Player's Handbook II

by Wizards of the Coast, David Noonan

The Player's Handbook II builds upon existing materials in the Player's Handbook. This is the first direct follow up to the best-selling and most used D&D rulebook. It is specifically designed to expand the options available for players by both providing new material and increasing the uses for existing rules. Included are chapters on character race, background, classes, feats, spells, character creation, and character advancement. New rules include racial affiliations that make race matter as a character advances in level, new character classes and alternate class features for existing classes, new feats, tools for rapid character creation, and additional organization and teamwork benefits -- an option first introduced in Dungeon Master's Guide II and Heroes of Battle.

Genres: Role Playing Games, Gaming, Fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons, Games, Reference

221 pages, Hardcover

First published May 9, 2006

About the author

Wizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC /ˈwɒtˌsiː/ or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. Originally a basement-run role-playing game publisher, the company popularized the collectible card game genre with Magic: The Gathering in the mid-1990s, acquired the popular Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game by purchasing the failing company TSR, and experienced tremendous success by publishing the licensed Pokémon Trading Card Game. The company's corporate headquarters are located in Renton, Washington in the United States.[1]

Wizards of the Coast publishes role-playing games, board games, and collectible card games. They have received numerous awards, including several Origins Awards. The company has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1999. All Wizards of the Coast stores were closed in 2004.

Reviews

[Mark Austin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I grew up playing board games against myself. My sister wasn't much into them and whatever friends I managed to scrap together for a year or two before we moved again were either disinterested from the get-go or quickly became disinterested as I beat them mercilessly at whatever we played.

I also grew up in a world of imagination which almost universally drifted to war. I'm not sure why, but my games, movies, books, shows, and idle imaginings only seem to have real staying power if they are somehow associated with combat. One of my earliest memories is drawing viking ships battling on the ocean... and so it went from there.

When I encountered my eventual group of best friends in 7th grade (many of whom I still talk to regularly), they were clustered on a table in the cafeteria playing something with sheets of paper, pencils, dice, and a set of weirdly-sized books. I drifted over, watched for a few minutes, and became instantly hooked.

I only got to play my elven druid with his scimitar and panther a few times before their existing game master moved and the game ended, but endless class periods passed remembering every item of gear, every chunk of quantified capability that the numbers on my crumpled character sheet represented.

Despite being new to the group, within months I was the new game master, spinning worlds, races, gods, ages, and cultures out of nothingness. We played straight up through high school graduation gathering in my friend's garage attic after school every night and sometimes 12-16 hour long weekend sessions. How I did it without burning out I don't know, but I do know it for the first time let others into the private universes I'd constructed, gave me something to look forward to, a group to be myself with, and a place of refuge both physically and mentally.

Middle school was miserable. The trailers we bounced between were places of endless chore lists, terrible food, random hours-long barely-coherent suicidal rambles from an older brother out of his mind on who knows what. Our mom, when she was there, we hoped would take off on one of her regular days-long absences since when she was there it was either panicked, shouted orders to fix the latest crisis or the house filling with drunken bar dregs that'd be invited over to keep partying when the bar closed Friday night and that would sometimes linger until Monday came and swept the last of them away.

D&D was an escape hatch to an alternate reality where such concerns were irrelevant and, for a time, I could forget the misery and uncertainty of my home life, to practice being someone more powerful, resourceful, and strong than I felt.

The actual rules had some issues, especially compared to more modern rule systems, but that's like saying the pioneers' covered wagons were inefficient compared to modern moving trucks - it's true, but without the former to explore the terrain and settle the unknown the latter would likely not come into existence.

Roleplaying games remain an important part of my life even if my playing time has vastly dwindled. The problem solving and social skills, the lessons on story structure, flow, pacing, and engagement, the friendships that remain to this day, all products of that time spent around a table or sprawled across an attic or living room.

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basic Concept: A supplement for players of D&D 3.5

Lots of new options for player characters in the 3.5 system including new rules for races, classes, feats, spells, etc. A decent supplement with some useful stuff in it. Not vital for game play, though.

[Nika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ya gotta have this book if you play DnD...kinda stays with you always. Very helpful.

[Dylan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rating based on usefulness.

[Kaptainmyke.com · Rating 3 out of 5]

i actually have the one from 1989

[R J Royer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a very good idea for those people still playing the older dnd game.

[S.H.I.E.L.D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

me gusto que hicieran mas personajes con el segundo libro porque da mas variedad para elegir clase de personaje