36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Best of the Power books yet..., July 22, 2009
This review is from: Divine Power: A 4th Edition D&D Supplement (Hardcover)
Divine Power is a sourcebook for 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons that offers more powers, feats, paragon paths, and other options for the divine classes: avengers, clerics, invokers, and paladins. It is not a stand-alone book; it builds on what's presented in the Player's Handbook and Player's Handbook 2.
Like the other Power books, Divine Power is 160 pages, and the font, layout, and general format is consistent with the core rulebooks.
The book features five chapters: one for each of the four classes, plus a fifth chapter dedicated to "divine options" including feats, epic destinies, rituals, and domains for all divine classes.
Each of the class chapters contains a new build option. (The paladin chapter contains two.) These include new class features, such as the Avenger's Censure of Unity, which grants the avenger more bonus damage as more of the avenger's allies surround the target, adding a "team player" build to the current "lone wolf" options -- or the paladin's Ardent Vow, which trades his healing Lay on Hands ability for the power to smite his opponents with increased damage.
Each of the four chapters also contains eight new paragon paths suited to its class. As with previous Power books, the quality of the paths varies. Some are archetypal, such as the paladin's Demonslayer, Dragon Slayer, and Questing Knight, and probably deserve inclusion on that basis alone. Some are bland, like the cleric's Miracle Worker (which, despite its name, is really just a very healing-focused path, with little else to offer). But the majority are interesting or flavorful, like the Avenger's Serene Initiate, a coolly methodical Zen killer; the cleric's Messenger of Peace, which manages to make a quasi-pacifistic option a viable choice for 4e despite the design of the 4e combat system, which tends to discourage such an approach; the paladin's Gray Guard, where the "gray" refers to morality; and the invoker's Adept of Whispers, which is difficult to describe but has possibly the best image and "fluff" of them all.
The fifth and final chapter contains ten epic destinies, which like the paragon paths vary in quality... although it could also accurately be said that it contains four epic destinies, as the first seven are all variations on the "avatar of a deity" concept. Additionally, one, the Chosen, is just a slightly-modified variant of the Demigod from the Player's Handbook, which makes this a rather skimpy offering, all in all. Of course, there are already many epic destinies to choose from, but I would have liked to see more clever ideas here.
The chapter also contains numerous feats across all character levels, 8 new rituals, two pages of new character backgrounds, and a section entitled "Your Deity and You," which suggests how members of each class might relate to the pantheon presented in the Player's Handbook. I find this last section, and the backgrounds, fairly useless, and I suspect most experienced players and GMs will feel the same, but I can see how it might be useful to newer players and GMs, so I won't begrudge the 8 pages they take up.
Finally, it contains the fourth-edition rules for domains. Each domain is a pair of feats which can be taken by a character who worships an appropriate deity. One feat is a Divinity feat and offers an extra Channel Divinity power similar to those in the Player's Handbook. The other is a Domain feat and grants a small bonus to a skill, plus a small bonus when using an at-will power. For instance, the Darkness domain grants a short period of concealment to a character who uses a certain at-will attack and hits.
This is less powerful than the domains of third edition were, but the implementation seems sound, and it's a nice way to further distinguish between different deities. More importantly, it's not a 'must' for divine characters -- some will choose it, but some will spend their feats on other things. Which indicates to me that their power level is just about right.
For the most part, this book lives up to its promises. The design seems pretty solid, and the content adds some much-needed options. There is a little bit of "power creep" present, but mostly it comes in the form of making the cleric a better healer than other leaders and making the paladin a better defender than it had been, both of which were arguably necessary. The paladin was widely considered the weakest defender before, and the cleric is supposed to shine at healing.
The biggest weakness is the lack of any index, combined with a minimal table of contents. This is a common weakness of 4e books, I know, but that doesn't excuse it. There's also some filler scattered about, but I find the vast majority of the core content -- class features, new powers -- strong, probably stronger even than in Martial Power and Arcane Power.
I'm happy with this book. While the content needs a little vetting, that's no different from similar books for earlier editions of the game, and it does what it set out to do. The quality of the Power series remains pretty high. If you don't like the fourth edition, nothing in this book is going to change your mind. If you do, you'll find some interesting toys to play with. It's more of the same, really -- an expansion in the most basic sense of the word.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Surpringly Good, July 22, 2009
This review is from: Divine Power: A 4th Edition D&D Supplement (Hardcover)
The Power series of sourcebooks for 4th Edition have become rather famous for their "power creep" - printing options that are far superior to the default options in the original player's handbook. Arcane Power, for example, gave us Elemental Empowerment - nearly doubling the offensive power of wizards, if they're of the right race - and Martial Power introduced us to the unkillable battlerage vigor fighter, that was so ridiculously overpowered they had to issue errata to essentially remove its unique ability.
There's a lot of meat in Divine Power, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if a number of broken ideas emerge from it, but from looking at all the feats in the book, as well as all the new class options and low-level powers, I'm quite happy with what they ended up with. For once, none of the new class options overwhelm the existing choices (though some, like the Avenger, look like they're indeed more useful), and the feats fill in much needed gaps in the divine playbook, rather than completely blowing the power curve out of the water.
For example, a Paladin's Divine Challenge on a strength paladin... sucks. Monsters simply ignore the mark, which means that the paladin is just not doing his job as a defender. And even a charisma paladin's challenge is often weak enough to ignore as well, so the Mighty Challenge feat (which simply adds +Strength to the damage on top of +Charisma) is quite welcome. AND, it makes playing a dual strength/charisma paladin a lot more feasible.
My philosophy with games is always: Options are good - but all have to be viable, with none overpowered or underpowered. A lot of 4th Edition to date has failed in that regard, but Divine Power is quite well done. It even adds some nice flavor in differentiating deities by domain, something I missed from 3rd Edition.
I didn't give it 5 stars because there wasn't anything in it that really caught my attention. My paladin welcomes the new 2nd level utility powers (since the existing ones suck, plain and simple), but none of the new choices were especially interesting either. Better than before, but still not where it should be.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Patterns of Divinity, July 24, 2009
This review is from: Divine Power: A 4th Edition D&D Supplement (Hardcover)
I've noticed a trend with the 4e power books. They don't seem to work too well with existing characters, but they're great for new ones.
Divine Power continues in this theme. We have new builds for each of the four existing classes, meant to explore different aspects of each class. Avengers get the Unity Censure, which encourages them to stand near the party rather than running off by themselves. Clerics get a pacifist build, which has powers that don't do damage but inflict conditions. Invokers get the Malediction build, which does more damage but cuts itself. And paladins get two more builds, a quasi-striker and one that focuses on conditions.
Each class gets a great many new powers, both for existing and new builds. The new build powers seem to be a bit better, but that might just be me. Each class also gets eight new paragon paths.
Domains are a returning feature from 3e, and descend from the spheres of earlier editions. These are purchased with feats, and give slight bonuses to certain at-will powers and a new Channel Divinity. These also serve as pre-requisites for the Avatar epic destinies (i.e. the War domain is a pre-requisite for Avatar of War).
In general, this is a perfectly acceptable supplement. Nothing leaps out as being excessively overpowered. The cleric's position as best healer in the game has been significantly reinforced, and the paladin's glaring defects as a defender have been fixed (albeit with a feat tax). I do wish there was more love for Strength clerics in the game, though.
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