Tag: AD&D

Late Review – The Complete Priest’s Handbook

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I was quite excited to get The Complete Priest’s Handbook when I first found it. From what I had gathered, it was a bit of a… controversial book. Not in topic (though in hindsight maybe it should have been), but rather in something very near and dear to almost every tabletop RPG player:

Balance (or lack thereof).

Let’s take a look at The Complete Priest’s Handbook, then, and see what’s going on. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll learn why it is generally speaking not a good idea for a single book to include over sixty new character options.

Reading this was a slog.

 

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Late Review – The Complete Book of Necromancers

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Welcome back to the Late Review, which is both much sooner after the last one than normal and somehow simultaneously a little bit late!

In any case, I decided to look at The Complete Book of Necromancers after finishing up the review of Al’Qadim: Arabian Adventures primarily because I didn’t want to spend too much time being negative. So I chose a book I knew I liked, because that would fix it, right?

And then I proceeded to rag on Lords of Darkness for seventeen years and now here we are.

But still, The Complete Book of Necromancers is an excellent supplement. And, for the most part, this post will focus on that. Because this book deserves praise – it is, simply put, excellent.

 

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Late Review – The School of Nekros (Dungeon Magazine #27)

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I’ve recently been reading through The Complete Book of Necromancers for my next Late Review. One section, covering necromancer organizations, called out a specific example from Dungeon magazine #27 as being a perfect example of the “necromancer group” concept.

As far as I can remember, I’ve never seen any published book mention one of the D&D magazines (Dragon or Dungeon) except as the source of a spell or item used in the published work. This is the first pure “recommended reading” mention, so I decided to look into it.

We’ll come back to The Complete Book of Necromancers next time – because right now, it’s time to talk about A++ adventure module, “The School of Nekros.”

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Late Review – Al’Qadim, Arabian Adventures (Part 2)

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Last time, we looked at the entirety of Al’Qadim: Arabian Adventures except for one thing. Today, we look at that one thing: the sha’ir.

“Why wasn’t this a class? How is this a wizard?”

Those are the first of my notes from reading about the sha’ir. Things only went downhill from there. The sha’ir is maddening.

So without any further wait, let’s go!

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Late Review – Al’Qadim, Arabian Adventures (Part 1)

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Welcome to the desert! This one is an odd thing to review. It’s kind of a setting book (like Eberron: Rising from the Last War) but it’s also not actually a distinct setting (since it’s located in the Forgotten Realms). But it also is sort of its own setting?

This one’s actually been metaphorically sitting on my desk for quite a while now, so it’s about time. And it’s a weird one for sure, but sill worth looking at.

Anyway, let’s check out Al’Qadim and quick. I originally planned to joke that WotC wouldn’t be bringing this one back any time soon, but with all their poor decisions recently… anything’s possible.

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Late Review – Complete Druid’s Handbook (2e)

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Druids in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2e are one of the weakest class options out there. They have severe alignment restrictions and very limited spell selection. In fact, most druids become functionally useless when underground, inside, or in a desert. Never fear, though – this was a known issue. And so we have… The Complete Druid’s Handbook! Which proceeds to fix absolutely none of these problems!

Join me to look at the earliest attempts at non-treehugging druids, a too-in-depth background on the weird global druid conspiracy, and more!

Druid and Overweight Fox-Bear Companion

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Advancing Editions – THAC0: Thoroughly Hating Advanced Calculus 0!

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So it really is no secret that I hate the THAC0 system with all of my heart. It is without a doubt the absolute worst part of 2nd Edition, and I celebrated at the day of its death.

A few times people have asked me why I hate THAC0 so much. The answer is… a lot of reasons, really.

But mostly, it just sucks.

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Late Review – The Complete Thief’s Handbook (2e)

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Welcome to a brand new series of exceedingly late reviews for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition sourcebooks! I mean, it’s only 31 years late, right?

First up we have The Complete Thief’s Handbook, a good ol’ guide to our favorite class, the thief rogue!

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