Good
Good is a book in the series of so-called "one-word" supplements for d20 System fantasy games by AEG. Good, as the title implies, provides new character options and ideas for relatively benign character types.
Good has writing contributions by Shawn Carman, Steve Crow, Andrew Getting, Travis Heermann, Mike Mearls, Jim Pinto, and Douglas Sun.
A First Look
Good is a 128 page perfect-bound softcover book priced at $24.95.
The cover of Good is green, with a "piping-bound" motif similar to other AEG d20 System fantasy supplements. The cover art (by Malcolm McClinton) depicts an amored angelic being with the head of an devilish creature in one hand with the other hand resting on a sword.
The interior art is black and white, and features artists Storn Cook, Lisa Hunt, Amandine Labarre, Ethan Slayton, and Mike Sellers. The art varies from average to good quality. Some pieces are great and have a nice fantasy feel, though a few strike me as simplistic and cartoony. There is one very good piece that has the signature of an artist not credited in the front of the book, Daerick W. Gross.
The body text is compact, and conservative header fonts are used. The line spacing is small and the paragraph is single spaced, giving the book a good text density.
A Deeper Look
Good is organized into five chapters.
The first chapter is entitled The Righteous, and really covers two different subtopics: alignment and core classes.
A few pages of the first chapter have a discussion on the nature of good, much as the discussion on the nature of evil under the d20 System's alignment approach in AEG's Dungeons and Evil book. This discussion is similar to those discussion in that the three good alignments are compared and contrasted. The discussion does make some interesting observations and does keep in line with the d20 alignment system. However, it lacks the humor and lighthearted but engaging prose presented in the discussion of evil and perhaps puts too fine a point on the nature of the three good alignments, ascribing a few attributes to each that are, in fact, only a specific subset of the given alignment.
The remainder of the chapter discusses core classes. First is a presentation of alternate paladins, and then is the priest NPC class.
The alternate paladin section suggests some guidelines of adapting a paladin to fit specific deities, and even different good alignments. The section recommends some abilities remain static (divine grace, divine health, aura of courage, and turn undead), but the section recommends alternate for the remaining paladin abilities. Overall, the suggestions are interesting and sensible. However, given a choice, I rather prefer the more systematic approach offered by the holy warriors presented in Green Ronin's Book of the Righteous.
Two specific alternate paladin core classes are presented. The avenger is a chaotic good variant of a paladin that has a beastly companion instead of a mount, and has a strike that can stagger opponents instead of a smite. The defender is a neutral good paladin variant whose abilities are more tuned towards defense and use of the shield.
The priest is presented as less combative version of the cleric, but with more skill points and abilities related to the church heirarchy. This sounds superficially similar to the adept NPC class from the DMG, but in actuality the priest is more powerful in the adept. The priest's spell progression is no slower than a cleric's, and the priest receives three domains and two domain spells per level. Indeed, the priest seems more powerful than any of the core NPC classes, but would make a good substitute for the cleric class for those who feel that the cleric is too combat oriented.
The second chapter is entitled Hero, and like the first is multifaceted, including variant combat rules, feats, and prestige classes.
The variant combat rules provide a few options to make combat more heroic.
The monster hordes rules allow high level characters to more effectively plough through hordes of low level monsters. If a combatant is 8 CRs below the characters levels. These bear some similarity to the "faceless horde" rules presented in Atlas' Burning Shaolin, but are much simpler to use in practice.
Of perhaps more interest are the Heroic Trait and Action Dice rules. Characters can be assigned one or more heroic traits. Whenever the character performs an action exemplary of their trait (up to once per session) a character gains an action dice. Each action dice may be spent to add 1d6 to the result of an attack, saving throw, skill check, or damage roll, or achieve a variety of other favorable checks. This action dice rule differs a bit from the action/drama dice rules used by other AEG products, but has the same eventual effect: encouraging a behavior (in this case, heroic action.)
There are 13 feats in this chapter. The feats mostly emphasize heroic effort or faith and most seem interesting and reasonable. Examples of feats from the chapter include:
-Angel of Mercy: The character receives substantial bonuses to concentration checks when using cure spells or the heal skill to aid an injured ally.
-Divine Smite: This metamagic feat allows a character to designate a specific alignment; characters of a different alignment in the area of effect are not affected by the spell.
-Hero's Daring: The character revels in being outnumbered, and actually receives +2 to attack rolls when flanked.
-Hero's Will: Once per day, the character can become immune to the effects of mind-influencing spells for a period of 5 rounds.
There are also 12 prestige classes in the chapter. Some of the prestige classes (like the divine herald and the white magician) are simply a "good" version of a base class with a few special abilities. A sample of the prestige classes are:
-Divine Healer: A very widespread concept among prestige class books, the divine healer is yet another take on the "cleric even more tuned towards healing" schtick. The divine healer has worse combat progression, but much better skills and healing-related special abilities. This class may be a little strong with all of that.
-Hospitaler: Another take on the healer type class, this one more specifically a knight that cares for wounded on the battlefield. Unlike the arguably overpowered hospitaler of WotC's Defenders of the Faith, this one may actually be a bit underpowered, having only moderate combat abilities and no spellcasting abilities.
-Paladine: Another common concept, the Paladine is the paladin recast as a prestige class. This version, however, is a little more general in that it receives an impugned continues spellcasting advancement vice having it's own (i.e., the paladin's) spell list and advancement. This is an interesting concept, but the class looks a little strong (having good attack advancement, partial spellcasting advancement, and abilities), and many of the traditional paladin class abilities are clustered at the low levels of the class, making it seem a bit front-loaded and perhaps too good an option for arcane spellcasters.
-Shadow Seeker: An example of the more skill oriented classes classes herein, the shadow seeker has rogue-like abilities, but has class abilities specifically tuned towards revealing deception and corruption.
The third chapter covers good-oriented magic, including variant rules for using magic, new spells, and new magic items.
The variant rules cover the summoning of creatures of a different alignment than the caster. The variant suggests that when a caster summons a creature of a different alignment than the caster, the creature may resist the control of the caster in tangible ways, represented by the results of a random roll. A good part of this section is discussion, but much of it betrays misunderstanding of the d20 summoning rules. For example, part of the discussion state "extraplanar creatures may well survive an encounter and return to their native planes." A summoned (vice called) creature is guaranteed to survive an encounter under the d20 System rules.
There are 27 new spells introduced in the book. All of the spells are divine spells, though some are also available to arcane spellcasters. As with Sword & Sorcery Studios' Relics & Rituals book, many of the spells are listed as domain spells in already complete domains with no indication as to how this would be handled. Also similar to that book, many of the spells are split into backgrounds of the spells in an assumed campaign world and game effect text, but unlike R&R, the sections pertaining to each are not so clearly delimited.
A few of the more notable spells are as follows:
-Baptism of Faith: I honestly cannot decide if this spell is too weak or too strong. The best I can characterize it is "ripe for abuse, but having decent story potential"; in short, it has "best used for plot device" written all over it. The spell is 9th level and has an XP cost, but so long as the recipient of the spell remains faithful to the caster's faith, the cleric receives a +1 DC to all spells that they cast.
-Blessed Beast: This spell temporarily grants a creature of the animal type the celestial template.
-Convert: With this spell, Good repeats one of the few peeves I had with R&R: conversion of faith by magic. That said, this convert spell is only temporary, but the character is treated in all ways as a follower of the deity (including alignment). However, the spell is described as a transmutation (compulsion) spell. It is clear that the spell should have the compulsion descriptor, but it affects the mind and thus is probably properly an enchantment spell.
-Dormant Energy: This spell is basically a proactive healing spell. If the subject of the spell takes more than 10 points of damage during the duration of the spell, a cure serious wounds takes effect on the subject.
-Oath's Fulfillment: Oddly similar to the oath feats in the Book of Hallowed Might (which came out about the same time this book did), Oath's Fulfillment grants the recipient a bonus to any tasks performed in pursuit of the fulfillment of a very specific oath.
-Ties of Hatred: This enchantment spell aims to turn two evil creatures against each other.
Overall, I found some spells useful and interesting, but many were bland. For example, magic circle of healing is basically a weaker and higher level version of healing circle with an additional side effect against undead.
The majority of the magic items are simple applications of existing spells and properties to items. Example include the death weapon property (which inflicts a disintegrate spell on a successful critical hit), Stasyn's morningstar (a morningstar with the disrupting and defending special qualities, a salve with the undetectable alignment effect, and an amulet that acts very much like a glove of storage with respect to a deity's favored weapon. A large proportion of the presented items are artifacts. A few more notable items include:
-Subdual weapon property: Very similar to the merciful weapon property in WotC's Sword & Fist, subdual weapon can only do subdual damage (but receives no penalty for doing so), and receives an additional 2d6 of subdual damage.
-Bracers of Purity and Benevolence: The inverse of the classical evil-inducing cursed item, these bracers are beneficial, but shift the user's alignment to good.
-Tattoo of Divine Will: These artifacts are actually scrolls scribed by good deities. A reader with an alignment matching the scroll can activate it, which causes the wearer to become covered in a beautiful multicolored tattoo. The character becomes a "chosen" of the deity for the next year, granting them a variety of useful abilities depending on their alignment.
The fourth chapter is entitled Heroic Legions, and contains a variety of new religions and religious organizations. However, the most central part of the chapter (and arguably, the book) is the faith point system.
The faith point system tracks a character's allegiance to the principles of their deity (if any). Deeds in the service of a deity earn a character faith points, and transgressions take away faith points. It is possible to have a negative faith point total, branding the character as an unfaithful follower or even a renegade in a deity's religion.
Faith points can be used, granting a boon in the form of temporary bonus or one time use of a spell-like effect, costing the character faith points. Boons cannot reduce a character's faith point total below zero.
Likewise, a character with a negative faith pont total may experience banes, which raise the character's faith point total towards zero, and provides a temporary hindrance to the character.
The book recommends that you develop your own deeds, transgressions, banes, and boons, but provides samples for each clerical domain in the Player's Handbook and for the new religious organizations presented in the chapter. The chapter also provides some guidelines for how to apply the rules, mainly regarding who tracks faith points and who does not. In a campaign with a moderate level of divine intervention, only divine spellcasters would track faith points, but in a campaign in which there is a high degree of divine intervention, all characters would be required to track faith points.
The faith point system is fairly well constructed, but requires a willingness to track point allotments associated with campaign events. There is also a small degree of imbalance presented by the presence of the rules, as they add minor spell-like abilities to characters, though it seems as if they would come into play infrequently enough that it should not be a major problem.
The final chapter introduces a number of new good creatures for use in a campaign. Some examples are:
-Aether Paladin: An incorporeal outsider from the planes of law charged with fighting incorporeal undead.
-Elemental Guardians: Rare good elementals who ward against the abuse of elemental forces by evil creatures.
-Fairfiend: A hideous looking abberation with a heart of gold.
Conclusion
The strength of Good is the variant rules systems. Most particularly, those looking for a little more heroic flavor in the game should appreciate the action dice system, and the faith point system is a good implementation of a "worship point" system for those who wish to more explicitly represent the role of faith in the campaign world.
The source material is generally useful and balanced, but I did not find it as inspiring as that in AEG's last two supplements, Magic and Mercenaries. This is probably in part due to the fact that generally good concepts have already been covered in many existing supplements, and a few of their entries seem a little late in the game.
Final Grade: C+
-Alan D. Kohler
