Spell Compendium

[Ratenef]

I recently bought the Spell Compendium and find it to be an excellent method of saving me all the effort of trying to collate all the spell information from all the WotC books, Dungeon/Dragon magazines and WotC web publishing, that are included.

However, the only beef I have is that the book does not contain any of the spells from the Players Handbook.

If these spells had been included, then it would guarantee, for the time being at least, that any information you required about any CORE spell would require you to only open one book.

It seems funny that the Spell Compendium does NOT contain the most common spells around.

Does anyone else see this as a flaw, or is there some rational explanation for this?

<edited to correct misspelling of compendium>

Thanks,

 

[Crothian]

Most people already own the PHB and didn't want 20 pages of reprinted material out of it to be in the book.

 

[Jdvn1]

If you play D&D, you should already have the PHB. Repeating those spells would be ... well, repetitive.

 

[Exquisite Dead Guy]

It would have cost more if it included all the PHB spells as well as. WotC is also probably assuming (and rightly so IMO) that most if not all players and DMs will have access to the PHB.

 

[Jdvn1]

It would have cost more if it included all the PHB spells as well as. WotC is also probably assuming (and rightly so IMO) that most if not all players and DMs will have access to the PHB.

And even if they don't have access to the PHB, they probably have access to the SRD, which has the same spells.

 

[FCWesel]

I don't see it as a flaw that the PHB spells are not in the compendium.

However, if they had been in there, that would have been tres cool, too.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Can't fault them for this. About 1/3rd of the PHB is the spell secton. Yanking that out would bulk up the Spell Compendium for a book that you should already have the corebook for anyway.

Be interesting to see if WoTC does something similiar to Rolemaster in it's next incarnation in terms of putting all player mechanics in one book, all magic mechanics in another, all combat mechanics in another, etc....

Note, I don't think that's they way they should go, but could see a basic set and then the advanced sets like little modules you add on to the core.

 

[Psion]

1) It's compendium. Sorry, I don't normally nit spelling, but when it's in the thread title, it just doesn't go away...

2) No, I don't consider it a flaw. I am tolerant of reprinting or coalating material from supplements you might not already own. But the PHB is the basis of the game and it's more than fair to assume everyone has it IMO.

 

[Ratenef]

I've fixed the misspelling. I thought it was wrong but didn't have the resource handy to double check.

I guess I was just hoping for a single reference book for all my spells, what I thought was the point for the Spell Compendium (as I already own all the materials it references).

It still is an excellent buy.

And in about 2 weeks this will all be a moot point with the next WotC book, as it will contain spells not listed in the Compendium.

Thx,

 

[JustKim]

Originally I hoped the PHB spells would be in there so I could see the flavor text for them, but now that I have it I see those are really not so hot and it's rather a thick book to be adding another hundred pages to.