Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
[COMPLETE] Looking back at the limited series: Player's Option, Monstrous Arcana, Odyssey, and more!
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 8552434" data-attributes="member: 8461"><p>In many ways, this next supplement is the bookend to the "Option" series. Not because it was necessarily the last to use that particular designation, but because it ended the mainstay entries for it. This is the fourth sourcebook in a series of sourcebooks, all of which offered a variety of modular options for use in any AD&D 2E game. After this, we'd get an adventure and a repackaged (pseudo-)campaign setting. So in a way, this is was the beginning of the end of the series; or at least, I think of it that way, since the next two products are ones I didn't pick up until some time later.</p><p></p><p>But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Up next is the magical counterpoint to <em>Combat & Tactics</em>, expands on the options in <em>Skills & Powers</em>, and offers more useful toys for spellcasters than the true dweomers from <em>High-Level Campaigns</em>. Yes, we come now to <s><em>Tome of Magic II: Tome Harder</em></s> <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16864/Players-Option--Spells--Magic-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>Player's Option: Spells & Magic</em></a>.</p><p></p><p>The stricken-through text above is only half in jest, I should note. While this book isn't technically a successor to the ToM, it honestly feels like it could be, as it presents new types of wizards that are fit for any campaign, expansions and changes for priest characters, and a variety of new spells. It's just that this time it folds in some related material regarding proficiencies, creating/recharging magic items (again; after the BoA and HLC, did we really need that a third time?), and a few chapters of optional rules.</p><p></p><p>The big winner here, at least for me, is the massive expansion of specialist wizards. Rather than simply dumping a bunch of new options on us, this book smartly offers alternative ways to categorize arcane magic, each of which can be specialized in with the classic eight designations that we all know and love (abjuration, conjuration, divination, enchantment, evocation, illusion, necromancy, and transmutation) are the "schools of philosophy," as they're based around particular thematic applications of spellcraft. Stepping back from this are "schools of effect," where a particular energy is utilized to various ends (e.g. a fire mage might summon fire elementals, mesmerize someone with a <em>fire charm</em> spell, or simply blast them with a <em>fireball</em>), including force, shadow, and the four elements, among others. And stepping even further back from <em>that</em> are the "schools of thaumaturgy," where the difference is in the method of casting, so you can have mages who sing their spells into existence, alchemists who need reagents, geometers drawing magic circles, etc.</p><p></p><p>What really did it for me here was how this series of alternative ways of dividing up the various specialists can be utilized from an in-game standpoint as easily as a meta-game one. It's easy, for instance, to envision a stodgy old magical college where the schools of philosophy are treated like bedrock institutions, and the schools of effect are only begrudgingly given minor recognition while the schools of thaumaturgy are dismissed outright, or even suppressed. It's little things like that which spur the imagination.</p><p></p><p>Priest characters do get some new classes of their own, though I have to note that three of them - the monk, the shaman, and the crusader - were also found in the Forgotten Realms' (excellent) <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17569/Faiths--Avatars-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>Faiths & Avatars</em></a> sourcebook, which also had the all-new mystic. I bring that up because I'm fairly certain that I got that book first, despite its debuting a few months after SaM (because I can't abbreviate this book as S&M, for obvious reasons), so to be that's where they came from.</p><p></p><p>I don't really need to note that there was also a crusader class in <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16855/FOR10-Warriors-and-Priests-of-the-Realms-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>FOR10 Warriors and Priests of the Realms</em></a> (and even if I did, I've <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/complete-looking-back-at-the-leatherette-series-phbr-dmgr-hr-and-more.677493/post-8380512" target="_blank">already talked about it</a> anyway), so I won't. Though it's worth noting that by this point TSR was pretty clearly running out of class names. We would also get another shaman (imported from Mayfair Games) in <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17443/Shaman-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>Shaman</em></a>, along with the <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/complete-looking-back-at-the-leatherette-series-phbr-dmgr-hr-and-more.677493/post-8211285" target="_blank">barbarian shaman</a> in <em>PHBR14 The Complete Barbarian's Handbook</em>, along with a new monk a few years later in <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17402/The-Scarlet-Brotherhood-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>The Scarlet Brotherhood</em></a>. That's not even counting the various kits that had made the rounds by that point. Clearly, someone up in Lake Geneva wasn't consulting their thesaurus.</p><p></p><p>Where they <em>did</em> a good job coming up with new names, however, was for the spellcasting classes that used the all-new spell point system! By the mid-90s, the use of "MP" in various games (many of them video games) had already grown to great to ignore, and so it's no surprise that - alongside how <em>Skills & Powers</em> had seen fit to make use of point-based character building (at least somewhat) - this book allowed for spell point-based spellcasting. And rather than simply laying out some rules to translate spell levels to points, they actually presented several new classes to go with it, such as the alienist, the channeler, the warlock, and others. They even offered up alternative versions of Dark Sun's defilers and preservers!</p><p></p><p>I feel it necessary to note how far out of its way the book went to make these classes feel different in ways that went beyond their use of spell points. Channelers, for instance, used a fatigue system where they could potentially strain themselves to death if they used too much magic. Warlocks utilized a corruption system that was openly ported over from Ravenloft's dark powers checks. Alienists had percentage chances of going mad, along with various forms of madness presented. The book even made use of colored borders around each class's layout, which remains a very striking way of commanding visual attention. My only wish is that these had followed the pattern established earlier in the book of calling these as "schools of" something. "Schools of arcanism" perhaps, since they seem to deal with different sources of magical energy?</p><p></p><p>Less notable than any of the above, but just as interesting to me, were the slight clean-ups that the various spellcasting classes got. For instance, this is where the arcane school of "lesser divination," which no specialist could give up, became the "universal" school, including shuffling a few spells around. Similarly, clerics and druids had some minor reshuffling of their sphere access. Little details like this were absolute candy to my inner nitpicker.</p><p></p><p>The rest of the book doesn't <em>quite</em> live up to its best parts, though it's by no means bad. The discussion about whether or not to use material components (remember, they were optional in AD&D 2E) basically boils down to "it can be a headache, unless you think it's fun." The section on proficiencies seemed almost obligatory (and the rules for signature spells just didn't wow me, for whatever reason). The expansions to the <em>Skills & Powers</em> materials were nice, but were fairly brief sections that were scattered throughout the book's chapters, and so likewise made little impact on me.</p><p></p><p>I do have to give some props to the new rules offered in the Spells in Combat chapter. Ranging from adjudicating how hard it is to detect someone's casting a spell to various collateral effects (e.g. a <em>lightning bolt</em> creates a bright flash that can inflict a -1 penalty to attack rolls for 1d3 rounds), to the "critical strike" options, these felt like some nice combat options that, for once, <em>didn't</em> involve learning new spells, taking new proficiencies, or taking a particular kit. I suspect that, if used in conjunction with the optional combat rules in C&T, this could have made AD&D 2E combat quite different from how it had been run up until that point.</p><p></p><p>The book closed out with some new spells, and while there were a few winners in there - where "winners" means spells that we'd see again over subsequent iterations of the game - such as <em>expeditious retreat</em>, <em>cat's grace</em>, and <em>dimensional anchor</em>, the bulk of these were okay, but nothing too special. Don't get me wrong, spells like <em>trollish fortitude</em> and <em>heart of stone</em> were certainly evocative, but I'm not surprised they didn't end up in the 3E Core Rules.</p><p></p><p>Overall, I'm comfortable calling this my favorite of the "Option" books. While the preceding three all had bits and pieces that made for good cherry-picking, this book is one where I'd happily use the bulk of what was here. There's room for improvement, to be sure, but what it offered was exciting enough that I had no problems forgiving it for its rough patches. Notwithstanding the next two products in the line, <em>Spells & Magic</em> ended things on a high note.</p><p></p><p><em>Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 8552434, member: 8461"] In many ways, this next supplement is the bookend to the "Option" series. Not because it was necessarily the last to use that particular designation, but because it ended the mainstay entries for it. This is the fourth sourcebook in a series of sourcebooks, all of which offered a variety of modular options for use in any AD&D 2E game. After this, we'd get an adventure and a repackaged (pseudo-)campaign setting. So in a way, this is was the beginning of the end of the series; or at least, I think of it that way, since the next two products are ones I didn't pick up until some time later. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Up next is the magical counterpoint to [I]Combat & Tactics[/I], expands on the options in [I]Skills & Powers[/I], and offers more useful toys for spellcasters than the true dweomers from [I]High-Level Campaigns[/I]. Yes, we come now to [S][I]Tome of Magic II: Tome Harder[/I][/S] [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16864/Players-Option--Spells--Magic-2e?affiliate_id=820'][I]Player's Option: Spells & Magic[/I][/URL]. The stricken-through text above is only half in jest, I should note. While this book isn't technically a successor to the ToM, it honestly feels like it could be, as it presents new types of wizards that are fit for any campaign, expansions and changes for priest characters, and a variety of new spells. It's just that this time it folds in some related material regarding proficiencies, creating/recharging magic items (again; after the BoA and HLC, did we really need that a third time?), and a few chapters of optional rules. The big winner here, at least for me, is the massive expansion of specialist wizards. Rather than simply dumping a bunch of new options on us, this book smartly offers alternative ways to categorize arcane magic, each of which can be specialized in with the classic eight designations that we all know and love (abjuration, conjuration, divination, enchantment, evocation, illusion, necromancy, and transmutation) are the "schools of philosophy," as they're based around particular thematic applications of spellcraft. Stepping back from this are "schools of effect," where a particular energy is utilized to various ends (e.g. a fire mage might summon fire elementals, mesmerize someone with a [I]fire charm[/I] spell, or simply blast them with a [I]fireball[/I]), including force, shadow, and the four elements, among others. And stepping even further back from [I]that[/I] are the "schools of thaumaturgy," where the difference is in the method of casting, so you can have mages who sing their spells into existence, alchemists who need reagents, geometers drawing magic circles, etc. What really did it for me here was how this series of alternative ways of dividing up the various specialists can be utilized from an in-game standpoint as easily as a meta-game one. It's easy, for instance, to envision a stodgy old magical college where the schools of philosophy are treated like bedrock institutions, and the schools of effect are only begrudgingly given minor recognition while the schools of thaumaturgy are dismissed outright, or even suppressed. It's little things like that which spur the imagination. Priest characters do get some new classes of their own, though I have to note that three of them - the monk, the shaman, and the crusader - were also found in the Forgotten Realms' (excellent) [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17569/Faiths--Avatars-2e?affiliate_id=820'][I]Faiths & Avatars[/I][/URL] sourcebook, which also had the all-new mystic. I bring that up because I'm fairly certain that I got that book first, despite its debuting a few months after SaM (because I can't abbreviate this book as S&M, for obvious reasons), so to be that's where they came from. I don't really need to note that there was also a crusader class in [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16855/FOR10-Warriors-and-Priests-of-the-Realms-2e?affiliate_id=820'][I]FOR10 Warriors and Priests of the Realms[/I][/URL] (and even if I did, I've [URL='https://www.enworld.org/threads/complete-looking-back-at-the-leatherette-series-phbr-dmgr-hr-and-more.677493/post-8380512']already talked about it[/URL] anyway), so I won't. Though it's worth noting that by this point TSR was pretty clearly running out of class names. We would also get another shaman (imported from Mayfair Games) in [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17443/Shaman-2e?affiliate_id=820'][I]Shaman[/I][/URL], along with the [URL='https://www.enworld.org/threads/complete-looking-back-at-the-leatherette-series-phbr-dmgr-hr-and-more.677493/post-8211285']barbarian shaman[/URL] in [I]PHBR14 The Complete Barbarian's Handbook[/I], along with a new monk a few years later in [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17402/The-Scarlet-Brotherhood-2e?affiliate_id=820'][I]The Scarlet Brotherhood[/I][/URL]. That's not even counting the various kits that had made the rounds by that point. Clearly, someone up in Lake Geneva wasn't consulting their thesaurus. Where they [I]did[/I] a good job coming up with new names, however, was for the spellcasting classes that used the all-new spell point system! By the mid-90s, the use of "MP" in various games (many of them video games) had already grown to great to ignore, and so it's no surprise that - alongside how [I]Skills & Powers[/I] had seen fit to make use of point-based character building (at least somewhat) - this book allowed for spell point-based spellcasting. And rather than simply laying out some rules to translate spell levels to points, they actually presented several new classes to go with it, such as the alienist, the channeler, the warlock, and others. They even offered up alternative versions of Dark Sun's defilers and preservers! I feel it necessary to note how far out of its way the book went to make these classes feel different in ways that went beyond their use of spell points. Channelers, for instance, used a fatigue system where they could potentially strain themselves to death if they used too much magic. Warlocks utilized a corruption system that was openly ported over from Ravenloft's dark powers checks. Alienists had percentage chances of going mad, along with various forms of madness presented. The book even made use of colored borders around each class's layout, which remains a very striking way of commanding visual attention. My only wish is that these had followed the pattern established earlier in the book of calling these as "schools of" something. "Schools of arcanism" perhaps, since they seem to deal with different sources of magical energy? Less notable than any of the above, but just as interesting to me, were the slight clean-ups that the various spellcasting classes got. For instance, this is where the arcane school of "lesser divination," which no specialist could give up, became the "universal" school, including shuffling a few spells around. Similarly, clerics and druids had some minor reshuffling of their sphere access. Little details like this were absolute candy to my inner nitpicker. The rest of the book doesn't [I]quite[/I] live up to its best parts, though it's by no means bad. The discussion about whether or not to use material components (remember, they were optional in AD&D 2E) basically boils down to "it can be a headache, unless you think it's fun." The section on proficiencies seemed almost obligatory (and the rules for signature spells just didn't wow me, for whatever reason). The expansions to the [I]Skills & Powers[/I] materials were nice, but were fairly brief sections that were scattered throughout the book's chapters, and so likewise made little impact on me. I do have to give some props to the new rules offered in the Spells in Combat chapter. Ranging from adjudicating how hard it is to detect someone's casting a spell to various collateral effects (e.g. a [I]lightning bolt[/I] creates a bright flash that can inflict a -1 penalty to attack rolls for 1d3 rounds), to the "critical strike" options, these felt like some nice combat options that, for once, [I]didn't[/I] involve learning new spells, taking new proficiencies, or taking a particular kit. I suspect that, if used in conjunction with the optional combat rules in C&T, this could have made AD&D 2E combat quite different from how it had been run up until that point. The book closed out with some new spells, and while there were a few winners in there - where "winners" means spells that we'd see again over subsequent iterations of the game - such as [I]expeditious retreat[/I], [I]cat's grace[/I], and [I]dimensional anchor[/I], the bulk of these were okay, but nothing too special. Don't get me wrong, spells like [I]trollish fortitude[/I] and [I]heart of stone[/I] were certainly evocative, but I'm not surprised they didn't end up in the 3E Core Rules. Overall, I'm comfortable calling this my favorite of the "Option" books. While the preceding three all had bits and pieces that made for good cherry-picking, this book is one where I'd happily use the bulk of what was here. There's room for improvement, to be sure, but what it offered was exciting enough that I had no problems forgiving it for its rough patches. Notwithstanding the next two products in the line, [I]Spells & Magic[/I] ended things on a high note. [I]Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.[/I] [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
[COMPLETE] Looking back at the limited series: Player's Option, Monstrous Arcana, Odyssey, and more!
Top