 | |
| Author | Bill Slavicsek |
|---|---|
| Genre | Role-playing game |
| Publisher | TSR |
Publication date | 1993 |
The Complete Book of Humanoids is a sourcebook for the second edition of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy adventure role-playing game.
| | |
| Author | Bill Slavicsek |
|---|---|
| Genre | Role-playing game |
| Publisher | TSR |
Publication date | 1993 |
The Complete Book of Humanoids is a sourcebook for the second edition of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy adventure role-playing game.
The Complete Book of Humanoids is a supplement which details rules for monstrous races so that they can be used for player characters.
The races included in this handbook are: aarakocra, alaghi, beastman, bugbear, bullywug, centaur, fremlin, giant-kin (firbolg), fremlin, gnoll, gnoll (flind), goblin, hobgoblin, kobold, lizard man, minotaur, mongrelman, ogre, half-ogre, orc, half-orc, pixie, satyr, saurial, swanmay, giant-kin (voadkyn), and wemic. [1]
The Complete Book of Humanoids was written by Bill Slavicsek for TSR. [2] Published in 1993, the editing was by Jon Pickens, black and white art by Doug Chaffee, and color art by Chaffee, Sam Rakeland, Thomas Baxa, and Clyde Caldwell.
Mike Lampman reviewed The Complete Book of Humanoids in Shadis No. 9 and said that "overall, the Humanoid handbook is a good investment if you're an AD&D player, or GM, looking to spice up your campaign by playing something a little out of the ordinary. It's well written, and edited, as most of the TSR products are, and is laid out nicely." [3]
Keith Eisenbeis reviewed the product in a 1993 issue of White Wolf . [1] He noted challenges with monster descriptions and some errors, but was generally positive about the product, stating that it is "worth buying for anyone willing to take on the challenge of roleplaying a monster". He rated it overall at a 3 out of 5 possible points. [1]
Rick Swan reviewed The Complete Book of Humanoids for Dragon magazine No. 205 (May 1994). [2] Swan considered the book a "major shake-up in the AD&D rules," as the Player's Handbook only allowed players the option of six player character races, while this book adds 20 more character race options. He notes that the book imposes restrictions to maintain game balance: "PCs can't be undead, nor can they be monsters taller than 12 feet. Centaur wizards can't go beyond 12th level; goblins can't be wizards at all." [2] Swan also notes the difficulties involved in playing non-standard races, citing having a member of a typically evil race existing in a lawful good society, or how very tall characters might get around areas with low ceilings. However, he felt that adventurous players would appreciate the book, and closed the review by saying, "Who could pass up the chance to play a pixie?" [2]
Trenton Webb of the British RPG magazine Arcane asserts that the shaman class from this book consists of "pilfered priests spells and mumbo jumbo". [4]
An article by James Wyatt in Dragon No. 250 (August 1998) presented rules for using various aquatic races as player characters, including crabmen, koalinth, locathah, malenti, merfolk, pahari, selkies, and vodyanoi using the format presented in The Complete Book of Humanoids. [5] Wyatt acknowledged that "The Complete Book of Humanoids broke a long-standing barrier in the AD&D game by allowing players to make characters of nearly any humanoid race," and noted that the book carefully balanced the advantages a race might have such as great physical strength against significant disadvantages, particularly prejudice and superstition from the more common races. Player characters based on the creatures presented in this article would face the same sort of prejudices, as well as special physical limitations while interacting with land dwellers. [5]
An ogre is a legendary monster depicted as a large, hideous, man-like being that eats ordinary human beings, especially infants and children. Ogres frequently feature in mythology, folklore, and fiction throughout the world. They appear in many classic works of literature, and are most often associated in fairy tales and legend.
The Complete Psionics Handbook is a supplemental rulebook for the 2nd edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, published in 1991 by TSR, Inc.
Oriental Adventures is the title shared by two hardback rulebooks published for different versions of the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy roleplaying game. Each version of Oriental Adventures provides rules for adapting its respective version of D&D for use in campaign settings based on the Far East, rather than the medieval European setting assumed by most D&D books. Both versions of Oriental Adventures include example campaign settings.
Al-Qadim is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game which was developed by Jeff Grubb with Andria Hayday for TSR, Inc., and was first released in 1992. Al-Qadim uses One Thousand and One Nights as a theme and is set in the land of Zakhara, called the Land of Fate. Thematically, the land of Zakhara is a blend of the historical Muslim Caliphates, the stories of legend, and a wealth of Hollywood cinematic history. Zakhara is a peninsula on the continent of Faerûn in the world of Toril, the locale of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, although Al-Qadim is designed to stand on its own or be added to any existing campaign setting. The basic campaign setting was divided between two game products: Al-Qadim: Arabian Adventures, a sourcebook describing character creation rules, equipment, and spells unique to the setting, and Al-Qadim: Land of Fate, a boxed set describing the land of Zakhara, with separate sourcebooks for the players and the Dungeon Master.
The Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game is a fantasy role-playing game published by Palladium Books in 1983.
A dwarf, in the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy roleplaying game, is a humanoid race, one of the primary races available for player characters. The idea for the D&D dwarf comes from the dwarves of European mythologies and J. R. R. Tolkien's novel The Lord of the Rings (1954–1955), and has been used in D&D and its predecessor Chainmail since the early 1970s. Variations from the standard dwarf archetype of a short and stout demihuman are commonly called subraces, of which there are more than a dozen across many different rule sets and campaign settings.
Nightbane is a dark fantasy role-playing game and setting created by C. J. Carella and published by Palladium Books.
In the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, orcs are a primitive race of savage, bestial, barbaric humanoid.
In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, goblins are a common and fairly weak race of evil humanoid monsters. Goblins are non-human monsters that low-level player characters often face in combat.
In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, the centaur is a large monstrous humanoid. Based upon the centaurs of Greek myth, a centaur in the game resembles a human with the lower body of a horse.
In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, giants are a collection of very large humanoid creatures based on giants of legend, or in third edition, a "creature type".
Monster Mythology, published by TSR in 1992, is a sourcebook about non-human deities that can be used in fantasy role-playing games using the second edition rules for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D).
The Player's Guide, also known as the Greyhawk Player's Guide or the Player's Guide to Greyhawk, is a sourcebook for the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. Written by Anne Brown, the work was published by Wizards of the Coast under its TSR imprint in 1998.
Planes of Chaos was a boxed set for the Planescape campaign setting of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.
The Orcs of Thar is an accessory for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, written by Bruce Heard and published by TSR in 1988.
Tall Tales of the Wee Folk is an accessory for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.
Character race is a descriptor used to describe the various sapient species and beings that make up the setting in modern fantasy and science fiction. In many tabletop role-playing games and video games, players may choose to be one of these creatures when creating their player character (PC) or encounter them as a non-player character (NPC). "People" is to be taken in the broader sense, and may encompass ethnic groups, species, nationality or social groups.
The Book of Sigils is a supplement published by R. Talsorian Games in 1995 for the Victorian steampunk role-playing game Castle Falkenstein.
The Risen is a tabletop role-playing game supplement published by White Wolf Publishing in June 1996 for use with the horror game Wraith: The Oblivion. It adds the risen as playable characters: wraiths that inhabit dead bodies to become walking dead.
In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, gnomes are one of the core races available for play as player characters. Some speculate that they are closely related to dwarves; however, gnomes are smaller and more tolerant of other races, nature, and magic. Depending on the setting and subrace, they are often skilled with illusion magic or engineering. Gnomes are small humanoids, standing 3–3.5 feet (91–107 cm) tall.