For me these were my first exposure to splat books. As a dm I remember going through these as the books came out and saying yea or nay to the various kits to try and keep things balanced
The kits really showed how the game didn't have a line editor to have any consistency in their effectiveness. Even within the same book (like the Fighter's one) you had the Noble Warrior with a couple of minor roleplay effects and the Cavalier that covers the same thematic ground but has a much bigger game mechanical effect. Compare different books and the differences are even greater (Elves and Bards being at the top of the power curve for kits). Speaking of the Elves book, that one's a bit of a meme among gamers old enough to remember it. Like the artificial limbs you mentioned - elves have fantasy cyberlimbs so that even if they lose a limb an elf never needs to be less than perfect. It has the nickname "Complete Book of the Master Race" for good reason. By the way, we did have a 19-Strength Sylvan Elf (Wild Elf in the Realms) in our game for a while. It was (not mentioning real names online) the player who went through quite a lot of characters. His Wild Elf was a Thief who used the race stats to get better than the warriors' percentile strength and get the best dexterity bonuses too. He started Master of the Desert Nomads with that character but I can't remember if it made it to the end.
Well, the Elves book just adds so many extra powers to them it's just not funny. Not only was bladesinging incredibly powerful, but the innate manifest ability, virtual immunity to diseases, resistances to heat and cold, and gain bonuses beyond those in the base rules, and that's before you even get to the kits, where advantages are mechanical, so bonus points here and there, but disadvantages are Roleplaying based, so if you don't mind those, they basically don't exist. While Gygax might not have liked Tolkienesque uber elves, the author of this book definitely did. Oh, and kits were a nice idea, badly implemented.
2e in general, but especially this line really suffered from She Who Must Not Be Named's decision that playtesting was just an excuse to play games on Company Time...
I plan to do the Psionics Book separately as my memory of it was based on the Dark Sun campaign, where everyone gets Psionics mutant powers. I remember the powers being so incredibly variable in power, from the awesome to the useless.
saw these books back in the day, thought that any good player/dm should be able to come up with a few good hacks to make a pc both unique and add variation, and to customise any class. but regardless of customisations the character still need to perform it's primary role
The kits provided by the complete books mainly just provided some interesting tweaks to characters, such as making a fighter a pseudo ranger. The only book which caused problems for me was the Elves book, the Elven Knight for example gave all the advantages of a Paladin, but without losing all the advantages of a Fighter, making them a Paladin who levels faster and has a better Thaco. Balance wasn't really a thing in the Complete books.
Although that never happened to my books, when I moved out of my mothers, I left my painted miniatures on a shelf which my mum decided to dust, by sweeping all the mini's into a carrier bag first. First thing I knew was being handed a carrier bag full of painted arms and legs as virtually every one had shattered into pieces.
Oh absolutely. But being honest, you don't need a kit giving you advantage with weapons to play your fighter as a Gladiator, you could just write your background that way, so taking the kit is pretty much just for the advantages. Some of the kits though are pretty good for tone, giving your character some abilities of other classes without the need to dual class (Wilderness Warrior could make your fighter into a semi-Ranger for example).
It started out as a Homebrew then they published the Complete Alchemist, Complete Spellcaster, and the Complete Adventurer. Later the three books had been compiled into Arcanum with some new material. A lot of people like to just add the magic & ritual system to their AD&D Game. Yet others will just want to lift the Skill / Feat System to their AD&D Game. Lot of GM's use Arcanum to run a Connan Style Game.
The amazing thing about Arcanum was you could start your character as a stereotypical MU and then with the skill system become a MU Acrobat Gypsy or something. The skills allowed a lot of customization that even 5e still lacks.
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For me these were my first exposure to splat books. As a dm I remember going through these as the books came out and saying yea or nay to the various kits to try and keep things balanced
It was quite exciting as a player waiting for your splat book, to see what you could get for your character as an upgrade :)
The kits really showed how the game didn't have a line editor to have any consistency in their effectiveness. Even within the same book (like the Fighter's one) you had the Noble Warrior with a couple of minor roleplay effects and the Cavalier that covers the same thematic ground but has a much bigger game mechanical effect. Compare different books and the differences are even greater (Elves and Bards being at the top of the power curve for kits).
Speaking of the Elves book, that one's a bit of a meme among gamers old enough to remember it. Like the artificial limbs you mentioned - elves have fantasy cyberlimbs so that even if they lose a limb an elf never needs to be less than perfect. It has the nickname "Complete Book of the Master Race" for good reason.
By the way, we did have a 19-Strength Sylvan Elf (Wild Elf in the Realms) in our game for a while. It was (not mentioning real names online) the player who went through quite a lot of characters. His Wild Elf was a Thief who used the race stats to get better than the warriors' percentile strength and get the best dexterity bonuses too. He started Master of the Desert Nomads with that character but I can't remember if it made it to the end.
Well, the Elves book just adds so many extra powers to them it's just not funny. Not only was bladesinging incredibly powerful, but the innate manifest ability, virtual immunity to diseases, resistances to heat and cold, and gain bonuses beyond those in the base rules, and that's before you even get to the kits, where advantages are mechanical, so bonus points here and there, but disadvantages are Roleplaying based, so if you don't mind those, they basically don't exist.
While Gygax might not have liked Tolkienesque uber elves, the author of this book definitely did.
Oh, and kits were a nice idea, badly implemented.
2e in general, but especially this line really suffered from She Who Must Not Be Named's decision that playtesting was just an excuse to play games on Company Time...
I recall those books..damn Psionic one especially...
I plan to do the Psionics Book separately as my memory of it was based on the Dark Sun campaign, where everyone gets Psionics mutant powers. I remember the powers being so incredibly variable in power, from the awesome to the useless.
Nice review!
Cheers mate, much appreciated.
saw these books back in the day, thought that any good player/dm should be able to come up with a few good hacks to make a pc both unique and add variation, and to customise any class. but regardless of customisations the character still need to perform it's primary role
The kits provided by the complete books mainly just provided some interesting tweaks to characters, such as making a fighter a pseudo ranger. The only book which caused problems for me was the Elves book, the Elven Knight for example gave all the advantages of a Paladin, but without losing all the advantages of a Fighter, making them a Paladin who levels faster and has a better Thaco.
Balance wasn't really a thing in the Complete books.
I had a bunch of these books, unfortunately my mother stored them in the basement and they got water damage. I really wish I still had them.
Although that never happened to my books, when I moved out of my mothers, I left my painted miniatures on a shelf which my mum decided to dust, by sweeping all the mini's into a carrier bag first.
First thing I knew was being handed a carrier bag full of painted arms and legs as virtually every one had shattered into pieces.
The kits aren't just for buffs. They are for roleplaying and character flavor.
Oh absolutely. But being honest, you don't need a kit giving you advantage with weapons to play your fighter as a Gladiator, you could just write your background that way, so taking the kit is pretty much just for the advantages.
Some of the kits though are pretty good for tone, giving your character some abilities of other classes without the need to dual class (Wilderness Warrior could make your fighter into a semi-Ranger for example).
Much easier and actually more options with Arcanum 2nd Edition and Atlantis by Bard Games
Arcanum's never a game I got my hands on, but my understanding that it was a standalone RPG rather than just options for D&D?
It started out as a Homebrew then they published the Complete Alchemist, Complete Spellcaster, and the Complete Adventurer. Later the three books had been compiled into Arcanum with some new material. A lot of people like to just add the magic & ritual system to their AD&D Game. Yet others will just want to lift the Skill / Feat System to their AD&D Game. Lot of GM's use Arcanum to run a Connan Style Game.
The amazing thing about Arcanum was you could start your character as a stereotypical MU and then with the skill system become a MU Acrobat Gypsy or something. The skills allowed a lot of customization that even 5e still lacks.