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Results for Rating Form #1: Complete Handbooks
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Compiled by: brooks@odie.ee.wits.ac.za (Goth)
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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
------- ----- --- ---- ------
The Complete Bard's Handbook (PHBR7) 7.2 0 10 57
The Complete Fighter's Handbook (PHBR1) 6.9 1 10 87
The Complete Thief's Handbook (PHBR2) 6.7 2 10 82
The Complete Druid's Handbook 6.4 0 10 33
The Complete Psionics Handbook (PHBR5) 6.3 0 10 72
The Complete Book of Elves (PHBR8) 6.3 0 10 58
The Complete Ranger's Handbook (PHBR11) 6.1 0 10 47
The Complete Book of Humanoids (PHBR10) 5.9 0 10 64
The Complete Wizard's Handbook (PHBR4) 5.8 1 9 78
The Complete Book of Dwarves (PHBR6) 5.8 0 10 59
The Complete Paladin's Handbook 5.6 0 10 38
The Complete Book of Gnomes/Half. (PHBR9) 5.3 0 10 42
The Complete Priest's Handbook (PHBR3) 4.5 0 9 76
The Complete Barbarian's Handbook 4.0 0 7 6
========
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 the Complete Handbooks
-----------------------------------------
The Complete Handbooks are generally very useful and enjoyable to
read but they do have a tendency to unbalance the classes.
The Handbooks that I have are good, but the Wizard's HB is a bit dry
(in terms of actual campaign use), and the kits in the Fighter's HB
don't match the other classes in terms of free powers/NWPs/etc.
The Complete Handbooks definitely add a great deal of depth to
character creation, without simply adding power. No one I play with
now would play a standard "generic" character anymore, not when they
have the chance to create a specific type, and customize it to taste.
The weakest of the lot is the Complete Priest. Most of the character
of a non-cleric AD&D 2nd Ed. priest comes from her god. Hell, ALL of
it comes from their god. The specialty priest rules already cover
everything you might want to add from the Complete Priest.
Kits are a fun addition to 2nd Edition AD&D but other than that the
Complete Handbooks are pretty skimpy. The Fighter's has some good new
combat rules and the the Thief's has some great new items to spice up
a thief-oriented campaign.
On the Complete Handbooks: Your character gets more depth with the
kits.
The Handbooks are getting to be a little useless, but, hey, you get
what you pay for...
Why do TSR insist on bringing so many useless kits into play? My
impression of this series of books is that people only tend to use
the benefits and not the penalties. Example: How many fighters before
the Fighters Handbook came out had an INT score over 10? Not many, I
bet. All the good stats went on STR, DEX and CON. But now you see
many a fighter with a high INT score so that he can get more
proficencies to gain such abilities as two-handed fighting or
fighting with two weapons the same length. I bet all fighters now
wear a great helm as this gives a -1 AC bonus, but how many check
this against their encumberance?
In my opinion, most of the Handbooks and Complete Handbooks,
especially where they only give advice on how to make this kind of
character, or what to do if you want to, etc, are counter-productive.
They restrain the imagination of myself and my players, and as such,
I not only avoid them myself, but I very distinctly tell the players
to avoid them to.
Most of these were lacking somewhat, particularly the Gnomes book.
In general, TSR needs to clear up contradictions. They should use the
same format in each of the books. The Complete Thief's Handbook looks
like it was printed by a totally different company. I realize there
would be some differences between classes, but common stuff (like
kits) should come first and use the same description in the same way.
The books are consistently mediocre -- for that reason I have stopped
buying them.
Almost all facts about the orient in the Fighter's and Wizard's
Handbooks are completely mis-stated. The bo is a staff; a bokken is
a wooden sword; samurai were considered such only upon receiving a
stippend from a lord, else they were ronin. (I cannot make it appear
in the text but the "o" in "ronin" should have a "-" above it. In
eastern languages, vocal inflection is the foundation.) Few were the
samurai that had any sence of etiquette. Almost all warriors in the
east were specialized to a certain degree in melee weapons; most
either chose the sword or the spear. Archers were only used for war
combat. Most didn't ever wear armor unless a pre-determined battle
was about to take place.
Some very good material here and there in the handbooks, although
some major mistakes as well (the CPsiHB is the most notorious for
having material that is not thought through very well).
The Fighter's and Thief's books can be useful. The Priest's book is
bull because of the power level is far too low, much lower than
regular clerics. The Dwarves and Elves books are actually fine
reading, and of course the Psionics book is a must.
The first two were pretty good, they added a lot more detail to
otherwise generic classes. Kits I think were a good idea. I didn't
like the new martial arts system though -- too generic. Priest's was
rather contradictory. In other products, like the Forgotten Realms
Adventures, priests were heavily boosted.
As a whole, I like the books (except Wiz which was way too
undeveloped) However, as the exchange rate is something else, it
takes a hell of a long time before I can afford them. I mostly use
them for ideas and character generation (duh!!).
Except for the fighters handbook, this explanation holds true for all
those handbooks rated 8 [CTH, CBoD, CBH, CBoE & CRH]. I felt that the
authors of these handbooks left some material out to fit it into
their preestablished parameters. Most or all of the material, while
useful, was simply expanding upon things already introduced either in
the Player's Handbook or left out from the first edition. To me this
meant that everything that wasn't good enough to get into the
Player's Handbook was being recycled to fill space, and I didn't want
to pay for that. However, the information *was* useful, and the kits
were well done and balanced. The handbooks just didn't seem to
introduce anything *new*.
The main problem with the existing PHBR series is that a great number
of the books in the series are now quite a few years old. Take a look
at the Fighter's and Wizard's Handbooks to name but two. With this in
mind perhaps some update is in order, incorporating new kits,
weaponry, spells and abilities where appropriate.
What can I say, I like playing halfling thieves and fighters. I
bought the Thief's Handbook first and found it excellent. I looked
forward to the Fighter's handbook but was disappointed. It's a useful
reference tool, and we use the style specializations but I think it
could have been much more. Certainly nothing there I could feel warm
and fuzzy about. I read the Book of Dwarves and the Ranger's Handbook
and enjoyed them, the halfling demi-ranger looked interesting. The
Wizard's and the Priest's Handbook were awful. Nothing in either of
those that made me want to play a spell caster. Keep the Walking Cure
Light Wounds Dispensers and burn the rest...
I think TSR needs an orcish handbook myself. [Guess who!]
Higher ratings are given to the books I consult more often. The
Psi book I consider essential because it duplicates nothing from the
basic set and I think Psionics is an important feature to an RPG. Two
points are deducted from the perfect score the book should have for
present-day incompleteness (Will and the Way really overhauled the
thing) and egregious typos - crummy formatting. All of the other
handbooks I consider less important than the psionics book, therefore
none could match or exceed its rating. The Fighter book had a lot of
interesting stuff about combat; the others were comparatively
uselessly fluffy -- I like writing fluff; I don't like reading TSR's
fluff (they don't write as well as I do). [Signed "Modestly..."]
While the number of typos in most of these books is distressing (I
expect more from my child), I often find a great deal of thought
provoking ideas contained within the covers. I especially liked the
elf, halfling, gnome, and dwarf books since they combined a lot of
material within one set of covers. I haven't picked up the humanoids,
bards, paladins, or barbarians books yet (finances) but will probably
do so in the near future.
There are way too many books, (for example, the ranger, the paladin,
and the barbarian should be in the fighter's book), the kits repeat
and a lot of the kits are really nothing more than roleplaying ideas.
In my playing group, we have each bought one book, and we share them,
even then I am not sure it's money well spent.
The Complete Fighter's Handbook (PHBR1)
---------------------------------------
The kits are uninspired, the weapon/armour making rules a tedious
waste of pages, and the new magical items blase. However, the new
weapons can add a bit of life to your fighters, with or without the
kits (you CAN have a personality without special rules for it, you
know), and the new combat rules are great. I try not to run
number-heavy combat, but I encourage the players to try moves more
exciting than "I hit him with the axe again.". These rules give me a
footing for adjudicating it when they try something cinematic. Both
my players and I love the Style Specializations, and Group
Specializations, permitting us to make characters more specialized
or generalized as we choose.
This handbook was weak. Just weak. It could have been spiced up a
little more, but the authors didn't spend enough time with their
first handbook. The kits were alright, and the additions to skills
were okay, but it was still weak.
Very good. Makes combat better and helps avoid the 'generic fighter'
trap.
Lots of useful and fun optional rules. Good kits. Probably the best
of the CxHB series (excluding the Psionics Handbook).
A lot of the stuff on combat and melee maneuvers is nice to have, and
makes the book worthwhile. The kits though, do not, and there are way
too many contradictions in this one with the Players Handbook and DMG
that cater to the munchkin players. (Allowing anyone to wield TWO
longswords at once with no penalty is the stupidest thing I've ever
seen.)
A bit of good solid mech, but dull, dull and duller, and redundant
kits.
I would have rated this a 9 or 10, except the cover came completely
off. Contentwise, I was very happy with the new optional rules. This
wasn't simply a rehash of things left out from first edition. The
tight and broad groups and fighting styles, I felt, added greatly to
the customizing of the previously simple fighter. I use it almost all
the time, which may explain why the cover fell off. But I use other
handbooks as much and they didn't lose their jackets.
Fighters handbook is almost a required buy for any character class.
The Fighter's Handbook has a lot of great combat rules useful for any
class.
Good combat rules and additional weapon proficencies.
A disappointment but a useful reference.
The Complete Fighter's Handbook is the best one I've seen, is useful
for _any_ type of character, and is the most "Complete" Handbook I've
read.
The Fighter's book has useful reference material, I go back to
it time after time.
The Complete Thief's Handbook (PHBR2)
-------------------------------------
The CTHB adds equipment I would never have thought of to thieves'
tools, and has some rules for using this equipment in the game.
This was perhaps the biggest turn-down of the Complete Handbook
series. It sucked. Just sucked. The only thing that didn't suck that
bad was the new equipment list, and that was still a moderate to okay
thing.
Useful if you like thieves, and want to have lots of equipment,
organized thieves' guild, etc.
If you want to play a thief; want to run good thieves; want anything
to do with thieves. This book is great! Ideas and items that I might
not have thought of, or if I had would have been unsure on how to
design them. Don't know about the kits though, didn't buy it for
them, so I never really read them.
Very nicely written, but there's always so much more to tell about
thieves, why was it so thin?
Adds good NW proficencies and specific items.
The best occupational Handbook produced.
The Complete Priest's Handbook (PHBR3)
--------------------------------------
The CPHB seems unfinished, a more complete work would have raised the
rating a few steps, especially if they had included the spheres from
the Tome of Magic.
Some of the info on creation of pantheons is useful, if you happen to
be creating your own world, but the rest of the book is pretty much
useless.
This has limited usefulness; anyone with a decent imagination doesn't
really need this book.
Not much use to me personally, as I run a strict Forgotten Realms
campaign, but if you want to make up your own faiths, this book would
appear to be very helpful.
The Priest's Handbook was not at all what I expected compared to the
others (no new spells mainly). It could have been much better.
A few things are useful, the expanded listing of gods and forces was
a waste of space.
This one depowered priests so heavily. My opinion of that changes.
Whose brainstorm was it to fill a player's supplement with sample
priesthoods? The kits are trash, too.
The Priest's Handbook was far too generic and totally uninspiring.
Priest's handbook introduced nothing new. It seemed to be all filler,
with things taken from the Forgotten Realms Adventures hardbound and
made generic, and also things from the player's handbook.
The Priest's Handbook is only useful for DM's creating their own
pantheons and/or specialist priests.
The Complete Priest's Handbook doesn't have much in it but examples
of priests of specific mythos.
I found the Complete Priest's Handbook useful because I was in the
process of fleshing out the religions in my campaign at the time it
came out. When you've got 44 gods kicking around in various places,
each with at least one distinct priesthood, guides like the CPH are
great time-savers. On the other hand, I can see that it would be of
considerably less use for those whose campaign religions were already
set (including those who game in TSR-generated worlds).
The Priest's Handbook is, one of the worst RPG products I've ever had
the misfortune of reading. About all that can be said for it is it
isn't full of typos as TSR's latest productions have been.
The Complete Wizard's Handbook (PHBR4)
--------------------------------------
The CWHB is just not good enough.
I thought this one was a little light in new rules. It was mostly new
spells. There were better handbooks.
This has good kits, new spells, and info on creation of items,
spells, etc. It is quite useful overall, though not as rich in
optional rules as the CFHB.
I didn't like it much. The kits were dull. Nothing really inspiring.
Very colorful, but lacking in useful mech.
Except for a few spells (most of which were brought back from first
edition), nothing really useful was placed in this book. The pages of
tables at the end were worse than useless and seemed to have been
fished out of the editor's trashpile.
Adds a few good wizard kits and describes specialist schools.
The Complete Psionics Handbook (PHBR5)
--------------------------------------
This handbook offered some decent stuff in it. It was a pretty good
addition to the AD&D world, although (to me at least), it seems a
little alien to the world, and is a tad like magic.
Despite posts to the contrary, I have found the psionic rules to be
comprehensive and quite easy to integrate in an existing campaign.
Not unbalancing at all.
The new Psionics is pretty well balanced, and makes for an
interesting class. The book is severely lacking in terms of example
items and creating new powers.
The Psionics handbook should have had a few kits.
I just don't think psionics have any place in a FRPG that relies on
magic for it's paranormalness.
CPHB was a needed expansion of the existing rules. Not for everyone,
but that's what the handbooks should be -- something extra, not
something changed.
The psionics rules are okay but the powers just didn't really grab my
attention.
The Psionics Handbook is ok if you like psionics, and it is quite
new, and therefore a bit necessary.
Perfect, just what I always wanted: the will of the mind...
I give the CPsiHB errata sheet a 10! :)
The Psionics Handbook is a waste. It is WAY too powerful in my
campaigns. All I allow from the book are possible wild talents (the
only good rule I've found in there).
I LOVED psionics. I really like the way they redid psionics. Some
character ideas would have been nice, though.
Interesting mech, but lacking heavily in descriptions and role
playing tips.
The complete Psionicist brought back an ability from first edition,
made it much more playable, and made it a balanced class that didn't
automatically blow the others away. This was, in my opinion, a
wonderful expansion to the 2nd edition rules.
There is a proviso on the rating for the Psionics Handbook - if you
do play with psionics in your campaign, the book is (obviously)
indispensable. If you do not normally play with psionics available,
this book is the rating I have put on it [4].
Is good for only those who use Psionics in their campaign.
Read it and didn't like it, but I don't like psionics.
The Complete Book of Dwarves (PHBR6)
------------------------------------
The CBoD has a few errors I didn't like.
This adds much to the dwarven race. Long live the battleragers!
Dwarves are boring, always will be.
Now I can detail my dwarven kingdom which is the half of one great
continent.
This book had all sorts of useful info, if you want to get some
background for your dwarves (PC or NPC). And plenty of suggestions on
losing the dwarf stereotype. Gives a much better way to run the
dwarven detection proficiencies. It should have had a section on
dwarvish deities. And most, if not all, of the cultural references
failed to take in the gulley dwarves (who definitely should not fit
any of the moulds given). Granted this might be better referenced in
the Dragonlance stuff, but I wanted at least some stuff here to work
with.
Adds some background information.
The Complete Bard's Handbook (PHBR7)
------------------------------------
This was the perfect example of what the PHBR series could be. Taking
a rather uninspired class, they expanded it with good information,
great kits and enough misc. stuff to make me WANT to play a bard.
The Bard's Handbook ROCKS!
Wow! In comparison to all the rest of the handbooks this one was the
best! It had everything it needed to make the bard a more interesting
class to play. The kits were good to excellent, the musical
instruments and the illustrations were excellent! The only thing that
wasn't that cool were the bardic songs in the back. Another cool
thing about this book is that it was the only handbook (to my
knowledge) that had an index in the back. [Correct, although the
Psionics Handbook has a reasonably useful powers index in the
back. - Goth]
The Bard's Handbook is the best by far. The kits are interesting and
expand the class's scope immensely. Well worth the money.
The Bard's Handbook is perhaps over used in our campaigns. I
personally have had 2 jesters, and our party has had another jester,
a blade, a jongleur and another I can't remember. It is great for
kits and the interior artwork is above average.
I love to play the whistler and all the other bards. A lot more depth
to the Class and the way of telling is also good.
Bards... well, bards contained some great ideas, but was rather
munchkin... come on, multiclass bards?
Bard's Handbook is by far one of the best supplements I've ever seen.
(I own about $3000CDN of products for about 15 different RPGs).
Good kits and additional info on NW proficencies.
The Complete Book of Elves (PHBR8)
----------------------------------
Adds much to the race, but tends to allow elves to become too
powerful. The rules here should be used sparingly.
The Elves Handbook had good info, but it made elves even more
hoity-toity than before. Elf-haters REALLY hate this book. If some of
this "fluff" had been removed it would have been better. It was good
reading, but not the kind of stuff I want in a sourcebook.
A waste. Gives munchkins more excuses to play elves.
Elves... oh boy... munchkin city with ten zillion attacks per round.
The insights into elven culture weren't even that insightful.
The Complete Book of Gnomes & Halflings (PHBR9)
-----------------------------------------------
Halflings and Gnomes is the races it has been written the least
about, so this book was fascinating.
I'm especially angry about PHBR9. At least in my version, they almost
never used cursive or boldface headings. Thus large sections of text
are just that... large heaps of letters. It's very difficult to make
out, where a paragraph starts and where a paragraph ends. Also, all
the kits were really boring and uninspired. This book had so much
potential, but what have they
done?!?
This book was not as well done as the other "racial" handbooks, which
was unfortunate, as these two races are the ones I felt we needed
more information about.
The Gnomes and Halflings Handbook ROCKS! Only bad thing was that
svirfneblin were not balanced. And these short folk still really
don't have enough to make up for the inherent disadvantage of being
short!
The Gnomes and Halflings book contains Deep Gnomes, great things to
be if your DM will allow it.
The Complete Book of Gnomes and Halflings was not as detailed as I
expected.
This was a disappointment after the CBD & CBE. Many of the kits are
overpowered, with too few restrictions, especially if you don't
enforce the role-playing aspects.
Adds the necessary depth to those races.
I enjoyed it. Found it a useful reference.
The Complete Book of Humanoids (PHBR10)
---------------------------------------
Humanoids I do not own, but have seen and I like the basic idea.
I felt that this book was unnecessary. There are enough races around
without adding such problematic ones such as minotaurs.
The Humanoids handbook is the worst piece of game-unbalancing filth
yet (pixie and ogre magi PCs indeed!).
Neat concept, but caveat emptor -- if a tough DM isn't in charge,
watch the campaign degenerate into the Hack'n'slasher brutes vs. the
true role-players. Half-orcs in 1st Edition were (IMHO) enough to
give players a chance to be monsters. Handled right though, it could
lead to an interesting campaign.
The Humanoids book could have been renamed the Stereotypes book.
Still, it has one or two interesting ideas.
The Humanoid's Handbook, while unbalancing, adds spice for both DMs
and Players to deal with.
The CBoH was ok. I liked the idea of finally using them as PCs. The
xp penalty idea was better than denying them racial abilities, as
I've seen DMs do. But there was quite a bit of inconsistency.
It is a perfect supplement for Al-Qadim setting. My PCs can now
really play an half-giant Mamluk.
Not for the faint of heart. This book could be great, taken with a
grain of salt, and much supervision. Too many of the races are out of
whack, and the stat maxes they give are totaly screwed up and throw
way too many things out of alignment. The book is good for creating
NPC's but should not be used with impunity for PC's.
Humanoids was rather unbalanced. Some races were invincible, others
were kinda wimpy and lame. No real balance at all.
Interesting and useful for NPC's, even when it got munchkin. Better
for DMs than players.
The Complete Humanoids has become the definitive character's handbook
in my group--everyone wants to be a humanoid of one type or another.
This handbook brought humanoids into the light and made them seem
less wimpy as compared to the usual player characters. I use this
resource to roll up exceptional humanoids for encounters, as well as
rolling up characters for play.
The Humanoid's Handbook is geared toward letting players be monsters.
It could have been better by designing the book more with the DM in
mind.
Not really useful unless you want to play humanoids.
Another book I looked forward to but found disappointing.
I feel the Humanoids is an excellent resource because of its sheer
number of races to choose from.
The Complete Ranger's Handbook (PHBR11)
---------------------------------------
An okay book, but one I felt was unnecessary.
The Ranger's Handbook I've only skimmed, but it seems pretty decent.
All I can say is cartoonish. Not befitting the ranger's noble
profession. (Greenwood Ranger?!?)
Kits are average; adds detail to NW proficencies.
The Complete Paladin's Handbook
-------------------------------
This Handbook didn't have as much to offer as it should have. It
could have been much better, but it wasn't. It was just a variation
of the rest of the Complete Handbooks, and didn't offer many new
things. Heck, some of the kits are similar to what's in the Fighter's
Handbook. It wasn't plain weak though.
Sheer genius. Insightful, descriptive and full of interesting and
useful mech and kits.
Helps a lot and clarifies many things.
The only comment I really want to make is, why did they have to have
such a stereotypical view of the Paladin? In each of the other
handbooks I've looked through, they did a good job of presenting some
non-standard ideas for characters of those classes. With the
Paladin's Handbook, they stick with the idea that a Paladin must be
some kind of knight, with some silly code of chivalry and a stupid
one at that. I wish they had at least made some effort to present
some non-standard (ie, non-knight) paladins.
What a waste of money. I also bought the Fighter's Handbook (before
I read the Paladin's book...still haven't read it yet), but unless it
is a BIG improvement over this one I will probably never buy another
2nd Ed. AD&D product again.
The Complete Druid's Handbook
-----------------------------
Like the Bard's Handbook, but to a lesser degree, the Druid's
Handbook expands an already great class.
As with Paladins Handbook this also helps a lot and clarifies many
things.
The Complete Barbarian's Handbook
---------------------------------
No use for me