Fri May 12, 2006 11:36 am  
PHB II

I'd done a bunch of these over in the Greyhawk forum, but it seems they belong here. So . . .

PHB II
Design David Noonan
$34.95
221 pages

Chapter 1: New Classes
The same new padded format. Of the four base classes, I like the Beguiler, Dragon Shaman, and Duskblade, I don't like the Knight. Indeed, I think the Duskblade is the first decent fighter-arcane caster WotC has created.

Chapter 2: Expanded Classes
Most is material on how to play the PHB base classes plus several base classes from the Hero series (Favored Soul, Hexblade, Scout, Swashbuckler, Warlock, Wizard), and the Marshall from the MH. (Perhaps these represent a new set of Core classes?) A small part of each write up is a variant (two for druids, three for fighters) for the class. These are of varying quality and use.

Chapter 3: New Feats
Most are fairly balanced. I still dislike the Tactical feats. The main problem is how this pushes the total feat list even further over 2,000. (They REALLY need a Feats Compendium.)

Chapter 4: New Spells
Fairly balanced. I was surprised that several spells have names (GH names at that) on them, since the Spell Compendium seemed to signal a change to expunging all such. (Which is more than reasonable given IP issues.) A noted addition is the Polymorph subschool, which is essentially the "errata" for Polymorph.

Chapter 5: Building Your Identity
A section on how to use your imagination. As anyone who knows me is aware, I consider this an utter waste. One small section covers how to be useful while playing. While some really obnoxious players might need that, it is even more of a waste.

Chapter 6: The Adventuring Group
Similar to the previous chapter, it contains more teamwork benefits first introduced in the DMG II, so it isn't a total loss.

Chapter 7: Affiliations
A new rule concept, this is more a DM thing for creating organizations. It includes rules for them interacting, and reminds me of Birthright. Unfortunately, it appears underdeveloped. Perhaps they were afraid to go too far with it, and just wanted to see how people would react.I think it has potential for some decent expansion, but that is up to WotC.

Chapter 8: Rebuilding Your Character
With the WotC marketing program of supplements, everyone wanted to rebuild their character every other month anyway, so official rules for it were pretty much inevitable. Fortunately, they cover the theory and application in a fairly decent way, and provide reasonable game and background mechanics for doing it.

Appendix: Quick PC and NPC Creation
Again expanding on something that seems more for a DM book, this includes feat and spell suggestions. I haven't reviewed those suggestions too closely yet, but this looks pretty good.

So what is my verdict?
Overall, I approve. Although the padding and "how to have an imagination" instruction is there, there is much less page count given to it than in other recent books. The crunchy bits look significantly more balanced than other recent books, as well as more interesting in general. (Perhaps the lack of ANOTHER bunch of often wonky prestige classes has something to do with that?)
While I remain convinced that 4E is on the way, it is beginning to look like WotC wants to slowly evolve into it, and we have something like the late 2nd ed AD&D PO stuff, turning this in D&D 3.75 or something.