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Are Thief Player Characters Still Relevant?

Albrecht Dürer - Cupid the Honey Thief. 1514

Since adopting more elements from OD&D into my gaming, a style that is less skill based and more player driven, I've noticed that many of my fellow tinkerers have opted to remove the thief player class from the game. Now, long-time readers of this blog know that even though I am very critical of skill based systems, my favorite class to play is the Thief. Doesn't make much sense, does it?

It's not that I think that the entire skill system is bad for the game, I just feel that systems like Pathfinder and modern D&D have allowed it to take center stage. It controls too much! People have gotten too reliant on them, and use the skill system to bypass fun parts of the game. It alters the flow, speeding it up, and I feel that it interferes with immersion.

To make a long story short, specifics can correct the problem of mechanical interference, but that doesn't mean that we should completely scrap the NWP system; and then we have the thief class. A skill based class that relies upon them to function.

In a game where the traps are specific, we know how they function and the players can locate them with tools or equipment, and come up with a plan which may or may not result in disarming them, where does the thief fit into this?

Thieves are more expendable.
They can figure out the hidden workings of advanced traps.
They do more for the team than just disarm and locate traps.

Handling Checks

In my last post, I suggested that we try to stick to specifics as much as possible. The DM listens to the plan, and translates the odds of success to the d%; however, there are times when the players are going to have to make checks. In times like these, I prefer the d20. It is fast, fair, and usually in the player's favor.

d% Thief Checks

via: Pinterest

I never really thought about it before, why do thieves roll d% for thief ability checks? I suppose that it is just a hang-over from 1st Edition AD&D. It gives the illusion of player control, but it really isn't all that functional.

As a player, the thief skill system doesn't work at early levels of play and offers no challenge at higher levels. The best games are when you are gambling with your character's life. As a player, if something is dangerous, I'm not going to even attempt it unless I've got at least a 70%. If things get desperate, I may attempt it at 50%, but never below that. If something has no risk, I will just sit there and roll dice until we all get bored or it works . . . hours and hours later in game time. That sucks, and that isn't playing the game.

I know that there is a huge population of gamers who think that the NWP system is broken, but I don't feel that it is, of course, the way that I design my games I enforce no reliance upon the system to use it. It can allow a user to bypass an obstacle, or make a section easier if you are successful, but play doesn't stop because of a failed check; that is a symptom of bad design. It all boils down to percentages, the d20 just uses increments of 5%. If a character has a DEX of 15, with a -2 to his ability check, he's got a 65% of succeeding. That is actually lower standards than I would normally allow for a dangerous task that will kill me if the dice say no.

PLAYER'S OPTION: SKILLS & POWERS

It was this book that got folks prepared for 3e. It focused on a reliance on skills over the traditional game. It even stripped the class system that we all loved in favor of building some character class that made it even slower to roll up new characters, and caused players to stop play to look at the weird rules in this thing. I hated it. I'm still not a fan.

Regardless if you like the book or not, it did say something interesting . . . if you could find it. It suggested turning thief skills into NWP. How stupid is that? I mean, it goes against years and years of tradition! Besides, thief players aren't going to want to sacrifice NWP slots on skills that they used to have from the start of the game, right?

RAVENLOFT: Masque of the Red Death

This boxed Campaign setting actually predates the Skills & Powers book, but it had lots of mechanics which were unique to it. It isn't a medieval fantasy game, this one takes place in our world during the 1890's. It altered all of the classes, but the most affected were the Thieves.

All of the characters had been depowered, there are no super-heroes in this game, what makes them playable is the skill system, however, this still isn't a skill based game. You aren't going to find the Pathfinder like rules which are overly strict, you pick your skills which define your character, and you play. The skills are passive. You still use specifics over rolling the dice, but I digress.

Thieves are no longer a class. While the other classes still use skills, the class that is dependent upon them is called Tradesmen. If a character doesn't use magic, and can't be defined as a soldier, they automatically become Tradesmen, thus, this is the dominant class.

via Pinterest

It is still possible to play thieves, but since all traditional thief skills have to be purchased with NWP slots, you've got to build them. The skills function as NWP too, you don't have to build them up through gaining levels, if you chose to know how to pick locks, then you can pick locks.

As a fan of thieves, this method works great! I always preferred to play against the grain. I never played The Greymouser type thieves, I could probably count the times that I've used Pick Pockets on one hand, and I never started building it up until I was satisfied with my other scores. It just sat there, ignored. In this system, I don't have to pick it at all! I can replace it with some other skill that I want instead, something useful to me and how I want to play my character.

But wait . . . didn't I just say that Skills & Powers was stupid?

It is. It provides very little motivation to play-test the ideas held within it, however, this system has been play-tested at my table, and it works. It works amazingly well! Masque of the Red Death, to myself and the other members of the club, made D&D fun again. Its higher level of challenge changed not just how we game, but how we see the game itself.

Thieves are all different
Thief skills work from the start
The challenge is consistent, regardless of level
The thief skill system does not place limitations upon the system as a whole

As a DM I am sold, and the players are happy with the results that they get. This will be adapted into all future D&D games.

But Percentages gave more to the game than yes or no answers

As a player, I was always torn. I like rolling my own results, but sometimes I wanted the DM to keep the actual results a secret from me. I wanted to simulate thinking that I'm moving silently but not really being sure if I am or not. As a DM, these thoughts were amplified, but I was stuck because I couldn't figure out how to simulate the event without taking away player agency. This system actually allows that.

Either the DM can translate the d20s into percentages, or tell the player who succeeded their check that they believe that they have found a route which is possible to move silently and hide in shadows, then get confirmation that they still want to do the action or not. If they do, then the DM rolls the percentile check to see exactly how quiet they are.

The point is that no matter what we do, we've taken the traditional Thief Skills System, which was closed and set in its way, and changed it into a Skill System which allows the player and the DM to open it up when they want to.

http://quotesgram.com/dark-evil-demonic-quotes/#Q43E2crKqm

THE DOWNSIDE OF THE SYSTEM

Players can no longer get a 95% chance of success

A perceived penalty imposed on low ability scores

Player's who do want to play traditional thieves hate this

A psychological loss of control

Requires a talented DM to function

THE BENEFITS OF THE SYSTEM

Cleaner Character Sheets

The Level Cap has been removed

Custom Characters without breaking the system

Fast and Easy NPCs who are competent without cheating

Creating Hirelings that grow with the game and aren't static

Easier to level up (and level down)

Rewards Imaginative Play

Skills can be given to Races without weird limitations

Before closing, something needs to be addressed. Since the players are spending slots on abilities, should they get more slots to spend? The answer is no. They still get the same amount. This is balanced by the abilities themselves being useful as soon as they are chosen.

Unmodified skill checks do place caps on abilities. DEX of 18 = 90%, and on the low end, 9 = 45%.

The 3d6 method of STAT Generation prefers to give results in the 11-13 range, which gives you some good numbers that are fun to gamble with, 55%-65% but aren't fixed in my games, they go up and down. If you choose, the Thief Ability Table found in the 2e DMG can be used in conjunction with this system if you need to lean on it now and then. Since the system is open, we can change the difficulty level of a task as we see fit.

Most of the time, it really doesn't matter. The core Thief System is a nitpicker. Either the thief can pick a lock, or he can't. The players can decide to break the door, spend a spell opening the door, or ignore the door and walk away from it. Who cares if the Thief picks a lock? Why impose that restriction at all?

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The Complete Bards Handbook: or, What is Class?

Via Medieval Life & Times

2127 PHBR7 The Complete Bard’s Handbook was released in April of 1992 and was designed by Blake Mobley. I know that a small, but very loud group of people think that Bards, as written in the AD&D system, are the best class ever written in the history of the written word; to those gentle readers, I suggest that you click away as I am not remotely in that camp. Those who continue reading this, you have been warned.

Despite what the title of this post says, I'm not really going to review this specific book. I have never owned it, and am never going to. I had once ~~borrowed~~ seen a copy and the thing is just so counter to everything that I believe that a good product should be that I wouldn't even know where to begin. If you were expecting a grade, I think that you can connect the dots. This title has been used as evidence that by 1992, the life-cycle of AD&D was already over; that statement isn't true, but this is a horrible book in every sense of the word.

I have no idea what TSR was thinking; logically The Complete Race Handbooks should've been completed before scraping the bottom of the barrel, if we have done anything here we have already established that TSR executives had no idea what they were doing.

WHAT IS A BARD?

I don't play bards; I hire them. There have been some awesome bardic characters that have appeared in literature, unfortunately, the AD&D system does not allow you to play them. They just don't fit the mold of what AD&D is about. If I could ask Dave Cook anything, I'd ask him if he included the Bard template to visually show how weak a character who can do everything is, or should be.

The AD&D bard can fight, do some thief skills, and cast spells, the catch is that he isn't very good at any of this. He can't hit, he can't steal, and he can't control his spells. One should never play a bard, and instead focus their attention on specializing in one skill set, only then do you offer anything to the team. As the bard sits, I hire them when we are dealing with mass combat, or using the morale system; THAT is their specialty. That also doesn't make for a very interesting character.

WHAT DOES CLASS MEAN?

Here is the deal, you make a fighter, or a thief, or a wizard: have him learn how to play the harp, you've got a bard. The other Complete Class Handbooks were about taking the templates and skills of a set class and using them to define what a character is, not based upon their chosen class, but upon the identity of the character itself.

Bard isn't the best example, so we'll instead examine the Druid: as it is laid out in the "2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook". Once you look at the entry, and read the decription, you will notice that this really isn't a class at all! It clearly defines all of the skills that specific character gets per level, as well as listing all of the requirements that must be met beyond just gaining XP to actually level up.

The Druid is a poorly labeled example of what a cleric should be, something very specific to the character that the player is using. Something unique that is only based upon the class system itself.

Now, we look at the Paladin or Ranger and I think that we see the same thing going on. None of the Sub-Classes are true classes, but examples of blending ideas together. This begs the question, are we supposed to be blending?

WHAT IS RACE?

Another example: The Barbarian, this isn't a class either, but a race of people. The template assumes that the Barbarian is a Fighter, but honestly, a barbarian can be a cleric, a thief, a whatever. Barbarian doesn't define his skill set, it defines his background.

Things got really muddied once many of the Original Dungeons & Dragons classes became races, the elf could multi-class now, he could be a Fighter/Thief/Wizard which is all fine and dandy at lower levels of play, but once the other players are fighting dragons, this guy has to hide in shadows because he's been playing 3^rd level for the last eight years.

The very concept of Race is strange now, the player who chooses to play a demi-race gains all of these special abilities, but they never improve; the only thing that improves is their skills dictated by class.

There really isn't anything special about them anymore. An Elf used to be able to pick at the beginning of each session if he wants to play as a Fighter or as a Wizard, the Dwarf was a much sturdier fighter than the one that we have now; he's been lost among the other demi-races and in regards to mechanics, there is nothing really all that unique about dwarves anymore.

CLASS AS A JOB DESCRIPTION

Via: Pinterest

Is class our job? Do the things that we are good at define who we are as characters? I have always just assumed that Fighter or whatever was nothing more than a job. A character that is really good with a specific skill set.

We can choose to play a fighter by the book, but even playing it core to the rules it doesn't really define us as characters, it just defines how our characters progress if we survive. How we define our characters is still up to us. That is what makes the fighter class so solid.

Somewhere along the lines, class attempted to define us. It got really bad with later editions, so bad in fact that the language changed. A player was no longer a Fighter but a Demon Slaying Doom Lord, or what have you, whatever they called themselves it was so precise and well-defined that one must ask if that is even truly the player's character or just some definition that they read in a book.

The idea of Min/Maxing and Powergaming is not a new concept, it happened right away, but to set it at such high levels that you can't even identify the basics anymore implies that something, somewhere, was lost in translation.

How far should we be going to blend classes? Does it change the language when we do it? If we make the connections laid out for us in the Players Handbook, we can use these strict examples of what somebody at some time did to make a character unique to them, and apply it to our games. And, we don't need a supplement or splat book to do it either.

AN EXAMPLE:
One of the things that have always irritated players the most is the Battle Mage, or why can't a wizard pick up a sword. . . Gandolf used a magic sword, I want to too!

Well, lets first identify our Battle Mage as not a wizard at all, but as a fighter. We'll place limits on the mage's spell abilities by stealing the Ranger's spell progression, but instead of cleric spells, he uses wizard spells.

We'll also borrow the XP charts from Paladin/Ranger and apply them to our Battle Mage, and DONE!

If the battle mage wants to cast a spell that requires free movement, he can't be wearing armor; he has to decide if taking it off is worth it or not. We can also stipulate that the only sword a battle mage can use is a magical one, all normal swords interfere with his spells.

The battle mage can't specialize in weapons, but he can become proficient in their use and must use the Wizards Proficiency chart of progression instead of the Fighters.

via pinterest

You get the point; if we put enough thought into a specific idea, we can tailor it to actually identify what the character is. We just have to figure out which rules to use to keep this character fair for the world which we created it for. A real mage is going to be able to cast more spells, and a real fighter is going to be more dangerous, but the battle mage pays for the privilege of being both.

If we take this logic and apply it to the bard, we see that that is exactly what happened. In order to be an effective character, one must play a bard for a very very long time, even longer than a wizard except that low level wizards, while fragile, don't suck.
If we ignore the bard, and instead set out to make a character that better suits what we want to play; say, Will Scarlet, we can accomplish this goal better by the player and the DM sitting down and designing this character and agreeing on a set of rules and limitations that apply to him as an individual.

Bilbo never considered himself to be a burglar, Conan wasn't just a barbarian, Robin Hood was not a thief, these were just things that other people called them. They were all special cases, and this can transfer over to our game.

THEN YOU HAVE THE BARD'S HANDBOOK

This book, I feel, endorses a lie. It takes a misconception and instead of clarifying it, gives it flesh and blood and perpetuates it. Yes, it has some new things in it, but once again, why are we getting an entire book made for a couple of good ideas? Of course the answer is that TSR wanted money and they made poor Blake Mobley waste his time writing garbage that offers nothing to the hobby itself. This description fits much of the products that are published, good ideas are hard to come by, I get it; but does that really mean that we have to lower our standards in order to feel like we are succeeding? Well, it probably does.

With all of this said, I can perhaps skip reviewing the Complete Sub-Class Handbooks altogether, and I no doubt will. Books like this one are what irritated me at the time, and still give 2e a bad name. People remember the system for garbage and dirty tricks and forget the good stuff, the great ideas that came about in the 90's. We DMs of the period ignored the titles we didn't like, and if we were suckered into buying books like this, most of us left those things where they belong, on the shelf, collecting dust and holding the bookcase down so that it doesn't float around the room.

Medieval Life & Times: Bard

A special thanks to Mormonyoyoman from the Ruins of Murkhill Forum for inspiring this change of direction. If you experience any problems, blame him.

DMGR2 The Castle Guide review

May of 1990 saw the release of one of my favorite titles which I forget about more often than not. During this review I was kicking myself in the pants because if I would had remembered it and picked it up, it would have saved me many headaches. DMGR2 The Castle Guide is the result of a collaborated effort between many writers and researchers, and it served to fill in some large gaps left in the system for a very long time. Property! At 9^th level, most PC classes gain the ability to benefit from property, and this opens up a large can of worms for many DM’s and players, namely one of law and government.

We are aware that the default government for any fantasy world with swords and sorcery is Feudalism. Even if we have different forms of rule, it still boils down to Feudalism. Researching feudalism is tough, and for the most part we can play our games in a way that completely ignores it, and we have to if we have no other options! Well, that is where this book comes in handy. The rules for a fighter becoming a lord at 9^th level, and attracting followers is not very well detailed, and there are a lot of misconceptions with it: that it limits play, that it requires BATTLESYSTEM, that it takes a lot of boring bookwork; but what the rule eluded to, was that a local hero should become a national one, an epic hero!

We players of the AD&D system are good at writing around things that we aren’t experts at. We are writing fiction! And this book doesn’t change that; it isn’t a historical text, it is a guide book that allows DMs to add a dimension to their games which we might not normally have, and it works for all settings: published or home-brewed.

Well, let’s crack it open.

CHAPTER 1: The Feudal Setting

This chapter is a crash course in government as it applies to our fantasy societies. The complex philosophies are broken down in a way that is fast, fun to read, and informative. It isn’t overwhelming, the language is kept simple, and this is all practical information that is system neutral (or dependent) which can be applied to existing games with no issues. It is thorough enough to allow us to be able to see society itself: how they live and die, so that we can remove some of the modern baggage which we take into the game. This chapter doesn’t limit play, it actually cleans it up! If we apply it to the settings, the maps make more sense, we get a better picture about what is going on, especially in regard to all of the things that had been left out.

CHAPTER 2: The Days of Knights

Knights need not be fighters, and this book is about more than just castles, but it does focus on the “Lord” clause hidden in the system. It identifies exactly what this means, how one can become a lord, what they are responsible for, and gives ideas on how to apply this concept to our games without having the entire campaign high-jacked by one PC.

It also redefines the Laws of Chivalry in a cleaner way than in previous publications that doesn’t result in suicidal characters, nor does it give rules lawyers the ability to take over the table. It is a lot more functional!

For those that do wish to pursue it, the book does examine the Knights Path as it was, and also touches upon demi-human equivalents to knights. It is fun to read! It gives tons of ideas for NPCs as well as story applications.

CHAPTER 3: The Tournament

For many of us, these things are either used to take a break from our normal game, or they are ignored, but its place in Feudalism is a very important one! Tournaments were not just sport, this was medieval politics in action, and it gives the DM a clear understanding of this, and how to apply it to their games. Tournament, was how lords typically did war with one another; it was a means of grabbing more power or proving your dominance over your allies and enemies. Under feudal law, it is illegal to murder a lord, but if one is challenged to a duel, and the other accepts, a lord can be legally slain in tournament.

On a technical level, this chapter provides two quick systems, one for handling jousts, and one for handling contests of archery, but also gives a couple of ideas for other displays of power better suited to none-fighter classes.

CHAPTER 4: The Evolution of Castles

Once it gives details for the world of castles, it then explains the castles role in society, and what happens there. The word Castle itself is used to describe many different buildings, this chapter identifies a castle’s role in its environment, and details a few different styles of them as well. It also begins the technical details of construction by listing what materials can be used to build them.

CHAPTER 5: Castle Construction

This chapter is fun, as it provides details for its own system of play that is completely independent of the core AD&D rules. It has tables and explanations which make it possible to determine how long a building will take to construct, how much it will cost, and even a fun chart of random events that can take place during the construction!

The chapter also offers a detailed example of play using all of the rules applied, including a map of the finished product.This is sandbox play at its finest! It allows the DM and the Players to focus on aspects that they want to, and ignore those that they don’t. If one doesn’t want to play this scenario out because they are currently busy with bigger fish, they can pay others to oversee the construction and the DM will be able to know when it will be finished, or this can be a fun part of the game; and one that the players will remember!

Now the downside of this system is that it details how to construct a building from scratch, it does not detail how to take an existing structure and improve it, for that you will still need to use the 1st Edition DMG.

CHAPTER 6: Unusual Castles

As noted before, this guide allows any structure to be built, not just castles! From simple wooden forts, to enormous palaces, anything is possible. This section is an idea factory so that the DM and the players can work together to see these things built.

CHAPTER 7: Warfare!

There are two game systems that can be played with our structures once they are constructed, BATTLESYSTEM and AD&D, these are two very different games. While it recommends BATTLESYSTEM, and sets out to revise and expand rules for handling a siege, it also allows this to be played out through AD&D rules, which is writing around the mass combat. Yes, it offers quick play rules for very complex things, but it also seeks to empower a DM with the knowledge that he needs to feel up to the challenge of writing scenarios that can be technically terrifying for them.

Detailed in this chapter are military strategies and concepts for both sides, and the most comprehensive details of siege engines and mechanics that has ever been undertaken by TSR. It also reprints materials found in Dragon Magazine which detailed unusual means of attacking a castles walls such as Giants beating the things down, and while the systems detailed in this book focus mostly on historical data, it does give you warnings on how the effects of magic, if left unchecked, are going to destroy society and render it back into the stone age. Unlike real castles, these have to withstand attacks from wizards and dragons as well, and while the book can’t provide the answers to all of our problems, it gives us enough information so that we can be prepared for the them.

CHAPTER 8: Quick Resolution Systems

This chapter addresses two problems inherited in the system, the level of detail that we are wanting to achieve, do we want to play this out with BATTLESYSTEM, do we want to stick to AD&D, or do we want to use a combination of both? Either way, a siege can last months or years, regardless of the methods we want to use to determine who wins, we are going to want to speed up the clock from time to time.

We want a mixture of random and character driven events, and this offers a few different methods for dealing with it. No method is perfect, but it will get you started, and at least comfortable with the idea of dealing with anything from orcs testing the defenses to all out war, regardless of what side of the walls your character is standing on.

CHAPTER 9: Generic Castles

The biggest failure of this book is the noticeable lack of examples. Including the example found in chapter 5, there are only four maps, and three of them are those worthless forced perspective maps. While sitting down with your players and designing a castle from scratch can be fun for some tables, that is not playing D&D. DM’s know how to draw maps, but players typically only think about the game when they are at the table, and players who sit down and draw detailed maps of dungeons is kind of a lost art now, simply because we play differently than we used to.

Thankfully, today we have the Internet, and many examples can be purchased 3^rd party. I personally recommend PDF versions of Castle Book I (1978) and Castle Book II (1981) that were put out by the Judges Guild, as you’ll get more bang for your buck with them. TSR did follow up this title in 1991 with Castle Sites, but it only offered seven examples that were limited in use and too overly detailed for my taste. It is also acceptable to steal maps from modules; even if the module is trash, sometimes they at least have a map or two that you can lift and have your players key it.

Summery

This book is one of my favorites, and it is well designed! I like the fact that it offers lots of options and, historically, in AD&D, this was the precursor to the Green Series of historical settings. The Castle Guide stands on its own as a fun campaign, I played it in a one-on-one scenario and it was one of my all-time favorite games! Granted, it isn’t without problems, as it still requires Gary Gygax’s Dungeon Master's Guide, at least in my opinion, but I think that this is as close as you can get to a perfect book that is easy to grasp and fun to play. Its usefulness is limited, but that does not take away from it, as what it does do is superb in execution. I give it a B-, it did push the game further and allow anyone to play high level campaigns easily, it also helps us up our medieval game without being snobbish.

As far as value, this book got a huge print run, but not as large as the "Complete Class Handbooks" did, so it’s going to cost a bit more. For a copy in good and gently used condition, you are looking at between $20-$35, a beat up copy should run you no more than 5-10 dollars depending on just how bad it is. A near mint copy I can see getting a fair market value of $55-$75 max. If you own this book, take care of it! Use it, as it is fun and very helpful, but since they aren’t going to make any more of these things, once one is destroyed, then it is gone. PDF’s are available for it, and while they’ll do in a pinch, if you do use this book, you’ll be doing a lot of page turning, so the physical copy is preferred.

2115 The Complete Wizard's Handbook review

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 1^st 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 1^st printing and it has held up like a champ!