Rating: 
Summary: Only for a select few
Review: If you're a DM and into using Dieties in your campaing, this book is pretty good. Otherwise, don't waste your money. The artwork is fantastic, but it has absolutely nothing to offer the average player. No new spells, domains, prestige classes (except 2 related to a minor god), etc. Just borrow your DM's copy and thumb through it.
Rating: 
Summary: Nearly Worthless
Review: If you're not planning to have your characters directly face the gods, don't bother with this book. Over half of the treatise is information to set stats for divine beings and is filled out with the most basic information on how to role-play them (in a nutshell - act like an arrogant know-it-all, according to Wizards). Those familiar with the previous versions will be sorely disappointed to find that only the pantheons of Greyhawk, Egypt, Greece/Roman, Norse, a generic monotheistic and a new dualististic god fill the pages, and there is so much lost even in these pantheons.
In the end, there isn't much to recommend in this book for anyone other than the DM, and even what is offered is of limited value.
Rating:
Summary: Bon livre, mais ...
Review: J'ai trouvé ce livre très bien, assez de détails sur les dieux et avatar de chaque dieux D&D CoreRule.
Mais pourquoi les deux des Pharaons ? et pourquoi les dieux de l'antiquité ?Ce livre aurait plus être beaucoup plus court, ou encore avoir plus de spell additionnelle, et moins cher, mais sans ces Panthéons, qui sont tant qua moi inutile.
Rating:
Summary: A SERIOUS DISAPPOINTMENT
Review: Let's start with the good news. There is much more practical explanation material on the way gods and their religons can affect D&D characters. This includes some map layouts for potential temples. This news will be welcomed by clerics and druids. The artwork is OK, but not great. The book also provides helpful information on how a Dungeon Master could create a god or a whole pantheon. It even gives an example of a made up "Sun Pantheon". Also the gods are now far and away more powerful than any possible player character. This includes special god level powers and spells as well as astoundingly high character traits (Thor's strength is in the nineties). This helps becuase in old D&D rules a powerful player character (even without god status) could challenge lesser and even greater deities.
OK now the bad news, this book ONLY COVERS FOUR PANTHEONS!! The old Deities and Demigods covered around a dozen pantheons, including Arthurian, American Indian, Celtic, Japanese, Chinese, Indian (from India) and three or four from popular fiction writers (Call of Cuthulu series and Elric of Melnibone). The old book gave much more insight into the dynamics of the individual gods and to the relationships between gods within their pantheons. The new book only covers the D&D pantheon (gods for elves, dwarves, orcs etc.) the greek gods, the norse gods, the eygptian gods and the made up "Sun Pantheon". This is far too few. Even the pantheons that are covered have been striped of some of the gods that were covered in the first Deities and Demigods.
To add insult to injury, the authors gave the cheif deity in the made up "Sun pantheon" a higher rating than either Zeus or Odin. What!??!! Who did that make sense too? Also included in the new book are lengthy and unneeded details of the individual gods' Avatars (representations of the gods on the material plane). This space could have been scraped or streamlined in order to be able to include additional pantheons.
All in all it was a serious disappointment. I suppose I could go scowering through the Oriental Adventures and Manual of the Planes for additional info on other deities, but it really should all be here.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad, but still incomplete.
Review: Not bad. I've been playing D&D for about 14 years now, so I remember Legend's and Lore for the other editions. Compared to the previous editions, Deities and Demigods 3E is MUCH more thorough regarding each pantheon and limits itself quite well. This book does NOT attempt to give a cursory look at everything but does go into great detail on 4 pantheons and gives rules to create your own religions. Great Job! Now the bad news: How often does your character actually try to brawl with a diety? Hopefully never, or very rarely. How often do your characters interact with a deities church? A lot more often than meeting the actual deity. There is almost NO detail on how each deities' religions are set-up. MAJOR PROBLEM. Even if the designers wanted to leave room for the DM to create a church, why flub on this crucial issue? For a top notch D&D religion book, check out the 2nd edition Forgotten Realms religion sourcebooks. Deities and Demigods 3E doesn't even come close to this standard. It merely demotes deities from a position of awe and true deific standings to uber-monsters you would meet on the 20th level of a dungeon. Planescape is much better in outlining how deities and characters should interact.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad, but still incomplete.
Review: Not bad. I've been playing D&D for about 14 years now, so I remember Legend's and Lore for the other editions. Compared to the previous editions, Deities and Demigods 3E is MUCH more thorough regarding each pantheon and limits itself quite well. This book does NOT attempt to give a cursory look at everything but does go into great detail on 4 pantheons and gives rules to create your own religions. Great Job! Now the bad news: How often does your character actually try to brawl with a diety? Hopefully never, or very rarely. How often do your characters interact with a deities church? A lot more often than meeting the actual deity. There is almost NO detail on how each deities' religions are set-up. MAJOR PROBLEM. Even if the designers wanted to leave room for the DM to create a church, why flub on this crucial issue? For a top notch D&D religion book, check out the 2nd edition Forgotten Realms religion sourcebooks. Deities and Demigods 3E doesn't even come close to this standard. It merely demotes deities from a position of awe and true deific standings to uber-monsters you would meet on the 20th level of a dungeon. Planescape is much better in outlining how deities and characters should interact.
Rating: 
Summary: Great mechanics, limited mythology
Review: One thing I like about the 3E core rulebooks is it seems like WotC play tested the hell out of them. Nearly everything is fairly well balanced. Many aspects have been simplified from the 2nd addition in a good way (though sometimes too much.) Overall, I really like 3E and consider it worth buying. Enter supplemental materials like Deities & Demigods. Let's take a look: Chapter 1: Deities in Your Game -- Here's an abbreviated list of the sections:
Monotheism, Dualism, The Nature of Divinity, Why Mortals Worship Deities, Why Deities Use Mortals, Building a Pantheon, etc. For me, this was the strongest aspect of the book. First, it explains different types of pantheons -- one God, vs. multiple gods/goddesses. Then it addresses a very key point: Why do divinities and mortals need each other? What is the relationship? As a DM, this part really helped cement that important concept. Chapter 2: Deities Defined
The next section is another winner: How to make your own pantheon. In the previous chapter, there are tips for formulating your pantheon conceptually. How many? What domains? This chapter leads right into an explanation of the mechanics used in the book. So, you can take your idea for a new pantheon, and put it into d20 game terms. Chapter 3 and on through the rest of the book:
I've heard complaints that there are only four pantheons in this book, compared to dozens from previous editions. Let me take a stab at why. Do you have a 3rd edition character, say, 10th level? My 10th level gnome druid takes up four pages worth of character sheet. Each of the gods & goddesses in this book are around 30th level or higher! Their stats take up a LOT of room! Thus, we are only given the Greyhawk, Olympian, Pharaonic (Egyptian), and Asgardian (Norse) pantheons. Pantheon Strengths:
1) Some GREAT art: Ehlonna, Aries, Athena, Pan, Heimdall, Sif (yay!), Thor, etc.
2) Fully detailed d20 stats for each deity.
3) Maps for some deity-related dwellings.
4) We are told the deities will work well with the up and coming Epic Rules. Pantheon Weaknesses:
1) Some painfully BAD art: Aphrodite, Dionysus, Ptah (and he is so cool!), Loki (this one really hurt me, I'm a big Loki fan), etc.
2) Very limited information about the deities themselves. This, to me, is the major shortcoming on this book. The info for dogmas, clergy & temples, etc., are each a short paragraph only. What does this tell us? Perhaps the game designers went a little overboard being able to actually make legal d20 stats for the deities, and didn't think enough about fleshing them out. I would have loved more background, more rituals, and more mythology for each deity. Granted, if you want to put these deities in a brawl, you've certainly got the stats! Overall:
The 3E Deities & Demigods book has some vital information -- namely, the first few chapters. DMs and players alike will enjoy learning more about the place of deities and mortals within a D&D world. The rules for making your own pantheon are also very cool. After that, we have many, many stat blocks (with fairly limited background) for insanely powerful NPCs. Personally, I'm a stat fanatic, and enjoyed pouring over them. If they had only added another few paragraphs for each deity's background, religious holidays, expectations for their clerics, etc. I'd have given Deities & Demigods 5 stars. As it stands, it only gets 4.
Rating:
Summary: Big Waste of Time and Money
Review: Ooooh. There are the fans for whom nothing TSR (and now Wizards) does can be wrong. For everyone else, there's Deities and Demigods. Here are is my biggest irritation: the least amount of space and time was devoted to the most useless, and repetative, info (nominally deity stats...especially since all deities of the same divine rank have virtually identical abilities)while the least was spent on the most related to role playing (and whether anyone told Wizards, this is a ROLE PLAYING game, not a cards and stats game like their precious Pokemon). And $... is an outrageous price for a gaming book which contributes virtually nothing (in my opinion, an outrageous price for an RPG book period). Deities and Demigods reminds me of the last of the TSR years, when they would crank out [poor quality items] at a seemingly insatiable rate, but as the prices went up, the quality plummeted. I gave it 2 stars rather than one solely because of the explanations of deicide and divine feats. Sorely lacking were chapters on deity-level magics (there are 13 new spells where there ought to be 50+) and divine artifacts (of which there are none to be found). When a book provides more problems than solutions to a game (in fact, this one has it's own file on the Wizard's web site to help clarify it it was so badly drafted), one has to wonder what next will be pawned on the unsuspecting?
Rating:
Summary: Big Waste of Time and Money
Review: Ooooh. There are the fans for whom nothing TSR (and now Wizards) does can be wrong. For everyone else, there's Deities and Demigods. Here are is my biggest irritation: the least amount of space and time was devoted to the most useless, and repetative, info (nominally deity stats...especially since all deities of the same divine rank have virtually identical abilities)while the least was spent on the most related to role playing (and whether anyone told Wizards, this is a ROLE PLAYING game, not a cards and stats game like their precious Pokemon). And $... is an outrageous price for a gaming book which contributes virtually nothing (in my opinion, an outrageous price for an RPG book period). Deities and Demigods reminds me of the last of the TSR years, when they would crank out [poor quality items] at a seemingly insatiable rate, but as the prices went up, the quality plummeted. I gave it 2 stars rather than one solely because of the explanations of deicide and divine feats. Sorely lacking were chapters on deity-level magics (there are 13 new spells where there ought to be 50+) and divine artifacts (of which there are none to be found). When a book provides more problems than solutions to a game (in fact, this one has it's own file on the Wizard's web site to help clarify it it was so badly drafted), one has to wonder what next will be pawned on the unsuspecting?
Rating: 
Summary: worthwhile
Review: The difference between this D&D 3E book and the books of the same name from earlier editions is that the older versions treated deities as monsters. This book treats them as gods. Also, this book explores the many roleplaying possibilities associated with divine beings, from "what if my players meet up with one" to "how do I even start to get a sense of how to create my own pantheon." The ideas (philosophical and game-mechanics-wise) a gamemaster needs to consider are very clearly and thoroughly presented. Very well done!
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