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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Orius" data-source="post: 8593024" data-attributes="member: 8863">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.</blockquote>

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