So I decided to get all the "Complete" books. Complete divine is the most recent addition to my collection. To be honest there is no one definite rating I can give for it. It all depends on the campaign that you're either DMing or playing in. I'll show a couple perpectives. But first let's start with the base classes. The favored soul is like a divine sorcerer. This is the only good base class. The Shujenga is another one of those pseudo-asian classes that keep on rearing their ugly heads. The spirit shaman is just dull. Seriously. It is. Next we have the prestige classes. They almost make up for the pathetic attempt at base classes. The warpriest fascinates me. There's also the blighter. The blighter is to the druid as the blackguard is to the paladin. The feat chapter is only good for divine characters. There really is nothing available to the other types of character. But I can't blame them. After all, the title is Complete Divine. Next you have relics. These are items created by the gods. Unfortunately this chapter is near useless if you don't use the greyhawk gods. Relics are also usless if the gods or religion doesn't play a big role in your campaign. The deites section is awesome if you use the greyhawk gods. Otherwise it's useless. The next chapter helps you create a world where religion plays a massive role. Otherwise it is useless. The last and final chapter gives many nice divine spells.

I have 3 ratings to give depending on your campaign.

If you use the greyhawk gods and religion plays an important role in your world make it 8/10

If the gods are ignored or non-greyhawk gods but you still like divine characters make it 6/10

If you hate divine characters and the gods are only minor details then this book is useless to you.

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So here's the next part of the "Complete" review series. This time I'm writing about Complete Warrior. So let's begin. I'll start by talking about the base classes. The Hexblade is some sort of evil sorcerer. They have gotten power from dark sources. It seems underpowered at first. They get few spells and bad armor. But they are highly effective against spell casters. They have a bunch of class features that protect them from spells. The next base class is the Samurai. While I generally dislike the pseudo-asian classes this one is very nice. They use intimidation and two weapon fighting in combat. They have to be lawful which is a drawback for those who like to be chaotic (me), but otherwise are a very, very nice class. The final class is the swashbuckler. The basis of this class is that you sacrifice armor for agility. I personally found the class to be a bit boring but that's a personal preferance. Next come the prestige classes. And boy are there a lot of them. Most of them are fairly good. The tattooed monk is very nice as is the drunk master. The cavalier prestige class is very nice for those of you who like mounted combat. They Eye of Grumsh prestige class appears to be very nice at first but are a bit vague. They can "see their moment of death." How on earth is the DM supposed to come up with that? The Kensai is also great for an asian world. Next I'll go to the feats. There are A LOT of combat oriented feats. There are several feats that improve the barbarians rage or give him more rages. The Extra Rage feat gives you 2 more rages per day. Using that feat my first level barbarian had 5 rages per day. Pretty awesome. There are feats for everyone. There are also some spells in the book but there are almost none and not many of them are good. The next chapter has some stuff for the DM. It has advice on how to organize archery tournaments, jousts, gladiatorial battles, and wars in a camapaign. The section on gladiator fights and the effect of the crowd on combat was very nice. All things considered a great book.

I give it 9.5/10

If you don't like warrior classes don't even buy this book.

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Next up is Complete Adventurer. A great book by all means. As usual I'll start with the base classes. The ninja comes first. It's okay. They get a worse version of sneak attack which is only usable against flat footed opponents. I can see some potential as an assasin but to be honest the monk or rogue are both better alternatives. Next comes scout. This is a great class in open areas. You can use your skirmish ability to deal extra damage when you move ten feet. It sucks in confined spaces. So be careful and talk with your DM before you start playing a scout. Next is the spellthief. A very interesting class concept by all means. Sudden strike an enemy spell caster and choose a random spell you think they have. If they do have it you get to use it. But if you're not going against casters then ignore this class. Once again it's only good for certain campaigns. Next come the prestige classes. A lot of them seem to be tied to organizations so unless you have that organization in your campaign forget it. But there are some great  ones too. The Animal Lord is certainly interesting. The Bloodhound is esentially a bounty hunter. I can see great use for PCs and NPCs. Dread Pirate is great for high seas adventures. The Ghost-Faced Killer is a sort of variation of the assasin. I found it very nice. As a book for skilled characters they made new applications for skills. Many of the feats benefit bards but there is something for all skilled characters. Since characters with lots of skill points use equipment there is a chapter devoted to it. That is also amazing. There's also lots of nice new magic items. The lockpicking ring could have many uses. There's also some nice spells but nothing that catches my eye immediately. Then there's an entire chapter devoted to organizations. VERY useful for DMs who don't have the time to make a thieves guild or similar things. All in all a great book. Really useful for the rogue types.

I decided on 8/10

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Complete Arcane is next on my review list. It's fairly good for arcane characters. The new base classes are specialized and can't really replace the classic spellcasters such as the Wizard and Sorcerer. The Warlock is YET ANOTHER class that has been granted powers from dark sources. Yet it's a good class. It may seem a bit overpowered in combat but a DM can always stick a warlock in a role-playing adventure. Basically the Warlock has an eldritch blast which is a ray that can be used however many times per day you want. With levels the damage dealt increases. Warlocks also get things called invocations. They are like spells but the warlock barely has any. Some modify the Eldritch Blast but none of them have the offensive power of lets say, Meteor Storm. Next is the Warmage. It, like the warlock, is a battle class. They can use light armor at first and eventually medium armor. They have many spells know. Unfortunately there's a catch. There are ONLY offensive spells. No feather fall, bulls strength, or any more subtle spells. You can blow stuff up as much you want but that's it. Only use this class if you know you will be doing mostly combat or have a more generalized caster (wizard) in your party. The last and least is the Wu Jen. PSEUDO-ASIAN. EWW! Basically it's an asian wizard. But they have to specialize in an element. You basically have to read all the spells for that element before choosing one because many of the spells in an element are unrelated to each other. When a wizard specializes he/she knows what kind of spells they will get. Just go with wizard instead. Wu Jens also have ridiculous things called Taboos. Basically it's minor restrictions such as "Can't bathe" or stuff like that. If they break it they can't cast spells for the day. It's the most pointless class feature there is because no one keeps track of things like bathing, shaving, what you drink, and crap like that. Next up are the Prestige Classes. And boy is there a variety. From wearers of fiend skins to those who ingest meteors. In the end there is something for all. Many great metamagic feats are available. There's also something awesome for sorcerers. Since they have to cast longer with metamagic feats "Heritage Feats" were made. Basically a Sorcerer can take on draconic aspects such as a breath weapon and claws. And what kind of mgic supplement would be complete without tons of spells. There are too many spells to list. A great book for arcane characters

8.2/10

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As a companion to Complete Arcane I'll review Complete Mage next. It starts of with a chapter that explains magic. Often I've had to roleplay a character who got in an argument about the nature of magic. I had to make stuff up but with this chapter I'll never again have to do that.  It also explores the various schools of magic. This section is really helpful for someone having a hard time choosing what school to specialize in with their wizard. Next they give several caster archetypes such as the blaster, controller, and necromaster. It gives reccomended spells and feats along with spells and feats to avoid. The book lacks base classes. Next are the Prestige classes. One interesting one is the Enlightened Spirit. It's a good warlock who has turned good to fight evil. I've been considering playing it. The master specialist is a specialist wizard who takes his specialization even farther than before. There's also the Wild Soul. It's an arcane character devoted to nature (think arcane druid).  There's others that didn't catch my eye. Next come the feats. A wonderful new type of feat comes along. It's the reserve feat. As long as you have a certain type of spell available to cast you can use a slightly less powerful supernatural ability. Let's say you have a fire spell of the 2nd level available to cast. You can use a less powerful type of ability that deals less damage. Other more varied types exist. They let the spellcaster keep more important spells ready to cast when a tough enemy comes along. Of course there's plenty of metamagic feats. Remember the draconic feats in complete arcane (above)? Well they added Fey Heretige and Fiendish Heratige feats. They are quite good additions to a sorcerer. Of course there are lots of good spells but also some good invocations. It's a great book for those who aren't great at creating good arcane characters. It' still a good book for good arcane players but Comlete Arcane is more usefull.

7/10

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So it's been a while since I last posted. I wonder if anyone actually reads this, or cares? It would be great to know that someone actually finds my reviews useful. I bought the most recent Complete book, Complete Scoundrel. My opinion? It's mediocre.

In the beggining of the book they give you lots of tips for playing a scoundrel and give many examples of scoundres. The list goes from Indiana Jones to Sawyer from the show Lost. It gives tips on playing different types of scoundrels. To be honest I could have thought all of this up on my own. I honestly think that part was for newbies. Any experienced player should be able to figure out stuff like this without a book. Now on to the prestige classes. There were only 2 that truly stuck out. For all of you who thought this book is useless for paladins think again. The Greyguard Prestige class allows Paladins to break their code if they are doing it for a good purpose. You can be cruel to a prisoner so that you can get information out of him if the lives of innocent are at stake. But you can't just torture that prisoner for fun. This is something I have been waiting for since I started loving the Paladin class. The only other onethat really cought my attention was the Fortune's Friend. They take full advantage of the benefits given by Luck Feats (read on to find out about those). Next comes the best part of the book. The feats. 2 new types of spectacular feats are given. The first is the Ambush feats. Those who like the Rogue class will want to have this. These feats modify sneak attacks to make them even more feared than before. One feat lets you do Con damage. Another lets you deafen your target. All Rogues should have at least one of these feats. The other typ of feat is the Luck Feat. The basic principle behind these feats is they allow you to alter rolls a certain amount of times per day. Each feat gives you a specific amount of "Luck Rerolls" per day. These can be used for any luck feat. Luck feats use up these "Luck Rerolls" to do spectacular things. One lets you change one luck reroll to make a natural 1 a natural 20.  Never again will I critically miss! Next comes something REALLY unique to the book. Skill tricks. You expend 2 ranks in a skill that is a prerequisite for a skill trick and get some sort of weird use of the skill. Few of them are actually worth it and some are so useless I wonder what WotC was smoking when they thought of them. One of these useless ones lets you try to open a lock as a swift action by hitting it with a blunt object but you take a -10 penalty. If you fail a check like this you can't use this Skill Trick for another 8 hours. Seriously, wtf? The penalty outweighs the benefit of you opening a lock more quickly. And chances are you'll rarely even get to use this. Other skill tricks are just obviously ripped of from the Matrix. One even lets you use a wip as a grappling hook. Who doesn't see the link with Indiana Jones here? Next comes a chapter with spells. None of them seemed really spectacular for me. There are also magic items and some are actually fairly good. Unfortunately many were made to make you look more like a scoundrel than actually be useful. Still it's a useful section of the book. And finally there's a chapter on scoundrel adventures. Just like the beginning of the book, people can make this stuff up on their own. Any good DM should be able to do this all by themselves.

My final opinion is that if someone you know already owns it, don't buy it. Just borrow it from them, and look at what I've mentioned specifically in this review.

6/10

In may Complete Champion will come out. And along with it my next review.

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Hey TOG,

Yes I read and am enjoying reading your reviews.
So keep it up, Please.

I rarely, if ever get to read the books themselves as my wife hates DnD but I do enjoy reading the reviews.
I'd love to get some more books, but it's not worth the hassle and the fights. Not to mention ever being able to use the books. That's why I'm searching for an online copy of them. It's easier and I can read them while I travel without lugging books around, just the laptop as well as the extra incentive of my wife not knowing.

Wow, Schotty...  She actively, irrationally hates it?  Did D&D shoot her dog or something?

Also, TOG, nice little set of capsule reviews.  Good job.

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"If you fudge dice rolls, your system is failing you!" -Sons of Kryos

"I genuinely think that some people measure their free will by reading how unhappy their GM is." - TonyLB

[dice type=fudge]3dF[/dice]

So people do read this thread. Yay! And now we all have to wait until May for the next review.

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She Actively, irrationally hates DnD because there is "Evil" in it. ie some characters are evil.

Doesn't matter that I, until recently, have only ever played in good aligned games, there is still the Evil concept in it and that makes it "a Bad Game to play"

She hated the fact that I won the signed Players Handbook a couple of years ago.

Ouch.  That just makes my head hurt.  So, if the single page on "Alignment" were removed, she'd be fine with it?  I'm pretty sure that's the only "player-evil" in the whole book.  Everything else is monsters and bad-guys like you'd expect.  I now feel this overwhelming urge to say something to "fix" her, but I imagine that's not really an option .  Oh well, good luck or something, I guess.  She should just be thankful that you don't play Kill Puppies for Satan. :P

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"If you fudge dice rolls, your system is failing you!" -Sons of Kryos

"I genuinely think that some people measure their free will by reading how unhappy their GM is." - TonyLB

[dice type=fudge]3dF[/dice]

Nope but if you removed the Alignment pages and the bad guys and monsters she'd be Ok with it.
Yes she realises in most games there is evil to combat. She just doesn't like the violence of DnD... But will play games on the old playstation like Spyro which involve flaming enemies... Go figure. Maybe because the 'hero" is a cute little dragon???

Yeah I may not introduce her to Kill Puppies for Satan though it looks a hoot to play :D

OMG whatever you do don't let her see the Dealers of Vengeance thread. Although the Kill puppies game is funny.

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A little bit of important information regarding this thread. After I review Complete Champion (I won't review Complete Psionic cus I don't have EPH) there won't be any other complete books coming out in 2007. So to keep people interested I'll review several other books that are outside the Complet series. And a little bit of advice for Schotty. There are places where you can download D&D books for free but these places are illegal. Not that I'd stop you. But do check out d20srd.

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So now that my local bookstore got Complete Champion (it's about time) I'm reviewing it. I'm somewhat dissapointed but it still has some nice stuff. This book focuses on making a divine champion character. The first chapter is useless if you don't use greyhawk gods. This chapter goes in depth (sort of) about the various churches of the gods, not the gods themselves. Unfortunately this chapter doesn't really tell you many new things. There are small bits of information that make the various churches that do make them a little more interesting but most of this stuff is simply a repeat of some stuff in Player's Handbook and Complete Divine. What's worse is that they only talk about the good churches. The evil ones barely get an entire page. I personally enjoy playing and dming the occasional evil campaign so I wasn't very happy with this. The other part of chapter one does a completely useless review of the domains. The domains are fairly self explanatory so trying to give them depth is just pointless. They should have used those pages for giving the evil churches proper descriptions.

Chapter 2 is much more pleaisng. I thought this book would be mostly for paladins and clerics but I was wrong. There are alternative class features at the beggining of the chapter. Every class in the PH has a class feature that can make them divine. Most of these alternate class features are good. The fighter can bolster his AC with divine power. A barbarian can get a spiritual totem that gives him some more powers. Sorcerers can get a divine companion instead of a familiar. Next in chapter 2 are the feats. The reserve feats that were in Complete Mage are also in this book. If you don't know what those are read my earlier complete mage review. They also introduce a new feat type. The domain feat. It allows you to be devoted to a certain domain to the point where you gain extra powers. You don't even need to have access to domains to get this feat. There aren't any prerequisites so anyone can take these feats. This truly allows anyone to be divine. The only thing that can stop you from taking a ridiculous amount of domain feats is the rule that you can't take domain feats that oppose the kind of character that you are or taking 2 opposing domain feats. So if your a paladin you can't take the chaos domain feat. And if you have the good domain feat you can't take the evil one.

Next in chapter 2 is the orgainizations. When I first started reading this part I was wondering why they were there but it turns out several prcs are related to the organizations. The first organization is the Disciples of Legend. This is a group of heroes that attempts to mimic mighty heroes of the past. They generally focus on a legendary group of 6 adventurers. There's a sidebar that explains there history. The next group is the Guardians of the Green. Think of the people as eco-terrorists. They fight to protect nature from the advance of civilization. A fairly bland organization but there are nice prcs based of it so I won't complain. The next group is the Paragnostic Assembely. This is an organization that is devoted to gathering knowledge. Also fairly bland. Next is an organization that really caught my eye. Pelor's shadow guard. They fight evil in Pelor's and Heironeous' name. But they also have a smaller and secretive group within them. Only the top officials of the church of pelor know about this. Even the church of Heironeous doesn't know about it. This is the delta force of pelor. What I really like about this organization is that they make Pelor a much interesting god. He's usually been this sort of generic god of good with a fairly basic ideology. Hates undead, heals people.

Now come the prestige classes. A bunch of them are linked to the groups listed earlier. This is a bit of a drawback because you need to join these groups first but any good DM should be able to work this organization into the campaign. The first one is the Fist of the Forest. Think of this a druidic monk. This one is (obviously) linked with the guardians of the green. As is the next one. The Forest reeve. This is a sort of tracker. Not so exciting. Now here's a god one. The Mythic Exemplar. A member of the Disciples of legend that gains awesome powers by devoting himself to one of the 6 idolized by his organization. Now comes the Ordained Champion. A person who fights for heironeous or Hextor. Looks pretty awesome. The rest are fairly dull.

Now comes the spell chapter. It's good. That's all I'll say because I want to get onto the other chapters. Next comes chapter 4. Divine Items. It starts out with spell components that can be used in addition to the normal ones to make certain spells more potent. Angel's Blood makes evil spells more powerful. Now comes something really nice. The special Holy symbolds. While it is once again greyhawk specific I like these things. For a fairly cheap price any spellcaster can use these. They increase the potency of certain spells and act like a regular holy symbol. A special symbol to nerull increases the power of death spells. Now come the magic items. These are sort of like the relics in Complete Divine but less costly or rare. Some are various parts of a set. Finally there's a chapter about creating campaigns for divine champions. This chapter sucks. There's just a bunch of locations that could be used. Nothing actually helpful.

I'm dissapointed with most of the material so this gets a 6.7/10. And Artmonkey, don't you dare review this one. Do Magic Item Compendium instead.

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