Rating: 
Summary: Best New WOTC Book Yet
Review: If a Paladin lies, he forsakes his Deity-granted powers....or does he? For quite a while, the essence of good and evil have been fairly black and white topics in the D&D world, (Paladins=good; Orcs=bad; Undead=bad; but fun; etc.) and, ironically, this tome serves to even further polarize that gap, but it does so with such amazing flourishes of depth and detail that it actually makes the Good vs. Evil concept that much clearer. I enjoyed this book beyond a role-playing standpoint; I read through each issue, topic by topic (lying, killing, cheating), all the while my internal monologue jogging along with the pages, challenging my long-held ideas of a variety of concepts of goodness. That is true art, and it elevates the game to a level only scratched at by previous attempts. Bravo. One side note here: An earlier writer gave poor marks for the books "Heavy bias towards homosexuality." This is completely off base. While I would find it refreshing to see material that tackled the issue head-on, the wording the writer objects to, wherein one creature is "devoted to" or "in all ways connected to" a being of the same sex in no way implies homosexuality. It simply invokes a language of a time where beings were beyond petty paranoia of sexuality and formed strong bonds of friendship regardless of sex. Obviously, that reviewer has a few issues.
Rating: 
Summary: A definate Best Buy
Review: If you are a fan of DnD, this is the book for you! Well, not everyone. If you are planning on playing a good-oriented campaign, or are in one now, this is definatly for you. If you are just planning to slap a LG title on you character and never follow through, or not planning on playing a good character, I'd pass this one over. For those of you that are not evil freaks, Get this. It is chock full of awesome variants that you will love. 22 prestige classes will help you enhance your much needed special abilities. Dozens of spells, and around 8 new domains, including a couple spells (and one epic) that purposely let Celestials posess you for a while. around 8 new celestials, dozens of new good-aligned creatures, and a number of templates to add. To stop previous rumors, there are NO refrences to homo or bisexuality. Also, although the book is less than 200 pages, it only costs 23 bucks. All in all, BUY THIS BOOK!
*WARNING*
This book does contain a "Mature Audiences" sticker like the one included on The Book of Vile Darkness. The Introducion adresses this issue, stating that the ethical and moral issues are not to be taken lightly. I do not feel that it is needed, but I just wanted to state that it will come on the front cover, bought from Amazon or not.
Rating:
Summary: A definate Best Buy
Review: If you are a fan of DnD, this is the book for you! Well, not everyone. If you are planning on playing a good-oriented campaign, or are in one now, this is definatly for you. If you are just planning to slap a LG title on you character and never follow through, or not planning on playing a good character, I'd pass this one over. For those of you that are not evil freaks, Get this. It is chock full of awesome variants that you will love. 22 prestige classes will help you enhance your much needed special abilities. Dozens of spells, and around 8 new domains, including a couple spells (and one epic) that purposely let Celestials posess you for a while. around 8 new celestials, dozens of new good-aligned creatures, and a number of templates to add. To stop previous rumors, there are NO refrences to homo or bisexuality. Also, although the book is less than 200 pages, it only costs 23 bucks. All in all, BUY THIS BOOK!
*WARNING*
This book does contain a "Mature Audiences" sticker like the one included on The Book of Vile Darkness. The Introducion adresses this issue, stating that the ethical and moral issues are not to be taken lightly. I do not feel that it is needed, but I just wanted to state that it will come on the front cover, bought from Amazon or not.
Rating:
Summary: Being good just got a whole lot better
Review: In my opinion this is by far the best book that has yet been released for the D&D 3.5 series. As a companion piece to the Book of Vile Darkness it provides numerous new character options that allow players to take their good aligned characters and turn them into Exalted characters. This book does a fantastic job of introducing new and powerful abilities without upsetting game balance becuase the system is designed so that the new feats, prestige classes, and templates (while powerful) are also easily lost if the character strays from the "straight and narrow". If you enjoy playing Paladins, Righteous Clerics, Smiter-of-Evil type characters then this book has everything you could ever hope for. This book does for players what the Book of Vile Darkness did for DM's...put a highly focused, motivated character into the forefront of the power curve. An excellent book and a necessity to groups that like the "save the world" style games.
Rating:
Summary: Being good just got a whole lot better
Review: In my opinion this is by far the best book that has yet been released for the D&D 3.5 series. As a companion piece to the Book of Vile Darkness it provides numerous new character options that allow players to take their good aligned characters and turn them into Exalted characters. This book does a fantastic job of introducing new and powerful abilities without upsetting game balance becuase the system is designed so that the new feats, prestige classes, and templates (while powerful) are also easily lost if the character strays from the "straight and narrow". If you enjoy playing Paladins, Righteous Clerics, Smiter-of-Evil type characters then this book has everything you could ever hope for. This book does for players what the Book of Vile Darkness did for DM's...put a highly focused, motivated character into the forefront of the power curve. An excellent book and a necessity to groups that like the "save the world" style games.
Rating: 
Summary: An un-needed book
Review: In my opinion, this is an un-needed book. Why does a DM need a book full of "monsters" that are vastly powerful GOOD beings. In the vast majority of campaigns, the players are good, fighting the forces of evil. With the monsters in this book, the players won't have much to do except watch the battle. This brings up a minor complaint about D&D that I've had since the game first came out...why do the developers always give a slight power edge to good? Wouldn't it make more sense to give a slight power edge to evil, since that's what the players will be fighting against. Take dragons for example. The most powerful good dragon (gold) is a bit more powerful than the most powerful evil dragon (red). All this leads to is the DM having to come up with some reasoning why evil dragons outnumber good dragons, like in Dragonlance Chronicles with the abduction of the dragon eggs. Well, enough rambling off topic. Unless you're DMing a high level evil group, give this one a pass.
Rating:
Summary: Good Product
Review: One of the better products from WotC. Very good information for those that aren't fascinated by being evil.
Rating:
Summary: Long Awaited, somewhat dissapointed
Review: Over all I liked this book, I'd been waiting for it since I bought the Book of Vile Darkness when it first came out. I had very little problem thinking of truly vile villains for my campaigns and the Book of Vile Darkness simply served to give me some new ideas and such for my villains. The problem I had was giving my players good aligned help, spells, items, and prestige classes. There is really very little in the way of what the Book of Exalted Deeds has to offer in products designed for DMs. So as soon as it became available I bought it. The book really came through. My two biggest complaints are the gender bias in the prestige class section, and the practical uselessness of the feats in most campaigns. There are two prestige classes in this book that require your character to be female to join. There are, however, no prestige classes in any book I own or have ever read that require a person to be male, much less two. While I am male myself, I was not the only one who read it who was surprised. One of the girls that plays with my group flipped through it twice and asked, "Where are the guy prestige classes?". Although a great number of the illustrations depicted men, there was no male gender requirement anywhere. All the WoTC products I own are fairly gender neutral, but I have to say this book was a pretty far cry from that. They could have so easily made a companion class to those particular classes and solved the problem. As far as feats go, don't buy this book for them. Unless you design a campaign around the book and it's counterpart, they're pretty much useless to practical minded players. One of my players did take the vow of poverty which is pretty cool and encourages better roleplaying. Like the Book of Vile Darkness there are precious few really useful magic items, so that's not a good reason to buy this book either. The biggest advantage this book has, and the reason I gave it four stars is the monsters portion of the book. This book has singlehandedly managed to fill the huge gaping void in what good characters can summon. With the critters in this book your good aligned spellcasters no longer have to be limited to summoning "celestial" animals until they get Summon Monster III or IV. The Celestials in this book are incredibly well written. The NPC's are even better. Those two points make the rather large price tag worth it. The only thing it really misses, is a good counterpart to the imp and quasit for familiars.
Rating:
Summary: Glorious!
Review: Plato once said that we should never trust anyone who advocates that we should avoid anything but evil and pursue anything but goodness. And Plato was right. This book is fantastic and definitely worth buying for several reasons: 1. It is a worthwhile counterpart to the Book of Vile Darkness. For a game which prides itself on being fair and balanced in all things, it would naturally be blatantly unbalanced in favor of evil if there were not such counterpart. 2. The new feats and prestige classes are definitely worthy of those of us who prefer to play with good-aligned parties and characters. I'll expand on that below. 3. There are those idealistic, old-fashioned fools like me still in existence who believe that for a game like D&D, which is based on Lord of the Rings, it is not only more appropriate but also more fun to play with a view to some sort of noble goal to destroy evil. Such naive souls like myself have always believed that it is far more fun and exciting to kill the dragon and save the damsel than the other way around. I'm not terribly big on prestige classes. However, the ones described in this book are terrific - very balanced and eminently playable. Although I haven't actually played a campaign with this text (yet), I can see how it would be supremely fun to do. The prestige classes are very powerful: Vassal of Bahamut (a de facto dragon-slaying class), the Sword of Righteousness (a prestige class for those who, like me, don't want to deviate from their regular character class for many levels but would like some bonus feats), and, my personal favorite, the Fist of Raziel for Paladins who wish to eschew their undead turning and special mount privileges for bonuses to their smiting ability. Ever hear of a lawful good assassin? There's now a special order of ex-rogues and assassins who have converted and have now formed a lawful good society of spies and stealthy killers of evil. Harpers, eat your heart out. There are more, of course; this is only a sample. But for those of us who live to play good-aligned Paladins and Clerics, this book is a ray of hope in an often evil-glorifying game. But don't think for a moment that only Paladins and Clerics can benefit from this text. On the contrary, there are classes designed specifically for good-aligned Druids, Fighters, Rangers, Sorcerers and Bards. There is a prestige class only for Elves & Half-Elves. There's even a class only for female characters. But the main requirement for any of these classes is that the character be of good alignment. Not non-evil. Good. If I have any complaint at all it's that there isn't much in the book for Barbarians and Wizards. But even so, Barbarians may wish to join one of the nature-oriented prestige classes designed primarily for Rangers or Druids. And Wizards will enjoy the new spells and metamagic feats available to them. So there truly is something for everyone. I myself have played Paladins for years. And I'm in love with the 3.5E Paladin. But throughout many of the campaigns I've played and players I've encountered, I've often seen Paladins, good-aligned Clerics, and even the concept of goodness and law scoffed at and ridiculed. The overall feeling of many gamers is that Paladins are nothing but arrogant do-gooders whose very moral alignment is opposed to having any fun, obtaining any amount of treasure, or getting any experience points. (And that's odd since no one seems to be going around calling Obi-Wan Kenobi or Aragorn from LotR arrogant do-gooders or whimps.) Such players prefer to power-game a chaotic neutral dual-classed half-orc barbarian-fighter or something which will enhance their freedom and advancement. And that may very well work. But, again, this game was based on LotR, and I prefer to see it in those terms. And I play it in those terms. I don't think that rescuing a red dragon and slashing the throat of the damsel as enhancing the advancement of my character, no matter how much money or experience points are involved. So for those of us who prefer to capture the original vision of the game, this book goes a very long way. Lawful good is now something to be revered - and even feared. Law and goodness are vindicated in this tome. Paladins, and the many Paladin orders listed in this book, are not whimps - they're superlative hunters and destroyers - every bit as powerful and fun as any Fighter or Barbarian, and far more so if battling evil-aligned creatures. Clerics are not just healers - they can be other-worldly mystics who are immune to virtually everything or who are fearsome warriors like their Paladin counterparts. This is almost redemptive in a game which has become, sadly, dominated by the "evil is freedom" mentality of many of the game-makers and players over the past 20+ years. So, yes, law and goodness are now not just in keeping with the original idea of the game, but are also fun and extremely powerful. And all of us who love playing Paladins, Clerics or any other good-aligned character but who felt inferior and who were the brunt of many a joke over the past several years, will now be the ones who are accepted and sought after. And this is a welcome change for a game whose original purpose is to do good and avoid evil.
Rating:
Summary: Without this book playing D&D is MEANINGLESS
Review: Simply put this book made me understand the nature of good characters. That is something I thought I knew, I was so wrong. What most people think is good is merely neutral behavior. I am proud to admit that my campaign has aquired the personality of a real good-versus-evil conflict. It's much more than gold-dungeon-piling, it's more than saving the world because there's nobody else, no my friends... It-is-to-live-the-goodness-and-all-of-it's-holy-power! This book opened the real possibility of taking an enormous role in the world for those players who like tough challenges, for those who REALLY want to PLAY the D&D Game!
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