D&D 2E [COMPLETE] Looking back at the leatherette series: PHBR, DMGR, HR and more!
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
That comes up on pg. 59-62.
After calling True Neutral "the most misunderstood of all alignments," it eschews the idea that TN characters will seek a balance by acting one way and then the opposite shortly thereafter, saying that sort of unpredictability creates only chaos. Instead, it puts forward that druids consider each alignment to be "equally valid in a cosmic sense," remaining themselves "nonjudgmental and uncommitted" to such things. Instead, they concern themselves with the pragmatics of what's best for Nature over the long term.
It gives some examples of this, such as a druid who joins a party to kill an evil dragon not because they care that the dragon is evil, but because it's a threat to the local ecosystem, or because they can sell its treasure to procure resources to better protect/nurture the environment, or because she wants the party to owe her a favor in exchange for her help (which she'll use to send them on a quest that will help her protect the environment).
Voadam
Legend
Druids were always their own cult in D&D. 1e Dragonlance Adventures relegated them to offworld visitors only, Greyhawk had them as the Old Faith, Forgotten Realms assigned them a lot to the Nature gods. My favorite is probably Eberron's different orders with neat philosophies like protecting nature form aberrations and supernatural evils and a black dragon with orc followers being huge figures in the tradition.
The 1e PH says to think of them as the ancient celtic druid cult if it survived to medieval times. In 2e they emphasize that druids are only loosely tied to the historical ones and players are not required to try to emulate historical ones. The 2e PH also says they are an example of a priest class designed for a specific mythos.
It can fit a witch archetype, a merlin archetype, an advisor, a nature priest, a cultist of ancient Cthulhuian entities, a knowledge bard, a shaman, and others. In my current 5e game one player is using the druid class to effectuate a World of Darkness Werewolf concept. I've thought of using them to do a Bjornaer (sp?) mage concept from Ars Magica.
The 1e PH says to think of them as the ancient celtic druid cult if it survived to medieval times. In 2e they emphasize that druids are only loosely tied to the historical ones and players are not required to try to emulate historical ones. The 2e PH also says they are an example of a priest class designed for a specific mythos.
It can fit a witch archetype, a merlin archetype, an advisor, a nature priest, a cultist of ancient Cthulhuian entities, a knowledge bard, a shaman, and others. In my current 5e game one player is using the druid class to effectuate a World of Darkness Werewolf concept. I've thought of using them to do a Bjornaer (sp?) mage concept from Ars Magica.
Orius
Legend
Druid is one of the better PHB splats, and I give a good deal of the credit here to the various alternate terrain druids instead of tying then all into forests. It helps to broaden them a bit.
There's a lot of crunchy stuff to work with here, and the herbalism stuff is something I've always wanted to expand on but never really got around to.
The real problem with druid flavor goes back to the origin of the cleric IMO. The cleric started out as a Van Helsing type character to counter a vampire PC that was wreaking havoc in Dave's campaign. Then I believe Gary morphed it into a more generic medieval Christian warrior monk. Around the time the game was first published, clerics were pretty much lawful, with chaotic demon worshipping "anti-clerics" functioning as their opposite counterparts. Druids first showed up in 1976, and I think their whole neutrality thing was due to them not being a Christian analog, but still opposed to Chaos, kind of serving in the virtuous pagan role. One of the things I like about this book is that it makes an effort to put the druid into a nature priest role that is its own thing. The Christian vs. devil worshipper plus romanticized old faith that D&D essentially started out is harder to work with when the game increasingly assumed polytheistic societies, and it's also harder to work with if you're doing a campaign that isn't strongly grounded in European cultural tropes.
There's a lot of crunchy stuff to work with here, and the herbalism stuff is something I've always wanted to expand on but never really got around to.
The real problem with druid flavor goes back to the origin of the cleric IMO. The cleric started out as a Van Helsing type character to counter a vampire PC that was wreaking havoc in Dave's campaign. Then I believe Gary morphed it into a more generic medieval Christian warrior monk. Around the time the game was first published, clerics were pretty much lawful, with chaotic demon worshipping "anti-clerics" functioning as their opposite counterparts. Druids first showed up in 1976, and I think their whole neutrality thing was due to them not being a Christian analog, but still opposed to Chaos, kind of serving in the virtuous pagan role. One of the things I like about this book is that it makes an effort to put the druid into a nature priest role that is its own thing. The Christian vs. devil worshipper plus romanticized old faith that D&D essentially started out is harder to work with when the game increasingly assumed polytheistic societies, and it's also harder to work with if you're doing a campaign that isn't strongly grounded in European cultural tropes.
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
Just be prepared to expand on what's there quite a bit. The actual number of herbal concoctions it presents is surprisingly small.
Weiley31
Legend
I really love the Complete Book of Druids. I enjoy the fluff that it adds to the Druids as a whole for RPing purposes. And yes I quite dig the whole "Highlander/Pokemon Gym Trainer" aspect where you have to fight your way to the top of the Hierarchy. I actually like using it in my DND games, although I make the upgrading of rank into more of a fluff thing while still allowing the level up to happen regularly. (So even if you do reach level 20 as an Druid, your technically not an Arch Druid until you actually fight and beat one. You just keep the Druid capstone for class mechanics sakes.)
The only other book that I enjoy, which adds to the Fluff similar to Complete Druids, would be the Complete Book of Necromancers.
The only other book that I enjoy, which adds to the Fluff similar to Complete Druids, would be the Complete Book of Necromancers.
cbwjm
Seb-wejem
Complete book of necromancers was an incredible book, I was flicking through it before and it has some great ideas in it
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
Everyone make ready! There are barbarians at the gates!
PHBR14 The Complete Barbarian's Handbook was something of a sea-change for this particular line. Up until now, it had been about taking a closer look at extant options for AD&D Second Edition characters rather than breaking new ground (psionics and humanoids notwithstanding). Here, however, we get brand new character options; or at least, brand new to Second Edition.
The barbarian comes to AD&D by way of the 1985 Unearthed Arcana (and amazingly, the 1E incarnation isn't reprinted here), which the book acknowledges as part of its disclaimer that this is a supplement for 2E rather than its precedessor, something which left me scratching my head since this came out in 1995, six years into Second Edition's lifespan. Was there anyone out there who looked at this and thought "oh wow! A new supplement for AD&D 1E"? The "2nd Edition" logo is still right there on the cover, you know.
As it is, barbarians always struck me as something of an odd fit anyway. I know that there's a never-ending debate about whether certain archetypes deserve their own class or can be represented with some lesser degree of mechanics, but for me barbarians were something to be fought rather than played. Notwithstanding the intuitive multiplicity of options that tabletop RPGs allow for, the implicit rejection of civilization seemed like it made for an adversarial stance with the underpinning assumptions of a lot of AD&D. I mean, unless you gave them golem-mechs and ritualized lycanthropy and all the other stuff that made Jakandor: Island of War's Knorr barbarians so different from your standard fantasy fare. Or I suppose you could have played The Horde: Barbarian Campaign Setting, in which case...actually, you know what? I'm not even going to say anything.
Moving on, this book smartly opens by trying to tackle the question of what defines a barbarian, not in terms of the game's playable niche but rather what typifies their conceptual archetype. It comes up with four characteristics: they come from areas that civilization considers uninhabitable (i.e. deep jungles, frigid mountains, any any other areas that result in an isolated society), that their homeland is unsuitable for agriculture (thus abetting a hunter-gatherer lifestyle), that they don't have what could broadly be termed "industrial" skills (not just a lack of metallurgy, engineering, or mining, but also only very basic carpentry, seamanship, or leatherworking), and a strong focus on survival - both in practical and religious activities - which keeps them from focusing on recreational activities (such as learning to read).
I admit, I thought that the quintessential barbarian characteristics would be something different:
Moving on, I remember being quite surprised back when I first read this book, because the barbarian class was actually two classes: the "barbarian fighter" and the shaman (no relation to the Shaman book). These fall under different meta-class groups, with the former being a Warrior and the latter being a Priest.
The barbarian fighter struck me as a bit of an odd duck. I was expecting some sort of "barbarian rage" mechanic when I read it (though for the life of me, I can't figure out where I'd picked up the idea that such a thing was supposed to be there in the first place, especially as I hadn't read the 1E class when I first picked this book up), but there's none to be found in the standard class listing. While the barbarian fighter is a lot like a normal fighter in terms of attack progression and saves (except with a d12 Hit Die), his class abilities - as we'd refer to them now - include "leaping and springing" of all things. Apparently barbarians jumped like jackrabbits back in the day. They were also adept climbers the same way thieves were (some sort of reference to climbing trees?) and had "back protection," which was essentially an anti-backstab provision that let them not only avoid being struck from behind, but let them get a retaliatory strike in when someone tried.
Those are...interesting choices, but don't really play to my understanding of a barbarian is, especially given the lack of berserker abilities, my love for which is like a truck.
Barbarian shamans aren't much different than their fighter counterparts. They have a slightly smaller Hit Die, a worse THAC0, etc., but have the same class abilities (they can leap moderate obstacles in a single bound!) along with clerical spellcasting and turning undead. I confess that I sort of expected some greater differences here; do these guys learn to avoid being stabbed in the back as part of their spiritual training?
There's also a section on the advantages barbarians have when in their favored terrain that goes for both classes, but I'm going to skip slightly ahead to talk about the racial applicability of this class beyond humans...which is that it has none. Except it does. A little. You see, despite the base class descriptions saying that they're human only, we get rules for "demi-barbarians" later on, which can only be elves or dwarves, and only if they take certain kits (also present in this book), and only up to certain levels which, oddly, are slightly different if they multiclass. The entire thing seems somewhat pointless. Why not just say all that up-front?
Now, there's more to both classes than I initially covered; the entire second chapter expands on the first chapter's presentation of both the barbarian fighter and the shaman, with the various options straddling the line between supplementary information (e.g. more information about the talisman shamans use) and new rules (e.g. barbarian followers, XP bonuses for barbarian-esque activities). It's sort of a hodge-podge, but fairly modular in overall presentation, and I'll admit it does a good job in offering tools to try and make barbarians more than just a collection of ideas with no mechanical interface.
The kits likewise do a decent job in rounding out what's here. None of them stray too far from the basic barbarian archetype (e.g. we get more than one "battle rage" kit, with the Brute and the Ravager), but some of them are fairly surprising in the abilities they offer. An Islander, for instance, has limited shapechanging abilities, while the Wizard Slayer...well, does what it says on the tin, but don't expect this guy to play well with others when he gets XP bonuses from destroying magic items. The shaman kits range a bit further afield as a matter of course, with the Spiritist being my favorite; it eschews those odd class abilities, gains some pretty decent buffs, and even its primary drawback ("spirit war," where you go and fight a spirit battle in your dreams) has a chance of actually giving you a benefit instead of a penalty. Now that's the sort of drawback I like!
Of course, the book likewise notes that there are several kits from other books that are thematic fits for barbarians as well. (It even calls out how The Complete Wizard's Handbook has a "barbarian wizard" kit, despite this book talking about how non-shamanic magic is viewed with suspicion among barbarian tribes!)
There's little to say about the proficiencies chapter, simply because there isn't much there that's new. That's only somewhat hyperbolic to say; a lot of this chapter is talking about barbarian uses of existing proficiencies (sometimes with new ways to use them).
The book closes out with a pair of chapters that go over barbarian societies and tips for role-playing barbarians, respectively, but just like when I first read them, I simply couldn't get too excited over them. While the information here isn't bad for what it offers (deeper discussions of shamanic spirits, barbarian weaponry, social organization among barbarian tribes, etc.) it all hinges around a barbarian-centric campaign, presumably where all of the PCs are playing barbarian characters (either the new classes here, or other classes with barbarian-focused kits). That just seemed too far outside of my wheelhouse to really draw me in.
To be clear, this book succeeds in what it sets out to do, it's just that what it sets out to do is explore the idea of the barbarian as a sort of campaign template as much as it is a character class. It's similar to how, as was noted earlier, The Complete Priest's Handbook came across as having a lot of DM-focused information in a player-focused book. That's how this one felt as well.
Though I suppose a barbarian campaign could be fun if it was done right...
Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.
PHBR14 The Complete Barbarian's Handbook was something of a sea-change for this particular line. Up until now, it had been about taking a closer look at extant options for AD&D Second Edition characters rather than breaking new ground (psionics and humanoids notwithstanding). Here, however, we get brand new character options; or at least, brand new to Second Edition.
The barbarian comes to AD&D by way of the 1985 Unearthed Arcana (and amazingly, the 1E incarnation isn't reprinted here), which the book acknowledges as part of its disclaimer that this is a supplement for 2E rather than its precedessor, something which left me scratching my head since this came out in 1995, six years into Second Edition's lifespan. Was there anyone out there who looked at this and thought "oh wow! A new supplement for AD&D 1E"? The "2nd Edition" logo is still right there on the cover, you know.
As it is, barbarians always struck me as something of an odd fit anyway. I know that there's a never-ending debate about whether certain archetypes deserve their own class or can be represented with some lesser degree of mechanics, but for me barbarians were something to be fought rather than played. Notwithstanding the intuitive multiplicity of options that tabletop RPGs allow for, the implicit rejection of civilization seemed like it made for an adversarial stance with the underpinning assumptions of a lot of AD&D. I mean, unless you gave them golem-mechs and ritualized lycanthropy and all the other stuff that made Jakandor: Island of War's Knorr barbarians so different from your standard fantasy fare. Or I suppose you could have played The Horde: Barbarian Campaign Setting, in which case...actually, you know what? I'm not even going to say anything.
Moving on, this book smartly opens by trying to tackle the question of what defines a barbarian, not in terms of the game's playable niche but rather what typifies their conceptual archetype. It comes up with four characteristics: they come from areas that civilization considers uninhabitable (i.e. deep jungles, frigid mountains, any any other areas that result in an isolated society), that their homeland is unsuitable for agriculture (thus abetting a hunter-gatherer lifestyle), that they don't have what could broadly be termed "industrial" skills (not just a lack of metallurgy, engineering, or mining, but also only very basic carpentry, seamanship, or leatherworking), and a strong focus on survival - both in practical and religious activities - which keeps them from focusing on recreational activities (such as learning to read).
I admit, I thought that the quintessential barbarian characteristics would be something different:
Moving on, I remember being quite surprised back when I first read this book, because the barbarian class was actually two classes: the "barbarian fighter" and the shaman (no relation to the Shaman book). These fall under different meta-class groups, with the former being a Warrior and the latter being a Priest.
The barbarian fighter struck me as a bit of an odd duck. I was expecting some sort of "barbarian rage" mechanic when I read it (though for the life of me, I can't figure out where I'd picked up the idea that such a thing was supposed to be there in the first place, especially as I hadn't read the 1E class when I first picked this book up), but there's none to be found in the standard class listing. While the barbarian fighter is a lot like a normal fighter in terms of attack progression and saves (except with a d12 Hit Die), his class abilities - as we'd refer to them now - include "leaping and springing" of all things. Apparently barbarians jumped like jackrabbits back in the day. They were also adept climbers the same way thieves were (some sort of reference to climbing trees?) and had "back protection," which was essentially an anti-backstab provision that let them not only avoid being struck from behind, but let them get a retaliatory strike in when someone tried.
Those are...interesting choices, but don't really play to my understanding of a barbarian is, especially given the lack of berserker abilities, my love for which is like a truck.
Barbarian shamans aren't much different than their fighter counterparts. They have a slightly smaller Hit Die, a worse THAC0, etc., but have the same class abilities (they can leap moderate obstacles in a single bound!) along with clerical spellcasting and turning undead. I confess that I sort of expected some greater differences here; do these guys learn to avoid being stabbed in the back as part of their spiritual training?
There's also a section on the advantages barbarians have when in their favored terrain that goes for both classes, but I'm going to skip slightly ahead to talk about the racial applicability of this class beyond humans...which is that it has none. Except it does. A little. You see, despite the base class descriptions saying that they're human only, we get rules for "demi-barbarians" later on, which can only be elves or dwarves, and only if they take certain kits (also present in this book), and only up to certain levels which, oddly, are slightly different if they multiclass. The entire thing seems somewhat pointless. Why not just say all that up-front?
Now, there's more to both classes than I initially covered; the entire second chapter expands on the first chapter's presentation of both the barbarian fighter and the shaman, with the various options straddling the line between supplementary information (e.g. more information about the talisman shamans use) and new rules (e.g. barbarian followers, XP bonuses for barbarian-esque activities). It's sort of a hodge-podge, but fairly modular in overall presentation, and I'll admit it does a good job in offering tools to try and make barbarians more than just a collection of ideas with no mechanical interface.
The kits likewise do a decent job in rounding out what's here. None of them stray too far from the basic barbarian archetype (e.g. we get more than one "battle rage" kit, with the Brute and the Ravager), but some of them are fairly surprising in the abilities they offer. An Islander, for instance, has limited shapechanging abilities, while the Wizard Slayer...well, does what it says on the tin, but don't expect this guy to play well with others when he gets XP bonuses from destroying magic items. The shaman kits range a bit further afield as a matter of course, with the Spiritist being my favorite; it eschews those odd class abilities, gains some pretty decent buffs, and even its primary drawback ("spirit war," where you go and fight a spirit battle in your dreams) has a chance of actually giving you a benefit instead of a penalty. Now that's the sort of drawback I like!
Of course, the book likewise notes that there are several kits from other books that are thematic fits for barbarians as well. (It even calls out how The Complete Wizard's Handbook has a "barbarian wizard" kit, despite this book talking about how non-shamanic magic is viewed with suspicion among barbarian tribes!)
There's little to say about the proficiencies chapter, simply because there isn't much there that's new. That's only somewhat hyperbolic to say; a lot of this chapter is talking about barbarian uses of existing proficiencies (sometimes with new ways to use them).
The book closes out with a pair of chapters that go over barbarian societies and tips for role-playing barbarians, respectively, but just like when I first read them, I simply couldn't get too excited over them. While the information here isn't bad for what it offers (deeper discussions of shamanic spirits, barbarian weaponry, social organization among barbarian tribes, etc.) it all hinges around a barbarian-centric campaign, presumably where all of the PCs are playing barbarian characters (either the new classes here, or other classes with barbarian-focused kits). That just seemed too far outside of my wheelhouse to really draw me in.
To be clear, this book succeeds in what it sets out to do, it's just that what it sets out to do is explore the idea of the barbarian as a sort of campaign template as much as it is a character class. It's similar to how, as was noted earlier, The Complete Priest's Handbook came across as having a lot of DM-focused information in a player-focused book. That's how this one felt as well.
Though I suppose a barbarian campaign could be fun if it was done right...
Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.
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