Customer Reviews

Defenders of the Faith: A Guidebook to Clerics and Paladins

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you liked Sword and Fist, and/or you are interested in playing a Cleric or Paladin character, this is a good book for you. It has alot of new spells, new armors, new prestige classes (some of which are very cool) and of course, new FEATS. So really, anyone could use it, no matter what character class you play. On the other hand, if you are looking for alot of "source" matierial, or ideas on how to play these classes, then this book will disappoint you. It is very much a RULES book, expanding the mechanics of the game but not the culture of the game. The exception to this is a nicely written section on various kinds of temples and what one could expect to find in them, but I found this information to be a bit obvious. The best reason to buy the book is for the new spells and feats. If you aren't interested or cant keep up with the ones alreay out there, you will do well to save your money.

"Defenders of the Faith: A Guidebook to Clerics and Paladins" was decidedly mediocre for some reason. It contains useful information for playing a cleric or paladin in third edition, but for some reason it just didn't seem as useful as "Sword and Fist".

Some of the nicer ideas included the different type of paladin's mounts (or cohorts), new (but slightly repetitive) feats, prestige domains, and new spells. The different suggestions for playing clerics and paladins were generally interesting and helpful, but nothing really new.

Not quite as good are the prestige classes. It seemed many of them were almost repetitive or boring. Unlike "Sword and Fist", none of them made me want to try to build a character so that eventually I could use the prestige class. A few of the magic items seemed to be unrelated to the cleric or paladin class, in general.

In fact, that's part of the problem with the book. It feels like the book was cobbled together at the last minute so that there would be a book for clerics and paladins. Unlike "Sword and Fists" brilliant little additions, there's nothing in "Defenders of the Faith" that really makes it really interesting. It feels more like a second edition "Player's Handbook to Clerics" for third edition and that is not a compliment.

I would say that if you're like me and you like to own all the third edition books, feel free to pick it up. It'll probably be useful in the long run for DMs to use for NPCs. Or if you like clerics or paladins best out of all the classes, again, give it a go and buy it. Otherwise, there really is no need to pick up this book.

Which, of course, doesn't tell us much about this, since S&F really wasn't that good.

This is, as you may've guessed, the D&D3 splatbook for clerics and paladins. In it, you'll find a collection of roleplaying and character advice, new equipment, prestige classes, and spells. There are also sample temples based on alignment, and a few other organizations.

What's good? Well, for starters, the material is more substantive. There's more here on almost every subject, leading to a lack of intentional filler material. The prestige classes are decent, and I liked the advice on playing a paladin. Having non-standard mounts is also a nice touch.

What's bad? Not so much as S&F. Actually, very little specifically bad. It seemed a tad dense to me, and a lot of the new abilities are rather...munchkin-capable. (A member of my party uses one ability, I forget the name, that has him spend a turning attempt and get a massive attack and damage bonus...and his charisma is rather high) Also, the appendix with monster religions is disappointing; while a nice thing to get you started, I wonder why each humanoid race has only one deity. Check out the old AD&D2 Monster Mythology, or for demihumans, the FR supp. Demihuman Deities.

All in all, not bad. I wasn't disappointed, but wasn't that thrilled.

This book had a lot of useful information on clerics but nothing too spectacular in the way of feats. There are interesting cleric prestige classes throughout the book and paladin's aren't exactly on the 'low end of the totem pole' either. It has a very useful section on roleplaying tips for a 'defender of the faith' for beleivers of all deities.
The book is biased against the 'evil side' but it doesn't exclude them completely either. It doesn't take into effect that much in the fact that there are people out there who want evil clerics in their campaign, whether they be PCs or NPCs. It does help you build a complete paladin or cleric (some feats are useless but most are useful), but I think it does leave plenty of room for imagination with approval of your DM.
Overall if you are going to play a cleric (they are very important on campaigns, every group really should have one) or a paladin (a very formidable and well rounded warrior) then you should get this book, or just read it at a book store before making a decision to buy it.
This book is not intended to hold your hand a give you a step by step guide on playing such characters, because believe it or not you do need to use your imagination to some extent. A paladin in particular is tough to play as a beginning RPG player. By now you should have most of the information on playing a paladin through the use of the AD&D 2nd edition Paladin's Handbook, or just from experience on playing AD&D 2nd edition.
If you can afford buying both the 2nd ed. Paladin's Handbook and Defenders Of The Faith, I suggest you do so to help complete your understanding of the Paladin character.

I am referring to the Complete Guide to Paladins for 2nd edtion. That book had far more material in greater depth than Defenders does. Again, this book also seems underdone, like so many 3rd edition books. The most useful material was the section describing how the faiths of specific alignments, and deities, work. As for the rest, it is "overbalanced". Most of the feats are so "balanced" as to be worthless, as are the prestige classes. The kits found in the Complete Guide are better, I think, with real balance, not +'s and -'s canceling each other out. The organizations listed were a little better, but again, the Guide had more interesting ones. Although I have focussed on Paladins, the same holds for priests. The Complete Guide to Priests wasn't that good, so I can't recommend looking for it. Overall, I wouldn't bother buying this again just four about 10 pages of useful material.

This book has a lot of information about clerics and churches, along with lists of sacred equipment and example temples. For the first time, clerics are treated as actual religious leaders instead of just "guys with healing spells." There are many prestige classes for church specialists, including exorcists, and there are also prestige domains, which are only available to clerics who take a prestige class. Don't listen to the other guy who says this book has nothing for paladins. How about... a paladin with a DRAGON mount! Yes, your paladin can now ride a dragon into battle! If that's too rich for you, your paladin can ride almost anything else, from dire lions to monstrous spiders! After reading this book, your paladin will never go near a mere horse again!

I'm sure the other reviews covered details of what the book contains. It's an accessory book for the 3rd edition D&D game, if you don't play D&D, why are you reading this review? If you are a DM, have all the core rule books before you get this one, and probably Sword and Fist. If you are a player, unless you play a lot of clerics, just borrow your DMs copy of this book.

Why do my players hate this book? It inspired me to write an evil cleric adventure. The evil cleric was setup in a temple, with supporting undead and acolytes that all made sense, worked together, and used a lot of stuff from this book. Every member of the party was sure they were dead at one point or another, and in the end, one was, and half the party was in tatters, and everyone agreed it wasn't unfair, that they hadn't planned well enough.

Evil Cleric Suggestion: I forget what part of the book I got this from, but one feature of the temple was the three third level clerics whose job it was to stand around behind the temple champion and cast healing spells on him. They were clerics of Erythnul, and had the trickery domain, so they were doing their job invisibly. The combat monster of the party couldn't figure out how the champion was healing himself and participating in combat.

The Players Handbook for Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition gives some excellent information on what a Paladin is and what he stands for. It even lists the Paladin's Creed. It inspired a concept of a Paladin as a great defender of justice, but also a thinker.

The Player's Handbook for the new 3rd Edition did not have such useful information, but I figured the new supplement, "Defenders of the Faith" must. After all, half the book is about Paladins.

Sorry, not much about that here.

Granted, there's other good stuff. The book is loaded with Prestige Classes and some useful information on church structure and ritual. But all we know about Paladins from this book is that they shouldn't lie, cheat, or poison. Well, no duh, Sherlock. We already knew that.

I'm also disappointed in the number of feats, especially since "Sword and Fist" had so many great ones. The feats are mostly spell enhancing, and lack fun show-offy kind of feats we all love.

While "Defenders of the Faith" is a useful tool, especially for clerics, it's uninspiring. If you want to know what a Paladin is really about, get some older material on the subject.

This book is ok with plusses and minuses. On the good side, the prestige classes were cool; some new, powerful spells were introduced; and the philosophy of each alignment was presented. The alignment philosophies were the most usefull part of the book for me. I finally know how a lawful good/neurtal/evil cleric differs from a chaotic good/neutral/evil cleric. However, there was little roleplaying information. How do some of these new spells and prestige classes fit into my campaign? (I guess that it's completely up to me). I would like to have seen more castles and temples, more campaign information, and more about how to blend religious orders into the leadership hierarchy of a kingdom. Anyway, I did get some "food for thought" from this supplement, and the games must go on.

This book is just fine, it is not as good Tome and blood, but it is still fine. I must admit that one of the best classes existing in D&D is the cleric, and this book gives a lot more care to paladins than to clerics.

Let's begin with the new feats, some of them are really good, some others, on the other hand, are "useless", but most of them are fine, and add a good repertoire of "tricks" to your paladin/cleric.

The spells are just weird, most of them seem great at first glance, then you look to the dissadvantages and realize that they are very difficult to use, or very dangerous too. You shall be very careful if you don't want to give advantage to your enemies, but if you use them correctly, there is no way you can lose a combat.

I personally don't understand theese prestiges classes, since nearly all of them are for paladins or clerics who have "unarmed strike" , "combat reflexes" and so on, the color you can give to your cleric lies in the churches you can belong too, this doesn't mean that they are mistreated, they are just treated in another way.

the negative point regarding the cleric's abilities, is that almost all of them in this book, relies in the ability to "turn/rebuke undeads", and I personaly think that there's a lot more for a cleric to do than this.

I liked this book a lot, as I said before, it's not as goog as Tome and Blood but it is still a must have for a D&D fan. I have it and I recomend it.