other multiple-path prestige classes as well, like the mythic exemplar and the squire of legend, each patterning their lives after one of six great heroes who brought down Tharizdun's machinations. Those two seem kind of silly to me - basically it's a set of game mechanics built around really powerful hero-worship, and the squire of legend is not only better suited for NPCs than PCs (the authors even admit so in the write-up of the prestige class), but they make for too powerful of an NPC, so they had to come up with rules disallowing a squire of legend from working with a PC for very long. Kind of makes you wonder what the whole point of it is, then, doesn't it?
While we're on the subject of prestige classes, that's where the stat blocks were to be found in this book. Overall, they weren't too bad; my "unofficial errata" section is going to be relatively short his time around. Here are my recommended changes:
- p. 83, Denon, Knight of the Green, male human ranger 6/forest reeve 5: "Survival +16" should be followed by "(+18 in aboveground natural environments, and to avoid hazards and getting lost)" - the result of +2 synergy bonuses from Knowledge (nature) and Knowledge (geography), respectively.
- pp. 85-86, Hasayla, Knight of the green, female elf druid 5/holt warden 10: 30 feet does not equal 4 squares! Her speed should be 30 ft. (6 squares).
- p. 86, Fox Companion: Since its mistress has 5 druid levels, the fox companion should have +2 HD above the norm, but this one has 2 HD listed as its total. Of course, that makes its +3 BAB somewhat difficult to explain, as an animal would need either 4 or 5 HD for a BAB of +3, in which case it should have more than the 13 hp it has listed, and its saves would be higher as well. It skill points have been spent as if it only had 2 HD, though. It would be nice to know where the fox stats came from; there's a version in Necromancer Games' Tome of Horrors that has 1 HD, but I doubt that that's the version that Wizards of the Coast used, as the ability scores differ quite significantly. (Likewise, the "arctic fox" from Frostburn has different baseline stats than this fox companion does.) In any case, I'm forced to pretty much "abandon" this stat block, as without the standard fox stats as a baseline I can't make any specific corrections.
- pp. 89-90, Mikolai Laziros, male human marshal 5/mythic exemplar 4: Senses lists Listen +2, but Skills lists Listen +3. Which is it? Skills should include Disguise +4 (+6 acting) [0 ranks, +4 Cha, +2 synergy bonus from Bluff].
- p. 94, Salan Roka, male human cleric 9/ordained champion 5: Despite the beard, reference is made to "her" Spontaneous Domains feat. Odd that all of his domain spells from levels 1-6 are listed as "War domain spells (CL 14th)" - this is the result of his Spontaneous Domains spell, but it's kind of odd that he's completely ignoring his Destruction and Law domain spells, which are also options. Skills aren't properly alphabetized.
- pp. 96-97, Pallavarta Santalieri, female half-elf cleric 8/paragnostic apostle 5: "Search +4" should be followed by "(+6 secret doors)" as the result of a +2 synergy bonus from Knowledge (architecture and engineering). I'm not sure why she uses magic devices as a 6th-level wizard, as is listed under her Special Qualities - that doesn't seem to be a feature of the prestige class, nor is it something her affiliation score might bring about.
- p. 99, Auleric the Swift, male elf rogue 8/paragonostic initiate 3: Flat-footed AC should be 19, not 16, due to uncanny dodge. Skills should include Use Rope +3 (+5 bindings) [0 ranks, +3 Dex, +2 synergy bonus from Escape Artist] and Survival +0 (+2 following tracks) [0 ranks, +0 Wis, +2 synergy bonus from Search].
- p. 105, Tarrana, Sanctified One of Kord, female human barbarian 9/sanctified one 3: Spent 59 of 69 skill points; perhaps they forgot her human bonus skill points, and the fact that it costs 2 skill points for a barbarian to become literate? Odd that there's no raging/not raging stat block alterations; usually when there's a set of stats for an NPC barbarian, Wizards of the Coast provides a "when raging" full set of stats followed by a "when not raging" set of changes to make to the first set of stats. None of that here. Oh well, judging from her illustration, I have a hard time believing she's really a barbarian, anyway.
- p. 107, Saera, Shadow Knight, female half-elf rogue 3/cleric 3/shadowstriker 2/shadowspy 6: "Disguise +12" should be followed by "(+14 acting)" due to a +2 synergy bonus from Bluff. Intimidate should be +4, not +2 [0 ranks, +2 Cha, +2 synergy from Bluff]. Feats aren't alphabetized.
- p. 109, Heavy Warhorse Mount: Since this is a special mount to a 5th-level paladin, Int should be 6, not 2. With HD 6d8+18, average hit points would be 45, not 36; this must be a particularly sickly specimen! Fort should be +10, not +11 (+7 as a Pal5/Shadowstriker 3, +3 Con). Ref should be +6, not +5 (+5 as a 6-HD animal, +1 Dex). Will should be +5, not +9 (+4 as a Pal5/Shs3, +1 Wis). BAB should be +4, not +3 (as a 6-HD animal). Grapple should be +12, not +11 (+4 BAB, +4 size, +4 Str). Hoof attacks should be at +7 melee, not +6 (+4 BAB, -1 size, +4 Str). Bite attacks should be at +2 melee, not +1 (+4 BAB, -1 size, +4 Str, -5 secondary). With 6 HD, it should have a third feat and 2 more skill points to spend - I'd recommend Listen +6, Spot +5. Jump should only be at +12 (as is listed under its Skills) when it's not wearing its chain barding; with it on, it drops down to Jump +4 [0 ranks, +4 Str, no speed bonus].
There were also a few issues with some of the game mechanics. The Travel domain affiliation material, for example, gives you a +8 towards your affiliation score for discovering a place never traveled to before, but only a +2 for discovering a place never traveled to before and documenting your journey (for the benefit of others). Doesn't it seem like it should be the other way around? Also, one of the sorcerer's alternate class features allows you to swap out your familiar for a divine companion, into which you can cast spells to "charge" it (and then later draw on this energy for a variety of different effects), but there are no rules as to whether you can cast 0-level spells into it, and if so, how much spell energy a 0-level spell counts for (usually it's two 0-level spells equals one 1st-level spell, but this isn't addressed).
So far, this has been a rather negative review, but at least I've got the bad stuff out of the way. On the positive side, I really liked most of the new spells. Besides a slew of spells that can be cast to enhance various aspects of your ability to turn undead (in regards to more undead affected, higher levels of undead affected, doing physical damage to undead during turning attempts, and so on), I really liked the "fire and forget" healing spells like healing circle and seed of life. These are spells that a cleric casts that creates a sort of "healing pool" that his companions can draw on in subsequent rounds. While it isn't expressly explained in such terms, it effectively allows the cleric to drop a healing pool at the start of the battle and then get to wade into the hand-to-hand without having to spend every melee round in the "combat medic" role. Basically, it's "I did my part, now you spend your own actions healing your own damn selves! I've got orcs to wallop with my mace!"
Complete Champion also has several spells that "stack" upon themselves and other spells, kind of gaining synergy bonuses for multiple spell effects going on at once. For example, master cavalier is a simple spell that grants you a +10 bonus to Ride checks, but if you also have a phantom charge spell (which allows you and your mount to teleport 5 feet forward per 2 caster levels) and a war-mount spell (which grants a +2 bonus to your mount's natural attacks) in effect at the same time, your mount can walk on liquids or through the air. Likewise, forest child creates a wooden duplicate of you that you can control, forest eyes allows you to "see" through the senses of a nearby plant, and forest voice allows you to pass your voice from one plant to another similar plant, but having all three active at once doubles the duration and quadruples the range of the forest child duplicate. Confound hampers an enemy's ability to hit in combat (and makes it easier for you to hit him), and if cast again on the same target two rounds in a row the effects extend to your allies as well. It's pretty cool seeing such spell synergy written into the rules, and I wouldn't mind seeing much more of this concept in future books, as long as it makes sense and isn't just thrown in for the heck of it.
(I did wonder about one of the spells, though: spiritual guardian deals 1d8 points of force damage "+1 extra point per three caster levels (maximum +10)." Is this actually a spell that was written with 30th-level spellcasters in mind, or is that supposed to be +1 extra point per two caster levels?)
The "synergistic effect" concept carries over to the magic item chapter as well, with several sets of items working together to do more things if more than one of them are used at once. Examples here include the armor of the beast, ring of the beast, and mantle of the beast; the bastion of righteous war (a shield), blade of righteous war (a sword), and helm of righteous war; the bow of elvenkind and quiver of elvenkind; and the staff of the vagabond, cloak of the vagabond, robe of the vagabond, and sandals of the vagabond. The magic items, it should be noted, are in the new format from the Magic Item Compendium (which I just got - had I realized it, I'd have read and reviewed that one first), with recommended character levels for each item, making it easier to "balance" a PC's gear.
Complete Champion finishes off with a few sample holy quest suggestions and holy sites, the latter in the Dungeon Master's Guide II format that uses magical locations as form of treasure - basically, you go to the site, do whatever it is that triggers the beneficial effect, and then get some sort of bonus for a limited amount of time. Again, this is only going to appeal to those people that use those optional rules, and comes across as more "wasted space" (14 pages of it) for those who don't.
Complete Champion, in my mind, was not all that it could have been. While I don't necessarily demand new character classes in each new "Complete" book, I feel that if you're going to do away with that section, you should replace it with something of equal value, and I don't feel 40 pages of affiliation rules for the Greyhawk gods fits that bill. With a rather poor showing of prestige classes, slightly sub-par artwork, and some slipshod editing, I'm afraid all I can muster for Complete Champion is a fairly low "3 (average)."
