Complete Warrior: Dungeons & Dragons Accessory

D & D today is great. I'm a geek from way back and have ranted and raved or applauded many versions of this game. The current one is...overall...the best. It's by no means flawless but they give it depth while trying to maintain a basic simplicity. For the most part, they succeed. Many of the suppliments of the core game however are definitely wanting. One gets the impression that no editor bothered to pay attention to see if it maintains the same balance as the other suppliments, much less the core game. There are some gems however that just add even more colour to the game overall. The Complete Warrior is one of those gems. Chock full of prestige classes and a few full 1-20 classes, as well as some interesting feats and additional infortmation...it is, as a whole, very useful and fun (the Swashbuckler and Samurai classes are definitely favourites of mine now). Not all of the prestige classes hit the mark but more do than do not. I would not recommend all of the suppliments but this one just happens to be a must for the serious gamer.

What I love most about the complete series is that it gives you tons of options. There is no better guide to fighters and warriour options for all classes than this guide. You have to love the new classes presented in this suppliment. The Samurai at first seems a little out of place in a Greyhawk-ish setting, but this warriour with a heart of gold really fits in any campaign. The Swashbuckler is a favorite class of most powergamers, and is becoming a favorite class of mine weather they be robin hood or cap'n jack sparrow. The variant paladin and ranger classes are too sweet. I use them all the time with my PCs. These variant class make the ranger more like the hard core woodsman like Strider from LOTR, and the variant Paladin makes them more like the knights of the old code. The PRCs in this guide are very essential. You simply have to love the Cavalier and Ronin prestige class. The drunken master is a real step in the right direction for the monk, a natural progression for any dedicated holy man of the fist. The feats provided in this book should be considered core. With such feats as destructive rage, arcane strike, and other great options, you really can't miss this section. The spells are a welcome addition as well. The sections on fantasy warfare are a must read for any DM wanting to improve their game. One road block I've had over the years as a dm is sporting combat, and this guide has a real nice section on just that subject. I could go on and on about this great book. In short, every good Dnder should own the complete series. There are so many great options in this book, and is a favored addition to my library.

No, this book won't actually boost your character's Strength score and kick him/her up a level, but you'll feel like it did if you love playing warrior classes and start incorporating material from this supplement. WHY IT ROCKS: The new core classes are neat and useful for more specialized warrior characters. The Samurai core class deserves special notice as a must-have for you Oriental Adventures fans, (and it improves markedly upon the "Master Samurai" prestige class concept originally introduced in "Sword & Fist"). For players that enjoy playing paladins and rangers but could care less about those classes' spellcasting ability, the book introduces variant concepts for those classes that replace spellcasting with other benefits. The prestige classes are myriad and marvelous. Some simply provide excellent 3.5 revisions of classes that originally appeared in the various "original" splatbooks ("Defenders of the Faith," "Masters of the Wild," "Sword & Fist," and "Tome & Blood" -- though I noticed no "Song & Silence" reprints), as well as the Forgotten Realms campaign setting and Dragon Magazine, but there are also several brand spankin' new ones to boot. Of the new prestige classes, it is important to note that most are short (3- or 5-level) classes that cover very specialized and interesting concepts, such as fighting with small weapons, natural weapons or no weapons, and even some that incorporate spellcasting classes and creatures with spell-like abilities into martial combat. The feats are great and well-thought out. While revisions of a number of familiar feats appear (mostly from S & F and MoW), a horde of new ones abound that even non-warriors will want to take advantage of. Introduced herein are the new Tactical feats that grant combat feat oriented characters a trio each of new fighting tricks to add to the bag, and the Weapon Style feats that make certain weapon preferences and mixes even more useful and deadly in the hands of martially skilled characters. Excellent rules for conceptual combat types such as jousts, gladiatorial matches, archery contests, and more are presented to spice up the role- AND roll-playing side of things. Finally, rounding out the back of the book is a modest section on warrior organizations, new war deity concepts, notes on epic warrior class progression, and a few new weapon types just to keep DMs and players alike on their toes. WHY IT DOESN'T: Like the other "Complete" books in the series, there are more prestige classes than you can shake a stick at, and, unless you want to experiment with a tremendous variety of warrior concepts, you'll likely never use a number of them. Most of the 3.5 revisions of existing classes (especially those from "Sword & Fist") are important if you don't trust your own judgment in making your own conversions, but are not altogether necessary (though a few change quite dramatically). The Weapon Style feats cater mostly to two-weapon fighters and little else.

I've read bad reviews for this book and almost went without buying this one. Our local store got this book in, I flipped through it to see what was so bad. I bought it on a whim just to say I have it.Well, now I use it. Sure it only introduces a few new core classes, but the prestige classes and the feats alone make it worth the money. The coverage of wars was pretty good.I'm giving this one a 5 star rating just because of the readily available information. I don't have to search and search for that feat or prestige class I read about somewhere. I recommend this book.

I found this book extremely well worth the money. It collects alot of the Prestige classes from older books so you don't have to go and spend $200 to access them all. Some people have complained that the updated versions of the classes in this book are "inferior" or watered down. Those classes that were modified were "broken" to begin with. "Broken" meaning they were unbalanced or overly powerful. If you don't want to spend tons of money to acquire all the unbalanced classes and such, and want to have One book to tote around instead of 7 or 8, then I reccomend this book. If you enjoy needing to lug around a backpack with 40 pounds of books, and like power-gaming just pass it on the shelf.