Defenders of the Faith

[Messageboard Golem]

Some have said while Sword and Fist suffered by being too specific, Defenders of the Faith suffers by being too general. There is some merit in that. While there are a few good prestige classes, some suffer from mediocrity or just plain bad writing.

However allow me to begin from the beginning.

The first chapter is how to play an effective paladin or cleric. Good for new players or DMs. Perhaps not so useful for more experienced players, but it offers a few useful tips. Also in this section is the Special Mounts for paladins bit. Now for the most part this is pretty good. You have to delay getting your special mount until a higher level if you want a more powerful mount, much like a wizard or sorcerer that wants an Improved Familiar.

However there was one part in this section that just truly cheesed me off. Dragon mounts. Sweet holy Jebus! I could have gone my entire role-playing career without seeing this in a non-Epic book. Yes there are stipluations, but I can just see some weak-willed DM getting pressured by a munchkin players because it's "in a core assessory!" Sorry, dragon mounts, unless you're on a mission from the gods who will immediately repossess them, is a little too... shall we say... Ok, mini-rant over.

Feats are next. The new Divine feats are really quite nice, and I rather enjoyed all of them. Sacred Gear was plenty flavorful for those that want more detail in their character's devotions.

Next are magic items. You'll hear many bad things about these, mostly because the errata hasn't been released yet. The ones that aren't obviously broken are actually fairly interesting, but I'll withold my judgement on the rest until the errata comes out.

Chapter Two is on churches, one for each of the nine alignments in D&D. Several include complete maps and a few NPCs. Useful for instant temples, or figuring out what your own gods' religions might be like.

Next is organizations, several which could be useful for DMs on the go. A few offer interesting plot hooks (Laughing Knives, Knights of the Chalice).

Finally is a little bit about how temples are run. Good for those that might have a more sedentary campaign where that might come up.

Chapter Three is prestige classes. As I've said, some are good, and some suffer from mediocrity. Some suffer from bad writing and editing holes you could drive a Mack truck through.

One that irks me just for the writing of it is the Divine Oracle. This front-loaded class is for those that look into the future or the past. However they gain no unique powers, and several that barely fit into the theme. They gain the Divination domain, some scry bonuses, and have better chances of sucess when casting standard divination spells. Then they get the whole uncanny dodge package and a few more similar abilities. Huh? I can understand why I guess. Look into the future, eventually can't be flaked... But there are no really unique abilities. And all the ones pertaining to divination magic are packed into the first four levels. Sorry, this idea had a great deal of potential and I believe the ball was dropped.

But there are several good PrCs in this bunch, don't get me wrong. Consecrated Harrier, Church Inquisitor, Contemplative (to an extent), Holy Liberator )), Hunter of the Dead, Knights of the Chalice, Sacred Exorcist, Sacred Fist, Templar, and Warpriest are all quite good.

Master of Shrouds (due to a misplaced sidebar) just ends up confusing. Hospitaler for a similar reason (things on the table and the writing description don't jive). In addition I found the Hospitaler as dull as dishwater. They are supposed to protect pilgrams or defend sacred places. What they get are a few paladin abilities and some bonus feats. I could do the same thing by taking my first few levels of paladin then multiclassing into fighter. A prestige class should not be duplicable by mulitclassing, all PrC writers take note.

Chapter four: is about magic, specifically magic spells. Several new spells are presented, including some very intersting ones for druids.

Also presented are prestige domains. These offer slightly more powerful granted powers that normal, so they are usually offered as part of a prestige class. However, until they errata it, beware of Celerity. As it stands it gives you +2 to Dex, +10 to base movement (in light armor) and a +2 to Initiative checks. A bit powerful? I think so.

Despite a few bad apples in this bunch, overall I think there is a great deal of material in this book that should give those playing divine classes a real boost.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Our sourcebook review covers Defenders of the Faith by Rich Redman and James Wyatt. This is the second in a series of “class” books published by Wizards of the Coast. Defenders of the Faith focuses on the cleric and paladin classes.

The book starts off with a good explanation (and some suggestions) on what clerics and paladins do best. There is some solid role-playing advice concerning both classes, but with more emphasis on the paladin. Like it’s predecessor, Sword and Fist, this book comes with its share of new skills, feats, prestige classes, magic items, new spells, and new domains.

The skills section is very brief but also presents some new uses for already existing skills. The new feats are almost exclusive to clerics and paladins. There are only one or two feats that are of use to any other class. The new magic items are primarily geared towards classes of divine faith but there are several that may be utilized by other classes. There are 14 new prestige classes listed, all of which have a divine slant. Of the fourteen, I have to say that I find the “Hunter of the Dead” prestige class to be the most interesting. The new spells and domains aren’t bad, although there are many old second edition spells that have been retooled for third edition here.

Probably, the most interesting section of Defenders of the Faith is the chapter devoted to churches and organizations. There is a brief part that outlines the costs involved in running a church. How alignments determine the general attitudes and behaviors of churches is also examined fairly well. The strong point to this chapter, however, is the different special organizations that a divine follower may align himself with. The Justice Blades and the Laughing Knives are my personal favorite choices.

Overall, this is one of the better books put out by Wizards of the Coast. If you are planning to play a cleric or paladin, then it is worth the retail price of $19.95 for the book. If you are a DM, then rest assured that this would be a worthwhile addition to your resource collection.

To see the graded evaluation of this product, go to The Critic's Corner at www.d20zines.com.

 

[Nail]

This is a decent supplement. Not great, but not "average" (wherever that means) either.

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Production: 5
No editing mistakes that I could see. Good organization and use of space.

Artwork: 5
Very good. I especially like the examples of clerics of various PH faiths (Pelor, etc.)

Content: 3
Solid, but uninspired. The feats and PrCs are good, and much of it will get alot of use; although some of that "use" may be myself or a fellow gamer modifying it to his taste. (Then again, that is what supplements are for, right?) The material about churches and alignment was "okay" but also "fluffy", and was missing game mechanics (like temple size vs. settlement size, or relevance of god-power to players) that would have been useful. The "New Paladin Mounts" section was good. The spell section was something of a disappointment.

Cool Idea Factor: 3.5
This is all personal preference, I'll admit, but the only parts that drew out a "cool!" were the divine feats and about half of the PrCs. The equipment sections, churches, and "playing effective clerics/paladins" was ...just okay.

Value for the Money: 4
You get what you pay for...but not much more than that.
******************************************

Conclusion:
This book will see quite a bit of use....but it's not an inspired product. Personally, I would have liked to see more feats and spells. And more mechanics on how temples work. (Why are supplements so short on mechanics?)
If you need a cleric splat book: yeah, this will do. It's WotC, after all. You won't go wrong.

 

[MerricB]

Defenders of the Faith is the second of the five class books produced by Wizards of the Coast. It provides advice, new spells, feats and prestige classes aimed primarily at expanding the options available to clerics and paladins. The book itself is physically attractive, the cover picture depict two adventurers fighting a fiendish adversary - I actually believe that this is a scene from James Wyatt's module "The Speaker In Dreams".

The book is divided into five chapters, as follows:

Clerics and Paladins (22 pages) begins with advice on how to play those classes, discussing effective play in combat, spell casting - especially healing and divination - the paladin's code, and turning. Variant rules for the special mount of the paladin are given, expanding the range markedly, allowing the possibility of unicorns, griffons, or even dragons as mounts!

Additional uses for turning are discussed, as well as the possibility of divine intervention. The uses of a few skills (Knowledge & Healing) are expanded, and there are 14 new feats. The chapter ends with new items, both mundane and magical.

There is a lot of useful material here. I particularly like the idea of Divine Feats, which allow you to use your turning attempts for something other than turning undead - for instance, Divine Might allows you to use your Charisma modifier as an additional bonus to weapon damage in exchange for a turn attempt.

The advice on playing clerics and paladins should prove very useful for novice players, and the sections dealing with Divine Intervention and Divination are excellent for providing guidelines for the DM.

I am a little disappointed that there weren't more feats given. Even though neither paladins nor clerics have many feat slots to use, I thought more could have been done in this area. The chapter also has one of the most bizarre flaws ever to see print in a D&D product: the armour enhancement of speed. For a measly +3 bonus, you can get a 4 haste bonus to AC, and an additional partial action every round of combat. Huh? It probably seemed a good idea at the time - actually, it still is - but the cost of it is negligible. Don't allow this enhancement if you value your sanity!

Churches and Organisations (24 pages) begins with a discussion of the role of churches in the campaign, primarily dealing with how they interact with the characters, before moving onto describing how churches of the various alignments are normally organised, with examples and hints for each of the standard D&D deities. Some temples are given floor plans and briefly described here.

After this, six organisations are described, mainly formed of paladins and/or clerics. The chapter ends with a discussion of what goes into running a temple, including the expenses and sources of income of the church, and the activities the church engages in: hiring adventures, looking after the poor and other such matters.

This chapter is good primarily for the ideas it provides the DM and players with for detailing their campaign world. The six organisations it describes may not prove useful for your campaign, and some of the information is obvious to long-time D&D players, but I believe it is definitely worth including.

Some of the organisations are extremely interesting: I especially like the Stargazers, a group of paladin and other classes that are guided to troubled areas by astrology. If there is a drawback here, it is that all of the six groups are primarily good orientated; no evil groups are discussed. This may not bother you, of course.

Prestige Classes (25 pages) describes 14 new prestige classes, as follows:

[*]Church Inquisitor - a class more concerned with corruption within the church than without
[*]Consecrated Harrier - a bounty hunter for the forces of good
[*]Contemplative - one who has been touched by their deity, so that they concentrate more on improving their divine powers than combat.
[*]Divine Oracle - a seer, with additional powers of divination
[*]Holy Liberator - a chaotic good paladin
[*]Hospitaler - a knight dedicated to protecting pilgrims, hospitals and religious sites
[*]Hunter of the Dead - a holy warrior dedicated to hunting the undead.
[*]Knight of the Chalice - a member of an elite knightly organisation dedicated to fighting demons.
[*]Knight of the Middle Circle - a member of the Stargazers organisation described in chapter 2, basically a paladin with quite different abilities, including tongues and true strike
[*]Master of Shrouds - an evil spellcaster who commands incorporeal undead
[*]Sacred Exorcist - a cleric who is very good at turning undead and exorcising spirits that have possessed innocents.
[*]Sacred Fist - a prestige class that mimics the monk
[*]Templar - a holy warrior sworn to the defense of a temple site.
[*]War Priest - a cleric who has taken additional training in combat and is able to lead armies

The prestige classes given are weighted heavily towards good; little aid is given for evil or neutral clerics. Then too, little is given for the standard paladin, instead there are many paladin variants that seem more of use to characters who want to play a paladin-like character without actually taking the paladin class.

The prestige classes aren't bad, and indeed, some of them are excellent. I particularly like the Hunter of the Dead and the Holy Liberator, both of which I could easily see used in my campaigns. However, because of the preponderance of classes only really useful with good alignments, I find them somewhat lacking. In a campaign, you may have one or two clerics, and they may not even want to take a prestige class! Meanwhile, as a DM, I have a huge number of villains, and the prestige classes are extremely useful in giving me ideas for them.

As such, I feel slightly let down by these classes. Much here is excellent, but more variety would have been appreciated.

Divine Magic (17 pages) details fifty new spells for Clerics, Paladins, Druids and Rangers, and fourteen Prestige Domains, only available to certain prestige classes described in the previous chapter.

The prestige domains are as follows: Beastmaster, Celerity, Community, Creation, Divination, Domination, Exorcism, Glory, Inquisition, Madness, Mind, Mysticism, Pestilence and Summoning.

The new spells vary in usefulness, and some seem more of use to druids than the clerics this book is meant to aid; however, spells such as Aspect of the Deity and Weapon of the Deity are inspired, if powerful, and should add greatly to the campaign.

More aid is given to evil clerics in this chapter than in most of the material proceeding. How can one not like spells such as Plague of Rats, Otyugh Swarm or Slime Wave - the latter a 7th level spell that creates a huge quantity of green slime to cover your enemies!

The prestige domains are an excellent idea, although they do seem to vary in usefulness - some would work well as normal domains, whilst others are rightfully restricted to those who have taken certain prestige classes. Unfortunately, the range of prestige classes doesn't really fit some of the domains. Which prestige class, for example, would take the Pestilence Domain? A few more evil-aligned prestige classes earlier would have solved this problem.

Finally, an appendix, Monstrous Clerics (4 pages), describes briefly the deities of many monstrous species, including the goddess of the beholders, Great Mother, and ten deities revered by giants. Alignments, domains and favoured weapons are given for each deity here described. A very brief description of elemental lords, devils and demons that might grant spells and have clergies is also given.

I am glad I own Defenders of the Faith, for there is much in it that is excellent. Its chief failing is that it doesn't go far enough, and that it is so weighted towards good-aligned characters. I think that of all the class books, it is also the most weighted towards novice players - more experienced players are likely to find less of interest in here than in the other books, though it is hardly useless even so.

So, my opinion is a cautious thumbs-up. Some good material, but not enough evil material to make it a really excellent book.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Review of Defenders of the Faith

Defenders of the Faith is Wizards class book for Clerics and Paladins. The book does a pretty good job on covering many of the areas a character of these classes will have. The biggest problem I have is not what is found in the book, but the cool concepts that are here that are never followed up or expanded upon in other materials.

Chapter one is called Clerics and Paladins. This chapter deals with role-playing your character, and it talks about the different abilities the classes have. It goes into making choices for skills and spells as you advance in level. The first part of the chapter is good for anyone playing one of these classes to read. Beginners will get more use out of the advice here, but even veterans may find and idea or two that had not occurred to them. The next part of this chapter deals with special mounts. Why have a horse mount when you can have a Dire Wolverine? This section is very well done and only tops its self with the part about Dragon Mounts. Next the chapter talks about channeling and Divine Intervention. It is good for both e PC and DM to read this part. Next we have new uses for old skills and feat. The feats are well done and I especially like the Divine Feats. Divine feats allow one to use his turning attempts for other things. The Players Guide to Kalamar did do a better job of this sort of thing, but I credit Wizards for including it first. If only they would expand upon that idea. Next it goes into scared gear, mundane items of the religious sort. Lastly, we have magical items. Be wary of the Armor of Speed. It grants haste to the wearer for only +3 market value. That is very cheap for permanent haste.

Chapter two is called Churches and Organizations. This section is good for a DM and a PC to read. It starts with talking about church structure by alignment. Unless one are using a book like The Book of the Righteous that fully details churches, the DM will find this section valuable to define his own churches. In this section is a small sample Temple to Pelor, Wee Jas, and Erythul. The second part of the chapter is the fun part for me. It has religious organizations and some of these are well done and really fun to add into anyone’s game. The Justice Blade is for Paladins of less then perfect backgrounds. It’s a small description of the group, but really gives one some good ideas for enriching a Paladin’s background by making him come from imperfection. The Laughing Knives are a great organization that humiliates tyrannical rulers. There’s a great picture that goes along with them as well. It is well done and can really add a level of seriousness and levity at the same time. Next it talks about running a temple. It hits upon some great topics in running a temple that I think many people might not realize. This is well done and very useful for the player as well as the DM.

Chapter three is called Prestige Classes. This section is hit and miss for me. I would have liked to see some generic prestige classes that dealt more with the domains of the gods, like a Sun god prestige class or a Craft god prestige class. However, while the prestige classes did not go in that direction, I think many of them are useful

The Holy Liberator is a great prestige class that is basically a Chaotic Good Paladin. They get a celestial companion and many Paladin like abilities.

The Hunter of the Dead is one of the better prestige classes to appear in Dragon and I’m glad to see it reprinted here. One of the best things is that to become this class you need to have a level or attribute permanently drained. I think little details like that add a lot to the character of a class.

Chapter four is called Divine Magic and is of course full of spells. Some of them like Briar Web are just improved versions of old spells. Briar web is a second level version of Entangle. Others are the typical buffing spells like Bear’s Heart that grants allies +4 to strength, +1d4 temp HPs per caster level, but leaves them exhausted after the spell is over. Also in this chapter is the concept of Prestige Domains. These are domains that are a little more powerful then normal domains and can only be gained through certain Prestige Classes. Two of the Prestige Domains listed give a very powerful domain power that is above and beyond any other domain power. The first is Celerity. It grants +2 to Dexterity, +10ft to speed (if in light armor), and +2 to initiative. Perhaps leaving out the Dexterity bonus would be more appropriate. The other one is the Madness Domain. It increases your wisdom for spell casting, but deceases the wisdom for everything else (saves, skill checks, etc). The DCs can become very high, very fast and can make it so that saves are almost impossible to make. Overall, I like the idea of Prestige domains. I think the two listed here may give DMs problems, and I also would have liked to see this concept expanded upon in other books.

Last, is an Appendix on Monstrous clerics. It gives a brief description of some of the non-human gods for use in one’s campaign. The information is brief and feels more like it was tacked on. The section could easily be expanded to be its own book.

Overall, the book is pretty solid. There are some powerful things a DM should be aware of, but I think solving them is easy to do. Some of the prestige classes are a little hard to understand what they get. Consulting the Wizards web page for the FAQ and errata may become needed.