================================================== Results for Rating Form #2: Core 2nd Edition Books ================================================== Compiled by: brooks@odie.ee.wits.ac.za (Goth) ============== Points Ratings ============== In order for a product to appear on the points rating table, it must have at least five votes. Products are listed in points order, from highest to lowest. /-------------------------------------------------------\ | - Key - | | | | Score = the product's average rating | | Low = the lowest rating anyone gave this product | | High = the highest rating anyone gave this product | | Voters = the number of people who rated the product | \-------------------------------------------------------/ Product Score Low High Voters ------- ----- --- ---- ------ Player's Handbook (2nd Ed) 7.9 3 10 90 Monstrous Manual 7.4 0 10 73 Dungeon Master's Guide (2nd Ed) 6.7 2 10 89 Tome of Magic 6.4 0 10 80 Legends & Lore (2nd Ed) 5.2 0 9 46 Book of Artifacts 5.0 0 8 42 ======== Comments ======== This next bit is a selection of comments people have sent in. I've removed some remarks which were very similar, especially for products which provoked large quantities of comment and I've done some minor editing for grammar and spelling. Other than that, this is how they were sent in. General Comment on 2nd Edition Material --------------------------------------- I'm happy with the products in general. I use them all from time to time, with varying degress of success depending on what I'm looking for, but if I can't find it... I make it up. After all, that's what the game is all about, right? The PH and DMG are over wordy, long winded, and obviously written by a committee. The Handbooks are the same, only moreso, and obviously intended merely as a ploy to relieve the consumer of their $$. Both the PH and the DMG were pretty damn good, if not absolutely spectacular. TSR's quality slide came later. The MM is quality stuff, but it's the same old quality stuff all over again, in hardcover. They seem to have tried to get some of everybody's favourite monsters in it, but I preferred the old MC Appendix format. If you couldn't care less about a given world, you didn't buy the Appendix for it. Now, when TSR puts out new campaign settings, expect to see a whole SERIES of hard-cover MMs to deal with the best critters from these worlds MM2, MM3, MM4, MM5, ad infinitum. Generally, I think the 2nd Edition campaign settings are of much better quality than the 1st edition. The designers have learned to put relevant material into the boxes, rather than what they think is interesting. I'm not really into 2nd edition. I do think that there are some improvements in the rules, but that overall, it costs far too much to justify buying all the stuff. Our group is still using 1st edition with some "home rule" changes mixed with a few 2nd edition things we liked. A good revision of AD&D, but some oversights and unnecessary material. The basic rules got the points they got just because of nostalgia, truthfully I think they should never have been published. The core rules are, well, the core rules are quite essential. They definitely are not spectacular or anything. There are many improvements over the original rules, and some annoying things. My only comment is that there is no need for seperate players' and DM's books. Other RPGs don't need them. Champions is a good example of a "one book system". Perhaps TSR should spend more time facilitating storytelling instead of burdening the system down with more rules. We're bright enough to add our own bells and whistles; we just don't have time to create our own gaming systems from the ground up. I'm not much of a second edition fan, but I use what parts I like... few though they are... The group that I play in still uses mostly the 1st edition. We use the 2nd edition mostly just for non-weapon proficiencies. If the typos were removed they would be excellent purchases. Generally, the consolidation of all the information is quite good. Explanations are clear and concise. You need to have the Player's Handbook (2nd Ed) and Dungeon Master Guide to play the game in the beginning but once you have learned the system you can always improvise. I almost never use the L&L,ToM or BoA. Player's Handbook ----------------- By far the best book TSR have published, but certain ambiguities like thieves being able to backstab with ANY weapon they can wield (missile attacks) tend to mess things up. The PHB is very well organized and very complete, and is worth the money to buy it. The only problem is that some of the rules are unclear, and it is aimed at a much younger audience. The 2nd Edition PHB is much better than first edition. The second edition PHB is a vast, VAST improvement over the original. Clear concise rules, intelligent reworking of Gygax's infinite tables. My personal favourite is the THAC0 system. Much better than the attack matrices. Two minor beefs: the rules for illusion magic are scattered in two or three places in the book, and the system is silly; four die rolls or so just to determine whether the orcs believe in that giant boulder rolling towards them? Please. Well written and coherent. A huge improvement over the first edition. The PHB contained some good stuff, like the revised proficiency list. And some bad stuff... the cheesy secondary skill list (I absolutely hated it!) More complete and friendlier than 1st Edition, though I had a first run copy and the errors through it didn't help, plus the binding isn't as good as on the 1st Edition books - but this criticm can be levelled at all the 2nd Edition books in general. You need somewhere to start. This was a good one. I had a later version that missed some of the problems in the earlier printings so some folks rating on these mistakes might differ from mine. Very useful, although directed at a younger audience than the 1st edition. There are a few annoying errors and ambiguities. The Player's Handbook was okay, but some of the rules blew chunks. They stripped out a lot of what should have been in it so they could make more money on supplements. I think the Player's Handbook is too messy - info should be more organized and all tables in one place. For example if I want to know a daily movement rate I must scan a lot of text in order to find the fact. Too few prices. This one's more organized than the 1ed, and vital combat rules are present here, as they should be. The Ranger is a bit too weak when compared to the Paladin, especially for the same XP. The Illusionist has been castrated in 2ed after losing his special prerogative to powerful illusions, and he, like some of the other specialists (e.g. Diviner) is too weak in an adventuring situation, or has limited specialist spells (e.g. Necromancer). The new bard is good, but I question why a bard would more likely have climb walls than, say, move silently. A good job of unmunchkinning the Unearthed Arcana rules. The worst problem with the Players Handbook is that it gives too much information to players - informations they shouldn't have. Why should a simple starting player know that much about spells and undead creatures? The PHB clears up a lot of the ambiguities that there were in the 1st edition, but to be honest, with the exception of the thief, I just do not like the way that they have revised the classes. The PHB is an essential. If you are never going to DM, this is really the only book you NEED. It got only a 9 because there are always ways to improve on things. The PHB is of course absolutely essential to playing the game. The Player's Handbook is the essential first book; even after all the supplements, it still contains the essential information and leaves out the less important stuff. (The only exception to that being non-weapon proficiencies, which have become more significant in the game than when the 2nd ed was first published.) After having played a lot of different role playing systems I'd say the the Players Handbook is the easiest book to use ONCE you've been playing for a year or two :) Its orginization is lacking to say the least. This book heralded a whole new look and style and a complete revamping of the rules of AD&D. It showed gloss and sharp layout and set the standard for the RPGs of the 90s. It was FAR easier read and comprehend, contained everything a player needed to begin play at a basic level, and featured all new art. The reason I haven't given this a 10 is because of the quality of materials and editing problems. This book has been reprinted several times, each time with minor corrections. Also, the first few printings were done with cheap covers and binding that fell apart too quickly. The most recent printings have been with more durable stock, and they've taken to printing all their hardbounds this way. Well, it's certainly better written than almost every other book, though the beginning is kind of stupid. I also wish the later chapters on time, movement, vision, and light were clearer, and that there weren't so many "See the DMG" bits in there. Surely, TSR can correct most of this with their flashy new release. Dungeon Master's Guide ---------------------- I think actually that the 1st Edition DM's Guide was just as good, or perhaps better. Of course the 2nd Edition Guide was much more smooth, and efficent but, there were some major mistakes. The 2nd Edition version didn't have the lists of all the monsters, and their hps like the original -- that was a mistake... Although the charts and tables were pretty good. Although in both editions, the DM's Guide dosn't tell a newbie DM how to DM well. The DMG contains useful information but it just waffles on about many things and doesn't clarify a lot. I personally run my games without one. The 2nd Edition DMG can't even compare to first edition. It went from a wealth of information to a dearth of the same. The DMG is fairly good, but severely lacking in information compared to the first edition (but its organization almost makes up for that loss). I find the DMG slightly less necessary than the PHB, and find myself referencing it far less often. Nowhere near as complete as the 1st Edition DMG, and missing those nifty little cartoons. Might be more user friendly, but somehow I feel I'm getting ripped off when the DMG shrinks so much. Many of Gygax's sillier ideas are better forgotten. Random creation of dungeons? *ick* It was just a reprint of the Players Handbook plus a few other things that you needed, so were forced to buy the damn thing. Although the DM's Guide is improved over 1st Edition, a few of the miscellaneous tables could have been left in. What happened to all the information? There was nothing in here worth having, since they moved all the charts and tables for combat to the PHB (well most). This book is pretty pointless, there was nothing new from the original DMG in it, but a lot was lost. The DMG is a bit general; I need more exact info. It also lacks complex tables as in PH. Too thin. That's the biggest problem. It lacks advice on campaigning, and on adjucating high-level situations. Needs more rules on developing spells and magical items. Also, it seems ridiculous that this book didn't include at least 1 or 2 first-level adventures. Half of the DMG is PH. It doesn't even give advices to new DMs!!! I use the DMG only for the magical items. The DMG contains little information of value, period. I am an experienced DM, so I thought I didn't need the DMG much. I was right. The DM Guide is also still appropriately titled, considering its content: necessary for a DM, not a necessary consult for players. Giving the DM his own book is a good idea but not with the kinds of stuff they put in there. Why not have all that stuff in the Player's Handbook? Whereas the DMG of first edition provided just about everything a dungeonmaster needed to run a game, the second edition seemed to strip a lot of the meat out of the DMG. It became basically a handbook with rules for experience, magic item creation, treasure and magic item description, with a few odds and ends about spellcasting and combat and movement thrown in as filler. Instead of producing a definitive dungeonmaster's guide, TSR threw this thing out and then subsequently published the CASTLE Guide, the Sourcebook of Catacombs, and the other Dungeonmaster Handbooks. I would have gladly paid 30 bucks for a more comprehensive DMG about 3x as thick as the wimpy thing that came out. The Dungeon Master Guide has lost a lot since 1st Ed. When I recently bought the 1st Ed DMG I was pretty shocked to see how *big* it was compared to my 2nd Ed one. When I say big, I mean big in ideas! It is great. I now regard my 2nd Ed one as fairly skimpy, hence the low score... Great for $18; I've always wondered how it's just as cheap to make this as it is to make one of the CHBs... why not hardbind about 3 of the CHB's together, take out all the crappy parts, and sell it for $20? Monstrous Manual ---------------- The Monstrous Manual is good, but for more common animals, the lack of an illustration or text details is annoying (meaning it is still necessary to own the Compendiums). Also, quite a few of illustrations are recycled black and white artwork (and it shows). Great art work, but I liked the binder better... I could pick out the monsters I wanted and save time fumbling through books looking for info when I needed it. It is just another ploy to make us spend money on stuff that we already have (why couldn't TSR just put a book out in the first place - AARGH!) When will TSR make up their minds? The MC was an okay concept (though lacking an overall index (or section ones for that matter)). Back to the ol' MM. Wait for FF and MMII to reappear. Monsters specifically from Ravenloft or another world in one common book? NEVER. I much prefer the Hardbound version to the loose-leaf. In short, I bought the Monstrous Compendiums. A great many of them. I believed in that product, and now TSR has ditched me. The Monstrous Manual is the most useful book for a DM to have... it has all the monsters you normally use (I've never really needed the compendiums)... The Monstrous Manual gets it's high points because of Toni Di'Terlizzi's fabulous art and for being one of the most thorough and still compact monster guides to any game. The Monstrous Manual is a a beautiful product, the best of the lot, as it's a complete summary and has some fabulous art. Until the Monstrous Manual came out, I still stuck by my good ol' 1st Edition MM and MM2, except for a few products. Far better than the original MC's, but still lacking the character and inspirational qualities of the original Monster Manual. With this, TSR hit new lows. To put out all the Monstrous Compendium crap, then to switch back to the hard covers just to rehash the same stuff, but to make it look like something new is LOW. The only redeeming value is that it is useful to have if you didn't blow the cash on the MCs. The MM lacks a rolling chart for random encounters and therefore gets a very low score. A must to have. Good descriptions on ecology and habits. I don't have this one, but the colour art seems nice. A fine book in fine price. The essential AD&D supplement. The Monstrous Manual (hardcover, 2nd Edition) is excellent, especially with the new color art. The Monstrous Manual I own and use (for travel), but I preferred the looseleaf format for monsters over the perfect binding. Now, we have a bunch of the same monsters described yet again. What the hell is this? You go out and buy all the Monstrous Compendiums and then they completly change the format on you!!! This is complete garbage. If it weren't for the fact that they have the same style and ease of use as the originals I would have scored it much lower. I liked the whole Monstrous Compendium thing. I resent the fact that they've abandoned it without even an acknowledgement. However, the Monstrous Manual (basically a revamping of the original Monster manuals) is an excellent resource for game play. I have all the monsters I would normally need within one hardbound, and all the illustrations are in color. I only use the basic monsters in normal play, with none of the specialities.... Most of my baddies are NPCs as they are so much more versatile and unpredictable. If you see an orc you generally know what you are getting yourself into. But when you encounter another nondescript man, dwarf, elf, halfling etc, they could be death incarnate or just some drunken bum, peasant of no interest or threat to the players. The players do not know this until they have made some attempt with communication. The colour of Monstrous Manual, is a great addition. It helps for more accurate descriptions, as well as helping miniature painting. Not bad, not bad. Still not perfect, and I don't really think it should have to be this long... it IS "Monstrous." The Monstrous Manual is very good, with color pictures for almost all the monsters, although the best is the Invisible Stalker. However, too much information is shortened to fit it all on one page. Legends & Lore -------------- It's missing non-human deities, and xps for defeating avatars. Use the 1st Edition version instead. Legends and Lore is very useful, I use it for all the gods in my campaign, with different areas (northern etc) having the different myths. Good, but does not correspond at all to the Complete Priest's HB with regards to spheres, granted powers, etc. Works good as a base for making your own priest-classes. Thank God! They took away the stats for the gods. Always bothered me that the 1st edition Deities & Demigods book gave stats to the gods so the players could go out and kill them. Now they are once more gods. No stats. You can't kill 'em damn it! Let the players have a crack at an avatar if they want to do some deicide. =) I was annoyed to see the Babylonian and Finnish mythos' excluded from the 2nd edition book though. Again, I dislike the whole idea of giving divine beings stats for munchkins to beat. Legends and Lore is not all that essential, especially if you have the Complete Priest's Handbook. Legends and Lore is an interesting book to read but I've found that some of the powers given to specialty clerics are too unbalancing in game situations. The 2nd Edition Legends and Lore definetely improves the gods over those of 1st Edition and a neccessity for playing. Sad... just plain sad. What they did to mythology in this is an abomination. The LL book took out a lot of what was good from 1st, such as the "How to become a god" parts. The priesthoods are good, especially if you use the TOM sphere allowances published in Dragon Magazine. However, probably only about 10% of this book would be useful to any one DM, except as inspiration for granted powers. Full of great ideas. Very inspiring but some priests are "unbalancing". The revised yet again Legends and Lore is not necessary. L&L is OK. If you wanted to run a FR campaign this makes a good referance tool. This was a better priests' handbook than the priests' handbook. Unfortunately, it didn't introduce any new pantheons, just revamped the ones we had in first edition. Legends & Lore was not very good. It only had details for Earth mythology. I wished it included the other worlds such as Maztica, Forgotten Realms, Krynn, Greyhawk, etc... Tome of Magic ------------- Wild Magic is a cool idea, but just how many new spells do we need, anyway? The Tome of Magic IMO was totally useless. They didn't need more spells. It gives me the definite feeling of being an outside job. It doesn't have the AD&D look and feel, quite. It does an okay job of filling in some nooks and crannies, but the new spells for wizards are too few and seem to focus on the off-beat more than the useful. It adds immensely to mages and clerics, and fills in some very glaring gaps in the priest spells, such as faith magic, co-operative magic, and the quest spells. I love wild mages and the new priest spells. I find myself using the mage spells slightly less often, and the magic items rarely. Good points -- wild magic, bad points -- gives clerics too much power unless you have a strict DM. Sorta like the 1st Edition UA but minus the munchkin classes. I woulda liked more on the research side of magic. I love the addition of Wild mages from the Tome, the elementalists wizards are also pretty good. The only problems with the book is the magic items are either way to lame or powerful (mostly) and quest spells are pretty useless, they give what DMs have been giving for ages but usually in the form of an object that can perform such spells at certain times. A lot better if they didn't try to introduce so many useless spheres. Thanks to Dragon Magazine for realigning some of these spheres to specific gods. The Tome of Magic is excellent, if only TSR bothered using the new spheres introduced there in later products. The Tome of Magic is a great magic supplement The Tome of Magic had some new spells, otherwise I didn't care for it. Adds Wild magic to my campaign and also elementalists. Good extension spells for mages. Quite impressive. The new spheres allow specialist Priests to finally have some powers denied to Clerics without carbon-copying the Druid. Some of the new spells are interesting, but the magic item section is rather weak. No one would buy this if the world designers didn't put those new schools/spheres in their worlds. It's just a - low quality - commercial trick. Each of the books that I have read are really useful, except for Tome of Magic. The ToM, in my opinion, could have been better filled with spells and items, as to me it seemed that the extra spells were put in to fill up space. I do like the Wild Mage and Elementalist Mage classes, however. The Tome of Magic not only added considerably to my friends and my campaigns but had some _excellent_ artwork. Tome of Magic is way off cool, with many useless or next to useless spells (*I* think they are cool, but people who want new killer spells think it is boring). The Tome of Magic has interesting and useful ideas, spells and toys. Here's a GOOD idea! I think they should come out with a Tome of Magic 2!!! This was an excellent and long-needed expansion on the AD&D magic rules. Priests have long been neglected (as shown by the poor Priest's Handbook) by TSR, and this book increased the spell lists for clerics by 50%. It's still far outweighed by the numerous spells published for mages, but it was a nice chunk all the same. The added speres also enabled further customizing of original pantheons, and thereby the powers of individual pc priests. The new spells for mages, along with the rules for wild magic and elementalist magic (brought in from other sources -- nothing new) were also helpful and expanded on the existing class. The TOM is just a waste of shelf space. I don't really see the use of buying this book. Most of what's in here seems like it's designed to fill up space. There are a few good spells, but most of it is just making the wizard's repetoire more complex. The wild mage and elementalist are worthless IMHO. As for the Tome of Magic and the Book of Artifacts, why not put them in the PHB and DMG? Or is it too hard for TSR to combine? Book of Artifacts ----------------- The Book of Artifacts was nice, but the rules for magic item creation were preposterous. No mage in his right mind would spend all that time trying to make some of the less useful magic items, for *any* reason. The Book of artifacts is neat, but there's very little I would actually use. The magic item creation stuff is invaluable though. While I have not purchased it, the Book of Artifacts looks particularly good and would be a fun resource to have. Basically OK, contains long-missed guidelines for making magical items. I thought Artifacts had some neat stuff, but was all in all, quite useless. Yet another example of stuff that should have been in the DMG, but TSR saved to make more money. Beyond that it wasn't bad, but if you had the old DMG, then you already knew most of that stuff. The information in the back of the BOA on how to make magical items was excellent. Adds good amount of detail in designing & recharging magical items. Artifacts are secondary in importance. I like the artifact writeups, and they expand well on the material in the old DMG. But, even more so than for the LL book, only a small portion of this book will be useful to any one DM. One highlight is the large number of low powered artifacts, suitable for about levels 7-12. This will give you all the material for creating a campaign. Much more interesting for the stories than for the mech. Expensive. Book of artifacts is pretty useless and its just basically stories. Not necessary. What the heck is this crap? Why in the hell would you give out an artifact to a PC? There is no way in my campaign a PC could have an artifact without incuring the wrath of a deity or two or being hunted by other NPC's. As far as I'm concerned this is the most ridiculous thing TSR has ever published. Artifacts: I was not that impressed by this offering. It basically took all the old artifacts from the old (much better) DMG and fancied up their presentation. It *did* go into magical research and the possible creation of artifacts, which was more than the supposed Complete Wizard's Handbook did. DON'T buy it. It's a snazzy book, well-presented, etc., but I (as a DM) will probably NEVER get my $20 out of the freaking thing. Not recommended. ======= The End =======