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Original D&D #3
Eldritch Wizardry
Eldritch Wizardry: Dungeons & Dragons Supplement III
60 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 20, 2019
Oh my, psionics...
I never understood them.
And I still don’t after reading this.
I play a lot of board games and there’s an art to laying out the rules of a game. Often I find a game that seems difficult but turns out to be quite easy and comparable to other board games - it’s just that the rules were written badly. I feel this is the case with psionics.
I remember trying to read about them when I was much younger and being confused. Now I’m much older and a software designer - I’m constantly creating systems and interpreting code. And I still don’t feel I understand psionics. I think there’s a good reason they were relegated to an appendix in 1st edition.
On with the rest...
New class - Druid - a subclass of clerics (they were previously a monster in Greyhawk!) along with all their new spells.
There’s a new more complex system to determine when actions take place during the segments of a combat round.
Then we get a list of psionic abilities which are really just a second spell system. (And another reason to ditch them.)
In the monster section we now get demons including Orcus and Demogorgon (including those classic pictures of them) and a bunch of psionic-using monsters.
The last major part is a whole lot of treasures like Baba Yaga’s hut and the hand and eye of Vecna. This is probably the most interesting part of the book because we’re getting a glimpse into what I assume is the lore of the existing Greyhawk and Blackmoor campaigns. (And apparently most of the names are based on people's names - ie friends/relations of Gygax and TSR staff etc.)
Finally there are some updated and consolidated encounter tables taking into account all the new supplementary material.
Growing up as a kid in the 70’s and 80’s in Australia, I played D&D with my brother and also with various friends.
As a Christian and growing up in a Christian family, this was never a concern and the subject of whether it was a problem or not never came up. It wasn’t until much later that I heard about the D&D scare in the US. We started with the blue basic set and then later AD&D. I suspect that if we had started earlier and gotten this book, more questions would have been raised. A naked woman on an alter on the cover (even though it has nothing to do with the content of the book)! And references to demons! Not exactly Christian friendly stuff. I can see why perhaps there was a bit of a scare if this is what people saw as D&D.
I never understood them.
And I still don’t after reading this.
I play a lot of board games and there’s an art to laying out the rules of a game. Often I find a game that seems difficult but turns out to be quite easy and comparable to other board games - it’s just that the rules were written badly. I feel this is the case with psionics.
I remember trying to read about them when I was much younger and being confused. Now I’m much older and a software designer - I’m constantly creating systems and interpreting code. And I still don’t feel I understand psionics. I think there’s a good reason they were relegated to an appendix in 1st edition.
On with the rest...
New class - Druid - a subclass of clerics (they were previously a monster in Greyhawk!) along with all their new spells.
There’s a new more complex system to determine when actions take place during the segments of a combat round.
Then we get a list of psionic abilities which are really just a second spell system. (And another reason to ditch them.)
In the monster section we now get demons including Orcus and Demogorgon (including those classic pictures of them) and a bunch of psionic-using monsters.
The last major part is a whole lot of treasures like Baba Yaga’s hut and the hand and eye of Vecna. This is probably the most interesting part of the book because we’re getting a glimpse into what I assume is the lore of the existing Greyhawk and Blackmoor campaigns. (And apparently most of the names are based on people's names - ie friends/relations of Gygax and TSR staff etc.)
Finally there are some updated and consolidated encounter tables taking into account all the new supplementary material.
Growing up as a kid in the 70’s and 80’s in Australia, I played D&D with my brother and also with various friends.
As a Christian and growing up in a Christian family, this was never a concern and the subject of whether it was a problem or not never came up. It wasn’t until much later that I heard about the D&D scare in the US. We started with the blue basic set and then later AD&D. I suspect that if we had started earlier and gotten this book, more questions would have been raised. A naked woman on an alter on the cover (even though it has nothing to do with the content of the book)! And references to demons! Not exactly Christian friendly stuff. I can see why perhaps there was a bit of a scare if this is what people saw as D&D.
September 23, 2022
After the rules supplements Greyhawke and Blackmoore, we get the first one which is not titled after a setting but promises to give us some wizardry stuff. While that's not a complete lie, the truth is that what it is concerned about mostly is Psionics... and what a needlessly complicated thing that is. There's a reason why Psionics did not stick around and that's because it just adds another layer of complication to the rules that kind of make it very unwieldy.
However the supplement isn't all about psionics, there are a bunch of things that did stick around the rules up until today, and particularly things about the lore of D&D that first appear here which are emblematic of the game's universe. First you get the new class of Druid, together with Druidic spells, a lot of the new Psionic powers would also later become spells, so that's a part that sticks around.
In terms of lore you get a bunch of named monsters like Orcus or the Demogorgon that come straight out of Gygax's Greyhawke setting and would still be showing up in Stranger Things in the 2020s. Speaking of Stranger Things you also get the first references to Vecna here, with item descriptions for the Hand and Eye of Vecna, two truly nasty artifacts that give great power at great cost. A mix of bad ideas (psionics) and great ideas (everything else), worth a look.
However the supplement isn't all about psionics, there are a bunch of things that did stick around the rules up until today, and particularly things about the lore of D&D that first appear here which are emblematic of the game's universe. First you get the new class of Druid, together with Druidic spells, a lot of the new Psionic powers would also later become spells, so that's a part that sticks around.
In terms of lore you get a bunch of named monsters like Orcus or the Demogorgon that come straight out of Gygax's Greyhawke setting and would still be showing up in Stranger Things in the 2020s. Speaking of Stranger Things you also get the first references to Vecna here, with item descriptions for the Hand and Eye of Vecna, two truly nasty artifacts that give great power at great cost. A mix of bad ideas (psionics) and great ideas (everything else), worth a look.
September 25, 2023
I didn't know what rating to give this. I wasn't alive at the time of the writing and it's hard not to judge it by successors.
The Psionics: I didn't realize Yellow Mold and Oozes were ever given psionics. I guess that was taken out of future editions. I'm not really a fan of psionics.
The druid section was ok.
The monster additions were ok except for the psionics they all had.
I'm gonna just say it. The relics/artifacts section was stupid. The descriptions were good, but the fact that seemingly normal objects could not even be identified as magical means the ol' Vecna's Hand wouldn't get picked up and used unless the party members liked cutting off their hand and picking up every decayed, rotting hand they found and tried attaching it to the stump... not to mention Gygax insisted these were supposed to be unknown items to the players.
Using a power of these Great and Powerful Artifacts also had such penalties as to be worthless to anyone that had a sense of self preservation. Absolutely reasonable that using one for a first level spell Detect Evil might cause the person to lose one hit point PERMANENTLY each time. (yes they wrote that in caps).
The last 20% or so of the book, was just wandering monster tables. -_-
The Psionics: I didn't realize Yellow Mold and Oozes were ever given psionics. I guess that was taken out of future editions. I'm not really a fan of psionics.
The druid section was ok.
The monster additions were ok except for the psionics they all had.
I'm gonna just say it. The relics/artifacts section was stupid. The descriptions were good, but the fact that seemingly normal objects could not even be identified as magical means the ol' Vecna's Hand wouldn't get picked up and used unless the party members liked cutting off their hand and picking up every decayed, rotting hand they found and tried attaching it to the stump... not to mention Gygax insisted these were supposed to be unknown items to the players.
Using a power of these Great and Powerful Artifacts also had such penalties as to be worthless to anyone that had a sense of self preservation. Absolutely reasonable that using one for a first level spell Detect Evil might cause the person to lose one hit point PERMANENTLY each time. (yes they wrote that in caps).
The last 20% or so of the book, was just wandering monster tables. -_-
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