Spell Compendium (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying) (Hardcover)

by Matthew Sernett (Author), Jeff Grubb (Author), Mike McArtor (Author) "Pockets full of bat guano, incomprehensible speech, and twisted hands making bizarre gestures-it sounds crazy, but in the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game, these are the..." (more)
Key Phrases: spell resistance, align fang, saving throw, Transmutation Level, Personal Target, Abjuration Level (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

An important reference to the most popular spells in the Dungeons & Dragons® game. A must have at every D&D game table!  
Spell Compendium provides players and Dungeon Masters with quick access to the D&D spells they need most. Drawing from a treasure trove of sources, Spell Compendium is the one place to find spells that are referenced time and again: the best, most iconic, most popular, and most frequently used. This convenient reference introduces a new spell format that includes descriptive text.  

About the Author

Matthew Sernett worked for Paizo Publishing as the editor-in-chief of Dragon® Magazine before joining Wizards of the Coast, Inc. as a game designer. His previous design credits include the Monster Manual™ III, Fiend Folio™, and the d20 Menace Manual™ roleplaying games.
 
Jeff Grubb is a legend in the RPG industry, having designed numerous games and game supplements. 
 
Mike McArtor is the Assistant Editor of Dragon® Magazine and the writer of numerous D&D magazine articles.  Spell Compendium™ is his first roleplaying game product for Wizards of the Coast.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast (December 27, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786937025
• ISBN-13: 978-0786937028
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (72 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #11,350 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

102 of 102 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A solid reference at last, January 8, 2006

By	jokamachi (california) - See all my reviews

Wotc is notorious for padding their books, because let's face it, in the last year or so, Wotc has released more hardcovers than every book printed for the entire 1st edition. While each of these books contains patches of solid, if not essential material, one can't help but think Wotc could have compressed all this info into fewer volumes.

Could have, but that's not the nature of capitalism, now is it?

Quibbling aside, this is one volume that dispels the notion of padding and then some. Not since the Player's Handbook has any single book been so essential to the game. Sure, prestige classes are nice, but we dump 90% of them into the garbage and wonder why we bought the book in the first place.

But that's not the case with spells.

Spells rule the world of D&D. There's a spell for every occasion and players can never have enough at their disposal. In the past, if you wanted that choice spell to fight the lich you needed to have the right book handy, a book you most likely carried about simply for that four sentence spell description. Well, now you have more than a thousand at your beck and call and the cumbersome Complete series, not to mention the Bovd and Libris Mortis, can just stay at home.

Let me just say this book is solid, well constructed, and lays out everything you'll want to have for a spellcaster (unless perhaps you're a warlock). The only drawbacks are that the original sources are not referenced and there is no index or table of contents for the spells themselves. The former seemed like a bad idea at first, but now we have a host of new core spells to play with, spells that can't be thrown out because they originated in the Forgotten Realms or other campaign settings. The latter problem of no index is solved simply by looking at the spellcaster tables at the back, which doubles as the index, anyway.

This is the first book I have bought from Wizards in more than a year that I feel wholly satisfied about. It's nice to see a solid compilation that lightens my tote-bag and introduces new material at the same time.

65 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If you are carrying more than two books for spells-itsgood, December 30, 2005

By	MICHAEL BEAVERS (Brisbane Ca) - See all my reviews

The spell compendium is the latest book from WOC.

This book contains spells from the following; the complete series, Draconomicon, Liber Mortis, Magic of Faerun, Manuel of the planes, Miniatures Handbook, Planar handbook, Players Guide to Faerun, Savage Species, and the Underdark. There are spells from the Dragon,and from the wizards website.

The book includes divine and arcane spells from all of these sources. It also includes the new domain spells and granted powers for them. All the spells according to the book are updated to 3.5.

My only complaints are that the spells dont have an indication from which source they came from. Its a small complaint but it would have been nice. The second complaint is the renaming of many of the spells. Aganazzars scorcher is now scorch, bigbys slapping hand is just slapping hand, harmony is now inspirational boost. Im not sure why and didnt think it was necessary.

Like I said in the title, if you are carrying two or more of the books to your games, its worth it.

22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Haphazard Quantity Over Deliberate Quality, July 5, 2006

By	J. Calton (Columbia, MO) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Most of the reviews near mine appear to be from people who have not used this book in several sessions or read it thoroughly. I want to give the book 1 star simply to cancel out the 5 stars given blindly by the WotC fanboys (of which I would be one if they weren't so lazy) but 2 is more accurate.

Yes, the Spell Compendium has lots of material. Lots of unedited material. There are numerous mistakes throughout the book. I do not mean spelling and grammar (although there is a lack of that at times) -- I am referring to using proper game terminology, references, matching description/header, and so forth. Some spells do not match up with their core counterparts--some underpowered, some overpowered.

There is a two-spell combination that grants True Resurrection on a party member at 9th level Cleric, (IIRC but it might be 7th). At no XP or gold cost. That is Character Level 9, not spell level 9. I won't list it here because it's ridiculous and bad enough already, but it's not hard to figure out if you read the cleric lists.
Try to find "Draconic Polymorph"...you won't.
At least one of the spells (Graymantle) makes reference to an inapplicable 3.0 mechanic (Regeneration).
A lot of spells give different schools in the lists and in the description. The teleport spells are listed as Transmutation spells, which was changed to Conjuration in 3.5.
Some of the spells listed do not have any data for duration, range, etc.

Yes, this could be erratad, but
A) There is just _so much_ to errata. I don't want to carry around a handbook to go with my manual.
B) What exactly are the editors getting paid for? To make a physically attractive and appealing book, I guess.
C) WotC needs to PLAYTEST their material. Externally. They are the richest game company in the world, but apparently also the laziest (essentially TSR except with marketing execs and MBA's). It costs nothing to test externally except some very fine print credits on half of one page, or in the absolute worst case scenario, some free product.

In my opinion, it was lazy of WotC to create so many classes and not provide updated spell lists for any of them (especially base classes--PRC's I can understand). Instead it gives "suggestions" which is of no help to a player who bought this book but whose DM won't let him use anything out of it due to the spell not being on the player's spell list. Any good DM could write up hundreds of spells on a dozen spell lists over the course of several weeks of careful research...or he could be writing and running adventures. Why pay $40 for a book that expects you to do that work? Their supposed excuse is that they would have had to drop some spells to include new lists. What is the difference if you can't use any of the spells in your game, anyway...BECAUSE YOU CAN'T PROVE THE SPELL IS ON YOUR LIST?
I also say that if you are going to ask the DM to do that much work, why not just ask him to write 1,000 new spells? They would be at least as balanced and thorough as the book we are paying for.

I am not saying all of this in a pout because my DM won't let me use the book. All of my DM's will, but **I wish they wouldn't** because there needs to be an explicit spell list for each class, not just ad hoc spell casting out of a book no one else at the table is familiar with. I also DM and use the book only with much scrutiny.

There was a small but good thread on this at the publisher's (WotC) site, called "Spell Compendium Errors/Querries." Others may be found with a minimum of searching.

CONCLUSION:
Only buy the book if, like me, you are a sucker for having every POS book put out by WotC on your mantle to impress your friends when they visit. Or if you make way more money than you need and have nothing else to spend it on; personally, I would rather have more minis.
If you do buy the book, expect to use it to pick up a couple of spells per caster PC to fill a gap in your (previously balanced) spell list or because you can't pass up an overpowered spell.
For the most part, expect it to collect dust (outside of those 2 uses per PC) and be a source of regret, unless you fall into one of the above 2 categories (rich or stupid).