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Disclaimer
I: I have seen in reviews that the content had "spoiler"
ascribed to it. I feel that if you are reading a review, you invite
that upon yourself. If you don't want "spoilers," why would
you read a review of a product you do not own? I will not use the phrase
of "Contains Spoilers" in my reviews, if you want a non-biased
review that doesn't reveal content-look elsewhere.
Disclaimer II: The majority of this review is opinion; your actual enjoyment of this product should vary accordingly. |
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"...
Lastai teaches that sensual pleasures are meant to be enjoyed, and is
not shy about teaching the proper way to enjoy them. As goddess of love
as well as passion, she stresses the importance of equality in all kinds
of relationships, from business dealigns to sexual intimacy..."
(from Lastai, p. 25) |
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WARNING SHOT: There's an old Mystara CD floating around where one of the voice actors, playing the cleric, beseeches the "powers of goodness and law, to mend this body through" his touch. While some players may take this now as a display of the paladin's lay on hand ability, it really strikes at the underlining "goodness" of the Dungeons & Dragons game. D&D rewards good and honest acts of heroics, so why not have a book dedicated to the fundamental principals of capital-g Good? That's what the Book of Exalted Deeds tries to do, but the writers followed the Book of Vile Darkness's approach and undercut some of the neater material. |
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The Book of Exalted Deeds is a Dungeons & Dragons accessory hands both players and Dungeon Masters a few "neat tricks" to bringing the exalted (think holiness, or extremely benevolent) into a regular campaign. With variant rules and magical items, the Book of Exalted Deeds seems on the surface not to qualify for the mature audience sticker pasted to the cover. Built as a counterpoint to the previous vile title (Book of Vile Darkness), the Book of Exalted Deeds has some great new material. The book introduces some serious issues for the good aligned folks packing around swords: martyrs, poverty and issues of "waging peace" are addressed, but not too well defined (which is a good thing). Though the book could have come across as a more religious-based work, it gladly doesn't, making the material accessible to many gamers. Though presented with the D&D standard layout (if a little more mature art, more so than Book of Vile Darkness), it avoids introducing any new races that may have been "exalted" by their history or connections with the gods. Instead it covers new rules for allowing characters some bonus for foregoing money (like an Armor Class bonus, bonus exalted feats, damage reduction, and more) and interesting rules on sanctified weapons, ravages (good poisons), relics and the like. The book also, no surprise, introduces the counter balance to the vile feat type, the exalted feat. Only good, strongly moral characters (or creatures) may have these feats. Some of these vary from a +2 bonus on fear or despairing and mind afflicting effects, like fear spells ("gift of faith," p. 43) to allowing the character to use their Wisdom modifier instead of their Strength to hit with a simple weapon ("intuitive attack," p. 44). Most the exalted feats are okay, with rare great ones. After the feats section, the book goes into prestige classes, magic, paragons (instead of demonlords and archdevils) of paradise, and ends with a section on monsters. The prestige classes are geared for a variety of game styles. From the freewheeling Champion of Gwynharwyf, an exalted type of barbarian raging with diving fury to the Risen Martyr, a fallen hero returned from their grave. Each prestige class seems to be built for the wide gaps D&D has for good-aligned planes, while its easy to paint a picture of evil (adding darkness, lots of it) it is harder to present a fair picture of good. The Book of Exalted Deeds does a good part trying to get the good picture across, but is hampered in the prestige class department by its D&D cosmology. The book's magic section follows the D&D line, presenting new spells, magic items and artifacts. The section ends with some ideas on redeeming evil magical items, which may help explain the demonhusk armor found earlier in the section. As some things in D&D are evil for evil sake--that is, irredeemable evil, the book has notes that are reminiscent of the older rules for destroying artifacts. The hardest part of the book is the paragons section, one for the lack of gaming history (this characters haven't appeared before like the demonlords had) and this lack of connection is heightened by the lack of goals that one angel or another may have. Their descriptions come across more as creature statistics than a character portrait. Without goals, it may be hard for a DM to use them as anything other than stage dressing when the player characters start traveling the planes. The book finishes with a section on new, holy creatures that again may come across the DM's screen as stage dressing. A new creature type is covered, the deathless, like "undead" but not connected with negative energy. The aleax reappears, as do archons, bariaurs and hollyphants. Moon dogs, lesklors (flying holy tigers) and eladrin (celestial fey) also fill in the section. Saints and sanctified creatures are two new templates that round out the end of the book. Overall, while designed as a counterpoint to the Book of Vile Darkness, the Book of Exalted Deeds comes across as a better-use package with some rough spots that could have been better developed. It's a good book, but not a great one. Some people may find more use for this book, as it's geared for both players and DMs, instead of just the DM. |
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