Today’s review is the front half (or is it the back half?) of the duo-flip-reversed-book. This side is the Immortal Heroes which is part of Goodman Games’s Hero’s Handbook line of work.

Free RPG Day 2009 - Immortal Heroes Cover

The book held fourteen pages of very well written, well thought out and nicely put together content. It covered nine different end-goals or pathways a character could take to infamy or fame. I loved the ideas put forth in the book (the Archfiend would have been perfect for a recent cleric I played), and my favorite had to be the Radiant Master (which I guess is the total opposite of the Archfiend.) Goodman Games needs to put out more content like this, but before they do so, they need to review the current power levels of the abilities put forth in the PHB and PHB2.

The powers and abilities presented in the book are overpowered and will grossly unbalance a game. I’ve never gotten to the levels necessary to wield these powers in 4e D&D, so when my first impression of, “Wow. That’s powerful” struck me, I turned to my handy library of books and did some research. The powers presented in Immortal Heroes are easily twice as powerful as equivalent powers outlined in the PHB and PHB2. This book very much reminded me of the old 3e D&D AEG books that were wildly popular with my power-gaming friends.

If I were a player, I’d beg to be allowed to use something from this book. Seeing as how I’m the GM most of the time, I’m putting this book out of sight where my players will never discover it.

Grade: B — The ideas were well put together and thought out, but I have issues with 3rd party publishers throwing the game balance out of whack on a whim.