DND OLD SCHOOL REVIEW
Here we are again to write a review about an old tome of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.
The Complete Wizard’s Handbook.
Old, yes, but always extant as any D&D 1ed and AD&D products after all.
So, let’s see what interesting stuff we can find and employ inside this handbook.
Chapter 1 – Schools of Magic
This chapter introduces the reader to the schools of magic and specialist wizards.
This is something that still exist in any ruleset like D&D3.0/3.5, Pathfinder and D&D 5ed. So, nothing new.
The schools of magic presented are the ones we all know about.
Abjuration, Alteration, Conjuration/Summoning, Enchantment/Charm, Greater Divination, Illusion, Invocation/Evocation, Necromancy.
The names may slightly differ from version to version, but the content don’t.
What the handbook suggests is an ability score requirement for each school of magic.
It means that in order to become a specialist wizard you must meet a specific requirement, because being a specialist wizard – according to the book – is better than being a generic wizard.
The requirement, for each school of magic, are the following:
Abjuration – wisdom 15
Alteration – dexterity 15
Conjuration – constitution 15
Enchantment – charisma 16
Divination – wisdom 16
Illusion – dexterity 16
Invocation – constitution 16
Necromancy – wisdom 16
You can apply these requirements in your games, they won’t create unbalance or alter any game mechanics.
As you can see some school of magic are considered better than others, due to higher ability score requirement. Rolling 15 is not like rolling 16.
Chapter 2 – Creating New Schools
The chapter gives us tips on how to craft new schools of magic.
Crafting a new school can make sense if you are designing a campaign and the traits of your campaign setting have a strong influence on how magic works.
You may state that a new school of magic is available only to certain races, because the race in question possesses unique traits that make possible to master exotic magic energies. Just to have an idea.
For example, let’s say that in your campaign setting you designed a trait that prevent the negative material plane from touching the material plane. Whatever the reason is, it doesn’t matter now.
In such a condition the school of Necromancy can’t exist because its spells won’t work.
This doesn’t mean undead can’t exist, they don’t exist as we commonly know them.
However this restriction did not prevent wizards from investigating new ways to animate dead bodies. This is just an example of how and why a new school of magic can arise.
Chapter 3 – Wizard Kits
The concept of Class Kit, according to AD&D rules, exist in every class.
A kit is something that stands between an archetype and a specialty class (prestige class in Pathfinder).
The Complete Wizard’s Handbook presents the following kits:
Academician: bonus on intelligence and wisdom checks
Amazon Sorcerer: proficiency in some martial weapons and bonus against humanoid males.
Anagakok: primitive wizard proficient in some martial weapons.
Militant wizard: militarized wizard, proficient in some martial weapons
Mystic: spell-like abilities like levitation and similar stuff.
Patrician: bonus on initial gold and bonus on social skills.
Peasant Wizard: advantages when adventuring in his homeland.
Savage Wizard: spell-like abilities like a wicca.
Witch: a prototype of what in future editions will become a class on its own.
Wu-Jen: the equivalent of an oriental wizard
If you want to adapt these kits in your campaign you will have to make a careful work of conversion and adaptation.
Chapter 4 – Roleplaying
In this chapter the handbook provides some tips on how to roleplay a wizard. It does this by providing what it calls wizard personalities.
Honestly not a very interesting chapter, because the personalities described can be easily adopted by any class.
Do not expect to find wonderful revelations in this chapter.
Chapter 5 – Combat and the Wizard
Again, a chapter to fill the book. It just talk about offensive spells, defensive spells and reconnaissance spells.
Something that every player can understand if he reads the spell description.
Chapter 6 – Casting Spells in unusual conditions.
Quite interesting, but not exceptional.
The chapter describe how certain spell effects works in specific environments, like underwater, in the astral plane, in the ethereal plane and on other planes.
Chapter 7 – Advanced Procedures
Here things become a bit more interesting.
The book tries to provide an answer to levels above 20th. And spells above 9th.
Levels above 20th
This is pretty easy to implement – provided it makes sense advancing above level 20 you just have to expand content of the table that contain experience requirements and spell slots. Easy to do.
Spells above 9th level
The answer provided by the book is very clear, and I agree with the authors.
“There are no spells higher than 9th level and there should never be”
Simple and straight.
However…
…is it completely true that 10th level spells do not or cannot exist?
No, it’s not completely true.
I know of three sources that talk about such level of power, let’s see them.
Dark Sun Campaign Setting – The Sorcerer Kings
The Sorcerer Kings on Athas are entities of tremendous power, so powerful that they can channel magical energies and grant some of their followers the ability to cast spells as if they were clerics.
You must know that a sorcerer king is someone who multi-classed both as a wizard and as a psionic, and reached level 20th in both classes.
Once the Sorcerer King gains enough experience to advance to level 21, he/she undergoes a transformation, provided a specific rituals is performed.
So, in order to complete this transformation the Sorcerer King has to cast the equivalent of a 10th level spell.
This spell must be researched, and its preparation take time and resources. It can be cast only once and its only purpose is to trigger the transformation of the Sorcerer King.
This process must be accomplished at level 21, and each subsequent level, until level 30.
At level 30, the last step, the Sorcerer King becomes a Dragon, an Athas Dragon, which is a creature with demigod powers and status.
This can be an example of a 10th level spell.
Clerics and Quest Spells
Quest spells are described, if I remember well, in the Tome of Magic.
Quest spells are the equivalent of 10th level spells, but for divine spellcasters, specifically clerics and no one else.
“The quest spells that follow are designed to be used only in extraordinary circumstances as determined by the DM”
Again, the authors are very clear, they are spells to be granted with extreme caution.
Basically, a Quest spell is a spell that a cleric can cast because his/her deity decides to aid the cleric in an important quest. So we are talking about dire circumstances. Quest spells are not memorized as any other spell and can be usually cast once.
We’ll explore the Tome of Magic in another article, but now you have an idea.
Just to wake up your curiosity, when we talk about Quest spells we deal with things like Elemental Swarm and Raise Nation…this should give you an idea of the magnitude of these spells.
Lichdom
We all know what a Lich is, some players may have achieved this status, others died trying.
The spell, or ritual, to achieve this status is indeed a powerful magic.
Every ritual is never the same, and no one knows how to perform one unless he/she is already walking toward the path that leads to Lichdom.
It’s a one-time spell, there is no way back and if it fails the character simply dies.
We are done with 10th level spells…for now.
Chapter 8 – New Spells
Easy to guess what this chapter is about. You find a good selection of new spells, and all of them can be converted to whatever ruleset you are playing with.
Chapter 9 – Wizardry List
This is the miscellaneous chapter, you find interesting stuff like familiars. However more recent version of D&D have already explored the world of familiars, so nothing interesting and nothing new.
Then it talks about alchemy processes, how to run a magic academy by presenting courses, and a small table to randomly generate fantastic components for your spells.
Conclusions
Somewhere in the handbook you can find details about spell research and wizard’s library. It explains how to create new spells, giving some tips, and introduce the concept of the wizard’s library.
The wizard may collect books – not magic books – and by increasing the value of his personal library he gains access to spell research. The higher the gp value of the library, the higher the spell level he can research.
The Complete Wizard’s Handbook is a good book, not an exceptional one, but something that still contains interesting stuff to work on.
See you soon for the next article!