First Look at the Complete Divine

[Pants]

For those interested, Andy Collins explained some of the reasons for the 'poor editing' in recent releases (Complete Divine namely):

http://p198.ezboard.com/fgameschat19968frm1.showMessage?topicID=217.topic

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I've glanced through the book at the local comic shop and looked at some of the spells and I'm disapointed. Some broken spells are still in spiked, miasma which we already new about.

Some other spells were put back in without one person there getting there head out of there butt to actually look to see what classes this spell would be best suited for. But heck its been this way since the begining so why should I expect imporvement. For example Brain spider is basically a btter veriosn of detect thoughts with some suggestion elements thrown in. Why in heck is it a general cleric spell at all, and if for some incredibly morinic reasin it actually fits there it certainly should make it on the wiz/sor lists since its basics are found there, and heck it should be on the Bard list as well even though it would be a powerful 6th level spell.

Other spells like I think it was called comet also don't hace a cleric or druid fit. Lets see conjures a big icy rock and drops it on people heads. Basically does falling damage on people in a 10' by 10' area, and if people miss there save they can be tripped. All well and good except that even though its a small area its a area spell and it has no damage caps even if its damage is restricted by ceilings. Basically it can start anywhere up to 5' per level above the targets, or the ceiling height. It does 2d6 per 10' it falls with no cap. So lets see at 20th level its a 20d6 area of effect spell and its a 6th level spell. Now if you play in epic games the damage can keep going up and up. So lets see a flashy damage spell with no damage cap, yeah yeah cleric spell list that's my first thought.

Sure there were plenty of decent spells but enough spells irritated me that I'm not happy with the spell section.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

For those interested, Andy Collins explained some of the reasons for the 'poor editing' in recent releases (Complete Divine namely):

http://p198.ezboard.com/fgameschat19968frm1.showMessage?topicID=217.topic

Ah the ever popular it was there fault not ours excus..explanation. :\


Maybe I'm just grumpy today but why can't someone ever just say hey there was a screw up I'm sorry we'll do our best to make sure it doesn't happen again. And we've hired some new talented people to address this very issue.

 

[Silveras]

For those interested, Andy Collins explained some of the reasons for the 'poor editing' in recent releases (Complete Divine namely):

http://p198.ezboard.com/fgameschat19968frm1.showMessage?topicID=217.topic

That sounds disturbingly like what happened with the varying quality of the 2nd Edition "Complete XXX" series.

 

[Silveras]

Ah the ever popular it was there fault not ours excus..explanation. :\


Maybe I'm just grumpy today but why can't someone ever just say hey there was a screw up I'm sorry we'll do our best to make sure it doesn't happen again. And we've hired some new talented people to address this very issue.

That's pretty much what he did say. After saying 'Wizards relied too much on freelance editors', he goes on to say they have 'put more people on tightening up that aspect'.

 

[Psiblade]

I like a lot of the ideas in the book. However, the poor editing does bother me. Also, the failure to fix miasma is very irritating. The Radiant Servant of Pelor will not be used in any of the home campaigns because of the lack of the Greyhawk Gods.

The additional divine feats are nice since they make charisma less of a dump stat. We tend to play with 28 points, so you tend to get 6 charisma dwarven clerics running around. Having all of the prestige classes and domains updated to 3.5 and in a hard back is also nice. Several prestige classes are nice like the Seeker and the redone Sacred Fist. I just wish the editing was better. If you have a problem with something (miasma), do not allow it in your game.

-Psiblade

 

[Marshall]

Other spells like I think it was called comet also don't hace a cleric or druid fit. Lets see conjures a big icy rock and drops it on people heads. Basically does falling damage on people in a 10' by 10' area, and if people miss there save they can be tripped. All well and good except that even though its a small area its a area spell and it has no damage caps even if its damage is restricted by ceilings. Basically it can start anywhere up to 5' per level above the targets, or the ceiling height. It does 2d6 per 10' it falls with no cap. So lets see at 20th level its a 20d6 area of effect spell and its a 6th level spell. Now if you play in epic games the damage can keep going up and up. So lets see a flashy damage spell with no damage cap, yeah yeah cleric spell list that's my first thought.

So how does that spell work with Empower? Does it do 3d6 per ten feet? Can Widen change the AoE? Does Enlarge double the height you can drop it from, and by extension the damage?

Inquiring minds want to know?

Really, the errata for this book is going to be bigger than DotF was.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

So how does that spell work with Empower? Does it do 3d6 per ten feet? Can Widen change the AoE? Does Enlarge double the height you can drop it from, and by extension the damage?

Inquiring minds want to know?

Really, the errata for this book is going to be bigger than DotF was.

I have no flippin idea. Mechanically I can see no reason why the feats wouldn't work as normal, though I don't think its height is considered part of the range so enlarge wouldn't help. But thematically it doesn't seem to make much sense that same same rock falling form the same distance for some reason does 50% more damage, and doubling its area of effect should increase the size of the rock and also its weight, which should increase the damage, so widen seems funky. I'd guess this is one of those well its magic handwaves situations and the feats would work normally.

 

[Terraism]

I didn't notice any differences, but I didn't do a side by side comparison.

I did notice they left a 3.0eism in the text; the reference to having the "blood like sap" ability seemed to refer to wounding as it existed in 3.0 (which I don't have a huge problem with, as I prefer the way they did it in 3.0).

So basically, it still sucks.

Not surprising, as it seems like most PrCs are a bitn underpowered.

I'm not sure about it being underpowered. My initial read-through involved a lot of blinking and rereading, to make sure that they really didn't get that ability. Overall, the Geomancer gets:
- Two good saves
- Moderate BAB progression
- Full caster progression
- Four minor extraordinary abilities
- Elimination on multiple (casting) stat dependencies
- The ability to cast arcane spells in armor with no failure chance
- Boosted caster level in certain areas (up to +3 in one terrain or +1 in three) for all casting classes.

I don't see underpowered there. I've been throwing something together, to see what I can come up with... and I find the fellow to be a fairly powerful character. He ends up with "only" a +12 BAB, and slightly better saving throws than, say, a single classes wizard. He does (assuming you put all +1 caster level bonuses to the same class) have the ability to gain access to 19th level spells, with (max possible) 17 levels in casting for one particular class. Additionally, there's the benefit of having a few added buff spells from three levels of a divine class, without worrying about having to have "high" wisdom. The BAB means he's got three attacks, and a handful of buffs can increase that. Being able to cast arcane spells in full plate is pretty useful, too. It's probably not as overpowered as I initially thought it was, but I definitely don't think it's underpowered.

 

[Axegrrl]

What's the Temple Raider of Olidimarra like? Other than going from 5 levels to 10, what other changes are there? And do I need to grab this sucker for tomorrow's game, with my TR of <local deity>?