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The Complete Wizard's Handbook

1990

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15

A good additional resource of wizard characters. It could've been “great” rather than good though. As with the other “complete” handbooks, it tries to cover many aspects of that class.

The book starts off with an analysis of the spell schools and goes into why or why not to specialize. There's a chapter on creating entirely new schools but it felt tacked-on. There are 10 wizard kits of which only 2 or 3 which can be considered interesting, the rest are too plain or too generic for kits. Also, the kits felt very much like the wizard-version of the warrior kits.

Next, it details some roleplaying ideas for wizards, which are ok, and then it goes into wizard-focused campaigns, which does have some interesting content like the campaign variation ideas for wizards. After that came additional optional rules for spellcasting and combat, with good spell analysis and details on special conditions like underwater, physical impairment, and even the planes (although if you don't run planar adventures, that bit would be useless). Next comes the spells itself. Aside from a good list of new spells, there's additional in-depth rules on spell research and magic item creation.

The book's last chapter includes summaries on miscellaneous stuffs and ideas: new familiars, new magical items, alchemy, wizardly learning, laboratory, new materials, and new adventure locations.

June 1, 1993Report this review