Pathfinder Player Companion: "Champions of Purity" [RPG]

Champions of Purity is a sort of sequel to the earlier Faiths of Purity.  Whereas the previous book was primarily about the gods and their devotees (clerics and paladins), Champions of Purity has a broader theme: characters of good alignment generally.  Since PCs of any class can be on the side of good, a book designed for those characters makes sense.  But although there are certainly some useful class options here and there, the book as a whole adopts the scattergun approach of throwing a lot of stuff out there and seeing what sticks.  Written mostly by a crop of freelancers, the book is a loose collection of shallow two-page entries on vaguely-related topics.  It doesn't really have much in the way of depth, but that seems to be the norm for many of the books in the Player Companion line.

Still, to give credit where it's due, we have to admire the great cover of Seelah cutting through a horde of monsters.  The inside front cover is a table of good-aligned deities in Golarion that includes the usual suspects from the Core Rulebook along with some that are lesser-known, including several from the Asian-themed Dragon Empires.  The inside back cover does an odd thing and introduces a new feat, "Summon Good Monster," that allows good-aligned spellcasters to substitute a good-aligned creature from the accompanying table in place of what the spell would normally allow, and to give them Diehard to boot. Not too shabby!

The book proper starts with a two-page introduction, "Why Be Good?", that talks about some more specific motivations for PCs, like freedom, honor, justice, mercy, order, and more.  It then goes on to give some suggestions as to where characters with those goals might hail from geographically.

Next, each of the three good alignments (Lawful Good, Neutral Good, and Chaotic Good) are  discussed in a separate two-page entry which is divided into Philosophies (Lawful Good PCs might be seen as Crusaders or Guardians, for example, while Neutral Good PCs might be seen as Mediators or Redeemers), Advantages & Challenges (in terms of role-playing), Opportunities & Allies (ways those PCs might fit into Golarion specifically), and finally Traits (three new ones each).  One of the criticisms I have of the book is that its treatment of alignment issues only barely skims the surface: there's no mention, for example, of how hard it is to play a truly good character when the lowest common denominator is lazy players with a "kill things and take their stuff" mentality.  Characters of good alignment face hard decisions and restrictions that other alignments don't, and this can create problems for groups.  These are some of the issues that would be worth discussing.

The remaining two-page sections consist of the following:

"Paragons of Virtue" has a line or two on good-aligned races (Aasimars, Catfolk, Elves, and Samsarans), good-aligned organisations (like knightly orders), and good-aligned homelands (like Andoran), but it's a very cursory treatment and of very little use to those familiar with Golarion.  Four new traits are included.

"Good Characters in Bad Situations" raises the classic "what do you do with goblin babies" quandary and then suggests (in a sentence or two each) some "bad places" that good characters could come from.  Again, the book has identified an interesting issue but has a shallow and wishy-washy treatment of it.  Don't look for any deep insights into alignment and RPGs here. (I do love the artwork of the samurai with the goblin babies!)

"Heavenly Virtues" presents one new feat called "Virtuous Creed" that has different effects depending on which specific virtue the PC identifies with (such as humility, courage, freedom, etc.). In a way, it's like six feats in one, which is interesting, but the different virtues have very different power levels in a mechanical sense.

 "Redemption" presents a rules sub-system for tracking an evil creature's progress towards becoming good, along with a variety of penances they can do to help atone.  I'm skeptical of these little sub-systems that I know will never be referenced again or expanded upon.  This one looks a bit rough, but I guess it does add some content and perhaps guidance to a GM dealing with the issue.  I wouldn't follow it too strictly, however.

"Divine Influence" introduces seven new clerical subdomains: Cooperation, Dragon, Imagination, Judgment, Redemption, Revelation, and Revelry.  Each subdomain replaces the domain spells and granted power of a specific Core Rulebook domain.  It looks like there are some good options.

"Fighting the Good Fight" is a miscellany: a new barbarian rage power (Celestial Totem), two new inquisitor inquisitions (Final Rest and Recovery), six new feats (including one very useful one to keep you from accidentally killing enemies outright and a silly one that adds a single point of damage when you hit with a good-aligned weapon), and a sidebar on subduing and binding opponents (no new rules, but it's useful to have the material all in one place).

"Grace and Guile" has a handful of new alchemist discoveries, a couple of bardic masterpieces, and three new rogue talents.  The book really is trying to have something for everyone!  The alchemist discoveries seem reasonable, one of the bardic masterpieces seems crazily overpowered (blinding and deafening, or even stunning, all evil creatures that hear the performance and fail a save), and I really like the rogue talent Sacrifice Self that allows a rogue to ignore the effects of their evasion ability to help shield an ally from harm.

"Sublime Spellcraft" has a couple of new summoner evolutions (I wouldn't touch summoners with a ten-foot-pole, so I have no opinion of these), three new witch patrons (which are apparently just bland lists of replacement spells), a few new hexes, and two new wizard arcane discoveries.  I mostly liked what I saw here.

"Spells of the Just"  includes ten new spells, most of which are for both divine and arcane spellcasters.  I really liked the little story in the sidebar about how these spells came to be known, and I wish there were more attempts like this to explain the appearance of new spells and magic items.

"Tools for Good" introduces several new magic items.  Although damned expensive, I really liked the Devil's Key (allowing you to follow an outsider to its home plane to kill it for good) and the Equalizer Shield (creating an antimagic field to stymie those pesky spellcasters!).

I think books like this have little enduring value because there's hardly any interesting setting lore or discussion, and readers will just cherry-pick a new spell or class option from an online database.  Buy this one if you need to for PFS, but otherwise you can safely give it a pass.