I've never taken that book seriously. Any book with a preface from Gygax makes my skin crawl.
In any case, Relics and Rituals was written by people who make Andy Collins look like he has a good grasp of game mechanics. It's full of lines like this:
and must be from a living creature (no oozes, constructs, or undead)
Last time I checked, most Oozes
were living creatures. They seem to mean "from a creature with a discernable anatomy" - but that's a different classification than they actually say.
Here's a list of the PrCs:
Blood Witch Horribly broken. You get save DCs that are 10 + your
caster level - which is straight up nuts.
Crypt Lord: Not so much overpowered as incomprehensible. And I mean that. I'll start with the fact that it gives you a bonus on any Transmutation Spell that you can convince your DM is kind of like a Necromancy spell. Then I'll move on to the ability where you can make any kind of undead creature you want with a CR up to your own character level - which seems to include the ability to simply raise your friends from the dead. Also the class' 10th level ability is that you get a small amount of money if you haven't already turned yourself into a Lich.
Incarnate: You wake up every morning to get kicked in the balls. Then you get kicked in the balls some more. It actually has a class feature where you can't be brought back from the dead. How this is supposed to be advantageous I have no idea.
Penumbral Lord: It's too weak and too strong. You have to start your spellcasting over again after already taking casting to 7th level. Then you suck for a while, but get new spells twice as fast, so you get to 9th level spells at the same level you would have anyway. In the meantime, you have a character who specializes in Shadow Conjuration. Do I have to draw you a diagram? BTW, he also has an infinite spellcasting loop.
Sea Witch: This class is dreadful and incomprehensible. They get to share spells "Alter Self" with inanimate objects somehow.
Summoner: The first level ability is that all of your Summoning Spells are quickened for free. I'm not sure how I feel about that. The class doesn't really give any other meaningful abilities, so it's really just one level long.
Vigilant: You get a bunch of bonus feats. These bonus feats are "Toughness" and "Great Fortitude". I wish I was kidding, but I'm not.
The spells are divided into Flavor Text and Game Effects - which is a great thing that all spells should do. Unfortunately the game effects leave something to be desired. Consider the spell
Alibi - a very cool concept spell which makes people remember being with you even though they weren't.
But the Material components are:
A small mirror left with one of the spell's targets or in the location of your alibi's presence.
What? A material component, by definition, has to be touched by you while casting the spell and is destroyed during the casting. So how could you possibly leave it anywhere? The book is full of stuff like that. Places where the rules of the game and the terms used in the book don't match to the point of making it non-functional.
If a DM is using it straight, prepare for a rollercoaster of off-the-cuff rulings.
-Username17