Complete Champion - So, tell me about it.

[Fawsto]

Ok, I was wondering around the boards and I read a post stating that comp. champ. is pure gouda and cheddar.

Is this correct? I've got the book now, I've not read it yet though. What's your opinion guys?

Also if any cheesed combos are placed, give me a light on them. Thank ya.

[tyckspoon]

It's got the 1st level Pouncing variant Barbarian in it. If everything else in the book was a paragon of design and balance, it would still have a sharp cheddary aroma from proximity to that.

[Bag_of_Holding]

Spontaneous Divination option for Wizard, Domain access for sorcerers (although I heard people complaining about it), Battle Blessing etc...

[The_Snark]

Notable cheese:

-That wizard feature that lets you cast divinations spontaneously.

-The lion spirit totem barbarian. Gives pounce. Not too bad, except that it gives it at level 1, in exchange for a feature nowhere near as good as pounce, which means that it's an incredibly easy dip.

-Surge of Fortune, a spell that allows you to treat a single roll as if it were a natural 20 (and gives good luck bonuses in the meantime). Good even on its own, but combined with a vorpal sword...

-Arguably, the Travel Devotion feat is moderately broken, allowing you to move as a swift action. You can't use it all that often... unless you have turning attempts, in which case you can use it a lot more often.

-The Ordained Champion... may or may not be broken. It's a class that may actually be worth giving up caster levels for. Bonus feats, bonus domain, ability to store spells in your weapon, ability to cast all War spells (meaning Divine Power and Divine Favor!) more quickly (as a swift action, usually), and the ability to substitute your Wisdom for Strength for short periods of time. Plus more. It loses two caster levels over five levels, but for a melee-focused cleric, it might be worth it.

-Battle Blessing lets paladins essentially quicken all their spells. Of course, paladins might need this little boost, so whether this is cheese or not is debatable.

I didn't like the book all that much. Several of the feats/spells/class features are overpowered; a lot of other stuff in the book is either underpowered, not terribly interesting, or both. There wasn't much that struck a happy medium of balance.

[Emperor Tippy]

Notable cheese:

-That wizard feature that lets you cast divinations spontaneously.

-The lion spirit totem barbarian. Gives pounce. Not too bad, except that it gives it at level 1, in exchange for a feature nowhere near as good as pounce, which means that it's an incredibly easy dip.

-Surge of Fortune, a spell that allows you to treat a single roll as if it were a natural 20 (and gives good luck bonuses in the meantime). Good even on its own, but combined with a vorpal sword...

-Arguably, the Travel Devotion feat is moderately broken, allowing you to move as a swift action. You can't use it all that often... unless you have turning attempts, in which case you can use it a lot more often.

-The Ordained Champion... may or may not be broken. It's a class that may actually be worth giving up caster levels for. Bonus feats, bonus domain, ability to store spells in your weapon, ability to cast all War spells (meaning Divine Power and Divine Favor!) more quickly (as a swift action, usually), and the ability to substitute your Wisdom for Strength for short periods of time. Plus more. It loses two caster levels over five levels, but for a melee-focused cleric, it might be worth it.

-Battle Blessing lets paladins essentially quicken all their spells. Of course, paladins might need this little boost, so whether this is cheese or not is debatable.

The Snark hit most of the high points but there are many, many others (to many to list without the book in front of me). You know a book is to cheesy when its the only one for which the default assumption in my games is that nothing in it is allowed (you have to ask for something specifically and tell me your build in advance before I let it it).

A lot of the broken stuff is good in theory but is so badly worded or unthought out so as to be broken.

Lets take Surge of Fortune as an example. If it had been changed to "treat as an automatic success" then it wouldn't have any problems.

Or the Wizards alternate class feature, just change it a bit to say that you can sacrifice any one of your prepared spells to cast any equal level divination spell that is in your spellbook.

Those two changes make both of those features go from massively broken to reasonably powerful.

[Fawsto]

Now I got it... I will read it carefully.

[Danin]

Not to mention the paladin varient that allows you to summon spirits. Essentually, you can heal an additional ammount equal to twice your lay on hands, give bonuses to attack and damage rolls, AC and a few other abilities (Including the ability to raize someone from the dead within one round a rather large number of times per day) all for the cost of their mount.

I liked Fist of the Forest though, and didn't find it too unbalanced.

[OverdrivePrime]

The Forest-oriented PRCs I like pretty well. I haven't found much in here that's bannable, except several of the alternate class features. I decided to make a lion totem barbarian / Pious Templar of Kord for a deathmatch-style gladiator game that I play with a few friends and the guy is just sick and wrong.

For any real game, I'd be extremely hesitant to let anything from Complete Champion in without heavy review.

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

The spells Sacred/Profane Item.

[Zain_Thorngallow]

My gaming group has accumulated a substantial collection of books throughout the seasons and except for expanded Spell Lists and the occasional feat here or there, we've been pretty permissive about introducing new source book material.

At least until Complete Champion, which is a book that we've completely banned outright... the stuff in there is just too darned much, for pretty much the reasons described by Snark & Tippy. :smalleek:

[RTGoodman]

My main problem is that, despite all the broken stuff and all the terrible and underpowered stuff in it, I felt like it was a waste of money because of the sheer amount of space taken up by material I find completely useless.

I mean, really - 44 pages of domain and deity affiliations, 10 more pages of organization affiliations, and another 15 pages on "holy sites"? That's like 70 pages out of 158 just on that stuff. I mean, they give some mediocre to decent benefits, but I don't ever see myself or anyone I know putting them into an actual game.


On the other hand, I do like some of the spells in it, especially if you're playing a heal-bot. Fast Healing 2 for up to 30 round with seeds of life? Yes, please! Magical darts of healing from darts of life? I'll take a couple of those, too!

[Dark Tira]

Not to mention the paladin varient that allows you to summon spirits. Essentually, you can heal an additional ammount equal to twice your lay on hands, give bonuses to attack and damage rolls, AC and a few other abilities (Including the ability to raize someone from the dead within one round a rather large number of times per day) all for the cost of their mount.


Actually you're thinking of Dungeonscape for that variant and it's probably a fair trade given that the mount is one of the best class features a Paladin gets. Besides, it's one of the few reasons I've seen to actually take a Paladin all the way to 20.

[Fawsto]

I failed to find that Paladin variant that allows spirit summoning. Can you tell me the page?

[Keld Denar]

I failed to find that Paladin variant that allows spirit summoning. Can you tell me the page?

Because its not in CChamp, its in Dungeonscape. Someone above already corrected this.

[Draz74]

It was also spoiled on the WotC website: Divine Spirit Variant (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20070209a).

[Person_Man]

WotC is gearing up for 4th ed. So 3.5 has entered the kitchen sink phase. Any crunchy idea that anyone has had is basically being thrown out there with little playtesting. Comp Champion is the perfect example.

It's probably a good thing though. I imagine there will be a cohort of gamers who stick with 3.5 forever, just as there is still a healthy 2nd ed crowd. (I don't know anyone who plays 1st ed or any of the short lived antecedents, but I'm sure there's someone out there who still plays them). They deserve as many toys as possible before the 3.5 shop closes up. An intelligent DM can sort through any amount of cheese.

[Rad]

I would note that the divination wizard variant is only cheesy if you want to get into Ultimate Magus. Also note that with Spontaneous Healer and the feat that adds the healing domain to your spell list you can exploit the same bug.

[Starbuck_II]

Notable cheese:
-Surge of Fortune, a spell that allows you to treat a single roll as if it were a natural 20 (and gives good luck bonuses in the meantime). Good even on its own, but combined with a vorpal sword...

What level is that? Plus, vorpal would just mean a gish-wizard. Anyways, who actually uses vorpal...not worth it for +5 ability most of the time.


-Battle Blessing lets paladins essentially quicken all their spells. Of course, paladins might need this little boost, so whether this is cheese or not is debatable.

I call that adding back the balance.


I didn't like the book all that much. Several of the feats/spells/class features are overpowered; a lot of other stuff in the book is either underpowered, not terribly interesting, or both. There wasn't much that struck a happy medium of balance.

The knowledge Devotion is balanced I thought.
As well as Air I Devotion.

[Cuddly]

I would note that the divination wizard variant is only cheesy if you want to get into Ultimate Magus. Also note that with Spontaneous Healer and the feat that adds the healing domain to your spell list you can exploit the same bug.

Divinations are probably the most powerful spells preparation casters have, as they allow one to prepare the right spells, ahead of time. The saving grace on divination spells is the fact that prep casters are so limited on spells, that putting div spells in spell slots, until high levels, isn't always worth it, especially if your DM doesn't let you cast div spells for a day, then adventure the next, then rest, then adventure. With spontaneous divination, any spells left over at the end of the day (like that enervate you didn't use since you've been fighting undead) can be put towards powerful div spells, like scrying, Clairaudience/Clairvoyance, etc.

Even in the middle of an adventure, spontaneous conversion to div means all sorts of good stuff. High dex creature? Drop that grease for a true strike and pwn with ray of clumsiness. Something speaking a bizarre language? Comprehend languages. Invisible creatures? See invis. And that's just the first two levels of spells. Some of the best utility spells, as you can see, are divination. Giving spontaneous access to these means the wizard can prep more combat spells, not worry about stocking the Bat Belt with as many scrolls, and work on the fly.

Spontaneous div casting is about as broke as it comes.

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

There are many other books that have something unbalanced or something that synergize with another book in an unbalanced way.
It is not an excuse but, considering that a DM has to have all eyes open anyway if some of the players have a propensity to optimize further than what is accepted in the group and that, as Person_Man says, this is the last call for using any 3rd edition idea, I think it is acceptable



(I don't know anyone who plays 1st ed or any of the short lived antecedents, but I'm sure there's someone out there who still plays them)

I think that is what Matthew still plays. (I read somewhere that he is 78.)*





*: There is a note on my desk that says that.... I am sure that is a "7" and not a "2".

Matthew vs. Beholder
FIGHT!

[Emperor Tippy]

What level is that? Plus, vorpal would just mean a gish-wizard. Anyways, who actually uses vorpal...not worth it for +5 ability most of the time.
It's a 5th level spell IIRC. And Vorpal isn't worth it because of the natural 20 required to use it. Surge negates that so every whack is a Vorpal whack.

If you build a cleric to take advantage of it you can 1 hit kill anything that dies when it looses its head. Including things like Solars or Dragons (seen builds that could off 4 Solars in a day at level 15 with 95% reliability).

[Craig1f]

It's a 5th level spell IIRC. And Vorpal isn't worth it because of the natural 20 required to use it. Surge negates that so every whack is a Vorpal whack.

If you build a cleric to take advantage of it you can 1 hit kill anything that dies when it looses its head. Including things like Solars or Dragons (seen builds that could off 4 Solars in a day at level 15 with 95% reliability).

Keep in mind that you still have to confirm the hit.

[Emperor Tippy]

Keep in mind that you still have to confirm the hit.
Why I said a character built for it. There are dozens of ways to confirm a hit or get a massive bonus on the attack to confirm.

And if you have the luck domain and can cast 8th level spells its as easy as using Moment of Prescience for a +15 to +20 bonus to the attack.

[KIDS]

The lvl 1 Pounce is hideous, but otherwise I thoroughly enjoyed Complete Champion and found many of its classes and feats "just right" on the reward/investment side. Otherwise, the book is written warmly, without "holier than thou" style of Book of Exalted Deeds, and almost reads like a novel in many parts. I'm quite fond of it...


p.s. Water Devotion is the greatest thing EVER :smallsmile: