How many times have you wished that the overly goody too-shoes, righteous lawful good paladin in your party take his +3 Holy Sword of annoying right through his oh so hollow plate mail. With Le Games Neo Paladins: The Martyr, the paladin can off himself and it?s a good thing for the party.

The Martyr turns the Paladin class into more cleric than fighter. The class is given the full core class treatment as with all of Le Games Neo class series. Though the dismissal of the Paladin mount and increase in healing abilities are positive aspects of the class, the class seems to fall into average category at later levels. With the lowered base attack it begins to feel more like a high powered cleric than a healing Paladin.

The Martyr does a great job of using the lay on hands ability of the paladin as the signature skill for the class, Stigmatic Touch. With Stigmatic Touch, you are able to heal damage to comrades at the expense of health to yourself. This ability is enhanced at later levels to include ability restoration. The big 20 level ability, Sacrificial Lamb provides mechanics for a paladin to take his own life and restore another persons.

For the DM The Martyr fills the need of a balanced warrior priest nicely, though I would be to use such a powerful healing class as a main party NPC, I could see a good use for the class being used as helpful retired warrior priests in villages and cities.

For the Player If the party is missing a healer but you want to play more of a warrior class, this may be a good route to go. The healing abilities are strong enough to keep the party going and you could use feats to boost your combat prowess.

The Iron Word The Martyr is a solid class and should be commended for gutting the paladin class and adding some more useful healing abilities to it. The class, however, seems a bit more warrior-cleric than paladin variant in the end with the low base attack. I also would have liked to see something that removed the lawful good restriction of the class considering the major differences from the normal paladin. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: - Nice healing skills

• good job in taking out the garbage<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: - felt more fighter/cleric <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

It might be easy to dismiss ?Neo Paladins: The Martyr? as leftover material that maybe didn?t make the cut when The Le Games previously released ?Unorthodox Paladins,? but players that don?t look at this new supplement will be missing out on a unique, creative and fully-playable core class that serves as both a variant to one of the standard classes (in this case, the paladin), but is also strong enough to stand as its own advanceable-to-20th-level character option.

Taking the approach that "not all holy warriors further the cause of good at the point of a sword," the martyr is a class devoted to living his or her life in pursuit of ideal good and lawfulness, regardless of the cost. A martyr does not play recklessly, despite the fact that he or she does not fear death if it means living up to his or her goals. Instead, a martyr views most every encounter as a test of faith, striving to serve as an example of his or her ideals.

The martyr's similarity to the paladin is evident; many of its class features are divine in nature. Writer James M. Spahn's effort here is evident, however. Despite its similarity to the paladin, or even the cleric, the martyr is truly a unique class, well designed and well balanced. In fact, in the right campaign and in the right (and perhaps ambitious) hands, the martyr could even replace the paladin.

This supplement delivers all it advertises, and that's it. There's not necessarily anything wrong with this. Players should be aware, however, that there are no feats, no spells, or no magic items included with this product. It is ONLY a new character class.

Fortunately, this is all this supplement needs.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: This is a complete character class packet, ready to use and immediately playable.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: When paladins, clerics, fighters, etc., are written about in the Player's Handbook, capitalizing the first letter of the character class names is not done. A MINOR nitpick in "Neo Paladins: The Martyr" is that the martyr class is constantly given this first-letter-capitilization, turning the martyr into a the Martyr. This is a such a small aspect of this otherwise excellent product.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>