Divine Power; A D&D Review

As seems to be a common factor in my reviews, I’m terribly behind on purchasing 4th edition supplements. Recently, in realizing that three of the players in my current campaign were of the divine power source, I understood that it was time at last to purchase a source supplement. Divine Power supplies players with numerous additional class options and powers, a brilliant section on channel divinity abilities, new feats, and a few extra rituals. Still, the book comes at a thirty dollar price tag, and the question may arise as to whether it’s worth the buy in relation to content provided.

The added powers and class builds are intriguing, to say the very least. Most are equal in power and utility compared to the core rules, but the true shining beacon lies with the paladin advancements. Let’s be fair now… core paladins were grossly underpowered, in my opinion, compared to the rest of the class spectrum. Now, at last, they can rise to the occasion with a plethora of newly imagined abilities, many of which offering the newly popular trade system of increased damage or effects for some other negative. (For example, an extra die or two of output damage in trade for the PC taking a certain amount of minor damage.) Included as well are a staggering amount of new paragon paths tailored for each class, some of which being rather impressive. Clearly, players purchasing Divine Power in the hopes of acquiring new abilities for their favorite classes will be most pleased, but what of the rest of the book?

Here, I was not only surprised, but also uplifted. Finally, WotC offers players a smallish compendium of truly worthwhile information. What if you’re a DM who has created your own pantheon of gods? What if your players are of an evil origin and are worshipping similar deities? Before Divine Power, you would be at a loss for deity specific channel divinity abilities, but no more. Now, DM’s have both a list of new channel divinity powers related to certain god’s domains of rule (such as winter or war) and a preset list offering the domains of the evil and chaotic evil deities. Truly, truly useful. In addition, there are a plethora of new feats (a few of which seem rather useless, but that’s a minor complaint) and about ten rituals. All of those plus new epic destinies, and one can pretty much understand the quality of this supplemental material.

Before I gush any more, I feel obliged to remind all readers that this is the first and only source supplement that I own. I don’t know if Martial, Arcane or Primal Power will offer as much or as innovative utilities as Divine, but that should be far and away from the point at hand. If you have a divinely powered hero and are looking to truly understand and augment her abilities, this book is for you. If you are a DM with a homebrew pantheon or an evil oriented campaign, you will benefit greatly from this supplement. It should be obvious by now, but I was in no way prepared for the amount of useful additions present here. If this one applies to you or your character, do yourself a favor and pick it up right away.