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

[billd91]

I was disappointed with the Priests Handbook when it came out. I had been hoping for more examples of specialty priests that didn't kind of lowball their power relative to the generic cleric. I was really disappointed with the tendency to trade off hit dice size (sometimes substantially to d4s) because I didn't want a priest to be substantially reduced in defensive power - offensive fine, but I want priests to be, relatively speaking, rocks for their faiths, not wads of paper to be blown away by adversity.

I didn't like the Psionics Handbook at all. I thought the whole idea of dealing with making contact by establishing 3 tangents was pointlessly complex and fiddly. I don't think I was ever particularly fond of any of the psionic subsystems until 3e. That was the first one that really worked for me.

Of the complete class handbooks, fighters and bards were my favorites. Fighters introduced other ways of picking up weapon proficiencies that were more efficient than the old and moldy 1 slot=1 weapon formula. Bards included kits that, I thought, significantly addressed the relatively low power 2nd edition bards had.

 

[cbwjm]

The psionics handbook was awesome. First, it brought in a new class which I felt was amazing at the time (I loved getting new classes back during 2e) and it provided this new source of power which could be used to customise regular classes a bit, especially if you decide to go all dark sun and give all your players a wild talent. I do agree that tangents could be a little clunky though. I wasn't really fond of 3e psionics, to me a psion was just a wizard by another name as it felt to me that it lost a lot of the feeling of the older psionics system. I think I used it as inspiration for a magic system based on it so that spellcasters were casting their spells in a similar fashion (I am remembering correctly where 3e psionics could be upcast similar to spells in 5e, right?)

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Do you like SKR's writing?

It is a very late 2e take on the topic (taking an undeveloped area of Greyhawk and developing it in-depth creating new stuff).

A lot of Suel genetic nazi stuff, pale Suel degenerate tribesmen, new ethnicities, new languages, creation and fleshing out of the Central/south american fantasy take off pantheon (though not full Faiths & Avatars style).

Almost none of it gets built on later that I am aware of.

I don't think that's quite true. Scarlet Brotherhood is pretty obviously informing a lot of the threads and lore behind a lot of the Paizo Dungeon work, particularly Shackled City and Savage Tide. The former has the degenerate Suel tribesmen and the latter has Scarlet Brotherhood influence, and the Olman culture and religion being fairly integral to the adventure.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I was disappointed with the Priests Handbook when it came out. I had been hoping for more examples of specialty priests that didn't kind of lowball their power relative to the generic cleric. I was really disappointed with the tendency to trade off hit dice size (sometimes substantially to d4s) because I didn't want a priest to be substantially reduced in defensive power - offensive fine, but I want priests to be, relatively speaking, rocks for their faiths, not wads of paper to be blown away by adversity.

I didn't like the Psionics Handbook at all. I thought the whole idea of dealing with making contact by establishing 3 tangents was pointlessly complex and fiddly. I don't think I was ever particularly fond of any of the psionic subsystems until 3e. That was the first one that really worked for me.

Of the complete class handbooks, fighters and bards were my favorites. Fighters introduced other ways of picking up weapon proficiencies that were more efficient than the old and moldy 1 slot=1 weapon formula. Bards included kits that, I thought, significantly addressed the relatively low power 2nd edition bards had.

The 2E Psionics Handbook I blame for the "psionics aren't magic and one doesn't affect the other" brain worm that bedevilled acceptance of any sort of workable psionics system coming to 5E.

 

[Alzrius]

Looking back now, PHBR4 The Complete Wizard's Handbook was a supplement that I didn't fully appreciate when I picked it up.

That was largely because I treated it as being little more than a cut-rate version of the 2E Tome of Magic, i.e. a source of new spells and magic items. That meant, of course, that I basically ignored a lot of what else was here. In hindsight, I suspect this was because the new spells were the part that were most notable when looking at this book's wider impact; I remember seeing spells such as chromatic orb and ice knife on the spell lists for various other classes over the life of Second Edition, to say nothing of classics like Mordenkainen's private sanctum or Rary's telepathic bond.

Which wasn't to say I didn't read the rest of the book; it just didn't make nearly as much of an impression on me. I do recall the listings for the bonuses that specialists got at they leveled up, though I can't remember now if there was an abbreviated version of school specialists in the PHB. Likewise, even back then the section on "creating new schools of magic" struck me as disappointing for just walking through the process without actually providing a sample new school. That would have been much cooler if it had.

Interestingly, it's only now, upon rereading these books, that I've come to notice how kits that cover the same thematic area appear in several of them. For instance, three of these first four books feature amazon kits (those being the Complete Fighter's Handbook, Complete Priest's Handbook, and Complete Wizard's Handbook). Do amazon societies just not have crime, and that's why there's no amazon thief? Or is an amazon thief just the same as your baseline, kit-less thief?

Of course, more notable are the kits that make some larger alterations to how the wizard functions. Given that we've got a lively thread about witches in D&D going on at the moment, the witch kit here jumps out at me, particularly since it comes with several special powers but also some serious drawbacks. The wu jen is also here, and like the witch demonstrates a substantive difference in ability from most other kits, such as how the patrician kit's changes can be summarized as "you can demand shelter from the fellow nobles, but pay more for the cost of goods."

There were also a lot of situational modifiers for casting spells that I suspect I overlooked simply because I didn't get much use out of them. Casting spells on the planes, for instance, was quickly superseded by the material in the Planescape Campaign Setting, and I think it was DMGR9 Of Ships and the Sea (a book I'll talk more about later) that went into greater detail about casting spells underwater (though I could be misremembering, there). Of course, there was also a section explaining some various details about how spells worked normally anyway ("hold person makes a target go rigid; it does not freeze them in mid-air").

Also, while this isn't really a spoiler for the latest Dresden Files books, I love that

Spoiler

"conjuritis" is a disease here.

Overall, this was a useful supplement, but I could have gotten more out of it if I'd looked past the obvious draws of new magic. Ah, the follies of youth.

Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.

 

[cbwjm]

I did like the extra abilities that specialists got at higher levels, they kept them for spells and magic but lowered the level where they were gained, most likely due to the idea that most campaigns weren't hitting those high levels.

 

[el-remmen]

I don't think I owned the Wizard's Handbook - but I know I read it and cribbed from it. Basically, since I was really into homebrewing at the time, I would borrow books from friends, steal ideas, and build my own versions of their kits, spells, and other things. The less a book had that I wanted to use "as is," the less chance I'd buy it.

 

[Voadam]

I remember there was an expanded chart for familiars and I had a character roll and get an otter. The DM asked me if there were giant otters and I said there were as a specific 1e monster and probably minimal ones too from the MM II. He had me roll a second die with chances weighted for normal otters and I ended up with a giant otter as my familiar which was a fantastic NPC.

From the 1e MM:

These creatures love to play — sliding and tag are favorite pastimes. If such play is in progress when the otters are encountered, the creatures might panic horses, overturn wagons, accidentally break carts, etc. Even in the water similar danger exists with regard to boats and other small craft, for the otters may accidentally overturn them in playfulness.

So there was then the basis for movie chase scenes where food carts get overturned as we ran away.

When I converted the character to 3e I was glad to see there was an improved find familiar spell in Relics & Rituals that could match the on the spot alteration the DM had made, along with Tome & Blood having a conversion for ice knife.

 

[Voadam]

Ghoul Touch was another fantastic spell from CWH. Playing my eponymous viking wizard character, a fellow PC gnome illusionist called it "Voadam's Stinky Hands"

 

[Alzrius]

I don't think I owned the Wizard's Handbook - but I know I read it and cribbed from it.

I mostly did that for The Complete Fighter's Handbook. I borrowed a friend's copy so often I'm amazed I didn't buy my own sooner.