Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Razz 11-08-05, 11:07 AM	Well, as I skimmed through the book, I came upon the last chapter which was to be on Agents of Good. Here I was expecting some powerful unique celestial beings, or the Srinshee, or even a new monster of celestial goodness and all of them CR 20+. Basically, just like the way Champions of Ruin had theirs. However, I feel very cheated when I looked into that chapter. They were all just NPCs, that was it. All unique, none of them were familiar (at least to me) in any sort of novel or other book. And none of them matched the equality in power to that of Champions of Ruin. Also disappointed in the lack of the book's material for Helm worshipers. Other than that, the book was pretty good. Of course, it could've done better. More feats (too many were specifically for a specific organization only), more substitution levels, and a more solid, set-in-stone adaptation of goliaths, illumians, and raptorans (rather than mere suggestions). The prestige classes were too thin (only 4?) and I felt cheated in that department as well. Good fluff in the book. Though, I still believe there wasn't enough crunch material for valorous characters of Faerun. The book, in a single word, felt "lacking".
Yokinobu 11-08-05, 01:23 PM	Seems like I'm going to have to look through it really hard when it hits shelves at my local bookstore to find enough reasons to buy it. I am constantly reading heavily critical reviews on some of the content. Some of what players were expecting, like more on Helm, was given only in a small amount. I'm not trying to be too harsh to the awesome authors that provide us with FR material, but if FR is to survive, I think it's extremely important to find out what the players want and what they will expect, and publish that.
BobROE 11-08-05, 01:38 PM	Well I don't really mind the lack of material on Helm since I don't use Helm in my campaign. But all the info on the triad will come in handy. So it all really depends on what sort of campaign you happen to be running. And the NPCs are all members of the organizations detailed in the book, and they provide ways to use those organizations. I think they're more useful than the NPCs in CoR, which are completely useless to me. (part of the reason I think CoR is a substandard book, they could have gotten rid of all those NPCs and given me more info on other evil groups I could use)
Razz 11-08-05, 01:53 PM	Seems like I'm going to have to look through it really hard when it hits shelves at my local bookstore to find enough reasons to buy it. I am constantly reading heavily critical reviews on some of the content. Some of what players were expecting, like more on Helm, was given only in a small amount. I'm not trying to be too harsh to the awesome authors that provide us with FR material, but if FR is to survive, I think it's extremely important to find out what the players want and what they will expect, and publish that. They also said there'd be Good Nodes, but there aren't any in the book either. :confused:
BobROE 11-08-05, 02:35 PM	They also said there'd be Good Nodes, but there aren't any in the book either. :confused: I can sort of understand why, cause you have to spend space on the feats needed to interact with the nodes. And I think most DMs can probably convert the rules for evil nodes without too much trouble. That said I wouldn't have minded seeing some.
Razz 11-08-05, 03:05 PM	I can sort of understand why, cause you have to spend space on the feats needed to interact with the nodes. And I think most DMs can probably convert the rules for evil nodes without too much trouble. That said I wouldn't have minded seeing some. A quick sidebar with smaller font would've been key to sorting that problem out. :cool: Plus, most assume when they meant they had Good Nodes, that the Good ones only had half the similarity to the Evil Nodes. I was expecting maybe there's something unique about Good Nodes that Evil Nodes don't have. Trapping a creature within a Good Node hardly seems good, maybe there's something else to replace it and unique to a Good Node?
GothicDan 11-08-05, 03:36 PM	Also note that since Helm is a Lawful Neutral deity, it wouldn't have made sense for them to have much information on him.
Yokinobu 11-08-05, 04:05 PM	A quick sidebar with smaller font would've been key to sorting that problem out. :cool: Plus, most assume when they meant they had Good Nodes, that the Good ones only had half the similarity to the Evil Nodes. I was expecting maybe there's something unique about Good Nodes that Evil Nodes don't have. Trapping a creature within a Good Node hardly seems good, maybe there's something else to replace it and unique to a Good Node? That makes sense. Earth nodes had cache, evil nodes had imprisonment, and shadow nodes had empowerment, all of which were exclusive to that particular node. I would expect a good node to have a different ablitiy attributed to it.
Tempus665 11-08-05, 04:26 PM	Wow, the NPC section has CR's that are totally good for my campaign! I'm glad they didn't put any CR 20+ creatures and people in there :cool: There are certain things I don't like about the book, but overall I think I'll enjoy using it as much as I enjoy using CoR (and believe me, that one sees a lot of use in my campaigns).
BrianCritchley 11-08-05, 04:26 PM	Also note that since Helm is a Lawful Neutral deity, it wouldn't have made sense for them to have much information on him. yeah when I first heard it had stuff on helm my inital thought was "umm why? there are a lot of other gods with a GOOD alignment who'd be better"
Zevox 11-08-05, 04:33 PM	So let me get this straight - Champions of Valor has lots of good lore/fluff (especially about the Triad), a comparably small amount of feats, only four prestige classes, no CR20+ npcs but many lower CR ones, and a general lack of lots of "crunch"? Sounds like a book I absolutely must have :D ! Zevox
Oghmanyte 11-08-05, 05:01 PM	I'm generally pleased with the book, though I do wish that the newer FR supplements used smaller font and tighter line spacing to pack in more info. That said, what's there is pretty useful, and I really like the fact that the NPCs are of moderate power levels and well-characterized. For those of you who don't have the book yet, here's a list of the NPCs: Bakra Hispul (LG Male ogre dire werebear ranger 6) Brenvol Whitebrow (NG Male human werewolf ranger 4 of Selune) Breyarg Stonebreaker (LG Male gold dwarf paladin 6 of Gorm Gulthyn in service to Helm) Dalthyria (CG Female centaur fighter 4) Dorgafal Shiverock (NG Male rock gnome bard 7) Kerri Talindras (NG Female Half-moon elf cleric 5 of Sune) Ramas-Teth Ankh (LN Male human diviner 9) Rindon Wasatho (CG Male human ranger 8 of Selune) Sarade Gedreghost (NG Female human transmuter 12) Stormwing (CG Male giant eagle ranger 6 of Lurue) Selune's very popular, isn't she? Perhaps my favorite aspect of CoV, though, which I don't think anyone's mentioned, is the small section at the back devoted to equine breeds of Faerun. That's just the kind of detail I expect from a good FR supplement.
Palpster 11-08-05, 05:25 PM	So let me get this straight - Champions of Valor has lots of good lore/fluff (especially about the Triad), a comparably small amount of feats, only four prestige classes, no CR20+ npcs but many lower CR ones, and a general lack of lots of "crunch"? Sounds like a book I absolutely must have :D ! Zevox My thoughts exactly!!
Zandilar 11-08-05, 06:19 PM	Heya, Kerri Talindras (NG Medium Half-moon eld cleric 5 of Sune) Male or female? Name looks female... and did you mean to type Half-moon Elf? Selune's very popular, isn't she? Perhaps my favorite aspect of CoV, though, which I don't think anyone's mentioned, is the small section at the back devoted to equine breeds of Faerun. That's just the kind of detail I expect from a good FR supplement. Not surprised Selune is popular. After all, she's the goddess of the k3w1n355 that is Good Lycanthropes. ;) :rolleye2: Really, though, I'm happy to see Selune represented. I'm also very glad to see a Sunite in amongst the NPCs, even though she's NG... And a Lurue-an (He's a GIANT EAGLE! That is really cool! :D). Surprised that a Tymoran wasn't there too, though, since She's the ultimate adventurer's deity. How does the book stack up on a Law vs Chaos level? More Law representation than Chaos (as per BoED)? Is there much about Tymora, Sune, Sharess, and Lliira (the good aligned goddesses of Brightwater - Waukeen doesn't count as she's TN)?
Oghmanyte 11-08-05, 06:49 PM	Sorry about the typos. :embarrass In general, I'd say that the book tends toward law rather than chaos, though this is not based on any empirical evidence, just my first rather cursory reading of it.
Crust 11-08-05, 08:12 PM	I don't have the book, so I probably shouldn't say anything, but I'm a bit disappointed by the NPC lineup. This was the one thing I was anxious to see. I loved seeing Bazim-Gorag, Malkazid, and Eltab in Ruin. Why not continue the trend in Valor with Gareth Dragonsbane, Piergeiron, Durnan, Arilyn, or some other good-aligned Realms personalities along with some new faces? The book is on the way from Amazon. I'm excited to get my hands on it for reasons others have mentioned. I was sort of hoping to see some familiar faces is all.
Shemeska the Marauder 11-08-05, 10:06 PM	So let me get this straight - Champions of Valor has lots of good lore/fluff (especially about the Triad), a comparably small amount of feats, only four prestige classes, no CR20+ npcs but many lower CR ones, and a general lack of lots of "crunch"? Sounds like a book I absolutely must have :D ! Zevox *blink* If that's the case I'm going to go take a look at the book. That sounds awesome. :D
Razz 11-09-05, 01:11 AM	You "Crunch-Haters" really ruin my day and D&D books, just so you know... :rolleyes:
BrianCritchley 11-09-05, 01:45 AM	aye I'd say the book is definatly more LG the CG based. there's an AWEFUL LOT for Paladins. if your playing a FR Paladin your gonna wanna have this book handy
Shemeska the Marauder 11-09-05, 01:50 AM	You "Crunch-Haters" really ruin my day and D&D books, just so you know... :rolleyes: I aim to please. *flashes a mouthful of lipstick framed fangs* I also want books that primarily inspire me, and will continue to do so two decades from now. Numbers and rules are all fine and good if that's what you primarily want, but they'll be utterly useless that same two decades from now once the game has moved on to another edition. You'll find people using the fluff from regional sourcebooks, books on the planes, and monster ecologies from 1e and 2e now a lot more than you'll find someone using rules from Skills and Powers in a 3e game. Generally speaking 3.x FR books have been a pretty good mix of fluff versus crunch, but I could see it swing over to 70/30 Fluff/Crunch as an ideal ratio. It's not like I'm advocating a removal of stats and making everyone play diceless games or anything, hardly, nor am I suggesting crunch heavy folks need to go play minis skirmishes rather than DnD. Nothing that extreme :) I just wouldn't argue with a bit more fluff, like a few pages worth fleshing something out, versus the same pages spent on a PrC or some feats etc in any given book.
Razz 11-09-05, 11:12 AM	I don't mind fluff, it just has to be outstanding fluff for it to be worth anything though. So far, I've seen pretty useless fluff like putting 3 adventures in one book (e.g. Stormwrack) when adventures should be placed up as WE as they've been doing for quite awhile. I felt more could've been placed in Stormwrack other than 3 measly adventures (the book needed more baddies, for example). My same thoughts go for the PrC format. Not many people like it, not even some of the designers both in the Dragon and even WotC's department like the new PrC format either.
The Simbul 11-13-05, 09:10 PM	I dont care what level the NPCs are so long as their stat blocks are actually done correctly and their character sheet choices match up with the pages spend describing them and their deeds. As for the absense of good nodes, I am pleasantly suprised that CoV will not be the third book to reprint/regurgitate Node Magic and the space-eating entourage of feats and spells needed to detect, use, manipulate, or create them. No one should have to devote have a dozen feats and aquire half a dozen spells known just to be able to gain a location-specific benefit. You dont gain XP in D&D by sitting around your temple/tower/stronghold waiting for some equal CR encounter to come attack you, so you can show off the powers you wield in that specific location. You gain XP by seeking adventures and challenges, which means you have to set foot outside the front door. By contrast, other location specific powers do not require any real long-term character creation choice to use them. A character is not required to take a single feat or know a single spell to be able to use the powers of a Magic Location or the vanguard spells of a Mythal (barring some obscure key), but somehow anyone who wants to use Nodes needs to plot that into their character sheet progression basically from level 1.
Shemeska the Marauder 11-14-05, 12:26 AM	As for the absense of good nodes, I am pleasantly suprised that CoV will not be the third book to reprint/regurgitate Node Magic and the space-eating entourage of feats and spells needed to detect, use, manipulate, or create them. No one should have to devote have a dozen feats and aquire half a dozen spells known just to be able to gain a location-specific benefit. You dont gain XP in D&D by sitting around your temple/tower/stronghold waiting for some equal CR encounter to come attack you, so you can show off the powers you wield in that specific location. You gain XP by seeking adventures and challenges, which means you have to set foot outside the front door. Eh, while I'll agree with you on the 'not needing to devote a half dozen feats to use a location-specific benefit, I can't agree with the two sentences after that. That you'll only gain XP, and thus new power, by going out and adventuring is an imposition of game mechanics on the setting. By this rationale, every wizard who bottles themselves up in their tower and disregards the world to do nothing but devote themselves to study and advancing their own spellcasting ability, will never get higher than 1st level because they aren't out there adventuring to gain XP, thus no matter how long they study and experiment, they'll never learn anything. Yet Jim Bob the mage who casts a few spells to kill some goblins over a weekend, but has never studied in his life since learning that spell, will suddenly over the course of that weekend of goblin killing all of a sudden know more spells, having more spells in his spellbook, etc in a 48 hour period than will the first mage who devotes decades to pure research. Sorry, but the game mechanics, while a useful method of advancing PCs, don't entirely make sense in this case, and I think it ill advised to forcibly apply them.
warlockco 11-14-05, 07:22 AM	My view on Good Nodes, take the Information on Evil Nodes from CoR and just reverse it.
Yokinobu 11-14-05, 09:24 AM	Eh, while I'll agree with you on the 'not needing to devote a half dozen feats to use a location-specific benefit, I can't agree with the two sentences after that. That you'll only gain XP, and thus new power, by going out and adventuring is an imposition of game mechanics on the setting. By this rationale, every wizard who bottles themselves up in their tower and disregards the world to do nothing but devote themselves to study and advancing their own spellcasting ability, will never get higher than 1st level because they aren't out there adventuring to gain XP, thus no matter how long they study and experiment, they'll never learn anything. Yet Jim Bob the mage who casts a few spells to kill some goblins over a weekend, but has never studied in his life since learning that spell, will suddenly over the course of that weekend of goblin killing all of a sudden know more spells, having more spells in his spellbook, etc in a 48 hour period than will the first mage who devotes decades to pure research. Sorry, but the game mechanics, while a useful method of advancing PCs, don't entirely make sense in this case, and I think it ill advised to forcibly apply them. I totally second that. A good example of this contradiction is the wizards of Halruaa. SS says that Halruaans rarely leave the country and that wizards don't see much need to go beyond the Walls. But the place is crawling with powerful wizards. What are they doing, killing monsters along the countryside? Would Halruaa even have a monster population after all that? Groundbreaking discoveries grant XP, but how often is that happening? I think studying new texts all the way through should elicit some amount of experience. And if item creation granted experience instead of costing it, that would help explain how some hermits have a high level. I never really understood why creating something new left you less experienced besides game balance reasons. My view on Good Nodes, take the Information on Evil Nodes from CoR and just reverse it. What would be the reverse of the Imprisonment ability?
Rauric 11-14-05, 11:17 AM	I don't see Helm as a very goodly church. It has a smattering of truly good people but most tend to lean to toward neutrality. They have tried to commit genocide on Maztica and cleric teamed with the Church of Talos to dominate Moonshae. In my head their is a large contigent in the Church that wants to control everything in order to protect it. That is how I am using them in my campaign. This is causing all sorts of trouble for a Clr/Pal of Helm player I have in my campaign. He is trying to find out who murdered the 1st Speaker of Nesme' when in truth it was some high ups in his church. They even used an assassin guild run by the Church of Cyric. They did that so that they would't sully their hands. They did this because they believed the 1st Speaker was a horrendous leader that did not want religion to be a factor in her town. In their opinion her poor leadership and lack of faith led to her town being sacked by the trolls and giants that recently plauged the North. They thought of ousting her through political means but that would take too long and leave the city open to another attack. So she got iced. Now a Cleric of Waukeen, Helm, and a new 1st Speaker run the town. I figure the priests of Helm who implimented this plan are LE and LN.
warlockco 11-14-05, 02:32 PM	I don't see Helm as a very goodly church. It has a smattering of truly good people but most tend to lean to toward neutrality. They have tried to commit genocide on Maztica and cleric teamed with the Church of Talos to dominate Moonshae. In my head their is a large contigent in the Church that wants to control everything in order to protect it. That is how I am using them in my campaign. This is causing all sorts of trouble for a Clr/Pal of Helm player I have in my campaign. He is trying to find out who murdered the 1st Speaker of Nesme' when in truth it was some high ups in his church. They even used an assassin guild run by the Church of Cyric. They did that so that they would't sully their hands. They did this because they believed the 1st Speaker was a horrendous leader that did not want religion to be a factor in her town. In their opinion her poor leadership and lack of faith led to her town being sacked by the trolls and giants that recently plauged the North. They thought of ousting her through political means but that would take too long and leave the city open to another attack. So she got iced. Now a Cleric of Waukeen, Helm, and a new 1st Speaker run the town. I figure the priests of Helm who implimented this plan are LE and LN. Helm just pretends to be a good guy, then when you least expect it, he stabs you in the back. :D He is a major bad guy in my book, he only gets away with being a "good" guy because of his portfolio. 1) Killed Mystra, having his Full Divine Power, while she was trapped as a "mere mortal" he could have used a less deadly means of stopping her. 2) Followers tried to overthrow the Moonshaes, while working with followers of Talos. 3) Followers weren't very nice to the Maziticans.
HVulpes 11-14-05, 07:18 PM	Just a little help, if you don't like the characters being low level, just amp them up. With the right books you should be able to turn them into epic characters. Imagine an Epic Dire Eagle fighter bring doom from above to the forces of evil. I mean most of the web enhancements and some of the books (Including CoV) have the smae character at different levels for different games.
seankreynolds 12-07-05, 08:29 AM	Just a little help, if you don't like the characters being low level, just amp them up. With the right books you should be able to turn them into epic characters. Imagine an Epic Dire Eagle fighter bring doom from above to the forces of evil. I mean most of the web enhancements and some of the books (Including CoV) have the smae character at different levels for different games. FYI (and mind you, I almost never read these boards, I've just been up all night with insomnia, so if you reply here I probably won't see it).... The NPCs in COV were specifically designed to be cohorts, contacts, allies, and/or special animal companions/special paladin mounts for the PCs. Not mentors, not bosses, not masters. That's what we were told to do, so we did it. If you don't like them at the level they are, feel free to level them up, but the book is about PCs being the stars and with that in mind it's a waste of space to do game stats for the epic goodies-goodies because you never need to use them in-game to the extent that you need to know exactly what they can do compared to your much-lower-level PCs. Or, as I put it on my boards, "If you have a character that can do anything, do you really need to know exactly how much of everything they can do?" Unless you're sitting at home alone running a game for the Srinshee where she takes on the latest avatar of Bane, you don't need the Srinshee's stats except for the "LOLZ she totally ROXORZ!" factor ... and that means those pages should be put to use for something that'll be used in an actual game, not a self-indulgent yet pointless test of whether NPC X could beat NPC Y in a fight.
Cainan 12-07-05, 09:03 AM	I have to agree with Mr. Reynolds there. With Champions of Ruin, you wanna see the big baddies so you can know what you're up against. Most of the stuff in Champions of Ruin is really supposed to be the enemy. Whereas stuff in Champions of Valor is meant to be stuff to help your chars, since most people play good. I don't know what the big craze is with wanting stats for the Srinshee. I can kinda understand it, but really, does it really matter? The Srinshee is very, very powerful. She's also not anywhere around at the moment and her main role is to show up in your campaign, perhaps mentor a char, give someone the Crown Blade, or obliterate a baddy for you. She isn't some political player out there. If you really want to stat her out, just figure her to be the most powerful elven wizard alive currently, give her Chosen of Mystra template, perhaps a Chosen of one of the elven gods or the entire Seldarine and go from there. She is essentially the elven Elminster I would imagine. Though, I don't know as much about her as a lot, I would imagine that is what she essentially is.
Crust 12-09-05, 11:18 PM	That is a pretty darn good explanation.