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

[Shazman]

Well, if you've got a DM that's lenient about that sort of thing, that's fine. Unfortunately, that's not hte case with me. Is the Stalekr of Kharash from S&S's player's guide series? I haven't heard of it before now.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Naturally, the Stalker of Kharash is from the Book of Exalted Deeds.

 

[ForceUser]

Coincidentally enough, my entire player group swore an oath of service to a goddess on our Saturday game day, so they've met the prerequisite for taking exalted feats and such in my mind. The BoED has segued nicely in that way into campaign availability. Still, I've warned my players that if any of them go the exalted route, they will be held to a higher standard. Although they are all good-aligned, they've acted like quite the mercenary company on a couple of occasions (enough to make me wince inwardly), so it could be rough for a couple of them to make such a commitment.

As for the book itself, I love it. My favorite quote so far:

“A good character doesn’t just help others or fight evil when it’s convenient for him to do so. Even the most generous altruism, when it comes without sacrifice or even serves one’s own self-interest, is neutral at best. A character committed to the cause of good champions that cause in any circumstance, often at great personal risk or cost.”

I'd be thrilled if my players took that to heart.

 

[Shemeska]

The origins of the Baatezu depends on which sourcebook you are reading at the time. I don't think being originally native to a plane is as fundamental as sharing that planes intrinsic ethos. As such the exodus of a race (or sub-race) that evolves/devolves would be an obvious occurance.

Well, kind of... that race that preceeded the Baatezu still springs immature examples of itself from the very essence of Baator. The Nupperibos. If left to develop, they grow freakishly powerful over 1000's of years of slow growth and change. However the Baatezu kill Nupperibo on sight, demoting their essence to lemure status which then can proceed to develop within the Baatezu heirarchy.

I think the adoption of the Formian race as the Lawful Neutral archetype (supplanting the Modrons) was a WotC political decision rather than for the ideas own sake.

I think the same, but the also seem to be backtracking on that a bit. The BoED constradicts the MotP when it details the slide of the lower layer of Arcadia into Mechanus (bringing along the Formians) as recent, and due to the actions of the Harmonium. The MotP made it sound like it was ancient and established, with the Formians utterly dominating the plane.

Hardly. Of course the Formains are there, and inevitably they'll clash with the Modrons. It isn't going to be pretty when it happens unless something wierd occurs. Thats the feeling over at Planewalker anyways.

The Rilmani have always seemed something of a non-entity of a race in my opinion, but maybe thats just a byproduct of their ambiguous identity?

*snort* Pesky Rilmani. I just think you don't usually see them. They could be right under your nose manipulating events to keep that wretched 'balance' of theirs and you might not even know it.

Ultroloths (and indeed Yugoloths in general) have been treated rather half-heartedly within 3rd Ed.

Oh tell me about it! The 'loths should be, as you said, pound to pound the most powerful of the fiends. And when I say powerful, I don't just mean in a fight physically. If not physical, then magical. And if not magical, then we Arcanaloths do what we do best. We kill them on paper... Just sign right here... The Blood War is dictated not from the Abyssal Lords of the Abyss, or the Lords of the 9 or the dark eight of Baator, but by the flick and twitch of pens upon the contracts signed and bound within the Tower of the Arcanaloths...

*pompous, self rightious cackle*

 

[Olive]

So, uh, anyone want to know anything else about the book? Or is it time to min/max some Vow of Poverty'd characters?

I think the problem is that I more or else know everything I need to know, now I just need to be able to buy the book so I can participate in the discussion.

 

[reiella]

On the book itself, after skimming it, I saw little of use for myself.

I liked the BoVD, and found use for it. BoED just didn't provide much for me. I don't plan to have the minions of Good duke it out with the minions of Evil battle royale style, so I have little need of most of the monsters. I don't need a book to give me different ideas of how to be good (Hero Builder's Guide does that already, thanks). The PrCs, were lackluster in my skim, and many (the Exalted) just ran contrary to how I try to reward Stellar 'Goodness'. Some of the spells that I noticed just seem way to powerful or otherwise harmful for my taste (Sanctify the Wicked for one, the telepathy block for another).

Anycase, just doesn't look useful for me .

 

[BOZ]

just for the heck of it, some discussion on modrons (may or may not be related to the topic, you decide!)

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

I think the Slayer is a weaker PrC than the Assassin. Death touch is substantially worse than an Assassin's death attack. Not only must you touch the victim, you roll 1d6 per Slayer level to see if you kill him - meaning that Slayers are extremely unlikely to kill anyone with more HD/levels than they have Slayer levels. And of course the Slayer will always have fewer PrC levels than an opponent of equal CR, so... pfft!

Think of it as a finishing move. "Ah, tottering, eh? Eat holy judgement, evildoer!"

Better than a death attack, depending on how you do it. At the very least, the target doesn't get a save and gets to ignore crit immunities and uncanny dodge, which is always useful. Touching is almost always easier than trying to actually hit the target, anyway.

Brad

 

[Wycen]

Took a somewhat extensive look at this today. I had previously checked it out and basically just looked at the art and asked myself why it got a Mature sticker. I really thought it was tame compared to the BoVD.

Taking a closer look at the spells, prestige classes and feats, I still believe it doesn't need a warning label but that's for another debate. My conclusion was I would only buy it to use the freakin' awesome spells, at least for being a good aligned or neutral cleric who can cast good spells.

A few of the prestige classes look particularly unbalanced in the powerful side of things, like the Celestial Mystic. Whoa.

As for the feats, I would have to read them closer, but Sacred Vow seemed underpowered. If not for the fact it is a prereq feat I don't think it would be ever taken.

I do think I want a Book of Concordant Opposition now.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I think the whole point of Sacred Vow is that in order to get to the good Vow of X feats, you have to take Sacred Vow as a pre-req. So your character has to make a serious investment of feats if he wants to be exalted.