Diablo II: The Awakening (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Roleplaying) [Paperback]

Wizards Team (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast (March 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786916125
• ISBN-13: 978-0786916122
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 8.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,517,323 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book and great source material but..., May 5, 2000

By 

Catallarch (New York City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Diablo II: The Awakening (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Roleplaying) (Paperback)

This book contains a multitude of usefull features. It has five kits based off the Diablo 2 classes, Barbarian, Paladin, Necromancer, Sorcereress and amazon. You might be thinking that some of those already are classes/ kits, well these are diffrent, speciffically designed for Diablo. There is a great deal of good art work, and there are over 100's monsters from the diablo world. (caveat: there are 100's monsters, but in actuallity the monsters are grouped together according to type, for example three or four types of skeletons share a page with info on all, like in the Monstrous Manual). You also get stats for old timers like Griswald and Farnham and the other townspeople from the first diablo.

The scorce material is top notch. It fully conforms and follows the story from the origonal Diablo. It has nothing to do with Diablo 2, other than the 5 kits I described above. But I perfer it this way as I don't want the story spoiled.

Overall, this is a great book. However if your AD&D players have played the first diablo, you should not use anything directly out of the book (But what good DM does:) There are a nifty magic item generation charts to get diablo style magic items. All in all I would suggest getting this book. But, do not accidently pick up the other Diablo 2 set. That is for Basic D&D and is intended to be an intoduction to the game. Likewise if you are new to Dungeons and Dragons you should pick up the D&D Diablo 2 intro set. It comes with dice and all the other stuff you need to play.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great resource and lots of retro fun, June 5, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Diablo II: The Awakening (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Roleplaying) (Paperback)

There's two ways to use this product, both of which I heartily recommend, although "The Awakening" doesn't succeed equally at both.

As a sourcebook, it's terrific: There's five new AD&D kits (Amazon, Barbarian, Paladin, Necromancer and Sorcerer) that can be used to flesh out the standard AD&D characters of the same names (lifting new skills and spells for necromancer specialist mages, for instance) or to replace standard character types with these more colorful archetypes.

There are dozens of new spells, many of them quite good (the "corpse exploder" is a hoot), 100 or so new monsters (in true Diablo-style, though, they're actually variants on 20 or so base new monster types) and, of course, over a million new magic items, using the Diablo system of variable enchantment types piled atop one another (a system so interesting, it's how magic items are going to work in the upcoming 3rd edition of Dungeons and Dragons).

This is how I'm using the book. I'll be dropping Scavengers and Acid Spitters and Fallen Ones into my dungeons. Maybe my players will recognize them, maybe they won't. An upcoming necromancer archvillain will also have spells the players have never encountered before, drawing on this book, the wonderful-but-impossible-to-find Complete Necromancer's Handbook and the skills in this book. Great stuff all around.

The other way to use the book, though, isn't as successful: The dungeon crawl is fun - and HUGE - but the editing mistakes that were mildly annoying in earlier parts of the book (at least one monster's hit dice is clearly a major typo) become a real problem here, with items listed on the maps that don't show up in the description and vice versa. (The two chest sizes allegedly indicated on the map are actually both shown with an identical image, for instance.) And while Tristram is described - with spoilers, for those who haven't played the original computer game - there's no map, which seems an odd omission.

Having said that, though, this measures up quite well against the classic "Temple of Elemental Evil" module from AD&D's heyday, and I'll likely be using this as a straight forward dungeon crawl on those occasions when my full gaming group can't all get together. But even if you just use the source material that make up the first ¾ of the book, "Diablo II: The Awakening" is a great value and a terrific campaign resource for any DM.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Definitely worth it for any DM, June 2, 2000

By 

Philip Daay - See all my reviews

This review is from: Diablo II: The Awakening (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Roleplaying) (Paperback)

This book is an excellent, excellent accessory to any campaignworld. (though any DM should be judicious when introducing any Diabloelements in their world). The best features of this book are the Amazon kit, the spell list, the magic item tables and the monsters.

The Amazon class is one of the most well-balanced I have seen in any AD&D accessory and it has its own very unique character. Toss the Amazon kit in the Fighter's Handbook immediately. Paladin and Barbarian are interesting. The new mage proficiencies are worth experimenting with. Excellent stuff here.

The spell list is very liberating for any spellcaster PC. Yes, ...its very combat oriented. But, its also very versatile and will drastically increase the survivability of mages in small parties (4 or less) where the fighters usually have their hands too full to protect them. Its not that the spells are overpowering, rather their very versatile. If you've ever had a mage PC complain about not being able to defend himself in an enclosed space (can't cast Fireball, Lightning Bolt and Magic Missile is inadequate) then give him *some* of the spells in this book like Flash (excellent spell), Nova, Charged Bolt (fabulous spell that gives mages who find themselves alone a fighting chance). Some of them are way too powerful (like Hydra, Bone Prison), but then again thats why we let NPC's use them. ;-)

The magic item list is ingenious, even though it could never replace the miscellaneous item list in the Unearthed Arcana. No Bags of Holding or Rings of Shooting Stars in Diablo. BUT, if you've ever wanted your Fighters to lose their addiction to generic long swords and platemail, this is the book to do it. Your Fighters will be using Cutlasses, Great Swords, Claymores, Big Axes, Small Axes, Giant Axes, War Bows, Battle Bows, Gnarled Staves, Short Staves, Long Staves, Battle Staves. They will be using Skullcaps, Chain Boots, Great Helmets, Small Shields, Gothic Shields, Tower Shields, etc.

Some of them will come to rue the day they chose to specialize in Long Sword. ;-)

Get the book. Its worth it.