D&D 2E [COMPLETE] Looking back at the leatherette series: PHBR, DMGR, HR and more!

[Malmuria]

Historical Reference series

1. HR1 Vikings Campaign Sourcebook
2. HR2 Charlemagne’s Paladins Campaign Sourcebook
3. HR3 Celts Campaign Sourcebook
4. HR4 A Mighty Fortress Campaign Sourcebook
5. HR5 The Glory of Rome Campaign Sourcebook
6. HR6 Age of Heroes Campaign Sourcebook
7. HR7 The Crusades Campaign Sourcebook

Some of these books were very educational to the 11-year-old me!

 

[Orius]

I never even bothered with Crusades. It's pretty much full blown High Middle Ages, which is very close to the standard psuedo-medieval setting D&D gets shoehorned into. My interest in the HR series were the more unusual settings, and I certainly didn't think I'd find anything useful here. Even throwing in Middle Eastern aspects, that's ground that's hardly been ignored by D&D in the past, and I do have the Arabian Adventures book as well.

 

[Alzrius]

Having finished the Historical Reference series, it's with great glee that I turn my attention over to a book whose gonzo zaniness is the polar opposite of those staid sourcebooks: CGR1 The Complete Spacefarer's Handbook.

You can probably already tell this is going to be one of those overviews where I gush a lot.

I picked this book up fairly early in my D&D career, as it was part of my frantic attempts to get all things Spelljammer. While I managed to nab quite a few of the modules and sourcebooks (I recall being quite enthralled with SJA4 Under the Dark Fist, wishing that it had been a boxed set rather than The Astromundi Cluster), it would take me years to eventually get a copy of the actual Spelljammer: Adventures in Space boxed set. Fortunately, CGR1 seemed like the next best thing.

The reason it does is because this book presents a hodgepodge of Spelljammer material, something which sits oddly next to the other books in the Campaign Guide Reference series. While only three supplements long, both subsequent volumes focus in on a character class specific to those campaigns, something which Spelljammer doesn't have. As such, it instead goes for numerous bits and pieces, almost as though what's here was meant to be in the Adventures in Space boxed set, but got cut for, well, space. There's nothing to suggest that's actually the case, but it's the impression that I've long had (even if the War Captain's Companion is probably a more proper "expansion set" to the campaign setting...though the obvious lack of coordination between the non-weapon proficiencies in that boxed set and this book still makes me frown).

So what's in this book that I love it so much? Well for one thing, Spelljammer has always been the original "D&D crossover" setting, with a mishmash of elements from its various campaign worlds. I love that, because it provides a built-in excuse for mixing and matching various sourcebooks and supplements. Naturally, the fact that this book's opening chapter talks about how the "groundling" characters from Krynn, Oerth, and Toril view wildspace - and how various unusual PC races such as kender, minotaurs, and hengeyokai take to spelljamming - hooked me from the get-go. Plus, is this the only direct acknowledgment we'd get regarding Ravenloft and Spelljammer! ...even if it wasn't very much. (There was also some about Dark Sun and Spelljammer, but it demurred on saying why there were no spelljammers in or around Athas; I preferred the more definitive statement presented in Defilers and Preservers: The Wizards of Athas.)

There's also the fact that this book then turns right around and provides PC racial stats for a whole bunch of the wackier creatures that made the setting so out of this world! (And yes, that pun was obligatory.) Giff PCs! Hadozee PCs! Scro PCs! It's great! Who doesn't want to play a dragon-centaur, a gorilla with flying squirrel-esque membranes, or an eight-foot tall hippo-man? Spelljammer was crazy fun with an emphasis on crazy, and this was before I knew about the giant space hamsters! It's like all Boo without the Minsc!

It's just too bad we never got that Wildspace TV show:


The kits in the book left me a little cold, mostly for how generic the bulk of them were. I mean, an evangelist priest kit? Is that really any more or less appropriate for a spelljamming priest than a terrestrial one? An Imposter wizard kit who's really good at using illusions to disguise himself? Again, it's not a bad idea, but it's not really Spelljammer in what it presents. I think the only one that made an impression on me was the Aperusa kit, if only because that seemed like it was splicing an odd line between a race and a culture; for those who don't know, the Aperusa are essentially the Vistani in space (albeit presented as less mystical and more whimsical), and were also present in MC9 Monstrous Compendium Spelljammer Appendix II.

What captivated me far more was the chapter on the spacefaring organizations found throughout the spheres. The priestly ones in particular, as there were several which flat-out stated that their adherents regained spells in every known sphere! I'd find out later that wasn't really such a big deal, since even if your god wasn't worshiped in a sphere you can still regain spells of up to 2nd level, and contact home power lets you make a channel to your god from any sphere anyway, regaining your full complement of spells (and detect powers lets you determine if your god, or any potentially friendly gods who might lend you power on your god's behalf, were worshiped in that sphere; also level 2).

Even so, I found the explanations behind these religious organizations fascinating for what they suggested about the metaphysics of the AD&D multiverse. The Celestians worship the Greyhawk deity of the same name, and are unsure if they're able to regain spells everywhere because space is their deity's area of control or if it's because he dwells in the Astral Plane (which is "closer" to the Prime Material Plane than the Outer Planes are). The Temple of Ptah holds that their Pharaonic deity is the creator of the universe (not a mere artisan like it says in Legends & Lore) and that's why he can grant spells everywhere; detractors say his spacefaring clergy has been around so long that they've just set up temples in every sphere, is all.

Imagine one of these guys adventuring on Krynn. Yeah, I know a lot of people consider that to break the tone of the settings, but I love it!

Also, a big shout-out to priest icons in the equipment section. There's no way to regain divine spells above 2nd level while you're in the Phlogiston, regardless of what order you belong to. But with an icon, you can bank higher-level spells ahead of time! There are different icons, and even the strongest can't store spells above 5th level (remember, back in AD&D, divine spells only went up to 7th level, quest spells notwithstanding), but I love that someone thought of this to begin with. Resource management at its finest.

I also got a kick out of the chapter that discussed the various changes to magic in wildspace/the Phlogiston. Much like with Ravenloft, the way magic worked differently was extremely evocative, and helped set the tone for the setting. Of course, the spells listed here weren't from the PHB, since that was covered in the campaign setting. Instead, we got a list compiled from the sourcebooks for Dragonlance, Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, the The Tome of Magic, Arabian Adventures, Oriental Adventures, and even PHBR4 The Complete Wizard's Handbook. Talk about having your bases covered!

Now, people who've read this book cover to cover will note that I've overlooked or skimped on several sections, such as the coverage for personality types or spacefaring logistics. Those parts of the book simply didn't capture me, and for the most part still don't now. I will note, however, that it wasn't until I sat down to re-read this that I noted that the section on constructing forts in space was meant to be used with DMGR2 The Castle Guide; interesting tidbit, there.

Finally, let me just say that the cover of this particular book (and the next one) is described on the DriveThruRPG sales page as being black. I'd always thought it was a really, really dark blue. Like, way more so than the DMGR supplements. Can anyone confirm, or am I completely out to lunch on that?

Also, I'm still of two minds about the boxed quotes along the bottom of most of the pages. On the one hand, they help set the tone of the setting (and a few of them aren't quotes at all, but rather provide some supplementary game rules). On the other hand, I kind of wonder if they were meant to pad out the page count, since the amount of space they take up has got to be worth at least a few pages between them.

So yeah, this book was good stuff then, and remains so now. Like so many Spelljammer supplements, it really does a great job pushing the feel of the setting, and it its lovably loony lists of options still puts a smile on my face to this day.

Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.

 

[Voadam]

The spelljammer book always struck me as dark blue.

 

[Davies]

The spelljammer book always struck me as dark blue.

Ditto.

 

[Orius]

This one is completely unfamiliar to me. Spelljammer stuff was all out of print when I started getting into the game. I knew of the setting of course, and I thought it would be cool, but there was never anything available for it.

 

[AuldDragon]

Speaking of the Greek gods, I have to give this book major props: it actually introduces a new god. I don't mean in a brief overview the way HR5 did (though it does do that for the rest of the pantheon), but it actually presents a new, full-page write-up in the style of L&L for Asclepius, god of healing. That has to mean this guy is in the Great Wheel cosmology, right? Here's hoping @AuldDragon remembers to cover Asclepius after finishing with the monstrous deities!

A keen observer may note he has been mentioned in a couple of the deities I've written up so far (namely Kheiron and Naralis); I definitely haven't forgotten him.

Jeff

 

[delericho]

I've been away, and missed a few of these...

Rome, Greece, and the Crusades are the three HR books I own. I never made much use of them, but they were all pretty decent, IMO. (They actually saw more use in a long-running Vampire campaign I ran, which stretched right from Rome to the 22nd century - the same campaign that provided the origin of my username.)

But Spacefarer's was awesome.

 

[RFB Dan]

Great books! The racial books & Humanoids were great for coming up with good RP concepts for characters. And the DMGR series I still use for ideas, even for latter editions.

 

[Alzrius]

More than once over this series of retrospectives, I've played the "I was remembering this wrong" card. But heading into CGR2 The Complete Gladiator's Handbook, I found myself in a new situation: I had no memory of what was in this sourcebook at all.

Given that this was one I knew I'd picked up and read this one quite some time ago, that wasn't a good sign going back to it now.

Of course, I was well aware that this was "the fighter book" for Dark Sun. While it might be focused on the gladiator class, even without recalling its specific contents it was easy enough to figure out that - as a martial class - the sourcebook would have to have a lot of content that other martial characters could make use of as well. Moreover, as this book's sales page notes, there were several Dark Sun sourcebooks that were unusually clear in demarcating what class group they were for (even if quite a few of them came out after CGR2). For instance, DSS2 Earth, Air, Fire, and Water was the priest book, covering (para-)elemental clerics, druids, and templars. The Will and the Way covered psionicists. Defilers and Preservers: The Wizards of Athas was about...well, you can tell. Even Dragon Kings, despite its name, was a book for all characters of high level. DSR2 Dune Trader was basically one big introductory sourcebook for its new trader class (which was eventually migrated over to the Dark Sun Campaign Setting (Revised and Expanded Edition), and even had some unofficial expansion in Gygax Magazine #5). Even Psionic Artifacts of Athas had a clearly-delineated role, as it was the "magic item book" for the campaign setting in all but name.

Of course, the trader class notwithstanding, this left Athas's bards and rogues out in the cold. But that's a sacrifice I feel comfortable with them making.

So what's actually in this book? Honestly, exactly what you'd expect...and that's kind of the problem.

My issue with the gladiator class is that it doesn't do a very good job of differentiating itself from the mainline fighter class. It tries to do so, both with a stricter narrative definition (an arena fighter) and a tighter mechanical focus (improved usage of weapons, unarmed combat, and armor), but I'm dubious about how well it succeeds. Even then, that's largely because the class is unabashedly "the fighter, but better," as evidenced by its higher ability score prerequisites.

This leads to one of my earliest complaints about this book, which is that it doesn't reprint the basic gladiator class information from the Dark Sun campaign setting. Now, I feel like a huge hypocrite saying that, but hear me out: the PHBR books were focused on expanding classes from the Player's Handbook (and those that weren't, such as The Complete Barbarian's Handbook or The Complete Ninja's Handbook, had their class information right there anyway), which was the book you knew would be right there anyway, making reference a minor issue at best. You could say that's true for the Dark Sun campaign setting as well, since where else would you use CGR2 if not a Dark Sun game, but that doesn't seem the same; most of the time, you're not going to be flipping through the booklets in the boxed set the way you would the PHB.

But I digress. We start off which a bunch of kits which are okay, but nothing too spectacular. I mean, several of them have interesting abilities (e.g. how the Blind Fighter kit is generous with overcoming the penalties for not being able to see, or the Jazst's ability to kill via numerous small cuts), but overall there's only so many ways you can create niche themes in what's already a niche-themed class. I did like how the kits had "special notes" at the end with various tidbits (even if they were sometimes head-scratchers; female gladiators with the Arena Champion kit sometimes receive special accolades from the fans...what does that mean, exactly?). More notable was the quick overview of NPCs with each kit at the end. While lacking even abbreviated stats, the small-scale nature of Dark Sun meant that these names and descriptions were a good way to generate some quick NPCs on the fly.

The gladiator abilities chapter is short, and doesn't really expand on the gladiator class's abilities all that much, which isn't surprising. Instead, it mostly focuses on new non-weapon profiencies, which are presumably part of the Warrior NWP group. Unlike a lot of splatbooks, there aren't a lot of these here, which is probably why this entire chapter is only four pages long.

The subsequent chapter is where it starts to get interesting, because it's basically the original Player's Option: Combat & Tactics. It introduces a not-inconsiderable expansion to the combat rules, along with new weapons, new armor, and more, including gladiator-specific expansions to the martial arts rules from PHBR1 The Complete Fighter's Handbook, which makes me wonder how well they sit next to the tweaks and revisions from PHBR15 The Complete Ninja's Handbook. It's fairly modular, and I suspect that using the bleeding rules or hit locations would do a lot to play up the brutality involved in a Dark Sun game.

It's after this, however, that the book rapidly lost me. I don't mind lore, but a section on the arenas of each city-state was enough to make my eyes glaze over. I've always found this sort of information to be more fun when taken piecemeal, like if I was trying to find all of the information I could about Draj, then the section on Draj's arena would be useful. But reading about all seven back-to-back was just enervating.

There are rules for actual arena games - as well as discussions of the practices, norms, and conventions surrounding those games as well (e.g. gambling) - but to me that misses the point. Way back when I was overviewing The Complete Fighter's Handbook, I mentioned how playing tournaments always struck me as boring compared to adventuring; the same principle applies here. Yes, a gladiatorial death match against killers and monsters, with an angry crowd watching (all of whom have some sort of psionic power) isn't your usual jousting match, but it's also not the same as defeating a group of raiders attacking a settlement or thwarting a sorcerer-king plot, either. As such, it should be no surprise that the chapters on gladiatorial campaigns and various arena games just didn't do it for me.

Overall, this book comes across as doing the best it can with what it has to work with, but in the course of doing so is forced to tacitly admit to what strikes me as a cardinal sin of class design: it works best when it's the center of the campaign. Playing up the idea of having the gladiator fight as a method of public entertainment is one thing, but with roughly half the book talking about running gladiatorial sessions (or associated activities), tournaments thereof, and even entire campaigns around that theme, it seems all too easy for such a setup to overshadow characters playing other classes (unless they're gladiators without the gladiator class, which might work, but gladiator characters have some decent niche protection in that regard).

And for that matter, does anyone else think that's kind of a waste of Dark Sun as a setting? Rikus and Neeva were both gladiators, but they stopped participating in performance combat early on in the Prism Pentad, moving on to bigger and grander adventures. I suspect most PCs will feel the same way early into a gladiatorial campaign.

This book's new rules are okay, but looking back on it now, it's easy to see why it slipped my mind so easily: it's putting a lot of attention on a campaign framework that I found markedly uninteresting.

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