Customer Reviews

The Complete Priest's Handbook, Second Edition (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Player's Handbook Rules Supplement #2113

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

the book lacked most of what has made the other additions to this series great. As stated before you can probably find all the info included therein as well as some more useful stuff in the Faiths and Avatars as well as the Spells and Magic supplement. IT's ok if you just want to play a boring cleric( but then again wouldn't you just be better off taking the example from the players handbook). Take my word for it, save yourself the money to spend on something that would be really worth your while, but if you have to look at it just flip through it, you can get the important stuff outta there fairly quick.

Where 2nd Edition AD&D endows fighters with the ability to (at first level) swing a longsword in each hand, potentially doing 28 points of damagae in a single round without counting Strength bonuses, the 2nd Edition Priests handbook cuts a Priest's power in half. I didn't find a single Priesthood that allowed it's followers to cast spells from all spheres, and many were reduced in combat ability. The special abilities added often come at the cost of the Priest's ability to Turn Undead creatures.

In short, ignore the sample priesthoods, or at least give them more spheres and/or abilities, if you want your players to still be your friends.

The rest of the book is good. It provides mythos creation guidelines, so if you don't wish to play in Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk, you can create your own pantheon and mythology using the guidelines in this book.

The kits are not all that great, one of them even relying on the heavily flawed Martial Arts system from the Player's Handbook. But with a little tinkering, you can use them. Just about everything in here needs a little work, but it's not unusable.

It's a good reference for DMs who are creating their game world. For players, they will probably get little use out of it.

Discounting the uninteresting or unusable parts (which still take up about half the book), The Complete Priest's Handbook is a pretty useful source. The main problem is in the half the book that's taken up by flotsam and fluff.

The reader from Detroit was very right in saying that "the... specialty priests are vastly underpowered compared to the priests in any other AD&D work"; hence why it's necessary to tweak and add to them extensively. The powers are also so restricting that they're worth ignoring entirely; the only thing they'll do is make dozens of AD&D pantheons clones of each other.

The main purpose of this book is to give some ideas on what gods may exist and what their priesthoods are like. If you do buy this and use it in your campaign, however, DON'T USE ANY OF THE SPECIALTY PRIESTHOODS AS IS... It would be an insult to priests everywhere!

Read it in the bookstore as a reference book when you are creating your world and putting Gods into it. But thats it...leave it there. This is the book in my TSR library with the most dust on it. But I pass it to new DM's more then i read it so it's not completely useless unless you don't know that many-would be DM's.

The Complete Priest's Handbook is one of those TSR works that is almost completely replaceable with other works.

First, the Faith creation system and specialty priests are vastly underpowered compared to the priests in any other AD&D work. You're better off using the class customization rules from Player's Option: Spells & Magic, or even raiding a world-specific work and tweaking the priests.

The kits are generally boring, and most are essentially identical to similarly-named fighter or wizard kits. The personalities are okay, but any experienced roleplayer won't need them, whereas an inexperienced player would be better off looking at potrayals of clergymen in general fiction for archtypes.

Finally, the equipment and combat rules are essentially identical to those in the Complete Fighter's Handbook.

In short, it isn't very useful.

faiths and avatars and demihuman deities come up with better kits/specialty priests. personally, i prefer that the campaign filler stuff come at the end of the book instead of at the front but that's just me. for me the book didn't seem to ignite an interest in the priest class as much as the other two books.

The major drawback with this book is that most of the priesthoods are too strick and restrictive. I would guess that about 75% of the priesthoods do not allow their clerics to wear standard armor, and to further hamstring the characters, many priesthoods do not allow any armor at all. What the heck!
Before you buy this book, talk to the other players and DM at your table. A decent house rule is that ALL characters in any class except mage (and possibly the monk), should be allowed to wear up to Studded Leather, regardless of what is written in the handbooks. Druids could wear leather that has river stones sewn into the material, thus becoming studded leather armor without metal.
If your group can agree on this house rule, the supplement handbooks gain a new life, and a variety of characters are once again open. Apply this rule to all of the 2nd edition handbooks except the mage, and suddenly you will find that the system is more balanced. If this house rule is not accepted, the standard "Cleric" from the player's handbook is stronger than just about any clerics from this book.

I would have to agree with others that the Kit's in this book are a little weak. In playability as well as game terms. However, the Mythos section gave me many ideas for creating specialty priest's for games that I run as well as characters for other's. It works well if you ignore the sample priesthoods and just use the guidlines it gives to come up with new ideas.

This book has been essential for me in designing and implementing numerous religions, parthenons, and plots pertaining to priest characters. If you want something other than a run of the mill cleric this book is for you. As useful for a Priest player as it is for a DM.

I was pretty happy with almost all of the other Complete Handbooks but I was REALLY disappointed with this one. I found it lacking a lot of information specific to realms and gods. You're better off buying the Faiths & Avatars or Player's Options: Spells & Magic books as they are more detailed. Save up your money and upgrade from this handbook to something that will be more useful to you.