Rating: 
Summary: Exalted Deeds and Vile Darkness
Review: The Book of Exalted Deeds (BOED) and Book of Vile Darkness (BOVD) have less to do with each other than one might hope. BOVD contains a few interesting spells, a handful of great creatures and demon lords, a bland assortment of feats and prestige classes, and a few side-rules that you might have enjoyed if you need them. The BOED has a very similar spread of content. The quasi-dieties and creatures add a great deal of detail to angels and celestials of many types, and the prestige classes in BOED are fantastic. However, the feats and exalted concept are difficult to work into many games.I recommend the Book of Vile Darkness first, and if you enjoy it enough, the Book of Exalted Deeds helps to fill a niche that balances the table on both ends of the spectrum.
Rating: 
Summary: Very good quality product
Review: The only bad things I have to say about this book is it was a little expensive and I thought the new feats were almost all not worth taking.
However, the production quality was good (I'm a big fan of hardcover books), the new spells were good, there are several good magic items, and the best part of the book was the prestige classes. There were several prestige classes and almost all of them were very good. Most of them are geared toward the paladin or cleric but there were also some for all of the other classes.
They also do a good job of defining the good alignments and giving examples of what actions are and are not good.
The monster section covers the Eldarin, celestials, etc. which can be used either to combat an evil party or be used for the planar ally spell. Overall a very good book worth the high price tag.
Rating: 
Summary: The good guys get a leg up in glorious style
Review: The purpose of D & D, at the start, was to crawl through dungeons while killing monsters and finding nifty pieces of equipment. The game's come a long way since then, with hundreds of core book and supplements adding layer after layer of moral complexity to the fantasy world. Demons and devils were defined. Evil was given its own spells, magic items and races. The good guys, for there part, had morally limited and easily stereotyped paladins and the occasionally pure-hearted cleric. That was it. There was no real reason for a fighter, rogue or wizard to be any more good than their alignment description read. The Book of Exalted Deeds changes all that. Good has been given power, real power, and is now just as capable as evil of showering benefits on its devotees - though at no less cost to those devotees. This book opens with a discussion of the motives of good. What acts are good, which are not, and the exceptions to the rules. It's never a problem for me, but this section would be quite handy for those DMs and players who have trouble figuring just what a character's alignment means and practice. Also included is the idea of being "exalted." This isn't being on a moral high-horse or anything of the sort, it's simply the idea that just as some villains can be despicable beyond human comprehension, so can heroes be righteous. Next we get to the meat and drink of the book: the new stuff. The magic items are adequate, not much more. There's only so many new adjectives you can add onto the beginning of item names, and only so many powers you can give, but at the very least this book includes special enhancements that directly counter enhancements from the dreaded Book of Vile Darkness. The same goes for feats and spells, really, although some completely new concepts are also entertained. The book really comes into its own with the prestige classes, monsters and descriptions of greater creatures of good. In these sections, you're given some specific statistics, but you're also given a really good guideline for just how you can create your own special and sacred servants of the eladrin, the angels and the guardinals. Various otherworldly and mortal servants of the three great bastions of good are described, including a lot of the eladrin that were missing from previous supplements. The tulani and the firre were particularly appreciated. The greater creatures of good, the angels, the high eladrin, the greatest of the guardinals, are described in detail, with thorough descriptions. Given their tremendous power, I'm a little surprised that they weren't generated via Deities and Demigods, but that's a minor quibble. What I liked best about this book is that, as opposed to the majority of WotC's other products, this book appears to be cleanly edited, neatly presented and well-organized. I'm not an organization freak in my waking life, but when it comes to reference supplements, I really appreciate having everything laid out in plain, simple order, particularly when it's information that's useful.
Rating:
Summary: Good but too expensive
Review: This book is good but overpriced for the amount of material given.I'd say it should have been about $10.00 cheaper.For a price of $32.95 there should have been some sample adventures and adventure hooks.Also there should have been more magic items especially Good Artifacts.They should have included more interaction with the Epic book, including info for Epic level characters.
The Epic Level Handbook was an excellent example of value for money unlike the Book of Exalted Deeds.
In keeping with all the preaching about balance in the D&D game they should have included some more prestige classes.Lawful Good got better classes in general than Neutral & Chaotic Good.ALso, if you include 2 female only classes you should have 2 male only ones to keep things in balance.
This product fell short of my expectations hence only 3 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Mostly good material but a few problems
Review: This book is mostly excellent -- I gave it a three star rating on the basis of two facts: 1. the list price of $32.95 is a bit steep for a book that's barely thicker than one of WOTC's D&D paperbacks like Masters of the Wild or Tome & Blood; 2. I dislike seeing so many references to bisexuality and homosexuality in one book; I accept that this can be brought up in a book labeled 'for mature audiences', but WOTC seems to be trying to ram these concepts down the throats of their purchasers -- half of the celestials seem to be 'passionately devoted to' or 'attending to the desires of' or 'a consort of' someone of the same sex; in the interests of balance, if they were going to have relationships mentioned in the book (which, in itself, I don't object to at all) they might have had at least one regular marriage between creatures of the opposite sex, but there isn't ONE. Other than these two quibbles, the book is excellent. There are a large number of new spells for the 'good guys' -- I was especially surprised by the quality of these, many of them are very innovative. "Phoenix Fire" for example, which blasts evil creatures with immense quantities of damage -- of course, part of the spell's components is the death of the caster :) who is resurrected immediately at one level lower. The Celestial Paragons chapter details many powerful creatures of good and their champions, and provides an interesting way for PCs to channel their powers or call these unique beings as allies. The Monsters chapter has many new creatures, from the tiny, mischievous Coure Eladrins (who would make great PCs), to the formidable Sword and Throne archons, to a large selection of guardinals -- the equinal (a horse-like celestial), the ursinal (bear-like spellcasters), and so on. The hollyphant -- a 2' long, gold-furred, winged, magical elephant -- has been reprinted at long last, and there is an intriguing new humanoid, the Rhek, a combination of human and rhinoceros. The book is rounded out with a discussion of good, some exalted feats (obtainable only by the noblest characters), a few new pieces of magical equipment, and a solid pile of prestige classes for those who use them. All in all, a magnificent work, marred only by its enormous price tag and its extreme bias towards homosexuality.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome Book
Review: Well, with the Book of Vile Darkness in my hot little hands, I thought to myself "Can life get any sweeter?" I now had the power to creat terrifying, disgusting, insidious villains. But, life DID get sweeter! Wizards of the Coast produced the Book of Exalted Deeds, the counterbalance to the cruel and oh-so evil book of Vile Darkness. The Exalted feats section suddenly had me dreaming up all sorts of uber-heroes, ranging from the Sword of Righteousness to the Apostle of Peace (both of which are amazing prestige classes). I read a review on Amazon.com that mentions reference to homosexuality and bisexuality. This is simply not true! There are no such references in this book. It is a solid read, a great book and something everyone should get if they really want to crush evil underfoot.
Rating:
Summary: A Book for True Heroes
Review: Without making fun of religion or making it trivial, this book actually makes it possible to play someone with real virtue in a D20 game. I've had a pacifist cleric order in my game for some time, but no one would ever consider playing one - with the details in this book, they actually become balanced. The new creatures included are much appreciated by my current group, as most of them are noted as being able to be summoned by various existing spells - which makes my existing characters more versatile, even without the prestige classes. I would have liked to have seen a sample adventure, to help make some of the ideas presented more real and more easy to work into a D20 game, but that's a nice to have. I would also have liked to have seen more interaction with the Epic book. I considered this a fairly major flaw, in that most of the ideas and scope presented would work well with epic characters. It may be difficult to figure out the progressions for the characters here, and some of the feats cry out for epic versions. Hopefully, Hasbro will address this with web enhancements later.
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