Product Description
The Player’s Handbook II builds upon existing materials in the Player’s Handbook. This is the first direct follow up to the best-selling and most used D&D rulebook. It is specifically designed to expand the options available for players by both providing new material and increasing the uses for existing rules. Included are chapters on character race, background, classes, feats, spells, character creation, and character advancement. New rules include racial affiliations that make race matter as a character advances in level, new character classes and alternate class features for existing classes, new feats, tools for rapid character creation, and additional organization and teamwork benefits — an option first introduced in Dungeon Master’s Guide II and Heroes of Battle.
James A. Quirk @ 4:54 pm
I’ll break from the pack here and say that I was somewhat disgusted with this book. I’m sure there must be other long-time D&D players who agree with my perspective, however. For me, Wizards of the Coast is a notorious repackaging/recycling company, one with a fraction of the creativity and vision of TSR. This book is a shining example of WoTC’s worst traits.
For the usual steep entrace fee of $35, we get four new classes, only two of which are mildly interesting (the knight has been around for so long and in so many forms that its inclusion here seems pointless). And both of the interesting classes – duskblade and beguiler – are little more than rogue/sorceror and fighter/sorceror mixes, just with the ability to cast an incredibly minor list of spells while wearing armor. Gee, thanks. One could do better with some creativity and, dare I say it, a smattering of house rules.
Chapter Two, “Expanded Classes,” is laughable. Here we have 37 pages of almost total fluff. I do not need to pay $35 for a book that will teach me how my Cleric of Pelor should reference his deity in every sentence he utters; nor do I need such a book to tell me what obvious “themes” I can pick to round out the personality of my character. If you need a book to give you those ideas, stop playing D&D, because you obviously don’t have the sliver of imagination necessary (or the common sense) to role-play. Also the extremely minor “expansion options” they give some of the classes are largely uninteresting.
Chapters 3 and 4 are new spells and feats. Usual fare here.
Chapters 5 and 6 really cemented my displeasure with this book. These chapters are geared at helping a character build his or her identity, but they give nothing but a bunch of completey hackneyed examples. Seriously, if you couldn’t figure these out on your own, you’re an idiot. The section on teamwork benefits is interesting, but I have a problem with that too that I will return to discuss.
Chapter 7 is all about “affiliations” – adventuring groups/clans that your PC may hail from. David Noonan should be embarassed by these. You have stuff like “the Bloodfist Tribe,” which is – you guessed it – a wandering half-orc band. There’s the Elves of the High Forest, Dragon Island, dwarves who mine deep into the mountain, gnomes who like to make stuff, etc. etc. Again I return to my gripe about creativity. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of fantasy roleplaying and D&D can create better groups than these to populate a campaign world. They’re obviously just included here as filler.
Chapter 8 is more filler, and is basically filled with rules on how to switch your character over from one class to another, for all those indecisive players out there. I really think this section could have been released online as an option for those who want to pursue it.
So, overall, what I’m left with thinking about this book is – why was it necessary to publish something called “Player’s Handbook 2?” There is nothing in here of vital consequence. The few useful bits – the new feats, spells, and rules governing teamwork benefits – should have been included in the FIRST Player’s Handbook the first time around. But, obviously, if they did that, WoTC would have no way of suckering addicted fans out of another $35 for yet another smattering of new stuff buried in page after page of useless fluff.
WoTC’s 3.5 rules are really a wonder of marketing. I tip my hat to them. They now have approximately 700 prestige classes and god knows how many races, spells, monsters, feats and examples of how to make your bard talk scattered throughout dozens of books. There are so many fans of D&D that many of them will buy all the books just to see what the new stuff is. My advice to such folks is to avoid this book, even though I’m pretty sure most of you won’t.
R. Howell @ 4:55 pm
It’s tough to make a choice about this book. Criteria to purchase really boils down to two things – are you a new player to the game or are you a seasoned veteran having played AD&D or any older version of the game.
New Players will benefit from this book as it will help them figure out how to role-play (acting the character) instead of roll-play (slinging dice). They will eat up the character classes and drool over the new feats. New GMs will giggle in anticipation of make affiliations and continental societies. This is a pretty good book for newcomers.
Veterans will look through this book and probably put it back on the shelf. They’ll like some of the new feats and a handful of the spells but not enough to throw down $35 for them. Veterans will scoff at the book looking at it as fluff and time waste material as they already know how to develop a background, history, and focus of a character. They will wittle away the new classes and probably never introduce them into their games.
Who benefits the most from this book? Newcomers, obviously. Secondary is the Veteran GM that is teaching his/her kids or other newcomers the game. The PHB2 will help the old GM coach and advise the new arrivals to ROLE-playing for a better game for everyone.
B. Allen-Trick @ 5:34 pm
I had my doubts about this one, believe me, but when I started seeing the previews on the wizards webpage I began to think it might turn out to be an OK product. Boy was I wrong. It’s FANTASTIC!
Lots of space on how to play every base class, including ones from the Complete series and a few new ones. New ideas for character archetypes, character traits, you know, ideas for actually ROLEPLAYING rather than just new rules.
That being said, there are also a ton of new feats. Personally I feel it’s unfortunate that the feats seem to concentrate on combat, but at least they breathe new life into combat. Most of the new feats concentrate on combat styles or allowing a specific combat maneuver, which I’m all for. Very few are crushingly powerful, but almost all could find a use by a tactically minded player. Some bring altogether new rules to the table, like the combat focus, which adds a lot of flavor to a tank character.
There are also a plethora of new spells, which I’m happy to say aren’t all blaster spells. There are several spells that, while not terribly powerful, do very cool things (see cloud of knives).
Finally, near the end, there are rules for ajudicating being part of a guild or organization along with several example organizations.
All in all I give this book my highest grade and I think everyone should pick it up.
Jon A. Lemich @ 6:17 pm
By this point, if you’re considering PHB2, you’ve decided whether D&D is a good system or not, and you’ve read a tom of supplemental materials with variants on every character idea from the shape-shifter to the illusion-user. PHB2 offers a few MORE class variants, including ground-up base classes and options to modify the core PHB classes. I was hoping for “non-spellcasting” options for Paladin, Ranger and Bard, but they aren’t there.
As for the new feats – there are a ton! Some of them are extremely powerful, so if you’re a DM, you need to pick and choose which ones you allow instead of allowing them all without a thought. Some are good ideas that should have been in PHB1 (Shield Specialization) and others are neat tricks that would help a fighter or wizard further specialize.
The rest of the book isn’t all that useful. The ideas on personality and background archetypes are probably more useful for DMs creating fleshed-out NPCs fast than for players, who prefer to write their own background and personality thankyouverymuch. They are a fun read, especially if you’ve read _The Tough Guide to Fantasy Land_ by Diana Wynne Jones; PHB2 basically contains an exhaustive list of *every* cliched fantasy character background and personality archetype ever created.
Writing: The writing is clear and descriptive, often to the point of being laboriously exact. It’s also well written. It’s everything we’ve come to expect from the new d20 quality standard. The art is very good, as well (and you gotta love the cover art!).
This book gets 3 stars, mostly for the feats. You’ll use the Core rulebooks, Spell Compendium, Complete series, and Miniatures Handbook (even if you’re not big on miniatures) more often, but it’s worth having one PHB2 in your gaming group.
Michael T. Schell @ 7:24 pm
Many of us already have ideas in their heads about characters and character types we want to play. Some players really don’t know what they want and try many different things to see what fits and what doesn’t. This is actually a good reference. It gives a lot more options and suggestions. One of the hardest and ultimately most rewarding aspects of building a character is their back story. How did this character get to where he or she is now. Some of us are aspiring writers and take to the task with gusto. Others are not and for both of us the suggestions and the full section on backgrounds provides a wealth of information. For those that have done this umpteen times in the past it provides a framework and in some ways a prototype of what the backstory may be like for a particular character. For those that are not as talented, it gives the life story for them with a few details that they provide themselves. The new feats and spells are nice but the back story help is worth the price of admission in and of itself. A personal history is the ultimate tool for role playing. It provides reasons for why the character acts the way they do and provides some suggestions on how they should act when you have some doubts. Of the new classes I think I like the Beguiler the best as it is one of the more original concepts. Like the War Mage of the Minis Handbook and Complete Arcane and the True Necromancer from Heroes of Horror this is a specialist spellcaster, in this case of Enchantment, Charm and Illusion magic. A limited repetoire of spells but all appropriate to what the class sets out to accomplish no matter what role appeals to a given player. Frankly speaking most players don’t need this book, but overall you still should take the option of purchasing it. Your characters and your overall gameplay will be better off for it.