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Complete Divine - Review

I've read recently some Complete Divine reviews and some of them are completely opposite. So I've decided to have a look at this book and find out for myself. There are seven chapters in this book, and I intend to say a few words for every one of them.

The Devoted

Three new base classes are introduced here:

• Favored Soul
• Shugenja
• Spirit Shaman

Shugenja is a direct copy from Oriental Adventures, while the other two seem original(I haven't seen them in other books). The Spirit Shaman seems more interesting, he has some useful shaman abilities for communication with spirits, and druid spells. Flexibility of the sorceror and versatility of the wizard are combined in this class and the Spirit Shaman can memorize spells from list, and then cast spontaneously like sorceror.

Prestige Classes

If some complain about copying from other books, here you'd find out why. At least 2/3 of all prestige classes have already been published.

From all 24 prestige classes, 10 are from Defenders of the Faith.

• Church Inquisitor
• Consecrated Harrier
• Contemplative
• Divine Oracle
• Holy Liberator
• Hospitaler
• Sacred Exorcist
• Sacred Fist
• Pious Templar (called only Templar in DotF)
• Warpriest

2 from Masters of the Wild:

• Blighter
• Geomancer

1 from Song & Silence:

• Temple Raider of Olidammara

1 from Book of Vile Darkness:

• Ur-Priest

2 from Dragon Magazine #283:

• Shining Blade of Heronius
• Radiant Servant of Pelor

8 remaining classes I've never seen before:

• Black Flame Zealot
• Divine Crusader
• Entropomaster
• Evangelist
• Rainbow Servant
• Seeker of the Misty Isle
• Stormlord
• Void Diciple

But, considering that PhB and DmG 3.5 are just reworked 3.0 books, we can say that Complete Divine had completed the task of gathering the most popular prestige classes in one book and convert to 3.5. So if you are not collecting books and you haven't read all Dragon Magazines for the past two years... you could find many new and amazing things in the book.

Supplemental Rules

This title actually hides a chapter for feats. There are many, different and good, most of them completely new. The two major groups are Divine and Wild feats. Although not all of them seem useful enough, there are some powerful. Especially the epic ones.

Magic Items

Relics are new type magical items. They work only in the hands of a character who had dedicated to the diety the relic is associated with. To activate them you have to use spell slot or have True Believer feat ... and lots of hit dice.

For every diety in PhB and some others, there are two relics.

Deities

This chapter describes thouroughly different religions, how priests train, typical rituals and common prayers. For example halflings often speak confidently, but it could be better if Jondalla helps, like this healing prayer: "I am so healthy, but if ....". Prayers to Obad-Hai usually correspond to lifecycle, ex: "My thirst for knowledge grows, give me wisdom and kill my doubts".

The rest is about twenty grayhawk dieties, found their place in PhB. Also you could find maps of typical temples dedicated to different dieties.

The Divine World

Some transcendental questions have their answers here: What happens to the soul, after hero's death? Where it goes and what it does there? Why rich and influential people can't be ressurected if there are such spells?

Different religious organisations are described: teocracy, global and scattered religions, cults, confessions.

Domains and Spells

Apart from many new spells, you could find old and revised, even old and not revised spells. The madness of Miasma and MotW is back again. The most powerful spells are in druid spell list.<,/p>

In conclusion the book is worth it. I liked the contents and presentation. Yes, there are some mistakes and inconsistency, even XX mark where sould be page or table reference, but it is indeed Complete Divine and sure helps playing divine character.