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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2010759" data-attributes="member: 172">The Unholy Warrior's HandbookThe Unholy Warrior's Handbook is part of Green Ronin's Master Class series of books dedicated to detailing new core classes of d20 System fantasy games. As the title should make obvious, the subject of The Unholy Warrior's Handbook is the unholy warrior, a champion of corruption and vice. The Unholy Warrior's Handbook is written by Robert J. Schwalb.A First LookThe Unholy Warrior's Handbook is an 80-page perfect-bound softcover book priced at $16.95. This is fairly typical for a book of this size and format.The cover of the book is illustrated by Kyle Anderson, and depicts the silhouette of a warrior in spikey armor riding a horse with red glowing eyes.The interior is black and white. Interior artists include Toren "Macbin" Atkinson, Britt Martin, Storn Cook, David Griffith, and James Ryman. Though most art is very good, I must say that I find the Atkinson, Griffith, and Ryman's styles have a nice synergy in this book, helping to project a moody and dark feel. Of particular not, Griffith's work is not new to d20 products, but his work here is some of the best I have seen him turn out.The body text font is modestly sized, and line and paragraph spacing isn't quite "double spaced", but it is a bit wider than I am used to in Green Ronin products. The layout is generally clean, attractive, and easily readable.A Deeper LookThe subject of the book, the unholy warrior, is essentially the mirror image of the holy warrior class as it appears in Green Ronin's masterpiece of religion in gaming, Book of the Righteous. Just as with that class, the unholy warrior is a well crafted and flexible class with a lot of room for player or (more likely) GM choice.On the most basic mechanical level, the unholy warrior (like the holy warrior) resembles a paladin, with good attack bonus and fortitude save progression and limited spellcasting ability starting at 4th level. Also like the holy warrior, most of the unholy warrior's class abilities are determined by selection of the character's patron and two associated "domains". Unlike clerical domains, unholy warrior domains don't determine spell choice, but they do determine some special abilities of the unholy warrior. Unholy warrior domains include darkness, corruption, horror, hate, greed, and slowth.Later chapters in the book spell out the exact nature of these domains as well as defining a number of "dark masters" that unholy warriors may select as patrons. These masters are drawn from the cosmology defined by prior Green Ronin works, namely the Book of the Righteous, Legions of Hell, and Armies of the Abyss. The dark master that the player or GM selects for the character defines which domains are available, defines the nature of an additional "dark blessing" ability that the unholy warrior gains at it advances, spells that are added to the standard unholy warrior spell list for that particular unholy warrior, strictures, titles, and other details associated with being in that figure's service.The book also accommodates the possibility that the GM may have his own ideas for dark masters in his campaing. Unholy warriors have a standard "dark blessing" ability to cause disease, and, of course, the GM can define appropriate domains. The book also recognizes that you may not want unholy warriors as a core class and defines prerequisites for the class if used as a prestige class.In addition to this basic formula, The Unholy Warrior's Handbook supports it with a variety of other supporting material. Four prestige classes are provided to craft the unholy warrior to a more particular image: -Angel Hunter: The angel hunter is a dark warrior engaged in the ghastly pursuit of tracking down, entrapping, and slaying celestials, the servants of the good gods. Unholy warriors receive ranger-like bonuses against celestials starting at first level, and receive a number of abilities protecting them from celestials and otherwise enabling them in their battle against celestials. -Champion of the Dark Seven: Characters who pursue this class are devoted to the concept of sin itself, as represented by the seven "Exarchs of Gehenna." The class is a seven level prestige class. At each level, the character receives a dark blessing, which the character may choose. Each of the dark blessings correspond to one of the classical "seven deadly sins." -Knight of Bedlam: The knight of bedlam is a champion of chaos. In addition to (slow) continues spellcasting advancement, the knight of bedlam gains random mutations as well as "boons of chaos" which allow the character to reroll failed rolls. -Order's Tyrant: At the other end of the law/choas spectrum from the knight of bedlam, order's tyrant are servants in the rigid hierarchy of hell. Order's tyrants have their own spell list and access to the clerical law domain. In addition, the class receives minor energy resistance and ability smite chaos.All prestige classes have sample NPCs.The book provides a selection of new feats, spells, and items most appropriate for unholy warriors. The most interesting of the new feats is possibly vestigal twin, which causes a spirit to inhabit your body and grow of its own accord. Though often helpful, this spirit has its own ego (like an item) and can be difficult to control.Other supporting materials include creature statistics for servants and allies of unholy warriors, and rules for handling holy warriors or paladins that fall to a state of sin or unholy warriors who are redeemed.ConclusionThough the Unholy Warrior's Handbook is not as moody as Green Ronin's Secret College of Necromancy, it is more generally more balanced (though some things, like the damned feat, struck me as a little powerful), not subscribing to the notion that if it is evil, it's okay to be unbalanced. In being evil, it also avoids the "tacky" pratfall that Armies of the Abyss falls into, but still manages to be twisted and creative.The book takes a fundamentally successful formula presented in Book of the Righteous for holy warriors and provides just as compelling an application for use by the forces of darkness.Overall Grade: B+-Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

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