is the latest and final book in Wizards of the Coasts Complete series of player supplements. The previous books in the series: , , and , focused on combat, divine spell casting, and arcane spell casting, respectively. This book focuses on skills and character classes that lean towards high skill use and special abilities that go beyond simple magic use or combat utility. Rogue PCs in particular are likely to gain the most benefit from this book, but I believe there are some great benefits to be had for every class in this book.
Chapter 1
This chapter provides us with three new base classes. The Ninja, the Scout, and the Spellthief. The Ninja class is essentially a Rogue/Monk combination, the Scout is a Rogue/Ranger combination, and the Spellthief is essentially a Rogue/Sorcerer. But even though they can be summarized with such simple descriptions, I actually enjoyed all three classes. The Spellthief is by far the most exotic class and the one least likely to see use in my game. But it is definitely very cool. The Spellthief essentially steals spell energy and effects from enemy casters with a successful sneak attack. They can steal an enemy casters spells, or spell effects and transfer the effect to themselves.
The Ninja class is perfect for making assassin characters. Their monk-like martial arts and abilities combined with the Rogues sneak attack and skills, makes them formidable opponents indeed. Just what a crafty DM needs to remind their PCs who is really in charge.
The Scout is likewise perfect for those players who normally want to play a Ranger, but want to downplay the divine woodsman aspect of Rangers, and emphasize the stealthy wilderness skirmisher aspect.
Chapter 2
This chapter is all about prestige classes. Many of these prestige classes were seen in the old 3.0 splat books such as Song and Silence, or in other classic 3.0 books like Oriental Adventures. There is a nice mix of classes in this chapter with a little something for everyone.
My personal favorite, the Shadowbane Inquisitor, is a class for those characters who zealously seek out and destroy evil wherever it may be found. Perfect for paladins and fighters. For those Rogue players who prefer urban intrigue, the Spymaster class is right up your alley. If you want to be the best dual-weapon wielding badass of the land, and even give Drizzt a run for his gold pieces, then the Tempest class is what you are looking for.
Or perhaps you are interested in playing a Rogue with some arcane spell casting ability, well then the Daggerspell Mage is what you want. Just like an Arcane Archer is a magic user who excels at ranged combat, so does the Daggerspell Mage combine awesome skill as a knife fighter with their spell casting ability.
Chapter 3
This chapter provides expanded skill descriptions for many skills. These expanded descriptions are great at giving ideas and examples of ways to use the skill in different ways. For example, you can use Sense Motive to assess just how much tougher your opponent might be, or if you are knocked down in a fight, you can use Tumble to return to your feet as a free action with a DC 35 Tumble check.
There are also numerous feats. Very cool feats that really build off of feats in other books to make truly formidable characters. Some of these feats are from previous products, but some are new. Im slightly concerned about some of these feats being used in combinations that I didnt think the designers envisioned. However, with the sheer number of feats that have been published for 3.0 and 3.5 D&D since it started, thats kind of unavoidable.
Some feats that struck me as particularly cool, and a perhaps a tad powerful, were Ascetic Mage and Leap Attack. Ascetic Mage allows a multi-classed Sorcerer/Monk to stack his Sorcerer levels with his Monk levels when determining their unarmored AC bonus. Leap Attack allows anyone who jumps at least 10 feat as part of a charge attack to triple the damage bonus they receive from Power Attack. Hmm, I run as part of a charge, make a DC 10 Jump check to jump 10 feet, and do triple power attack damage. Lets see, I take -5 to hit and get +5 to damage, multiplied by 3, thats +15 to damage! Pretty nice.
But wait! It gets better. If you wield a weapon with two hands when you use Power Attack per the 3.5 Players Handbook, you can double the power attack damage bonus. So, if I have a greatsword and am wielding it in two hands, I can take -5 to hit and get +10 to damage! Combined with Leap Attack, I can do +30 to damage! And since this is a charge attack, I get +2 to hit. So for taking a net -3 to hit, and -2 to my AC, I can do a single charge attack that does +30 points of damage! And dont forget that wielding a weapon with two hands also gives you 1.5 times your Strength bonus as well. Overpowered? Or just plain cool? Hmm, I guess all you DMs out there have to decide for yourself.
Personally, I would allow it. First of all, its freaking cool! Second of all, a character would only be able to really use this feat once per round and it would be their entire action. And third of all, I feel that as levels go up, fighters kind of get the shaft in terms of cool special abilities. A 20th level Rogue with a super high Bluff skill can effectively feint every single round and get +10d6 sneak attack damage on every single attack in which their foe fails their Sense Motive check. Also a 20th level Mage can cast freaking Wish! Enough said.
Anyway, lots of other cool feats as well.
Chapter 4
This chapter has all sorts of nifty tool and equipment. There are some new weapons, like the Broadblade short sword which provide a bonus if you use them to fight defensively.
There are also some new alchemical items. What Ninja would be complete without Flashpellets? Throw it down and all your opponents within 5 feet make DC 15 Fortitude saves or are blinded for one round while you escape. Or how about Ghostblight? Dont have a Ghost Touch weapon and have to fight incorporeal foes? A little dab of this stuff on your blade, and you can ignore the incorporeal miss chance for 3 rounds!
There is also some info on musical instruments and of course new magic items. My personal favorite is the Spool of Endless Rope. A single spool of rope that weighs only 1 pound, yet provides 500 feet of rope! Every adventuring party needs one of these.
Chapter 5
This chapter has some new spells and even a side bar with some new Hexblade spells for those of you who have and are using that class. A lot of spells are useful utility spells that Rogues, Bard, and other skill based characters would find useful. Some of the spells work really well in tandem with multiclassed characters. For example, Grave Strike allows Paladins and Clerics to use sneak attack on undead opponents for one round. A multi-classed Paladin/Rogue could do some damage with this spell. Or how about Swift Fly? It gives you all the benefits of the Fly spell, but lasts only 1 round. The advantage is that you can cast it as a Swift Action, which is basically the same as a Free Action, but you can only perform one Swift Action per turn.
Chapter 6
This chapter provides numerous sample organizations. Many of them tie in with the prestige classes previously presented. For example, the Daggerspell Mage I mentioned before is a prestige class associated with a group called the Daggerspell Guardians. More information on the group and its membership is described in this chapter.
I loved reading about many of these groups and the story ideas they presented were excellent. For example, the Order of Illumination is my personal favorite. This is the organization that is associated with the Shadowbane Inquisitor and its sister prestige class, the Shadowbane Stalker. I really love the idea of a zealous group of crusaders determined to root out and destroy evil by fire and sword. Really great role-playing potential, especially since the organization is rumored to be facing corruption from within
Finally, this chapter ends with rules for creating your own organizations. An appendix provides notes on epic level play, and also several relevant feats from the Epic Level Handbook that have been updated for 3.5 rules.
Content: 5
This book was simply packed with great stuff. The feats, prestige classes, the spells. This book will be influencing character creation in my games for some time to come.
Clarity: 5
A pleasure to read, and easy to find and refer back to the various feats and prestige classes.
Layout/Artwork: 4
As always, WotC does a great job of laying out there books, and giving us nice full color illustrations. I particularly enjoyed the Shadowbane Inquisitor painting on page 71. Still, I dont particularly care for some illustrations. A few were slightly too cartoonish for my taste.
Originality: 4
There is a lot of good stuff here, but a lot of the feats and prestige classes have been recycled from previous sourcebooks and Dragon magazine.
Value: 4
I think this is a great book, chock full of useful material no matter what class you intend to play. But the book really shines for those of you who want to incorporate more Rogue-like elements in your characters.
Overall: 4.5
I heartily recommend this book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and feel that it will add a lot of value to my game both as a DM and as a player.