D&D 2E [COMPLETE] Looking back at the limited series: Player's Option, Monstrous Arcana, Odyssey, and more!

[Orius]

The Wizard's Spell Compendium is another pretty good resource. It's not just the new spells themselves, but the rarity guidelines which help a DM to control magic acquisition in the campaign. Like the Encyclopedia Magica, I don't have too many gripes about it only covering part of 2e, but since this book goes to the end of 1995, it covers a bit more ground. It does also include all the spells from Spells and Magic which is about 6 months after the cutoff date. Another good feature are the tables for randomly determining starting spells in a wizard's spellbook including tables for all of 2e's core specialists.

Path Magic was from an issue of Dragon in early 1995, #216 IIRC. It was an interesting magic system and most of it was reprinted in the appendix, but there were a few paths that weren't included.

Jon Pickens did the two Spell Compendiums and his approach was more conservative than slade's. He seems to have a avoided duplicates where possible, while slade included a number of duplicate items. He also only covered AD&D, given that some spells written for D&D especially early ones were pretty rudimentary. I think his approach was a bit too conservative at times though as some spells he suggests restricting to specialists. I disagree strongly with that, this isn't 1e where illusionists have their own separate spell lists, and mages are supposed to be able to learn any spell with the exception of wild magic. Leaving out some of the joke spells particularly from those April issues of Dragon is something of a letdown, but then I think many of them aren't really all that useable in the first place.

 

[cbwjm]

I remember seeing the spell compendiums in stores but I never had the money for them, didn't get them until they showed up on DMsGuild and I have to say, they are a brilliant resource that have given me countless ideas for "new" spells I 5e.

 

[Orius]

One more note on the Wizard Compendium; it was released right around TSR's bankruptcy. I remember the first volume was released in the fall of 1996, and I picked it up right away. The next volume was supposed to have been something like February 1997, but it never showed up. I kept looking for it in the bookstores, and there was this local comics shop that would order RPG stuff from one of the distributors (the Armory maybe? I don't remember). But there was no word on it at all until TSR's bankruptcy was announced around April.

Luckily, WotC saw the the value in these books, and finished off the set and went on to the priest spells. There were definite cost cutting changes in them though. The first volume had gold lettering on the spine, but the later ones went with a more generic yellow. There was also a simple border in gold ink at the top and bottom of the pages in the first volume like had been done with the Encyclopedia Magica, but the other three volumes switched to black. OTOH, the second and third volumes provided mini indexes which are more useful to the DM overall.

 

[Alzrius]

It's not inaccurate to say that the Priest's Spell Compendium is, in many ways, a direct continuation of the Wizard's Spell Compendium.

Personally, I think it's more of a "little sibling" kind of situation. The fact that this series only has three volumes, rather than four – something I attribute to priest spells only going up to 7th level, and being less popular in general compared to wizard spells (even if the introduction to the first volume references their having an explosion of popularity around the time the series came out) – and came out after the WSC makes it seem almost like an afterthought in that regard, as though someone said "oh yeah, I guess we should do one of these for divine spells also, shouldn't we?"

Now, as far as critiques go, that's not much of one. As noted previously, faithfully copying a good idea was itself a good idea. This series sticks to the format of its predecessor, and the result is a massive multi-volume work of spells from twenty years of D&D history, presented with the same useful formatting, organization, and appendices. Now, obviously certain things have to be switched around where the specifics are different – here, the appendices cover things like quest spells and spells specific to various deities or racial faiths, for instance – but for the most part it's second verse, same as the first.

And that's my only real critique of what's here. While I don't think this series should have tried to make itself substantially different from the WSC in any particular way, I do think there were a few opportunities for expanding on what makes divine magic different from arcane magic in AD&D.

Take, for instance, the spell rarity listings. It talks about how common spells are available to all faiths (presuming they have access to the requisite spheres), while uncommon spells need to be researched, and rare spells might only be found in lost tomes or similar esoteric sources. That's always confused me; if deities are active, sapient beings in their own right, and presumably want their worshipers to succeed in advancing their agenda(s), why is it that – when some cleric on some world comes up with a new spell formula – the deity doesn't (have their divine servants) promulgate that new spell to all of their worshipers everywhere? Why do they wait for them to be, apparently, individually discovered by individual clerics over and over again? How I wish the PSC had offered clarification about that.

For that matter, I also would have appreciated a reminder about how divine spellcasters don't actually choose their own spells; they request them. What they actually get is up to their deity and their deity's divine servants (at least for spells above 2nd level, since spells lower than that are granted via faith and religious training alone). I know a lot of people see that as heavy-handed, with the GM basically asserting control over their character, but this is a missed opportunity to talk about how it isn't supposed to be; it's supposed to be your deity looking out for you, giving you the benefit of having friends in the highest of high places, so that when you pray for spells useful against demons, and the DM knows that you're going on an undead-heavy adventure, you'll find that your god has ignored your request for anti-demon spells and instead loaded you up with anti-undead spells.

And while I'm on the subject, I really really really REALLY wish this series had taken the opportunity to talk about how deities of certain divine strata can only grant spells of up to a certain level. Remember that, how demigods could only grant spells of up to 5th level, lesser deities spells of up to 6th level, and intermediate and greater deities spells of up to 7th level?

Sure, it was hard to square that with how gods could personally use any spell they wanted (as relayed in Legends & Lore 2E and reaffirmed in Faiths & Avatars), plus how apparently gods of any level could grant quest spells (since there were quest spells specific to each Birthright deity, which occupied various divine strata, in the Book of Priestcraft, all of which were reprinted in the final volume of the PSC), but while everyone I know hated that rule, it had a purpose: that it encourages your priest character to actually proselytize and convert people they met, in hopes of garnering your god enough worship to raise their divine rank. It's why your character was able to set up a temple when they hit name level (remember name level?).

It was, to my mind, a brilliant way to put a cleric's faith front-and-center, making them different from holy warriors like paladins, who were about smashing the foes of your god rather than tending to the flock. And even if you simply worshiped an intermediate or greater god, then you started with membership in an expansive religious organization, which should have been treated as a resource to be called upon as well as a source of adventures, rather than a nanny-esque review board who would impose penalties if you didn't pass their evaluation (the latter being how it was often treated, showcasing why PCs tend to eschew their character having any sort of personal ties). But as far as I know, that line of thinking wasn't ever explicitly stated in any AD&D game books, even though it should have been shouted from the metaphorical rooftops; certainly, it should have been here.

While it might have ventured further afield in doing so, I find myself wishing that the Priest's Spell Compendium had covered things like that. While I did appreciate things like the updated sphere access for clerics and druids, bringing forward the old 1E rules for orisons and tribal shamans/witch doctors, and and thematic spell lists for various non-standard priestly characters such as cloistered clerics and oracles, more could have been done here. This could have transcended being a mere reference work, instead offering the definitive take on the nature, both beneficial and otherwise, of being a divine spellcaster.

That we didn't get that is a shame, and while it's not that much of an indictment to say that it left me wanting more, the lack of expanded material seems striking in its absence. This is by no means a bad series, but even notwithstanding that it, unavoidably, doesn't cover all divine spells through the end of AD&D 2nd Edition (a notation which always makes me think of the torture spell from Die Vecna Die!, the very last AD&D 2E product), it still feels like an incomplete one.

Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.

 

[Voadam]

D&D has a long history of an issue with cleric spell list expansions. How many books with new cleric spells that your DM has access to determines the daily spell options open to a cleric. That can range from single digit spell options to up to hundreds with things like the priest spell compendiums or the OGL or DMs Guild.

I also found the priest spell compendiums a fantastic resource but lacking on the quality of advice for dealing with the issue of big cleric spell lists.

 

[Orius]

Yes, Pickens was very conservative about the priest spell list especially given his advice in the first volume's introduction. Wizards are easier to control since the DM has much more direct access over what spells appear, but priests are less restricted. And Pickens noted that the priest spell list had always grown slower with druids tending to get new spells more often than clerics and many of the spells here were fairly new, a good number of them coming in from FR's trio of god sourcebooks, the oldest of which, Faiths and Avatars, had only been published in mid-1996. The spells lists here go up to the end of 1997, though I think Demihuman Deities was included as well and that was what, first quarter 1998?

Second keep in mind the publishing schedule here. The first two volumes were released in 1999, and the final one in early 2000. This was the very end of 2e. I think perhaps there wasn't really any desire to expand on rules for priest spells here given that work on 3e was already well underway and the edition would be announced at GenCon 1999. As things are, note how Pickens organizes the spheres into three broad groups here: cleric, druid, and specialty spheres. This itself was relatively new thinking for 2e, and it think it might have had some influence by 3e going back to separate cleric and druid lists, though Pickens might have been making a callback to 1e too. Then again, it might have been simply a matter of space. The last of mention of how lesser gods could only grant lower level spells also might have been an early 3e influence as well.

Still, the same comments on the Wizard's Compendium tend to apply here. It's a solid reference work, and a fitting capstone for 2e's library. It may not cover every 2e spell, but this is even a less of a quibble than it was for the Encyclopedia Magica and Wizard's Spell Compendium given how late it came in the edition.

 

[delericho]

And while I'm on the subject, I really really really REALLY wish this series had taken the opportunity to talk about how deities of certain divine strata can only grant spells of up to a certain level. Remember that, how demigods could only grant spells of up to 5th level, lesser deities spells of up to 6th level, and intermediate and greater deities spells of up to 7th level?

Sure, it was hard to square that with how gods could personally use any spell they wanted (as relayed in Legends & Lore 2E and reaffirmed in Faiths & Avatars), plus how apparently gods of any level could grant quest spells (since there were quest spells specific to each Birthright deity, which occupied various divine strata, in the Book of Priestcraft, all of which were reprinted in the final volume of the PSC), but while everyone I know hated that rule, it had a purpose: that it encourages your priest character to actually proselytize and convert people they met, in hopes of garnering your god enough worship to raise their divine rank. It's why your character was able to set up a temple when they hit name level (remember name level?).

In my experience the effect of that rule was fairly simple: players simply wouldn't even look at any deity below Greater rank (despite the fact we only ever once reached a level where it might have mattered).

 

[Orius]

That's probably why the idea got phased out. Players aren't going to take a clearly subpar character option like that and so it ends up being a waste to publish and a waste for the DM to create it, even if it's just an NPC thing.

I think too there was just a shift in gameplay expectations over the years as the cleric developed between 1e and 2e. Early on, maybe you had a cleric that served the Greek gods. You favored one of them, but you served the whole pantheon. As you reached the higher levels, you eventually switched your service over to Zeus. Everyone was just a standard cleric so it made little difference. Then 2e comes along with specialty priests. Now if you worshipped a Lesser God or Demigod, you'd be handicapped with spell access. Who wants to play that?

Wisdom though maybe was supposed to play a role in that too, because you need an 18 Wis to get the level 7 spells (and I think 17 for level 6 IIRC). If you can't cast the spells in the first place, then it doesn't matter if your god can grant them. That raises an interesting idea for world building though -- maybe the lesser gods are weaker because their priests are bigger dolts.

 

[Alzrius]

So, remember what I said in my overview of the Book of Artifacts about it having left the smallest footprint (compared to the other books in the "Expanded Core") in the history of the game? Well, here comes The Rod of Seven Parts, the first of the Tomes adventures, to prove me wrong.

This product, which could very well be called a campaign-in-a-box, is far from the first to feature the eponymous Rod of Seven Parts; that distinction goes to OD&D's Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry, then the AD&D 1E DMG, followed by the AD&D 2E DMG, then the BoA, and now this. It was only in 2nd Edition that the Rod became an artifact of Law, and while this boxed set adds little to the overarching lore, it put it all front and center in a massive quest...ironically, exactly the sort that the Book of Artifacts said artifacts should cause when introduced into your campaign setting.

The lore on display here also had some not-inconsiderable future history. While the specific events in this campaign weren't referenced (owing largely to this adventure's generic nature) much that I can recall, 3E would (in products such as Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss) integrate the Queen of Chaos and Miska the Wolf-Spider with material from Planescape, creating an overarching history of the Great Wheel cosmology.

In a nutshell, that history is that the yugoloths were the original scions of Evil (with a capital "E"), and who subsequently purged themselves of law and chaos, the latter of which formed the obyriths, of whom Obox-ob became the first Prince of Demons, after which the Queen of Chaos took the title from him and bestowed it on her consort, Miska. After being defeated with the Rod of Seven Parts, Demogorgon took the title, at least up until the events of the Savage Tide, after which WotC decided to reboot everything in 4E before deciding that lore and canon weren't really important at all in 5E, which is a shame because I liked how things were starting to develop into a coherent whole, but c'est la vie.

As for this boxed set unto itself, it was one that I circled a long time before I actually got the thing. Which is to say, I read all of the supplementary materials about this product before finally picking it up a year or two ago. I read Skip Williams' articles in Dragon #224 (where he talked about the artifact's history) and #233 (where he talked about integrating the boxed set into several of TSR's campaign worlds); I picked up a copy of Douglas Niles' Rod of Seven Parts novel; I even got to see the new monsters presented here when they were reprinted in the Monstrous Compendium Annual Vol. 4. All long before I actually sat down with the boxed set unto itself.

But having said all of that, what's the actual adventure/campaign like?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's something of an extended fetch-quest, as the party stumbles onto the first piece of the Rod and then begins tracking down the subsequent six, drawing the attention ofthe Queen of Chaos and Miska, both of whom the characters encounter over the course of the adventure, as well as their minions. In this regard, it's really a series of adventures, which collectively make for some classic D&D-style dungeon-crawling, even if they're not all dungeons. From raiding a fire giant's lair to venturing into the Underdark to fight an aboleth to going into a hidden demiplane replete with undead, the adventure has quite a few scenarios that aren't just "fight demonic servitors who want the Rod," though there are still plenty of those; the first two books make up the main series of adventures, but the third has several scenarios which can be dropped in anywhere.

That's not all the third book does; it also covers the Rod itself, expanding quite a bit on how previous books have presented it. For instance, not only does each piece of the Rod have its own power, as well as greater powers when its pieces are joined, but it also has resonant powers that are only unlocked if you join the pieces in the proper order. How's THAT for lawful? It reminded me a lot of how, in WGA4 Vecna Lives!, the powers of the Hand of Vecna were all associated with particular gestures; little things like that go a long way to fleshing an artifact out.

This book also expands on the process of combining the Rod's parts (i.e. drawing the proper sigils necessary to join or remove pieces) and the consequences for messing that process up. Said consequences (that a piece teleports away to a random location) seems like something the PCs will have to deal with a lot here; not only does it happen if you screw up joining a piece, but it also has a chance of happening if you use the Rod's powers too much. It's no surprise that the main book advises you not to use that too much, lest the PCs feel discouraged.

Of course, if the PCs do manage to put the entire Rod together and confront Miska, they have the opportunity to slay a major antagonist from D&D history. It's a pretty epic win if they can pull it off, and certainly worthy of a boxed set this big. Really, my only complaint here is that something this epic in scope runs into the old "where's Elminster?" problem, since being the focus of something of this magnitude (e.g. waves of chaos that warp the campaign world as the Queen sends her minions after the PCs) should normally result in major NPCs of all stripes getting involved. Skip Williams acknowledges this himself in that Dragon #233 article, but doesn't really offer much advice except "be cognizant of that."

Still, that's a relatively minor complaint about an adventure of such an impressive breadth. The Rod of Seven Parts sets a very high bar for the beginning of the Tomes series of products, though personally, I think the next one represents the high-water mark for the series...

Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.

 

[Alzrius]

A quick note that I've added a few more products to the list of what I'll be covering in this retrospective. Specifically, the three "apocalypse adventures" that were published to close out AD&D 2E: The Apocalypse Stone, The Dungeon of Death, and Die Vecna Die! It'll be a while before I get to them, but I'm already looking forward to looking back at those classics!