As 2e lover I would love to see all of these covered. I recently got the Psionics Handbook and I am enjoying the extra content. I will probably wind up buying the base classes but what I really want to see are Barbarian and Necromancer.
The Necromancers guide is…not the same as the other class books. It’s all about making villainous NPCs, but also collects as much info on necromancy as was available at the time. It’s one of my favorite RPG books of all time.
Ah yes! Necromaner was part of the "blue "DMGR" line because, while its content is presented in a same manner as these brown PHBR books, because they intended necromancers to be evil NPCs, not PCs. I can certainly cover that at a future date. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Two minutes in, and I'm already excited about future longform videos covering this line of books. I was a 2e kid, and these books were so exciting for my young brain back in the day. I'd specifically love to see a discussion of how these books were presaged by older (perhaps non-DnD) content, and how each figured into 3e and beyond. Particularly those racial handbooks towards the end; with those and the greens, it feels like TSR was just going bananas with this splatbook goldmine.
@@daddyrolleda1 I agree with the overall statement. I actually think many of the splat books were good for beginners. It presented concrete ways to ground character concepts and different ways of imagining your character within the context of the game world. Some, like the complete book of fighters and bards, were very good. Some were complete fluff and filler. The complete book of priests and the book of thieves had so many missed opportunities. GinnyDi did an excellent video on the new 2024 bard. But as I was watching it, it dawned on me that that everything she was discussing had been covered in the 2nd edition Complete book of Bards. Just in my opinion--- BECMI and 1st edition, just as far as the raw creativity has every edition beat, hands down. I remember waiting every month for my issue of Dragon to appear in the mail because there was a good chance that there would be something new and innovative within. To 2nd edition's credit, they took a lot of that raw creativity from Dragon and canonized it--some of which was excellent, some was good, and some wasn't. The mechanical differences between the three editions were almost nonexistent. The major innovation of 3rd Ed. was how they reworked saving throws and feats. Ascending armor class was just flipping the same math around, but mechanically it was no different. Feats were the innovation that pushed characters from being heroes into being superheroes at low level. To me, that was when D&D started to take on a video game/anime aspect.
Count me among the old guys that started playing in earnest with 2e and loved the splat books (had becmi boxed sets first, but never really played them much before 2e came out)
The psionics handbook was the most unique offering in the series, and definitely deserves a video. Everyone either loved it or hated it, there was no in between
I loved it as it gave me a "magic" system that wasn't Vancian, but nearly everyone I olayed D&D with hated it. I also loved Dark Sun more than anyone else in my local D&D community.
Yep, I have most of these, as well as the blue book, black book, and green book versions. Did videos on all of 'em that I have, such that it is. For all the 'splat' as many see them, I propose that they helped deepen the crunch so that later editions were cleaner, smoother, and sharper. There's still a lot of use in them if one is willing to make use of them. 'course, that too, is merely my opinion.
I absolutely loved this series of books and they bring forth a deep nostalgia for me. Thanks for looking into them! I'm really happy I kept at least most of these.
Same. It really shined a light on the early days. although I do feel that they kind of cut it off a little too early, they should have had one more follow-up episode of what happened to everybody into the 90s and 2000s.
I remember finally getting the Complete Thieve's Handbook. That combined with the many Dragon mag articles about Theives Guilds structure, maps, items and such was fantastic. My favorite and second to oldest original character was a thief with a bard flare (I was flirting with going Bard back in 1E). He started a thieves guild of his own supported by the beggars guild and it was just a great roleplaying experience. Which is what the game can give you. Anyhoo, I feel like all of these are worth exploring. You are always very evenhanded in your videos so I think you'd give a fair shake to all of them. Great content as usual.
I really appreciate your compliments and I'm so happy you enjoy my videos. Thanks for taking the time to write the comment to let me know. I remember quite a few Dragon magazine articles on Thieves as well! Those were always so much fun! My third PC was an AD&D 1E multi-class Dwarf Fighter/Thief and I really enjoyed playing him, so those articles were always helpful to me!
Are you going to do a video on the different historical human culture settings splatbooks? There was a Celtic (Irish) one, Norse (Viking) One, probably a few others I didn't read.
@@Grimlore82 The Option books were controversial. Mainly because S&P. It's not well thought out or play tested. It's possible to make a priest that can cast every mage spell from all 8 main spell schools in full armor, with priest HP, & without any of the Wizard drawbacks or requiring spell books. S&M revised a lot of S&P & has a lot of really good content, but it also ups the power level of casters. DM's need to carefully think out what they want to allow. C&T is mostly very good. I don't care for some of it, but on the whole I really like it.
@@iugoeswest I used the equipment tables in huge cities were trade was very diverse. Then those crit tables. Organized by weapon type, and type of target. Those were rad. Although, I never used those combat rules. Veeery crunchy. Not to mention grid dependent.
These were fun back in the day. There was a bard kit that allowed for a multiclass Half-Elf Bard/Ranger. People now take it for granted but that was a big deal at the time. It meant you could be a decent fighter, got 6/8 of the thief skills, and could cast arcane and a bit of divine magic. Made for the ultimate fill in or backup character for whatever the party needed at the moment. I had a lot of fun with such a generalist character at a time that didn't really allow for that otherwise.
I always love seeing these books, I have great affection for them. Not every one is a winner, but they were so many great ideas in them. Especially the Thief's handbook. If you want to do deep dives on these, that would be great. Especially the blue and green series!
Finally, my edition getting some love! Have all of these but the setting specific (iirc they made a gladiator one for Dark Sun and a Sha'ir one for Al-Qadim.
My first CRPG was a cd-rom with Darksun: shattered lands, and Al-Qadim: the genie's curse- really cool settings! But I never got to check out any of the books..
I love the detailed deep dives. I think going through all of them in detail would be great. It is funny you mentioned Grognardia. I have been reading that Blog for years.
Would have loved to have seen some of the OP elf kits you had briefly mentioned. I remember my group banning some of them from use when I was younger. Great video!
Thank you so much! I appreciate you watching and commenting! I can certainly add a more detailed look into these to my list of potential future topics. Today's video is a deep-dive into the Complete Book of Necromancers!
So cool you mentioned William O' Connors. One of his Ravenloft adventures (Web of Illusion) resulted in the TPK of my first 2E campaign. As it turns out, my old group is getting together in 3 weeks, and we're finally giving it a second try after nearly 30 years.
Thank you so much! I really hope you enjoy it! It was a ton of work to put together and I actually exceeded the time limit on the video of the size I'm allowed to export from my editing service and I had to content them to do me a one-time favor to export it for me!
It was... but it was a "one time exception." I didn't realize that the plan I am on (I have to pay for the software) now has a new limit of a maximum of a 2-hour video that can be exported. That was a new restriction but I didn't discover until I went to export it and it's 2 hours and 14 minutes. So I began panicking because I spent hours yesterday editing it and wasn't relishing the idea of trying to figure out how to cut out ~15 minutes so it'd be sub-2 hours. I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask them what I could do and the person offered to export it for me. And now going forward I just need to know that I have to limit my videos to 2 hours.
I thought about bringing out my Green Books to show that I could also talk about them, but this video was so long already! But I'll add them to the list.
I fully support you going through the entire series. I feel like a general overview, like you usually do, giving us the highlights would be good. And feel free to give us your take as well, if you have particular thoughts on a subject. You do a good job of both reviewing the material for those who know nothing about it, but also allowing them to pick up the material themselves if they want to know more. Your takes offer a perspective on the material from someone who has been in the hobby a long time, and are also interesting to hear about, imho.
Thanks for the video! Some of the setting material from those books is good fodder for DMs to flesh out campaign settings of their own. The thieves' guild portion in particular comes to mind. I didn't spend much time with 2E beyond the core books which I set aside after a few years and stuck with the 1E AD&D games I was still running anyway. It got a little book-heavy for my tastes. Happy B-Day, of course, and I am sure I said so on FB, but I fell behind on the videos a bit. Happy Autumn, too! Punkin' Al was my nickname in college. 😜
I do have five of the seven green cover 2E historical D&D books which I vowed to only collect from "the wild" (not online such as eBay). I only pick up NM copies and only if it includes the map which has to be attached.
Thank you very much for the B-day wishes (and yes, you did kindly extend me birthday greetings on FB as well). And, yes, I think the Thieves' Guild portion of the Complete Thief's Handbook is a perfect example of how fun, creative, and useful these books could be. But as you said, they were kind of all over the place. Thanks as always for your support, Punkin' Al!
I only have three... "A Mighty Fortress" and "Charlemagen's Paladins" which I got as gifts from my mom when they first came out. I came across the Crusades book in the used section of my local shop years ago (same place where I found a VG+ boxed set of the World of Greyhawk, with maps, for $10!!!). People sadly figured out what kinds of treasures the shop had and snapped up most of the really good stuff, and then the shop sold the rest of it to a collector. Their used section is now just full of 4E and 1990's era White Dwarf, etc.
The Complete Psionicists Handbook was one of my favorite. My DM at the time let me play one, and I loved it, though he didn’t make it further than level 3. Death was pretty common in his games. Plus that book was formatted extremely well. Loved it. When I started DMing in 3e, I loved using its psionics system, too (especially the 3.5 update, though I don’t have the original 3e version as much as most). Loved it so much, I was a playtester for the Mind’s Eye web articles. But I may have never even bothered buying psionic stuff in 3e had I not been exposed to it with the 2e splat book.
I was lucky to be working well enough as a teen to get the "Complete... " series as they came out. A deep dive of them all would be nice, keep it under an hour 😀 When you get to the green campaign source books, a little bit of "this is real history, this is fake hiatory" as we knew it at the time could be interesting. I found the green and grey ones pretty good.
I will add this to the list of potential future topics! I quite liked the Green Historical books but I only ever got three in physical format (the rest as PDFs, years later). I don't seem to recall the grey ones, though. I only remember Brown, Blue, and Green, plus some odd colors for Dark Sun (Gladiators) and Al Qadim (Sha'ir's).
2 interesting points from the video. The first being these kits lacking flavor bc they aren't tied to a campaign setting. That is a good insight. I wonder if these books would've done better to be tied into the forgotten realms so each kit could reference and be part of that lore. The second observation is that all of the book users would immediately turn to the "powers" each kit receives and only pick the best ones. Thats not what i did, but I think it does clarify 2 categories of gamers. Those in it for the role playing and playing a peasant hero would have some appeal, and those looking for their power ups who will just take the cavalier every time due to the benefits. Great vid as usual Martin. Happy Birthday!
Thank you so much for all of these comments, and for the birthday wishes. They are very much appreciated! There were a few setting-specific handbooks that were very similar to these but for a setting, such as Gladiators and Sha'ir's for Dark Sun and Spacefarer's for Spelljammer. But yes, I suspect something like a "Complete Harper's Handbook" would have sold gangbusters! Thanks again!
The psionics hand book was the best. Very cool like one of the other commenters said it gives you another magic type system that was not Vancian. And it was way better than the crazy 1st edition psioncis that no one ever agreed on how it worked.
We never used the 1E Psionics system! So nutty! I think it turned me off enough that I wasn't interested in checking out the 2E version, but I've definitely heard good things. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Omg. Two hours in and you mention All Stag Games in DB. That was my game stores back in the day. Used to go there three times a week. Miss that place so much. 😅
Great video! Much thanks from a massive 2E enjoyer. Happy birthday! 🥳🥳🥳 Many hate on the 2E "splatbooks". That they are "bloat". The dumb thing is that if the DM doesn't like them then they don't have to use them. Easy. 2E is the most modular D&D system there is. A DM can run it as simple as B/X or Basic. If the DM wants they can run 2E with only the core books with all the options added in. Then again if they want they can dump it all on with all the optional books. Good times. The "splatbooks" are 2Es special sauce IMHO. I have all of them but "Of Ships and the Sea". Still have not put down the loot for it and I never bought it back in the day. 2E 4 LIFE! 🤘🤘🤘
a magic user kit i came up with back in the 90s was an Elementalist, quick summary, you get 1 extra elemental based spell per day, opponets get -1 saving throw modifier, but you can only learn elemental spells. and i swear its not an evoker lol mostly because i made the assumption you'd be able to learn to summon elementals and what not.
It's serendipitous. As of late, I've been rounding out my collection of the "Complete" series. All that's left of players books for me is "The Ninja's." 2e is still my favorite version, personally. Though, I haven't ran or played it much of late. I don't think 2e gets much focus, and I love to hear folks talk about it, whether I agree with their opinions or not. And chances are, there may be some new insight or info to glean. I think it's a goldmine of conversation.
Thank you so much for the compliment! I really appreciate it! I bet you could find a list of 2E kits online that you could then slightly tweak for 5E if you wanted. I really like the *idea* of Backgrounds for 5E, but creating them from scratch takes so much work with all the different personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws. I love creating stuff like that, but I feel like it would start to get really difficult to make them all distinct. For the "Alchemy, Explosions & Inventions" book I wrote for Old School Essentials, I had begun working on turning the three new classes I'd created into 5E Backgrounds. I don't play a lot of 5E so it was slow going and it took me a few days just to make one for the Alchemist, at which point I decided to set it aside. Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it!
2nd edition is still my favourite version of the game. I embraced these handbooks back in the day. As the DM it was a pain to drag all of those handbooks..rulebooks..and other supplements to game day lol. I rarely played at home in those days of old. I did go through all the handbooks and highlighted kits that the players had access to. Some of the kits were definitely more powerful then others.
I think it would be fun to do a full video on the different unarmed fighting systems in d&d. You got the pummeling tables in the 1st ed dmg, the O.A., the 1nd ed pummeling tables, the priest's, the fighter's, the ninja's, and that's just 1st and 2nd ed. There's probably more I'm forgetting. Personal opinion, the O.A. had the best martial arts system than any other d&d edition.
1:17:41 About Tall Tales of the Wee Folk, its name can be misleading - while some of the playable options it describes are indeed small - pixies and brownies for example - it’s more geared towards faerie folk and forest races in general, including Sidhe, Pooka and even some large races such as Treants and Centaurs.
As a child of the 2nd ed, I used to love these books! I remember particularly enjoying the kits from the Sha'ir's Handbook (even though I never played in the Al-Qadim setting) + the Ninja handbook. Also - even though it's not in the "handbook" line - I loved the chronomancer subclass published in 1995. Always wanted to try it.
I would like a video per book here. Not sure I have a preference over your opinion vs mechanics. Both are fun. I definitely enjoy the history lessons about the hobby.
Really enjoy Your Content and Style.. Would like to see You do a Series on the Complete Handbooks.. I have a few of Them and would be interested to hear Your take on Them.. And which Ones I should Pursue.. Thanks again for all Your hard work that You do to make These very Informative Videos..
I'm running 2e now and I would love to hear a deep dive on these handbooks. I would really appreciate hearing what content from these books you think is worth adding to each class.
I still had memories of almost drowning in the minutia of the Dungeoneer's and Wilderness Survival Guides, so I passed on these. Except for the Psionics one. I was too big of a X-Men fan not to indulge in telepath and pyrokinetic characters. And happy birthday, Martin.
I have almost all of the 2E splat books. Some of them were indeed cheesy/munchkin, but they also covered a lot of material that allowed you to play fantasy tropes not previously covered by the game. I really enjoyed them at the time and even today - almost 25 years after I last played 2E - they’re inspiring.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on all the splatbooks from the perspective of someone I see as more of an OSR devote. I'd be especially interested on your takes on the psionics (it was so left field to us back in the day). I'd also be interested in the races books. Again, kind of a huge change from some old school ideas.
I didn't really play 2e much, I never had any of the Complete guides, but I do have the Creative Campaigning guide, which I reread from time to time no matter what game I'm playing.
Yes, for sure! I only have it as a PDF, but it is full of lots of great ideas. Another book from the "blue" DMGR series I know folks have a fondness for is Campaign Sourcebook & Catacomb Guide. It gets a lot of positive attention on Twitter and such. Thanks for watching and commenting, as always!
Thanks, DRA1! Our group has played AD&D 1E exclusively since ‘83/84. However, we use the 2e Monstrous Compendium when our PCs reach 5/6th level. Giants, Dragons and “tanar’i” (Blech) deserve to be tougher than the 1E Monster Manual.
Specialty wizards were in the 2e PHB (2ePHB p31) with the school outlines and restrictions. As was Priests of Specific Mythoi (2ePHB p34) and the concept of spheres along with the effects of greater and lesser access to those spheres.
Specialty wizard was most of the time a power gamer move for me as you could start with an extra spell slot. Doubling your magical ability at first level.
Thanks! I always like these books but we mostly played 2e like 1e, so never used any kits and didn’t use NWP much. I agree that the Bard book is awesome, I think it’s the one I still have. I liked the Fighter one fine but was so disappointed in the rest of the first 4.
Thank you so much for your support, and for watching! I really appreciate it. I really liked a lot of the world-building stuff in the first four (developing a thieves' guild, creating a faith/pantheon, etc.) and I felt a lot of that world-building stuff got less and less useful in many of the later books (with the exception of the Druid and Barbarian ones, as I mentioned). It's fun to hear what folks did or didn't like about these books.
If you do plan to make this a series I would argue you should also do the DMGR, HR, and CGR lines as well. Although if each book gets its own video that would be 34 videos, and maybe too much to do.
2nd edition was the addition that introduced me to Dungeons & dragons. I have a fair number of these complete books from second edition, but not all of them. I'd like to see your take on them, you don't need to go into ad nauseam detail. It's not like these books are unavailable, even secondhand. they printed a lot of these books and they're still out there. I'm pretty sure you can get all of them in PDF by now as well.
I loved these books at the time. Between me and my friends we had several of them. The bindings were awful and the books fell apart very quickly. I had the Complete Arms and Armor book (blue cover with silver lettering) which had illustrations of all the different armors and swords, polearms, etc, which I really liked. We didn't have much of an internet back then to look this stuff up!
Back in 1996 our 2e game started to go downhill once everyone bought splat books and kept bringing new abilities and rules with their new characters. It just got too convoluted. It was the Players Option hardbacks (namely Skills & Powers) that really did it though. They were fun to read though.
I will add them to the list of potential future topics! I just posted a deep dive on "The Complete Book of Necromancers" today - I hope you enjoy it! Thanks for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel. Cheers!
2e is what diverted me away from fantasy RPGs. I can't recall what it was exactly that turned me off. But with age comes forgiveness, and I like to learn more about the things I dismissed or disliked when I was younger. Thank you for your detailed takes on these older products.
Good to know! Today's video should hopefully appeal to you - it's a deep dive into the 2E Complete Book of Necromancers. Hope you enjoy it, and thanks for watching and commenting!
I bought several of the chap books back in the day but my 2E playing was never very long so I did not use them much. I would love to learn which kits and new rules broke the system or were completely OP. Then maybe a "bonus" episode detail one or two of the more insane multi-kit builds.
It seems to me that a system where sometimes rolling low is good, as opposed to a system where it is always desirable to roll high would tend to be a subtle built in way to automatically discourage players from using loaded dice.
I've been thinking about a post for a few days. I started watching a guy on Mystara, Mr Welsh, after this channel mentioned Mystara. I think its a great setting where there is a good history, established factions, established religions, and its a mix of history like factions but not actually historical. So a DM doesn't have to build a complete setting, but also has room for personal cults and the players are supposed to actually be the cause of effects in the setting, without beginning as a super tough hero. I think the game of D&D outside of the Becmi line kind of lost that. Its why the game has a small window of being fun and fhen it gets to be boring and fizzles out. Although i think the immortal game never took off, just like I dont think mass combat ever did. Although i find the rules for both seemingly unplayable. I also the non-weapon proficiencies was a disaster in BECMI but they could be settled with using the ability modifier, the modifier of skill level, an equipment modifier and then rolling against a target number. Although i like crafting in video games i find it incredibly boring in ttrpgs unless its fast tracked. Although Mystara does have a functional calender and it can be used to simply mark off crafting days without the process being a complete pain or boring
It's called "When We Were Wizards": open.spotify.com/show/7pcZ1tc0riPb1IarAXnIqS (that's the Spotify link obviously but you can just search it up however you prefer to listen to podcasts). The specific thing in question with the actors reading the minutes of the meeting were Gary was pushed out is one of the last episodes - either 13 or 14 I believe (out of a total of 14 episodes), but the entire thing is worth listening to.
I stopped playing D&D around when they introduced 2e. We were starting to sour on D&D in general because there were a lot more interesting RPGs being made at the time. I think we were playing Rifts then Cyberpunk 2020 in the late 80s, early 90s.
@@daddyrolleda1 recent sub from FL. We have a hurricane entering the Gulf and my house is barely in the "cone of uncertainty," (doesn't that sound like an old DND spell or maybe a breath weapon?) and I have been listening to too much weather. This video definitely helped give my mind a break from the real world stress.
the thing about clerics and how they should act. That doesn't happen in a polytheistic world. If you were the Greeks getting ready to attack Troy, you would make sacrifices to your own gods and to the Trojan gods as you would want to gain their favor. So the generic Cleric should be versed in the worship of many gods, which makes sense considering the btb spell list.
didn't the first printing of the wizard handbook have a weird typing quirk where every instance of the word "damage" was listed as "dawizard"? like, someone at TSR got a memo that mage had to be changed to wizard and sloppily typed over every instance of mage, or was that something i made up
I can't guarantee that I have a 1st printing, but I got mine pretty early on and I checked and my printing doesn't have that problem. I couldn't find anybody mentioning it, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen! Thank you for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 yeah I'm not an expert on 2e, that was just something i heard years ago and thought was funny, and I was wondering if there was any sort of truth to that
I can see that point. I tend to think of them as "fan supplements" versus "splat books" but that's probably just splitting hairs in terminology. Thank you for watching and commenting!
Some additional books I personally lump into the Complete series even though they aren't in the brown covers Complete series are: Chronomancer The Complete Gladiator's Handbook The Complete Necromancers Handbook Sages & Specialists The Complete Sha'ir's Handbook Shaman The Complete Spacefarer's Handbook
Yeah, I never played with Skills & Powers but I understand they condense all the kits so that any kit can be played by any class, which then by extension would mean that some of the class-specific flavor is removed.
You missed that pheasant hero is limited in the number of mage items thats the reason i never played one that dm handed out a lot of low level items and very few high level it a good way to play but have half to a thrif magic items in that hames would get you killed
You do such a good job covering the subject. But you should consider breaking the videos into shorter offerings to reach more viewers. The article from Dragon Magazine would have been enough material for one video. Each splat could be one. Keep up the good work. :)
I really appreciate that feedback. In the early days of my channel, my videos were around 20 minutes or so, but slowly began creeping up in length. And the feedback I got from a few folks was that they really liked the longform content because they tend to just put it on and then listen while they are doing something else. I've gone back and forth on whether I should make more, but shorter, videos but I don't want to alienate the folks who really enjoy the ~90 minutes videos. Again, I really appreciate your feedback, and thank you so much for watching and commenting. Cheers!
The Monstrous Traits in the Humanoids book are broken. It makes it possible to have a brand new level 1 character start with 25 Strength (the 2e max). I had a player try to do that to me. That was a quick no.
I believe most of them are available as PDFs on DMSGuild and/or DriveThruRPG and you might be able to get PODs as well. Thank you for watching and commenting!
As 2e lover I would love to see all of these covered. I recently got the Psionics Handbook and I am enjoying the extra content. I will probably wind up buying the base classes but what I really want to see are Barbarian and Necromancer.
The Necromancers guide is…not the same as the other class books. It’s all about making villainous NPCs, but also collects as much info on necromancy as was available at the time. It’s one of my favorite RPG books of all time.
Ah yes! Necromaner was part of the "blue "DMGR" line because, while its content is presented in a same manner as these brown PHBR books, because they intended necromancers to be evil NPCs, not PCs. I can certainly cover that at a future date.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
If you can track it down, Dark Sun's 'The Will and the Way' is a fantastic resource for expanding psionics.
@@IbnShisha1 I do plan on buying that one soon!
@@radyoung779if you aren’t concerned with it being an original copy, The Will and the Way is available Print on Demand from DriveThruRPG
I always giggle when someone brings up game balance. The one time D&D was mostly balanced almost every one hated it.
Two minutes in, and I'm already excited about future longform videos covering this line of books. I was a 2e kid, and these books were so exciting for my young brain back in the day.
I'd specifically love to see a discussion of how these books were presaged by older (perhaps non-DnD) content, and how each figured into 3e and beyond.
Particularly those racial handbooks towards the end; with those and the greens, it feels like TSR was just going bananas with this splatbook goldmine.
I really liked the complete handbooks. Some were good, some were bad, but I really loved the idea.
That is very close to my experience with them as well. Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 I agree with the overall statement.
I actually think many of the splat books were good for beginners. It presented concrete ways to ground character concepts and different ways of imagining your character within the context of the game world. Some, like the complete book of fighters and bards, were very good. Some were complete fluff and filler. The complete book of priests and the book of thieves had so many missed opportunities.
GinnyDi did an excellent video on the new 2024 bard. But as I was watching it, it dawned on me that that everything she was discussing had been covered in the 2nd edition Complete book of Bards.
Just in my opinion---
BECMI and 1st edition, just as far as the raw creativity has every edition beat, hands down. I remember waiting every month for my issue of Dragon to appear in the mail because there was a good chance that there would be something new and innovative within. To 2nd edition's credit, they took a lot of that raw creativity from Dragon and canonized it--some of which was excellent, some was good, and some wasn't. The mechanical differences between the three editions were almost nonexistent.
The major innovation of 3rd Ed. was how they reworked saving throws and feats. Ascending armor class was just flipping the same math around, but mechanically it was no different. Feats were the innovation that pushed characters from being heroes into being superheroes at low level. To me, that was when D&D started to take on a video game/anime aspect.
Count me among the old guys that started playing in earnest with 2e and loved the splat books (had becmi boxed sets first, but never really played them much before 2e came out)
The psionics handbook was the most unique offering in the series, and definitely deserves a video. Everyone either loved it or hated it, there was no in between
Oh wow - I've only ever heard positive things about it, as I mentioned in the video. But that does sound like it deserves further exploration. Thanks!
...and required for the Dark Sun setting. ;-)
@daddyrolleda1
Some people really hate psionics.
I mostly just loved it for Dark Sun.
I loved it as it gave me a "magic" system that wasn't Vancian, but nearly everyone I olayed D&D with hated it. I also loved Dark Sun more than anyone else in my local D&D community.
Yep, I have most of these, as well as the blue book, black book, and green book versions. Did videos on all of 'em that I have, such that it is. For all the 'splat' as many see them, I propose that they helped deepen the crunch so that later editions were cleaner, smoother, and sharper. There's still a lot of use in them if one is willing to make use of them. 'course, that too, is merely my opinion.
That Superman box set is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. Nice gift!
Yes, it was so cool! I have the entire score on CD but this presentation is so cool and the sound on vinyl is just fantastic (one might say "SUPER").
I absolutely loved this series of books and they bring forth a deep nostalgia for me. Thanks for looking into them! I'm really happy I kept at least most of these.
Thanks for the rec of “When We Were Wizards”! Looks cool.
It's really great - hope you enjoy it. And thank for watching and commenting!
Same. It really shined a light on the early days. although I do feel that they kind of cut it off a little too early, they should have had one more follow-up episode of what happened to everybody into the 90s and 2000s.
I remember finally getting the Complete Thieve's Handbook. That combined with the many Dragon mag articles about Theives Guilds structure, maps, items and such was fantastic. My favorite and second to oldest original character was a thief with a bard flare (I was flirting with going Bard back in 1E). He started a thieves guild of his own supported by the beggars guild and it was just a great roleplaying experience. Which is what the game can give you. Anyhoo, I feel like all of these are worth exploring. You are always very evenhanded in your videos so I think you'd give a fair shake to all of them. Great content as usual.
I really appreciate your compliments and I'm so happy you enjoy my videos. Thanks for taking the time to write the comment to let me know.
I remember quite a few Dragon magazine articles on Thieves as well! Those were always so much fun! My third PC was an AD&D 1E multi-class Dwarf Fighter/Thief and I really enjoyed playing him, so those articles were always helpful to me!
Are you going to do a video on the different historical human culture settings splatbooks? There was a Celtic (Irish) one, Norse (Viking) One, probably a few others I didn't read.
My heart resides in 2e. I have almost collected all these. But it seems there is always another!
Please cover the Player's Options too!
I can definitely add those to the list, even though I never collected or played them.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Combat and tactics. Spells and Magic. Tome of Magic. Those were a necessity during the end of 2nd
@iugoeswest
They were only ncessary if people played 2.5.
@@Grimlore82 The Option books were controversial. Mainly because S&P. It's not well thought out or play tested. It's possible to make a priest that can cast every mage spell from all 8 main spell schools in full armor, with priest HP, & without any of the Wizard drawbacks or requiring spell books.
S&M revised a lot of S&P & has a lot of really good content, but it also ups the power level of casters. DM's need to carefully think out what they want to allow.
C&T is mostly very good. I don't care for some of it, but on the whole I really like it.
@@iugoeswest I used the equipment tables in huge cities were trade was very diverse. Then those crit tables. Organized by weapon type, and type of target. Those were rad. Although, I never used those combat rules. Veeery crunchy. Not to mention grid dependent.
These were fun back in the day. There was a bard kit that allowed for a multiclass Half-Elf Bard/Ranger. People now take it for granted but that was a big deal at the time. It meant you could be a decent fighter, got 6/8 of the thief skills, and could cast arcane and a bit of divine magic. Made for the ultimate fill in or backup character for whatever the party needed at the moment. I had a lot of fun with such a generalist character at a time that didn't really allow for that otherwise.
I always love seeing these books, I have great affection for them. Not every one is a winner, but they were so many great ideas in them. Especially the Thief's handbook. If you want to do deep dives on these, that would be great. Especially the blue and green series!
Finally, my edition getting some love!
Have all of these but the setting specific (iirc they made a gladiator one for Dark Sun and a Sha'ir one for Al-Qadim.
Yes, there's Gladiator, Sha'ir, and also Spacefarer's for Spelljammer.
My first CRPG was a cd-rom with Darksun: shattered lands, and Al-Qadim: the genie's curse- really cool settings! But I never got to check out any of the books..
I love the detailed deep dives. I think going through all of them in detail would be great. It is funny you mentioned Grognardia. I have been reading that Blog for years.
Would have loved to have seen some of the OP elf kits you had briefly mentioned. I remember my group banning some of them from use when I was younger. Great video!
Thank you so much! I appreciate you watching and commenting!
I can certainly add a more detailed look into these to my list of potential future topics. Today's video is a deep-dive into the Complete Book of Necromancers!
So cool you mentioned William O' Connors. One of his Ravenloft adventures (Web of Illusion) resulted in the TPK of my first 2E campaign. As it turns out, my old group is getting together in 3 weeks, and we're finally giving it a second try after nearly 30 years.
I’m looking forward to this one! Will be listening on my walk this afternoon
Thank you so much! I really hope you enjoy it! It was a ton of work to put together and I actually exceeded the time limit on the video of the size I'm allowed to export from my editing service and I had to content them to do me a one-time favor to export it for me!
@@daddyrolleda1 it’s super cool they let you do that.
It was... but it was a "one time exception." I didn't realize that the plan I am on (I have to pay for the software) now has a new limit of a maximum of a 2-hour video that can be exported. That was a new restriction but I didn't discover until I went to export it and it's 2 hours and 14 minutes. So I began panicking because I spent hours yesterday editing it and wasn't relishing the idea of trying to figure out how to cut out ~15 minutes so it'd be sub-2 hours. I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask them what I could do and the person offered to export it for me. And now going forward I just need to know that I have to limit my videos to 2 hours.
100% a deep dive into what was new and how it expanded how people played the classes and races etc.
Deep dives! And the green books!
I thought about bringing out my Green Books to show that I could also talk about them, but this video was so long already! But I'll add them to the list.
I fully support you going through the entire series. I feel like a general overview, like you usually do, giving us the highlights would be good. And feel free to give us your take as well, if you have particular thoughts on a subject. You do a good job of both reviewing the material for those who know nothing about it, but also allowing them to pick up the material themselves if they want to know more. Your takes offer a perspective on the material from someone who has been in the hobby a long time, and are also interesting to hear about, imho.
Thanks for the video! Some of the setting material from those books is good fodder for DMs to flesh out campaign settings of their own. The thieves' guild portion in particular comes to mind. I didn't spend much time with 2E beyond the core books which I set aside after a few years and stuck with the 1E AD&D games I was still running anyway. It got a little book-heavy for my tastes.
Happy B-Day, of course, and I am sure I said so on FB, but I fell behind on the videos a bit. Happy Autumn, too! Punkin' Al was my nickname in college. 😜
I do have five of the seven green cover 2E historical D&D books which I vowed to only collect from "the wild" (not online such as eBay). I only pick up NM copies and only if it includes the map which has to be attached.
Thank you very much for the B-day wishes (and yes, you did kindly extend me birthday greetings on FB as well). And, yes, I think the Thieves' Guild portion of the Complete Thief's Handbook is a perfect example of how fun, creative, and useful these books could be. But as you said, they were kind of all over the place.
Thanks as always for your support, Punkin' Al!
I only have three... "A Mighty Fortress" and "Charlemagen's Paladins" which I got as gifts from my mom when they first came out. I came across the Crusades book in the used section of my local shop years ago (same place where I found a VG+ boxed set of the World of Greyhawk, with maps, for $10!!!). People sadly figured out what kinds of treasures the shop had and snapped up most of the really good stuff, and then the shop sold the rest of it to a collector. Their used section is now just full of 4E and 1990's era White Dwarf, etc.
Great video, I’m so glad to get a look into these. I’ve been looking to run Dark Sun & I think I’ll be needing the Complete Psionics book.
The Complete Psionicists Handbook was one of my favorite. My DM at the time let me play one, and I loved it, though he didn’t make it further than level 3. Death was pretty common in his games. Plus that book was formatted extremely well. Loved it.
When I started DMing in 3e, I loved using its psionics system, too (especially the 3.5 update, though I don’t have the original 3e version as much as most). Loved it so much, I was a playtester for the Mind’s Eye web articles.
But I may have never even bothered buying psionic stuff in 3e had I not been exposed to it with the 2e splat book.
I was lucky to be working well enough as a teen to get the "Complete... " series as they came out.
A deep dive of them all would be nice, keep it under an hour 😀
When you get to the green campaign source books, a little bit of "this is real history, this is fake hiatory" as we knew it at the time could be interesting. I found the green and grey ones pretty good.
I will add this to the list of potential future topics! I quite liked the Green Historical books but I only ever got three in physical format (the rest as PDFs, years later). I don't seem to recall the grey ones, though. I only remember Brown, Blue, and Green, plus some odd colors for Dark Sun (Gladiators) and Al Qadim (Sha'ir's).
2e is the best e
Facts
Agree to disagree.
A poet (bard) and don't know it, heh.
😁
Like another commenter said, do the Green books and the blue books as well. I consider them all part of the same series.
2 interesting points from the video. The first being these kits lacking flavor bc they aren't tied to a campaign setting. That is a good insight. I wonder if these books would've done better to be tied into the forgotten realms so each kit could reference and be part of that lore.
The second observation is that all of the book users would immediately turn to the "powers" each kit receives and only pick the best ones. Thats not what i did, but I think it does clarify 2 categories of gamers. Those in it for the role playing and playing a peasant hero would have some appeal, and those looking for their power ups who will just take the cavalier every time due to the benefits.
Great vid as usual Martin. Happy Birthday!
Thank you so much for all of these comments, and for the birthday wishes. They are very much appreciated!
There were a few setting-specific handbooks that were very similar to these but for a setting, such as Gladiators and Sha'ir's for Dark Sun and Spacefarer's for Spelljammer. But yes, I suspect something like a "Complete Harper's Handbook" would have sold gangbusters!
Thanks again!
The psionics hand book was the best. Very cool like one of the other commenters said it gives you another magic type system that was not Vancian. And it was way better than the crazy 1st edition psioncis that no one ever agreed on how it worked.
We never used the 1E Psionics system! So nutty! I think it turned me off enough that I wasn't interested in checking out the 2E version, but I've definitely heard good things.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Omg. Two hours in and you mention All Stag Games in DB. That was my game stores back in the day. Used to go there three times a week. Miss that place so much. 😅
Great video! Much thanks from a massive 2E enjoyer. Happy birthday! 🥳🥳🥳
Many hate on the 2E "splatbooks". That they are "bloat". The dumb thing is that if the DM doesn't like them then they don't have to use them. Easy.
2E is the most modular D&D system there is. A DM can run it as simple as B/X or Basic. If the DM wants they can run 2E with only the core books with all the options added in. Then again if they want they can dump it all on with all the optional books. Good times.
The "splatbooks" are 2Es special sauce IMHO. I have all of them but "Of Ships and the Sea". Still have not put down the loot for it and I never bought it back in the day.
2E 4 LIFE! 🤘🤘🤘
a magic user kit i came up with back in the 90s was an Elementalist, quick summary, you get 1 extra elemental based spell per day, opponets get -1 saving throw modifier, but you can only learn elemental spells. and i swear its not an evoker lol mostly because i made the assumption you'd be able to learn to summon elementals and what not.
It's serendipitous. As of late, I've been rounding out my collection of the "Complete" series. All that's left of players books for me is "The Ninja's." 2e is still my favorite version, personally. Though, I haven't ran or played it much of late. I don't think 2e gets much focus, and I love to hear folks talk about it, whether I agree with their opinions or not. And chances are, there may be some new insight or info to glean. I think it's a goldmine of conversation.
I had thought of using kits to develop 5e backgrounds, but I am way to lazy. Love what you do.
Thank you so much for the compliment! I really appreciate it!
I bet you could find a list of 2E kits online that you could then slightly tweak for 5E if you wanted. I really like the *idea* of Backgrounds for 5E, but creating them from scratch takes so much work with all the different personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws. I love creating stuff like that, but I feel like it would start to get really difficult to make them all distinct. For the "Alchemy, Explosions & Inventions" book I wrote for Old School Essentials, I had begun working on turning the three new classes I'd created into 5E Backgrounds. I don't play a lot of 5E so it was slow going and it took me a few days just to make one for the Alchemist, at which point I decided to set it aside.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it!
this is super cool, i didnt know i wanted this video/series
2nd edition is still my favourite version of the game. I embraced these handbooks back in the day. As the DM it was a pain to drag all of those handbooks..rulebooks..and other supplements to game day lol. I rarely played at home in those days of old. I did go through all the handbooks and highlighted kits that the players had access to. Some of the kits were definitely more powerful then others.
I think it would be fun to do a full video on the different unarmed fighting systems in d&d. You got the pummeling tables in the 1st ed dmg, the O.A., the 1nd ed pummeling tables, the priest's, the fighter's, the ninja's, and that's just 1st and 2nd ed. There's probably more I'm forgetting.
Personal opinion, the O.A. had the best martial arts system than any other d&d edition.
That's a fun idea for a potential future topic! I will add it to the list.
Thank you so much for watching and sharing your idea!
1:17:41 About Tall Tales of the Wee Folk, its name can be misleading - while some of the playable options it describes are indeed small - pixies and brownies for example - it’s more geared towards faerie folk and forest races in general, including Sidhe, Pooka and even some large races such as Treants and Centaurs.
Thanks for the details on that! I appreciate it! And, thank you for watching and commenting. Cheers!
As a child of the 2nd ed, I used to love these books! I remember particularly enjoying the kits from the Sha'ir's Handbook (even though I never played in the Al-Qadim setting) + the Ninja handbook.
Also - even though it's not in the "handbook" line - I loved the chronomancer subclass published in 1995. Always wanted to try it.
I would like a video per book here. Not sure I have a preference over your opinion vs mechanics. Both are fun. I definitely enjoy the history lessons about the hobby.
Heck yeah! 2e coverage! That’s so rare to see on UA-cam
The Ninja's Handbook updates the Martial Arts system from Oriental Adventures into 2e.
Really enjoy Your Content and Style..
Would like to see You do a Series on the Complete Handbooks..
I have a few of Them and would be interested to hear Your take on Them..
And which Ones I should Pursue..
Thanks again for all Your hard work that You do to make These very Informative Videos..
I know very little of editions outside 1e, so thanks. I’ll watch this in chunks as it’s very long.
Happy birthday my friend!
Thank you so much for the birthday wishes, and for the support! I truly appreciate it!
I'm running 2e now and I would love to hear a deep dive on these handbooks. I would really appreciate hearing what content from these books you think is worth adding to each class.
I still had memories of almost drowning in the minutia of the Dungeoneer's and Wilderness Survival Guides, so I passed on these. Except for the Psionics one. I was too big of a X-Men fan not to indulge in telepath and pyrokinetic characters.
And happy birthday, Martin.
1:13:23 that's how we always pronounced it. Spot on.
I have almost all of the 2E splat books. Some of them were indeed cheesy/munchkin, but they also covered a lot of material that allowed you to play fantasy tropes not previously covered by the game. I really enjoyed them at the time and even today - almost 25 years after I last played 2E - they’re inspiring.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on all the splatbooks from the perspective of someone I see as more of an OSR devote.
I'd be especially interested on your takes on the psionics (it was so left field to us back in the day).
I'd also be interested in the races books. Again, kind of a huge change from some old school ideas.
I didn't really play 2e much, I never had any of the Complete guides, but I do have the Creative Campaigning guide, which I reread from time to time no matter what game I'm playing.
Yes, for sure! I only have it as a PDF, but it is full of lots of great ideas. Another book from the "blue" DMGR series I know folks have a fondness for is Campaign Sourcebook & Catacomb Guide. It gets a lot of positive attention on Twitter and such.
Thanks for watching and commenting, as always!
Thanks, DRA1! Our group has played AD&D 1E exclusively since ‘83/84. However, we use the 2e Monstrous Compendium when our PCs reach 5/6th level.
Giants, Dragons and “tanar’i” (Blech) deserve to be tougher than the 1E Monster Manual.
Specialty wizards were in the 2e PHB (2ePHB p31) with the school outlines and restrictions. As was Priests of Specific Mythoi (2ePHB p34) and the concept of spheres along with the effects of greater and lesser access to those spheres.
Specialty wizard was most of the time a power gamer move for me as you could start with an extra spell slot. Doubling your magical ability at first level.
Thanks! I always like these books but we mostly played 2e like 1e, so never used any kits and didn’t use NWP much.
I agree that the Bard book is awesome, I think it’s the one I still have. I liked the Fighter one fine but was so disappointed in the rest of the first 4.
Thank you so much for your support, and for watching! I really appreciate it. I really liked a lot of the world-building stuff in the first four (developing a thieves' guild, creating a faith/pantheon, etc.) and I felt a lot of that world-building stuff got less and less useful in many of the later books (with the exception of the Druid and Barbarian ones, as I mentioned). It's fun to hear what folks did or didn't like about these books.
If you do plan to make this a series I would argue you should also do the DMGR, HR, and CGR lines as well. Although if each book gets its own video that would be 34 videos, and maybe too much to do.
The Tinker class gets a 2e update in Tales of the Lance pages 81, & 93-94.
Happy Birthday!
Thank you so much! I truly appreciate it!
The kit reminded me of archtypes in shodow run and lesser the battle tech role play game
2nd edition was the addition that introduced me to Dungeons & dragons. I have a fair number of these complete books from second edition, but not all of them.
I'd like to see your take on them, you don't need to go into ad nauseam detail. It's not like these books are unavailable, even secondhand. they printed a lot of these books and they're still out there. I'm pretty sure you can get all of them in PDF by now as well.
I loved these books at the time. Between me and my friends we had several of them. The bindings were awful and the books fell apart very quickly.
I had the Complete Arms and Armor book (blue cover with silver lettering) which had illustrations of all the different armors and swords, polearms, etc, which I really liked. We didn't have much of an internet back then to look this stuff up!
Back in 1996 our 2e game started to go downhill once everyone bought splat books and kept bringing new abilities and rules with their new characters. It just got too convoluted. It was the Players Option hardbacks (namely Skills & Powers) that really did it though. They were fun to read though.
Grognard was a term of endearment from Napolean to his veteran troops
Oh, totally! It always makes me sad that, for many people, it has a negative association these days, considering its origins!
@@daddyrolleda1 I also don't like that the people that negative connotation applies to, wear it as a badge of honor.
Please do an overview of the Blue (GM) series as well. and the Green(historical) and Black lines
I hope you had a happy birthday!
Thank you so much! I really appreciate that!
And, thank you for watching and commenting!
The Barbarian book is by far the most expensive one of these books. I have no cares for anything D&D related after 2e. Thanks for the share!!
Of the brown books maybe. In the blue books "Of the Ships and the Sea" and "The Complete Necromancers Handbook" both go for about $100 to $250.
By the 4th printing (1994) the Bard's Handbook had the misprint fixed on the cover to PHBR 7
Deep dive please, the only splat books I bought was Thieves and fighter. I would like to see what I missed.
I will add them to the list of potential future topics! I just posted a deep dive on "The Complete Book of Necromancers" today - I hope you enjoy it! Thanks for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel. Cheers!
I still have at least 10 of them and the spell cards and the Monsterous Compendium among others
2e is what diverted me away from fantasy RPGs. I can't recall what it was exactly that turned me off. But with age comes forgiveness, and I like to learn more about the things I dismissed or disliked when I was younger. Thank you for your detailed takes on these older products.
3 e did it for me but WoC were the cause
I want to see everything, especially advanced 2nd edition
Good to know!
Today's video should hopefully appeal to you - it's a deep dive into the 2E Complete Book of Necromancers. Hope you enjoy it, and thanks for watching and commenting!
I've often wondered why it was called The Complete Thief's Handbook instead of Rogue? Being a 2e product. Happy Happy Joy Joy!!!
I bought several of the chap books back in the day but my 2E playing was never very long so I did not use them much.
I would love to learn which kits and new rules broke the system or were completely OP. Then maybe a "bonus" episode detail one or two of the more insane multi-kit builds.
It seems to me that a system where sometimes rolling low is good, as opposed to a system where it is always desirable to roll high would tend to be a subtle built in way to automatically discourage players from using loaded dice.
I've been thinking about a post for a few days. I started watching a guy on Mystara, Mr Welsh, after this channel mentioned Mystara.
I think its a great setting where there is a good history, established factions, established religions, and its a mix of history like factions but not actually historical. So a DM doesn't have to build a complete setting, but also has room for personal cults and the players are supposed to actually be the cause of effects in the setting, without beginning as a super tough hero.
I think the game of D&D outside of the Becmi line kind of lost that. Its why the game has a small window of being fun and fhen it gets to be boring and fizzles out. Although i think the immortal game never took off, just like I dont think mass combat ever did. Although i find the rules for both seemingly unplayable.
I also the non-weapon proficiencies was a disaster in BECMI but they could be settled with using the ability modifier, the modifier of skill level, an equipment modifier and then rolling against a target number. Although i like crafting in video games i find it incredibly boring in ttrpgs unless its fast tracked. Although Mystara does have a functional calender and it can be used to simply mark off crafting days without the process being a complete pain or boring
What was the podcast where they read the minutes of Gary getting fired?
It's called "When We Were Wizards": open.spotify.com/show/7pcZ1tc0riPb1IarAXnIqS (that's the Spotify link obviously but you can just search it up however you prefer to listen to podcasts).
The specific thing in question with the actors reading the minutes of the meeting were Gary was pushed out is one of the last episodes - either 13 or 14 I believe (out of a total of 14 episodes), but the entire thing is worth listening to.
@@daddyrolleda1 Thank you sir
23:12 "R" is for "reference book" iirc
Thank you! I appreciate it!
Thanks!
Thank you so much for your support! I really appreciate it!
We used to roleplay star wars in second life with Stackpole.
High level rules are varied & scattered:
Dragonlance Adventures p13, most lvl 19+ get yeeted
Cormanthyr Empire of Elves p.9&12 to lvl 25 for elf warriors & 30 for elf wizards
Forgotten Realms Adventures p7-8 spells to lvl 30
Wizard's Spell Comp. 1 p142 mage spells to lvl 30
DM Option: High-Level Campaigns p142-179 to lvl 30
Dragon Kings to lvl 30
The Complete Wizard's Handbook to lvl 32
Set 4: Master Rules to lvl 36
Rules Cyclopedia to lvl 36
Villain's Lorebook p6 THAC0 & spells to lvl 40
Faiths & Avatars p22 THAC0 & spells to lvl 40
Powers & Pantheons p6 THAC0 & spells to lvl 40
Demihuman Deities p4 THAC0 & spell to lvl 40
Netheril: Empire of Magic p18-22 to lvl 45
H4 The Throne of Bloodstone, stupid rules to lvl 100
Heroes:
Legends & Lore p10
Divine Ascension:
Set 5: Immortals Rules
DM Option: High-Level Campaigns p179
Faiths & Avatars p4, 159
Legends & Lore p10
Priests Spells Compendium 3 p780
City by the Silt Sea p89-90
Specialty mages are in the PHB, they didn't debut in the Wizard's Handbook.
This is true.
Wish 5e would break down the classes better like they did in 2nd e with these complete handbooks
I stopped playing D&D around when they introduced 2e. We were starting to sour on D&D in general because there were a lot more interesting RPGs being made at the time. I think we were playing Rifts then Cyberpunk 2020 in the late 80s, early 90s.
17:58 Mercenary was published in 1978.
Needed a distraction. Thanks!
I hope this helps! Sorry you're needing a distraction but I hope all is well. Thanks for watching!
@@daddyrolleda1 recent sub from FL. We have a hurricane entering the Gulf and my house is barely in the "cone of uncertainty," (doesn't that sound like an old DND spell or maybe a breath weapon?) and I have been listening to too much weather. This video definitely helped give my mind a break from the real world stress.
@@radyoung779 Sending you lots of positive thoughts. I hope everything works out okay. All my best...
the thing about clerics and how they should act. That doesn't happen in a polytheistic world. If you were the Greeks getting ready to attack Troy, you would make sacrifices to your own gods and to the Trojan gods as you would want to gain their favor. So the generic Cleric should be versed in the worship of many gods, which makes sense considering the btb spell list.
didn't the first printing of the wizard handbook have a weird typing quirk where every instance of the word "damage" was listed as "dawizard"? like, someone at TSR got a memo that mage had to be changed to wizard and sloppily typed over every instance of mage, or was that something i made up
I can't guarantee that I have a 1st printing, but I got mine pretty early on and I checked and my printing doesn't have that problem. I couldn't find anybody mentioning it, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen!
Thank you for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 yeah I'm not an expert on 2e, that was just something i heard years ago and thought was funny, and I was wondering if there was any sort of truth to that
happy belated borfday
I own all of them except the Necromancers handbook.
Barbarian = $$
The first splat books were the arduin grimiore zines
I can see that point. I tend to think of them as "fan supplements" versus "splat books" but that's probably just splitting hairs in terminology.
Thank you for watching and commenting!
Some additional books I personally lump into the Complete series even though they aren't in the brown covers Complete series are:
Chronomancer
The Complete Gladiator's Handbook
The Complete Necromancers Handbook
Sages & Specialists
The Complete Sha'ir's Handbook
Shaman
The Complete Spacefarer's Handbook
If you think these kits are bland, wait till you get to the ones in Skills & Powers!
Yeah, I never played with Skills & Powers but I understand they condense all the kits so that any kit can be played by any class, which then by extension would mean that some of the class-specific flavor is removed.
1:34:19 someone has to be the main character 😎.
You missed that pheasant hero is limited in the number of mage items thats the reason i never played one that dm handed out a lot of low level items and very few high level it a good way to play but have half to a thrif magic items in that hames would get you killed
11:45 Lol, I am one of those crazies, not a fan of the Cleric class myself and I don’t think it is essential to the game - we just got used to it
You do such a good job covering the subject. But you should consider breaking the videos into shorter offerings to reach more viewers. The article from Dragon Magazine would have been enough material for one video. Each splat could be one. Keep up the good work. :)
I really appreciate that feedback. In the early days of my channel, my videos were around 20 minutes or so, but slowly began creeping up in length. And the feedback I got from a few folks was that they really liked the longform content because they tend to just put it on and then listen while they are doing something else.
I've gone back and forth on whether I should make more, but shorter, videos but I don't want to alienate the folks who really enjoy the ~90 minutes videos.
Again, I really appreciate your feedback, and thank you so much for watching and commenting. Cheers!
The Monstrous Traits in the Humanoids book are broken. It makes it possible to have a brand new level 1 character start with 25 Strength (the 2e max). I had a player try to do that to me. That was a quick no.
i have many of these, but not all. Sadly
I believe most of them are available as PDFs on DMSGuild and/or DriveThruRPG and you might be able to get PODs as well.
Thank you for watching and commenting!
I would argue Unearthed Arcana was not optional, it was an official part of the game.