Post/Author/DateTime	Post
bitnine 10-14-03, 02:59 PM	There's something that's struck me at least slightly when I looked at the preview for the BoED. In many ways, the Book of Exalted Deeds is a mirror for the Book of Vile Darkness, as it was probably meant to be. There's a good version of the Ur-Priest, spells with 'Sacrifice' costs instead of 'Corruption' costs, Vows instead of Gaunt and the like, and so on and so forth. However, what I'm wondering is how much this will add to the power of specifically good-aligned characters. After all, much of the material and options in both the BoVD and BoED might be similar, but there's one key difference: DMs rarely allow their players access to the BoVD, whereas I get the feeling that there will be a number of selfsame DMs that do not similarly restrict the BoED. And nuetral players, of course, simply do not have any alignment-specific sourcebook, feats, powers, spells, or PrCs to draw from. Myself, I don't see them soon coming out with a neutral version of the Ur-Priest, though I suppose that it's possible some time in the future. But one question that that leaves me with is there's going to be at least a slight impact on making the good alignment a more powerful player choice than evil and neutral alignments. Certainly this isn't going to be a giant impact, and there are a large number of builds that won't be affected at all, but do you think there will be some smaller or more subtle shifts?
Jindl 10-14-03, 03:14 PM	Perhaps we will see more builds that depend on a good alignment. This is a good thing. From what I have seen there are a few prestige classes that seem to be the most often incorporated into builds (not counting OA and the like): 1. Teflammar Shadowlord = must be non-good. 2. Assassin = must be evil 3. Nar Demonbinder = must be non-good (thanks catharz) 4. Bladesinger = no alignment restriction 5. Holy Liberator = must be Chaotic Good 6. Hospitaliar = must be Lawful Good. In my experience, most DM's require players to choose a non-evil alignment and therefore builds with #1, #2, and #3 are much less useful for players. Perhaps the BoED will create some excitement on builds that players who must have non-evil alignments can use. I'm already hoping to see a Sorc/Divine Oracle/Exalted Arcanist/Archmage build... I think the boards have been biased a little towards nuetral or evil builds and I think this may correct that existing inbalance. As for nuetral characters not having their own sourcebook, well a DM could modify one of the PrC's in the BoED or BoVd to create a nuetral version... Also nuetral alignments make characters slightly more powerful because they are resistant to many effects (like holy/unholy smites, level loss due to aligned weapons, detect good/detect evil, protection from evil/good/law/choas, etc.) For example a True Nuetral druid could wield two weapons, one is a holy axiomatic scimitar the other an unholy chaotic scimitar and no creature could detect him via detect alignment spells, smite him via smite evil/good class abilities, or gain any bonus against him via protection from alignment. Also he takes only partial damage from holy/unholy smite spells and ignores most of the protection granted by holy/unholy aura. Yep, True Nuetral is already the most powerful alignment. The BoVD and BoED help to balance the good and evil alignments with True Nuetral. Just my two cents. -Jindl
catharz 10-14-03, 04:52 PM	Three things: 1) Nar demonbinders don't have to be evil. 2) More options dosen't mean more power, and while the BoED will definately offer up some interesting builds, I doubt that it will signifigantly tip any 'balance of alignments,' any more than Sword and Fist made fighters more powerful than casters. 3) WotC seems to generally err on the side of weakness when dealing with neutral characters, or try to force them into either being good or evil. This is especially apparent with neutral clerics, who still have their primary granted power being either a good or evil act, and to al lesser extent this is true with other clerical abilities. I'm not saying they are wrong, and it would be over powered to, for example, give neutral clerics both negative and positive channeling. I'm just find it odd that for those who are supposed to represent the 'middle ground' there rarely is any (and please don't tell me that neutral clerics should be druids, druids are balanced between the various alignments, but they aren't clerics).
bitnine 10-15-03, 12:09 PM	Originally posted by catharz More options dosen't mean more power, and while the BoED will definately offer up some interesting builds, I doubt that it will signifigantly tip any 'balance of alignments,' any more than Sword and Fist made fighters more powerful than casters. Well, in this case, more options probably does translate to more power for at least one group. Good clerics are mentioned as being able to spontaneously cast Sanctified spells (such as Pheonix Fire and the like). So by including the book, suddenly clerics of the good alignment had a number of options that were previously unavailable to them, and which are still unavailable to others. Without any drawback, as though the Sanctified spells have Sacrifice costs, the cleric chooses exactly when any of them are worth it.
Funny Slaughter 10-15-03, 02:12 PM	i think most motivations in an adventure work through "you are good, rescue the princess". an evil party works similar. neutral for an adventurer is kind of not supported by the module-makes of WotC... neutral, on the other way, allows many builds to kind of combine good and evil aspects min/max wise, as for the mentioned nar demonbinder. gs Funny
Prism 10-15-03, 04:03 PM	The only real promotion of neutral characters that I saw were in the Gygax Gord the Rogue books where the majority of the hero's actually served the balance (of neutrality). Saying that they usually found themselves battling evil to prevent it taking over oerth. As funny says though, you can build some great neutral characters that can use the best of both worlds