The last of the Core Player Class books was released in July
of 1990, and was written by
Rick Swan. Before we begin, I would like to say
something that I have been waiting to write about until we got to this book. I
think that we all walk into the game for the first time with preconceptions
about what should and shouldn’t happen in the game, and some of these are
utterly false. Before rolling up my character, and reading through the rules
for the first time, I wondered why the stats didn’t change. Couldn’t one get a
higher STR, or work on improving their DEX naturally? Well, the answer is that
this is a game, and it really doesn’t matter what your STR or DEX is, not in
the long run, but that misconception was there, and an even bigger confusion for new players first walking into the game is the wizard class.
We all know what a wizard is, or at least we think that we
do, we’ve read about him in fiction, and watched his antics in movies. This is
probably the most attractive class for new players who have no idea just how weird
the mechanics are for it.Many players hadn't read anything by
Jack Vance prior to playing the game. I understand why
the
Vance method of spell casting was chosen, if it wasn’t then the other
classes would be over-shadowed and this would no longer be a cooperative game,
but that doesn’t change the fact that we might not really be able to play our version of
what we think that this class SHOULD be.
There is also another common complaint that players have about 2e: At low levels the characters are incompetent (which I don’t find to be
true, but assuming that it is), no 1
st level PC is harder to
keep alive than the Wizard. The wizard is attractive to first time players, and
it is the hardest class to play. Experienced players love the challenge! You
are playing a completely different game than everybody else is, and once you
figure that out, then you can start keeping these guys alive and if you play smart,
you’ll be the most powerful guy at the table. The problem is, getting good at
this class. By the Summer of 1990, very few players were good at this class,
and not very many Dungeon Masters knew how to DM for them. Even though it seems
like most of the PHB and DMG is dedicated to the mage, there was a much left
unexplained. A lot of work was done in
Dragon Magazine, but as far as reference
materials, Dragon has never been at the top of the list for ease of use; which
is where this book comes to play.
Like its predecessors, this book is dated , but it works
well in conjunction with the core handbooks. Lets crack it open and see what is
inside!
CHAPTER 1: Schools of
Magic
This new mechanic put a wrench in lots of games, add the
bloated list of spells which 2e offers and it doesn’t make sense, unless you
ponder the school system. Under 1e rules all wizards were pretty much the same.
You play one, you’ve played them all. What the school system sought was unique
mages, or a system that made world building easier. Instead of inventing your
own magic system, you might simply pick a few schools, put them at odds with
one another, and make general wizards a crime punishable by death and you are
good to go!
The schools, as explained in the PHB, left much to be desired;
but this book does an excellent job of properly explaining each school, and
offering a decent template to use. It still doesn’t enforce the adoption of
dedicated schools, but it does make it attractive.
CHAPTER 2: Creating
New Schools
This chapter works over-time and is very helpful to those
people who are crazy enough to want to world build. Not only do you have suggestions
and minimum requirements for creating new schools of magic, but you also get a
great collection of material which allows you to create your own spells that
can be easily excepted into the existing magic system. This is the formula
which TSR used, and instead of keeping it a secret, they shared it with the
users, which is awesome!
CHAPTER 3: Wizard
Kits
Just like the other books in the Complete Series, this
offers options and ideas for stepping outside of the box and tailoring specific
kinds of wizards for your campaign. Many of these kits are for low technology,
savage societies, or examples of altering the class without actually altering
the schools of magic, which is helpful in world-building.
CHAPTER 4:
Role-Playing
As I’ve said before, role-playing is a strange concept to
new players, and through role-playing we can take common classes and make them
into unique characters, and since everybody already has established ideas about
what a wizard is prior to play, this chapter helps us shatter that mold, and
role-playing while playing the wizard class is something that you are going to
do a lot of! Especially since the only interaction you have during combat is
knowing when and when not to use your small list of spells that you have allotted
to you.
Of all the Core Class Complete books, I think that this
role-playing section is the most advanced, which is appropriate, especially considering
the limitations of our preconceived notions about what it is to be a wizard. It
also talks to the DM about his NPCs, there are only so many times that going out
and fighting the evil necromancer up in the haunted mountain of doom is going
to be fun, but it also encourages DMs to not just write adventures for
Fighters, but always examining the wizard class’s role in the party and
providing him with things to do which won’t drain him of his abilities in the
first 10 minutes of play.
It is my opinion that not only is the wizard class the most
difficult to play, but it is the most difficult to DM for. This chapter helps
out those poor DM’s who had never been allowed to play for a few years before
becoming or being forced to DM, but it also gives the players who read it an
edge at keeping their pathetic PC with 4hp alive . . . maybe.
CHAPTER 5: Combat
& the Wizard
This is what helped make the class playable for many first
timers. It gives you advice on how to choose your spells wisely. According
to the core rules, spells are selected prior to play, and while that sounds
limiting, it does give the person who is playing it more time to game, because
he is spending less time looking over his spell lists. Combat is the most
dangerous time to be a wizard, and people who try to play the class like they
are fighters are going to be rolling up a new character before combat is finished.
It also addresses the weapon restriction, and how much a DM
can lift it if he chooses too. This is
complained about by players, but at higher levels, it is going to be the
fighter that is complaining about his inability to strike multiple targets at
once, so in the end it balances itself out.
CHAPTER 6: Casting
Spells in Unusual Conditions
I want to say that much of this chapter is in the DMG, but
this book puts it into the player’s hands, and it is more expanded and
better explained then the basic rules kept secret in the DMG. All sorts of fun ideas
are in here; of course tips on world-building, but also pointing out what can
happen if a mage's senses are impaired. Many
DM’s have a hard time calling a game for Wizards unless they’ve played one.
Subtle changes to the environment can alter how a spell functions, and by looking
at what happens to spells when they are cast underwater, or by realizing that a
wizard who is silenced can still cast some spells, it allows the DM to have a
better chance of making a call correctly regardless of the exact circumstances
that can come up during play.
CHAPTER 7: Advanced
Procedures
 |
| by: Clyde Caldwell |
Unlike the other books in the Core Complete series, this one
has guidelines to take a wizard beyond 20
th level, which is crazy as
I find that the integrity of the system is barely stable at 20
th
level, never the less 32
nd level! But that is just my perspective,;
to each their own! But that is a very small fraction of what this chapter
offers. The most important aspect of playing the wizard isn’t the rules
themselves but the player’s ability to think creatively. As we gain experience
as players, we come up with all sorts of tricks as we’ve learned how to be
creative with spell casting, this chapter examines 18 common spells and offers
some ideas on using them, and/or offer further guidelines for spells that had
proven to be game busters for DM’s.
Some spells were just poorly written in the PHB, notably
Illusions. It offered no hints or guidelines for a player to go by, so this
chapter spends a bit more time talking about what these spells can and can’t
accomplish, and I feel that once you've learned how to play and DM for an
Illusionist, you can play or DM anything!
It also has more complete rules which define Spell Research,
which is an ability gained at middle-high level that allows a mage to create
their own spells, as well as creating magical items.
CHAPTER 8: New Spells
For those of you who felt that the list of spells in the PHB
wasn’t bloated enough, here are even more of them! Not surprisingly, this still
didn’t convince people that enough is enough. Why offer methods of creating
your own spells if you are going to exhaust them all? People went crazy for
this kind of stuff though, and they still do.
CHAPTER 9: Wizardly
Lists
This may sound archaic, but back when we were first playing
the game, there was no such thing as the World Wide Web. There were no blogs, or
anything! We got ideas from actually talking to each other, and if an idea was
really good, and really fun, then it might make it into Dungeon or Dragon Magazine! This
chapter has been replaced by all of the silly ideas that we bloggers have come
up with over the years, but guess what . . . these lists are still fun!
Bringing magic schools to life (way before Harry Potter),
random crap that can be found in a wizard’s lab, new magical items, stuff just
waiting to be enchanted, there is a good assortment of this-and-that which
stimulates personal creativity rather than limit it to what is published.
WORKSHEETS
Finally you get two items that you can photocopy and use to
design your own schools of magic, as well as you own kits. It would had been
nice to have a character sheet and spell sheets back here as well, but that is
what makes me such a crummy capitalist.
OVERVIEW
 |
| By Lerry Elmore |
Flipping through this book, much like
The Complete Priest’sHandbook, it would appear that there is nothing in it but fluff, however once
you begin reading this thing, it becomes obvious just what $15 could bring to
the table. It encouraged DMs to write for the players, and teaches the joy of
background events! I, however, don’t feel that it is as complete as it should have been.
It addressed many things, but it also left a lot to be desired, for instance a
list of spells which are expensive to cast, spells that are actually quest
spells but they had been snuck in there anyway, and better definitions for
spell books and common components found in a spell casters bag all would had
been helpful, but with a class as customizable as this one is, the more rules
that we apply to it, the less functional it becomes when world-building.
Regardless of what we may think about it, the fact is that PHBR4
was the standard for many many years. Yes, other spells were added in later
publications, but these rules stayed core and unchanged until
Player’s Option:Spells & Magic was released in 1996, and even today, many 2e players prefer
this handbook over the updated version. One can say that the Player’s Option
book didn’t rewrite the facts found in this book, but simply provided an
addendum to it.
While The Complete Wizard's Hanbook did accomplish its goal of aiding players in
excepting the Vance system of magic as the base, and providing tons of ideas to
add to our arsenal of ideas, is this book required to play the game? No. Did it
push the genre further? Yes, I believe that it did. I feel that this book can
add things to our campaigns regardless of skill level, while it may overwhelm a
beginner, even just reading the thing will improve his game, and for advanced
users, it offer's enough to keep this book around.
At the time of its release, I will admit that I didn’t read
it. I never read it until after I was already DMing games. I had ran into
several problems in regards to DMing for wizard PCs: they were ripping my world
apart and/or getting bored because lack of attention. Memorizing the entire
spell list in the PHB is not an option, but this book helped me address and fix
the situations above. For that, I give it a rating of a B. It will enhance your 2e games, if not actually improve them.
The Complete Wizard's Handbook is not a collectors item; it has
been reprinted many many times and left unaltered. As far as value, I’d price
it from 5-10 bucks, $15 for a really good copy, but no higher than $20, and
that would be reserved for 1st printing that is in perfect condition.
The book itself wears the same as the rest of the books in the
complete series; careless abuse causes the cover to fall off, and pages to fall out,
but if it is kept on a shelf and properly used, it will last forever without
the glue spontaneously getting crispy. I’ve
got the 1st printing and it has held up like a champ!
5 comments:
Just want to say thank you for the write up.
wonderful read. I have to revisit this old tome. Thanks
:)
One of the best books in the series. I love the random spell components table! I broke away from the Vancian magic system early on, to make magic users more playable. They can use a light crossbow and learn to use a short sword, at least. One of the first thing I did, was make use of the schools of magic listed for each spell in the PH, and made players choose a level in particular school. It got more complex, with spells within schools operating as skills within skills, and then I rooted various schools in specific places in Midlands, and then wizards have to learn ancient languages and lore to actually be able to access spells for their grimoires. Results were functional and well balanced, but to become a powerful wizard, the player had to be actually interested in magic and the world.
Back when I first played, I never learned to use the Vance method, our table always used spell points, and wizards could cast any spell, we didn't use spell books, the logic being that we had paid money for game books with additional spells not in the handbook, so we were going to use them! Well that system was terrible. I mean really bad! So when we started playing again, I wanted to try the Vance method to see how it goes and we all loved it! Prior to that, we had made wizards so complicated with house rules that nobody wanted to play one.
In regards to melee weapons, I've been thinking about altering the damage done by class. Any weapon a wizard picks up (be it a sword or a staff) will do 1d4 dmg. The fighter's mechanics I think could be 1d10 for prof., 1d12 for specialization, but you can also pick your dice. I'm just not sure about how I really feel about doing that. I kind of like different weapons having different damage values. I also don't know if it would cheapen that game.
Post a Comment