So, I recently got a hold of a copy of Holy Orders of the Stars, the book that first introduced me to D&D. It's a 2nd party Dragonlance sourcebook for 3.0 (you can tell because Uncanny Dodge is still in the old 3.0 form). But yeah, this book holds a special place in my heart, and in honor of that I'm just going to run through and post my thoughts on the stuff contained within. You people will probably not really care about what I say, but hey, there's some decently interesting stuff in here.
So, the mechanics of the book starts off with Prestige Classes!
Alluvial Oracle of Zivilyn: 10 levels, Divination-focused, gaining free Still and Silent Spell on divination spells and +1 to caster level, both levels of Uncanny Dodge, and a capstone of Timeless Body. They can increase their Dexterity modifier for the purposes of AC by their Wisdom modifier (up to their level in this class, so you can't one-level dip to get this on a Cleric or something. Weirdly, it's specifically increasing your effective Dex mod, not providing a bonus to AC). Their most unique ability is to roll twice for a single die, as long as you spent a full round action the turn before. Bleh. Full casting progression, though.
Oh, before we continue. A lot of the times classes from this book add an ability score modifier to something, it's "up to ability score modifier or class level, whichever is lower", so even if you have a +3 Wisdom modifier (using the Oracle above), if you have 2 levels in the class the bonus is only +2.
Austere Devotee of Majere: 10 levels, Cleric/Monk, progresses monk abilities, increases casting on even levels. Evasion (normal and improved), and "Mettle of Fortitude/Will", which is basically Evasion but for those saving throws - not bad there. You get abilities that can let you add your Wisdom modifier to any skill modifier when you take 10/20, a certain number of times per day (different abilities for the take 10/20 versions, and it's capped by level). It's ANY skill check, so it's not actually very bad. You can also add your Wisdom mod to Concentration and ALL Intelligence checks (not capped by level, but you get them at level 5 and 10 respectively so eh). It's not a great one, but it can actually do sorta decently as a pseudo-skill monkey kinda, in a weird way.
Bright Warden of Paladine: 5 levels, increased casting on odd levels, very paladin-oriented. Stacks for turning undead. Can spend a turn attempt when you cast a spell to give a couple rounds of daylight around you. Gain Divine Grace, or slightly buff it if you already had it, and spend a turn attempt to eliminate fear conditions (including a built-in dispel for magical ones, which CAN fail so eh). Their big ability is to spend a turn attempt to buff your allies with a +2 to AC or saves, for half your caster level rounds. At 5th level, it applies to both and the duration is your caster level in rounds. Most of it is very weak abilities, but the warding one is decent enough.
Coinsword of Shinare: Very meh. You get a few fighter feats, a small amount of spellcasting, and a bonus to various things if you are working as a contracted mercenary, basically. Being in a mercenary company or being a mercenary company is an interesting campaign or adventure hook, but it's not something that you'd want to necessarily take a class in, since if you don't have a contract you just have 3 fighter feats and a subpar spellcasting ability.
Dark Pilgrim of Takhisis: Very assassin-y. 5 levels, full spellcasting progression, Wis to Bluff and Diplomacy (scaling by level), Sneak attack, Poison Use, Death Attack, +4 to skills when blending into a community, Divine Grace by another name, Slippery Mind. If you want to make a sneaky-sneaky assassin Cleric, you could do a lot worse than pick this.
Firebrand of Sirrion: Lotsa fire related stuff, more around the flames of emotion, though there’s a strong undercurrent of actual fire. Small spellcasting list of their own, with passion and fire related spells. Extra fire damage vs. Lawful opponents Charisma mod times per day, immunity to charms/compulsions, and a bard-like ability to debuff opponents with a Perform(oratory) check. Two things stand out: Firstly, they gain the Passion domain, and a bonus domain slot on their spellcasting for it if they don’t have cleric levels, but if they DO have cleric levels, Firebrand levels stack for the purposes of what domain slots you have access to (but you can only fill those higher level slots with spells from the Passion domain). So if you were a Cleric 6/Firebrand 5 (you can actually enter this class at 5th level, Cleric just doesn’t get the +4 BAB you need until 6th), you’d have up to 3rd level Cleric Spells and up to 3rd level Firebrand spells, but you’d have your 4th, 5th, and 6th level Spell slots to fill with spells from the Passion Domain. Weird, but interesting. The other interesting ability is that they can double their Charisma bonus for the purposes of skill checks and Firebrand spells for a level-determined number of rounds a couple of times per day. Kinda strong, but also kinda limited as well. Their spellcasting also relies on Wisdom and Charisma, which works against it a bit. Oh, the Passion Domain’s granted power is Rage, 1/day. You can have your allies Rage as well at 9th level.
Goodfellow of Branchala: Tumbling. Lots and lots of Tumbling. Max out that Tumble skill. They get their own spellcasting (like the Firebrand, split across Charisma and Wisdom), and a bonus to initiative checks, but the main draw is boosted Tumble usage. Bonus when using it to earn money, able to do it when encumbered, less penalty for doing it at full speed, less penalty for terrain, and at the capstone bonuses to AC and Reflex checks against opponents you have Tumbled away from. Very very meh, if only due to the intense focus on one skill.
Healing Hand of Mishakal: So, we all know that healbot is an inefficient role in combat, and yet is a vital one to have filled. This is probably the most focused healing PrC I’ve seen, and it’s damn good at what it does. 5 levels, full casting progression. You don’t provoke opportunity attacks when casting healing spells, add your Cha. mod to the amount healed, free Silent and then Empower on the spells...good stuff. You have to take a vow of pacifism, and can’t deal lethal damage to anything that isn’t a construct, elemental, ooze, plant, undead,
or vermin, but you get the ability to temporarily enchant a bludgeoning weapon with the Merciful enchant once per day. Grab Vow of Nonviolence while you’re at it I suppose.
Might Anvil of Reorx: Despite requiring Craft skill based around blacksmithing or similar, and Craft Magic Arms and Armor as a feat, this class has remarkably little to do with crafting aside from getting three free crafting feats over its 10 level progression. Only half casting progression, on even levels sadly. You get scaling DR X/-, and an ability to once per day boost the enhancement bonus on magic weapons or armor you’re wearing by a scaling amount. Probably the most interesting thing it has here is the ability to once (later twice) per day make a single attack as a full-attack action that ignores armor and shield bonuses to AC, which could make it REALLY easy to hit opponents who use heavy armor as their main protection.
Necrotheurge of Chemosh: According to K’s Revised Necromancer Handbook, if you want to make a skeleton army-style Necromancer, the Cleric is the right way to go. If you’re doing that, then this is the PrC for that Cleric. This is one of my two favorite classes in the book, and I can’t help but giggle when I see it. Why, you ask? Well, they get supernatural abilities to create auras a few times per day - specifically auras that have the effects of Desecrate and Animate Dead (the Animate Undead aura functions as if cast at your caster level, and the Desecrate one lasts for a number of minutes equal to your Intelligence modifier, oddly enough). So not only are you able to ignore the restrictive cost of needing black onyx to animate undead, but if you can bring all the stuff you’re animating into a 20ft. radius circle, you can do it all really quick! What makes this better? At the second level, you increase the amount of undead you can animate to 3*Caster level, and control to 5*Caster level. At the sixth level this ups to 4*Caster level and 6*Caster level, and at the 10th it tops out at 5*Caster level for animating at any given time, and 7*Caster level for the amount you control. Oh, it stacks for turning, you get the Death domain if you didn’t already have it and a +1 to the caster level of Necromancy spells (I don’t know if this affects the number of undead you control), and you get your Intelligence modifier to your caster level when determining the undead you can make with the normal and greater versions of Create Undead, but that’s peanuts. Not only can you animate a LOT of undead for free, but you can animate more undead at any given time than you can control (Desecrate specifically doubles the amount you can animate, meaning you could animate 10*Caster level with one go), and you can control almost twice as many undead as another person. Gods, this class is amazing. Full progression casting is just icing on the cake. You do have to be Evil, though so it’s not all fun and games.
Pagefinder of Gilean: After awesomeness, we have this lackluster class that’s based entirely around scrolls and rune-related spells. You get bonuses to save against them, can find magical traps if they’re aforementioned rune-related spells, trap sense up to +3, and some interesting bonuses for using Search to find information in a library. You get a couple of new languages, which is nice enough I guess. The capstone is the ability to get the gist of any book you spend 1d4 minutes touching, learn exactly what spells are in a spellbook, find out if there are any rune-related spells waiting to be triggered, and you read stuff ten times faster. Meh.
Phoenix of Habbakuk: This is probably the first class I’ve seen where you are mechanically obligated to be depressed with no sense of self-worth, accomplished via a penalty to Charisma-related check equal to your level in this class. Party face, you are not. That being said, this is a Ranger PrC. It stacks for advancement in Favored Enemies, Wild Empathy, caster level, and Animal Companion. Even better, if you weren’t a Ranger, you get Favored Enemies and Animal Companion as if you were a Ranger of your Phoenix level, as well as adding it to Wild Empathy checks (though it doesn’t specify that you get Wild Empathy so...weird). So after that fun stuff, you get your class level to saves against fear, fast movement by 10 feet, +10 to tracking against one target once per day, the ability to remove a pretty wide variety of conditions once per day, on top of a once per day Break Enchantment/Remove Curse combo, a once per day Restoration effect, and the ability to boost your Strength by 4 for a couple of rounds a few times per day. The capstone is the ability to use Raise Dead once per week, buffed so it functions on people killed by death effects. So free raising, that’s nice. It also automatically functions on you even if you already used it that week, so it’s basically a get out of free card! You have to get that 10th level again after doing it (it’s the level you lose to pay for the Raise Dead), but hey, you’re not dead.
Plague Knight of Morgion: This is my other favorite class in the book. It sucks, and it’s based around disease, but I like it. Not sure why. You get your own small spellcasting ability and a swarm servant that advances as a blackguard’s Fiendish Servant. That being said, their signature ability is to hold diseases in their body, being unaffected by them. You gain additional ones every odd level, but you can find others on your own. The downside is that you lose one point of Constitution per disease you are holding, which quite frankly sucks. You gain the ability to smite people to give them a disease you are harboring, and you can empower and later maximize the diseases you have, on top of doubling the incubation time and requiring an additional saving throw to throw off the disease. The final capstone turns you into an Outsider, and you take damage from Remove Disease due to being made of pure disease or something. Overall, your diseases are going to be pretty dangerous, but disease is a pretty terrible thing to specialize in.
Righteous Cohort of Kiri-Jolith: A team combat paladin-esque PrC. You get your wisdom modifier to Aid Another checks in combat, which is interesting, if not really useful often. A few times per day, you can shout (presumably as a free action, action is not specified), and all allies within 60 ft. gain a +1 to their next attack roll, and 5ft. to their speed until your next turn. Neat, if weak. You gain an aura that buffs your allies against mind-affecting skills, you can enhance your group leader’s Charisma-based skills, Will saves, and melee damage, a couple of bonus fighter feats, immunity to mind-affecting stuff, and spell resistance against chaotic people, and the ability to heal yourself a number of hits equal to your character level once per battle (free action to - save yourself from death!). 10 levels, full casting progression is nice I guess, but not overly the point, though I guess it makes a nice paladin PrC.
Seawolf of Zeboim: This one is cool. It’s probably my second favorite, behind Necrotheurge and Plague Knight. It’s very much the barbarian cleric, giving you rage 1/day at 1st level, and upgrading it to Greater Rage at 5th (5 level PrC, casting progression at every level except 1st). You also gain the Storm domain, and if you already had it, the Electricity Resistance increases to 10. The three middle levels let you pick an ability themed around one of five aquatic creatures. The only really stand-out ones here are the Dragon Turtle, which gives you DR 3/-, or Morkoth, which gives you 1/day Charm Monster at your character’s level as your caster level. The rest of them are either subpar, or are underwater focused - though Kraken is nice for grappling, and Shark gives you blindsense 30ft. when underwater. Not bad, but not great either.
Soulbroker of Hiddukel: Bleh. Bleh bleh bleh. You can make pacts, giving you bonuses to skills against the target, and free metamagic feats on enchantment spells against the targets. You only have a limited number of pacts you can make based on the level, and though you get stronger pacts, it’s still basically extremely limited in scope - in a campaign that’s 95% RP, you could do well, but this gives you nothing in combat unless you can make pacts with your enemies ahead of time. Bleh.
Wild Fury of Chislev: And now we have the Druid PrC. It stacks for Wild Shape, you get faster when Wild Shaped by 10/20 ft, and free Magic Fang/Greater Magic Fang when Wild Shaped. Probably the greatest benefit is free feats when you Wild Shape, and only apply when you Wild Shape - yes, Natural Spell is one of them, so you don’t have to waste a normal feat slot on it! Improved Natural Armor, Improved Natural Attack, Multiattack, and Weapon Focus are some of the others, so it’s all very combat-focused, and nice bonuses. 10 levels, full casting. Probably not enough to displace Master of Many Forms, but for a not quite as high tier combat shifter druid, it’s nice enough.
Wrathful Avenger of Sargonnas: Another class like the Phoenix, where you get a lot of bonuses at the cost of skill penalties. Once per battle, you can target one enemy, and gain a bonus to attack and damage equal to the number of times they’ve attacked you, up to your Wrathful Avenger level, while taking an equal penalty to your AC and Reflex against any other enemy. Over the course of the class, you get +6 to Strength, and +6 to Natural Armor, and a total -10 penalty to Charisma skills that aren’t Intimidate, Concentration checks outside of battle, and taking 10. Plus you get a few d4s worth of extra damage when you attack someone with less HD and are using Power Attack (which is also a PreReq for the class).
Aaaand the rest of the book is unremarkable, really. Not much to say for the spells, magic items, or domains.
