The Book of Exalted Deeds - It's Here! (merged - full ToC posted)

[Olive]

I dig cool crunch, but I am not so sure I dig the namesake alignment discussions.

I tend to agree here. I basically ignored the intro to the BoVD and I'll probably ignore the intro to this too once the blessed thing gets to these shores.

But I do think the crunch works well within an alignment context, and I'm not sure it would work as well without some kind of alignment system. Plus I enjoy the fact that the game has this built in assumption of good and evil as being real things that exist in a definite and soklid way through outsiders, and i think that kind of evil/good incarnate idea would suffer without an alignment system.

 

[Trainz]

Don't forget giving Orcus mercy

Yes but will Orcus return the favor? I doubt it.

That's the whole premise of the nature of good in BoED. Good creatures know for a fact that evil doesn't show mercy, which is why showing mercy to an evil creature is ultimately good.

I really like this book. It will have a big impact (role-playing wise and crunch wise) on how I play my 2nd level Paladin.

I am VERY tempted by the Fist of Raziel prestige class. Very.

 

[Nightfall]

Yes, but evil KNOWS that good knows that they give mercy to evil to be ultimately good and therefore will CRUSH good guys when they aren't look.

Thus evil triumphs cause good is stupid.

 

[ruleslawyer]

I have to sit down and run the numbers, but I think the special abilities are worth about the same amount in gold that a non-poor Monk would have at the same level.

If that is true and I'm not sure, then the extra Exalted feats are what makes all the difference. You are basically getting ten extra feats for free.

If that is true, I concede the point, Endur. A knee-jerk reaction didn't find it that bad, but I guess it's actually quite possible that the benefits by level are equal to a full complement of magic items. It didn't look like it to me at first glance.

very much like the idea of a vow of poverty. I'm just a wee bit worried that it is out of balance. Currently, I can only see playing two character classes with a vow of poverty, Monk and Sorceror. And those two character classes don't lose anything.

This point I do agree with. VoP is awful for fighters, paladins, and rogues, basically unusable as written for wizards, and VERY good for sorcerers (IMHO, much less so for monks; for sorcs, it's a free power boost!). In fact, I think there's a great cleric PrC there, since I think that VoP is spot on for a cleric; maybe a PrC that replicates the first 10 levels of VoP benefits and bonus feats plus full divine spellcasting progression, at the expense of all wealth?

 

[gfunk]

DELETED

 

[Trainz]

Yes, but evil KNOWS that good knows that they give mercy to evil to be ultimately good and therefore will CRUSH good guys when they aren't look.

Thus evil triumphs cause good is stupid.

In the BoED mechanics, if a good creature uphold the values of mercy, self-sacrifice, generosity, protection, poverty, you get access to a very quite powerful and abundent set of abilities. Evil might be able to trick you, backstabb you, double-cross you, but because of their impurity, they turn their back on very powerful abilities.

If you take a 15th level evil fighter and apply all you can from the BoVD, and face him with a 15th level good fighter and apply all you can from the BoED (feats, abilities, etc.), the good fighter will literally kick the arse of the evil fighter.

 

[Nightfall]

In the BoED mechanics, if a good creature uphold the values of mercy, self-sacrifice, generosity, protection, poverty, you get access to a very quite powerful and abundent set of abilities. Evil might be able to trick you, backstabb you, double-cross you, but because of their impurity, they turn their back on very powerful abilities.

If you take a 15th level evil fighter and apply all you can from the BoVD, and face him with a 15th level good fighter and apply all you can from the BoED (feats, abilities, etc.), the good fighter will literally kick the arse of the evil fighter.

Perhaps. But I think if they do Dark Speech, there will be some heavy kick ass stuff. Besides Corrupt spells kick butt!

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Thus evil triumphs cause good is stupid.

Urge...to stat out...Dark Helmet...rising...

 

[nopantsyet]

Just wanted to thank the authors for commenting in this thread. I wasn't really interested in this book when I first heard about it. After reading this thread, I'm definitely picking it up. (Which is to say I stopped by my FLGS the other day and they didn't have it yet. :-(

 

[Gez]

Evil is ultimately self-destructing, indulging to much in its greed/depravity/anger/vanity/etc. to pay attention to what really matters, and thus, is stupider than good.