Customer Reviews

Spell Compendium (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying)

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(33)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

This is a wonderful book for Wizard characters wanting to expand their spellbook, Sorcerer characters wanting to find effective spells to learn, and Cleric and Druid characters wanting access to additional spells to pray for. It also includes spells for less common classes such as Assassin. Not all DM's allow their players to use spells from supplements, but if they do, this is one book you don't want to do without.

The Spell Compendium does not contain every spell ever published. For example, it doesn't contain spells from newer books, such as Player's Handbook II and Complete Mage. Since this book is a supplement, it also doesn't contain the spells from the standard Player's Handbook. Hence, as a Wizard player, I still find myself needing to carrying four separate books to gaming sessions to have full information on the spells I can cast. I'd like to see a Spell Compendium II, that has the newer sources as well as Player's Handbook spells all in one volume.

Some spells have been renamed or changed in behavior. For example, Greater Mage Armor no longer has a material component, even though you had to pay 25 gold each time you cast it in Complete Arcane, the book that originally introduced this spell. Since the Spell Compendium is the newer book with hopefully more errata and balance, DM's should probably rule that spells have the newer behavior.

I have noticed several typos in the book, which is unfortunate. But they're usually pretty obvious and won't interfere with proper use of the material.

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).

I was pleased to find that this book is spells almost from front cover to back. There are no extra feats, prestige classes or wasted pages of fluff text 5% of us actually would read.

What this book is though, is a spell book compendium as the name suggests. If your playing a spell casting character, this book will greatly reduce your need to carry 5 to 10 books to the game sessions, half of which for 1 or 2 spells. With that being said, it is important for you to realize that this book does not contain every spell from the WOTC collection. In fact, it doesn't appear to have any of the spells from the players' handbook. That shouldn't be a big issue as most players should have the PHB with them regardless. While not all spells are represented, a replacement can certainly be found within the Compendium or PHB.

While, I don't have a complete list of the books that are represented, I don't believe it would do you much good as I've noticed that some spells from various books are represented while others are not. I primarily compared the book to the various 'perils' series like Frostburn.

All in all this product is a nice change of pace from the majority of the books purchased for 1 prestige class or a couple of feats only to collect dust on the shelf. This one will see a lot of use for spell casting players.

My only complaint would be the seemingly unnecessary renaming of spells. There are a couple of pages that deal with this but I'm not sure why they decided to do this now, instead of just waiting till D&D 4.0. Then again, it wouldn't be a Wizard's product without a little fluff now would it...

I'm of the same opinion as Mr Beavers on this book. The book is good idea, and the updates are worth having. The renaming of spells to some extent is nice because you may not be using Bigby and others in your own homebrewed world, but it's not really necessary. I like the fact that I now dont have to go through 20 different books to find a few cool spells. I also like that the PHB spells aren't included in this one. That would have been overkill and unnecessary. I could care less about the descriptive text. My only real beef with Wizards regarding this book is that they haven't done the same with feats yet.

The "Dungeons & Dragons Spell Compendium" is a useful book, as it pulls together around 1000 spells from a large number of other Wizards of the Coast D&D books (excluding the "Player's Handbook"). It's also a NECESSARY book, given the official WotC policy that newer versions of the same named spells always replace the old ones. And, as it happens, *every* spell in this book has been rewritten.

Most of the revisions stem from adding "flavor text" at the beginning of each spell, and pulling out anything that flavor text duplicates from the spell body. But there are many other changes, and, except for a list of 78 acknowledged spell name changes, there's no way to tell what's different without going through the original sources (assuming you can find them; they're not individually specified) and comparing each spell with the new version in the "Spell Compendium". Also note that there are many UNacknowledged name changes, such as "Invisibility, Improved" changing to "Invisibility, Greater".

Just to check on the (ahem) completeness of the new list, I went through the "Complete" series of books, checking each spell there with the "Spell Compendium". I found that all the spells for classes outside of the core books ("Player's Handbook" and "Dungeon Master's Guide") were omitted. So the one Hexblade-only spell from "Complete Warrior" is missing, as is the "Hexblade" level tag from all the spells in the "Spell Compendium". Similarly, the 44 Warmage and Wu Jen spells from "Complete Arcane" are missing, as are the Warmage and Wu Jen level tags from applicable spells in "Spell Compendium". Compared to "Complete Divine", "Spell Compendium" is missing Shugenja spell level tags but otherwise complete. The newest book, "Complete Adventurer", doesn't introduce any new spell lists, so it's the least changed. If you've got a character with Hexblade, Shugenja, Warmage, or Wu Jen spells, the "Spell Compendium" will prove frustrating to you. For spellcasting classes from the Player's Handbook plus Assassin and Blackguard from the DMG this is a much more reasonable resource.

While there's no information to indicate the source of each individual spell, even what's there may be confusing. For example the renamed spell list says that "Camouflage" was renamed from "Chameleon". But "Chameleon" was a Druid 2/Wu Jen 2 spell in "Complete Arcane", and "Camouflage" was a rather different Druid 1/Ranger 1 spell in "Complete Divine". So this is a replacement rather than just a renaming.

Many spells have level changes, some rather extreme. Example: "Aiming at the Target" went from Sorcerer or Wizard 5/Wu Jen 5 to Sorcerer or Wizard 2. Some descriptions have been abbreviated to the point where the spell's use is no longer clear. With "Focusing Chant" you'll want to keep the "Complete Adventurer" version around to avoid confusion, for instance. Some spells are so greatly changed that only the names are retained; "Divine Agility" and "Divine Sacrifice" from "Complete Divine" are good examples.

Given these caveats, plus the usual WotC sloppy editing (typos, missing information, mis-alphabetizing), "Spell Compendium" remains a useful book. Most players will be able to get all their spells in just three places as of the date I write this review: "Player's Handbook", "Spell Compendium", and the new "Players Handbook II", which came out after "Spell Compendium". Given that the list of WotC D&D books which contain spells is approaching 4 dozen that's a significant consolidation.

One part of "Spell Compendium" that I can recommend without reservation is the "Appendix: Domain Spells". This is, as far as I can tell, a complete list of all the clerical domains added since the "Player's Handbook", with their granted powers and spells. (The sample deities for the domains are omitted, but those have always been pantheon-specific, so of questionable value.)

Compared to other WotC supplements, "Spell Compendium" is remarkably low in "fluff" content. At 4 stars I rate it higher than any book since the 3 core volumes.

This is an excellent resource and collection from various books and magazines, but I don't understand why the stuff from PH is missing. Ya I know people are also going to have that book already anyway, but the point of these collections is to have them all in 1 convenient place.

Thick book, priced right.

definition of compendium:
1) A short, complete summary; an abstract.
2) A list or collection of various items.

For those who aren't aware, "fluff" is the stories, the background and the names attached to a set of rules, while the "crunch" is the rules themselves. So, if a spell is presented as having been originally cast by Googamunga II in the battle against Evil King Harry in the Year of the Angry Stoat, but is otherwise just a variation on a fireball, then it's a spell with a lot of fluff and very little crunch.

This book is almost solid crunch. A few spells are given a greater context, like the ice axe spell, but even then it's more or less a one-line summary about which race typically uses the spell. Beyond that, it's just straight up rules and descriptions. There are no spells, at least none that I've seen, just rewritten spells updated from from their original 3.0 source and a few from other sources.

There are no prestige classes, magic items, spell templates, monsters or grafts to slow the book down. Just spells, front to back, after a short introduction that gives you some ideas on how to incorporate the new spells into an ongoing campaign as well as a list of a few name changes. It's a very handy reference tool.

So, why not five stars? First of all, there are the usual typographical errors I've come to expect from a Wizards of the Coast product. Their fairly minor, though, and most people would probably read right past them. The problem is, despite the very handy index at the back and the full descriptions throughout, we are given no indication what book the spells originally appeared in. It might seem like a minor consideration, and I suppose it is, really, but for a book that makes such a sincere effort to serve as a reference product, it seems an odd exclusion.

Of all the tomes and tomes that have come out for 3.5 in the past few years, this one is a must have. If anyone in your gaming group casts spells, buy it. It collects spells from so many of the other source books that have been published and puts them right at your fingertips. No more hunting or carrying around two backpacks full of books for your sorcerer or cleric to have access to all his spells.

It also has some wonderful spells for the "other" spellcasting classes, most importantly, the Bard. Several new spells for that often underappreciated class turns him into a true asset to nearly any adventuring party. Rangers are also given several new options to beef up their spell lists.

All in all, it adds true flavor and diversity to the game, breaking away from a campaign that relies on the PH, where everyone, PC and NPC alike all cast the same 10-15 spells.

Buy it. If you cast spells, it will be very worth your money. I am happier with this book than with any 3 or 4 of the others put together.