Okay. I just bought this book and, after reading through it, all I can say is "fantastic."
This book is a superb resource for games in which religion plays a significant role. It offers some great ideas and variant rules that, IMO, should have been official rules in the core rulebooks. I especially liked the variant rules on Alignment (although a lot of this doesn't need to be spelled out, for less imaginative players who need everything codified, this material would save both them and DMs a lot of headaches).
The new variant classes for Rangers and Paladins are fantastic. Although I'm still of the position that both classes should be Prestige Classes, I think these variants do great jobs of differentiating both classes from Fighters while maintaining balance. The new Ranger class (different from the one that Cook provided free on his site some time ago) was well conceived. However, it's the Paladin that's really a god-send (ach! A bad pun!). This is a great class that really captures the feel of the Paladin. Sure, we still don't see bonus feats, but what we get in place of that is really great (holy weapon, anyone?!). And, Cook does something that should have been a given a long time ago: Paladins (or Knights) for Chaotic good and Neutral good characters!
And, finally, someone has provided a Light Domain! About time too!
I could get into the Feats (which are also very well done) but that would take too long. However, the "monster" section, while small, offers one really great new being, the Blessed Child. I won't spoil how these are handled, but I will say that I can think of at least four different game ideas with these great beings of goodness.
We may not need a Book of Exalted Deeds afterall....
This book is a superb resource for games in which religion plays a significant role. It offers some great ideas and variant rules that, IMO, should have been official rules in the core rulebooks. I especially liked the variant rules on Alignment (although a lot of this doesn't need to be spelled out, for less imaginative players who need everything codified, this material would save both them and DMs a lot of headaches).
The new variant classes for Rangers and Paladins are fantastic. Although I'm still of the position that both classes should be Prestige Classes, I think these variants do great jobs of differentiating both classes from Fighters while maintaining balance. The new Ranger class (different from the one that Cook provided free on his site some time ago) was well conceived. However, it's the Paladin that's really a god-send (ach! A bad pun!). This is a great class that really captures the feel of the Paladin. Sure, we still don't see bonus feats, but what we get in place of that is really great (holy weapon, anyone?!). And, Cook does something that should have been a given a long time ago: Paladins (or Knights) for Chaotic good and Neutral good characters!
And, finally, someone has provided a Light Domain! About time too!
I could get into the Feats (which are also very well done) but that would take too long. However, the "monster" section, while small, offers one really great new being, the Blessed Child. I won't spoil how these are handled, but I will say that I can think of at least four different game ideas with these great beings of goodness.
We may not need a Book of Exalted Deeds afterall....
