What is good about BoED???

[Felon]

The Book of Exalted Deeds commits the cardinal sin (not to mention extremely lame-brained design strategy) of giving major power boosts in exchange for roleplaying restrictions. The basic tenet is "OK, you can be uber, but you have to promise to play nice!"

Not only that, but much of the content is designed to alleviate the burden of playing nice. For instance, it's not nice to afflict people with poisons and diseases--unless they're evil! So we'll give you some that only affect them!

I don't recall any of the authors' names ringing a bell with me, but I really need to go look them up so I can steer clear of their poorly-designed dreck in the future.

Oh, and the artwork is generally sloppy and often unintentionally grotesque.

Did I forget to mention it's an awful book?

 

[Eremite]

The Book of Exalted Deeds commits the cardinal sin (not to mention extremely lame-brained design strategy) of giving major power boosts in exchange for roleplaying restrictions. The basic tenet is "OK, you can be uber, but you have to promise to play nice!"

Yes, very true.

Not only that, but much of the content is designed to alleviate the burden of playing nice. For instance, it's not nice to afflict people with poisons and diseases--unless they're evil! So we'll give you some that only affect them!

Plus the rules for these revised poisons and diseases state that they inflict MORE damage the higher the opponent's Charisma. While that's interesting, it means that these things generally become more dangerous to opponents as the PCs advance in level.

I don't recall any of the authors' names ringing a bell with me, but I really need to go look them up so I can steer clear of their poorly-designed dreck in the future.

James Wyatt is normally a good designer, too, which makes the "dreck" (I love this word!) that is found in this product that much more surprising.

Oh, and the artwork is generally sloppy and often unintentionally grotesque.

Agreed.

Did I forget to mention it's an awful book?

Actually, my own personal opinion is that it is worse than that...!

Seriously, I think that this is one of the worst of the WotC books. It's chock-full of bad design, bad design and bad design. I think that the editing was OK though....