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Message: <blockquote data-quote="geoffrey d`glanville" data-source="post: 2074333" data-attributes="member: 29329">After having spent most of my reviewing time on German formats such as <a href="http://www.dragonworld.de" target="_blank">www.dragonworld.de</a>, I felt that after well over 3 three years of reviewing it was time to come to the big leagues, i.e. EN World. After having checked with some of the reviews here, I like to say that most of them are quite good, a comparatively large number is splendid. But, many people tend to give better marks than a lot of d20 books deserve, at least in my opinion. E.g. the two-star review of Complete Warrior, which was critizised a lot. I thought it was fully justified. I have a similar style, and want to review the books as objectively as possible, although I`m a big D&D fan. So, you cannot expect a lot of 5 star frogsplashes...ehh...reviews from me.I usually judge every aspect of a book with a mark from 0.0 - 5.10, which gives the  system (which I find a little bit too simple) here on EN World a little bit more detail. O.K., so let`s go, I hope you enjoy my reviews and find them useful for you.This book represents the v.3.5 revision work of the former 3.0e spaltbook Defenders of the Faith and partly other splatbooks like Masters of the Wild.The overall concept to do it in colour and as a hardcover for a reasonable price is very nice, 5.4.The cover is a good one, but I´ve seen a lot of better ones (3.6). I also have to say that both the covers of Masters of the Wild and Defenders of the Faith were better.I liked the sparkling that came out of the amulett and the whirling clothes of the cleric, but the stare in his eyes looks like that of an undead and I guess that`s the ultimate insult to a Pelorite.The overall front- and backcover layout is very good, 4.7, as usual, for a WotC product.The `Introduction´ was fairly boring to read and did not make me want to read on instantely; it`s more like a prose contents` table and a statement on which books were slaughtered to make this one, 2.6.`The Devoted´ (14 pages) is a rather poor chapter. I found the Favored Soul to be very unimaginative and it feels almost in no way different to a normal cleric or cleric/paladin.The Shugenja I think doesn`t belong into mainstream fantasy supplement, but the Spirit Shaman clearly rescues this chapter from going 2.2, 2.8.`Prestige Classes´ (58 pages) is very solid, 3.6, but offers too few real highlights. Many of the ugly overpowered PrCs of the 3.0e splatbooks have received a decent facelifting, and I liked the Black Flame Zealot very much; its illu (better, the amulett of the guy) even gave birth to a CE god in my campaign! The Void Disciple was also nice; but, I think it almost to be an insult to my money spent that the Stormlord was just copied from a Forgotten Realms book into this one.From my experience, those D&D gamers that buy more than the PHB usually buy almost every WotC book, so there`s a big chance that a lot of people will have the same stuff twice, and that`s not a good thing.Next is `Supplemental Rules´ (14 pages) which is again solid, 3.3. Most of the feats are nice, esp. "Elemental Healing" and "Oaken Resilience"; but there were a few kitchies in there, too, like "Elephant`s Hide".The rules with the Faith Feats are a nice add on, but nothing that saves your roleplaying evening.Next is `Magic Items´ (14 pages), one of the better chapters in the book, 3.8. Most of them are nice to use, but in the end, an imagiantive DM...you know the story. But if you run out of ideas or have no time to prepare, it`s a good one.Then comes `Deities´ (18 pages) which has more info on the Greyhawk (or default D&D) gods. The description of the main deities builds upon the ones in the PHB, but to a too small degree; I also missed the symbols of the new ones.The descrption of the not-so-often-used gods like Beltar was way too small; again, no symbols here.While it`s nice to finally see almost all Greyhawk gods in a shiny, glossy WotC hardcover - but who on Earth is playing this?I know about 50 or more D&D gamers over here in Germany and nobody, I mean literally -NOBODY- is playing Greyhawk. Some use the default deities in their own settings, but the majority uses either Forgotten Realms or the Kingdoms of Kalamar. While I think Greyhawk does not deserve this at all (it`s a nice old school fantasy setting) it`s WotC`s fault. In the first place, Greyhawk seems to have finally become knighted by WotC in Fall 2000 to act as their default D&D setting, it was literally torn to pieces by publishing a flappy b/w 30 pages+ Gazatteer, a little less flappy b/w Living Greyhawk Gazatteer (which is even out of print by now), a few articles in the Dragon, and then handing the rest over to the RPGA, which is virtually nonexistent over here in Europe.Every major setting has a nice, shiny hardcover; the orphan Greyhawk not. That`s why nobody`s playing it over here in Europe.I`d really be interested how well-liked Greyhawk is over in the US/EN World. Give me a comment, please. Overall, 3.2.Then up next is `The Divine World´ which is basically the only fluff chapter in the book, which is way too miniscule. Although it comments nicely on subjects like the afterworld, cults and theocracies, the whole thing seems to me like an apology to players who did not just want to buy Feat No. 3.465 - 3.474 and PrC No. 1.265 - 1.276. A good try, but much too small, 3.7.But the next mega-cruch isn`t far away. `Domains and Spells´ is 51 pages strong full of just that. Well done, but not a little page-filler? 3.6.As the WotC books are also in-part artbooks, the discussion of the art therein is pretty detailed.Then, the looks. The book has an amazing number of illus, way over 100, which makes it more than one illus per page (also counting the temple diagrams as illus), that`s almost a little bit too much, 4.9. There are even 4 full page colur illus and one full page temple diagram.But, most of it is really quantity, not quality. The illus average at 3.4.Art of course is subjective, but a good portion of it wasn`t really top-of-the notch, in my opinion; thus, I think it was there to fill space WotC creativity couldn`t.Wayne Reynolds was my favourite, averaging 4.3 (11 illus, one full colour, a 5.3, which was just great). Of those 11 illus 4 were item illus, which lowered the average, because he`s better at moving people around the pages in my eyes.He also had 4 b/w illus in there for an average of 3.1 that I did not count in.Then comes William O`Connor, 4.1, 3 illus, with one full colour, which is stunning, 4.0.Then the others:Kyle Anderson, 4.5, only 1 illu (too few to qualify, why not more?)Raven Mimura, 4.4, 1 illu (doesn`t really qualify for the rating with just one picture; moreover, it`s the Stormlord PrC illu that has already appeared in the Forgotten Realms Player`s Guide, if I`m right.Jeremy Jarvis, 3.7, only three illus. (what a pity!)Wayne England, 3.6, 16 item-only illus.Rich Sardhina, 3.6, again, only three illus. (what a pity!)Dennis Crabapple, 3.3, 2 illus. (the Bogun has also already appeared somewhere else, in the MM II, if I`m right.Steven Belledin, 3.3, 6 illus.Franz Vohwinkel, 3.3, 8 illus.Jim Pavelec, 3.2, 5 illus.Ron Spencer, 3.0, 14 illus. (way too many for that mediocre artist, in my opinion), amongst them a pretty kitchy illu with a female druid with a lot of wild animals; in my opinion, that page could have been put to much better use)Tom Baxa, 2.8, 8 illus., amongst those sadly is also one pretty bad (in my opinion) full colour illu which I gave a 2.5.Least is Scott Roller, who was allowed to do the light-brown pages that highlight every chapter, 2.7. 7 full page illus. Sadly, his picts. are nowhere near the quality of those in the core books.Chris Dornaus, 2.5, 1 illu. (does not qualify)My three MVP`s (in that order) go to the Lolth illu (5.6) on page 115 by Wayne Reynolds, the Warpriest illu (5.5) on page 75, also by Wayne Reynolds and the Black Flame Zealot illu (5.3) by Franz Vohwinkel on page 21.Runners-up were the Tiamat full-page illu on page 133, again by Wayne Reynolds, the Sacred Fist illu on page 59 by Wayne Reynolds and the Entropomancer illu by William O`Connor on page 37.The three Golden Tomatoes go to Scott Roller, for the chapter illu `Deities´on page 107, which seems to have been done three minutes before the printing, the chapter illu on page 135, again by Scott Roller, which seems in my opinion to have been done by a 7-year-old and the Tom Baxa full colou illu on page 9 (he`s done so much better picts. in the Dungeon, why not choose such a one when WotC is not afraid to recycle material, anyway?)Sadly, I have to crititzise WotC Art Director Dawn Murin (who did a lot of splendid jobs in the past) for letting the weakest artists do the most pictures (also the most full page ones). Less illus would have been nice, for the sake of quality. Also, it`s an insult to us customers to present us with recycled art from former publications!!Though I do understand the need of a universal product to satisfy many people, I think I have a pretty mainstream view of art and basically all of my friends shared my opinion on the art aspect of this book.The 15 maps (one full page) of the books were nice to look at, done by Todd Gamble, but relatively uninspired, in my opinion, 3.1.The binding is premium, 5.4.Paperquality is very good, 5.2.Value for money is not bad, 3.7 (only a nice-to-look-at crunch book, with no sparkling ideas whatsoever, almost no real prose (fluff) and over 60% purely recycled material mainly from 3.0e books and Dragon magazines).Overall, Complete Divine is basically an all-crunch book that you do not need for your roleplaying D&D 3.5e survival. For clerics, basically the same is true. It`s no fault to buy it, but Exalted Deeds is better. It even loses in value if you already own the 3.0 splatbooks Defenders of the Faith and Masters of the Wild.If you do not play 3.5e, do not buy it.I think it has the greatest charms for a relative newcomer to the game who only has the v.3.5 rulebooks.It only averages in at 3.3, three relatively weak stars here on EN World.</blockquote>

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