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Player's Option: Skills & Powers (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Rulebook)

Fair in Wraps; 4to; Paperback; 192 pages; B/W & Color Illustrations; TSR, Inc.; 1995; First Thus; Heavy creasing and wear to wraps; Spine repaired with packing tape; Soiling to edges of text block; Bottom foredge corner of text dog-eared; Soiling to text; Text smells of smoke.

Series: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Rulebook

Hardcover: 192 pages

Publisher: Wizards of the Coast; 2nd Edition edition (July 1995)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0786901497

ISBN-13: 978-0786901494

Product Dimensions: 0.5 x 8.5 x 11.2 inches

Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces

Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #190,426 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #116 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Gaming > Dungeons & Dragons

My gaming group owns two different copies of this book. One is a first printing and the other is a second printing, both in hardback. The second printing is more concise than the first, but there are still plenty of ambiguous paragraphs where you simply hand the book to a lawyer and ask for an interpretation. But it's still better than the first printing of the book, which we use under the short leg of the table. There are more errors, omissions, and conflicting passages than in the US tax code. Example: first printing does not give a limit to the number of points that can be gained from taking disadvantages. Second printing, if you read far enough, eventually says that the limit is 15 points. When this discrepency was found, half of our group had used one printing and the other half had used the other, and the differences in the characters created was fairly extreme.Despite the problems, we still use Skills and Powers more than the Player's Handbook, mostly because of the ability to customize the characters with different abilities. One note however, when customizing wizards and clerics, I've found that you're better off using Spells and Powers as your primary source.The updated psionics chapter was a nice touch, and I realize it was meant for Dark Sun more than anything else, but it would have been nice if they had updated to a system that was still mostly compatible with the Monstrous Compendium entries, as opposed to having to completely revamp a psionic creature so that it is consistent with our psionicist PC before being able to use it.

This book gives some interesting rules variations, but not all of them make sense. There are point-based character creation rules, which allow characters to pick and choose the abilities for their race and class. It also presents the newer edition of the Psionicist class also published in the Dark Sun game. But there are a number of flaws with the new systems. For example, you can shift the focus of your attributes. Using the rules in this book, you can create a fighter who can comfortably (without encumbrance penalties) carry something several times heavier than he could ever lift. For another thing, the Psionicist presented in the end of the book is totally incompatible with the point-based creation system in the beginning. I feel that if TSR were giving us a new way to play the game, they should have made all the new material fit together. The book also presents a new way to learn and improve non-weapon proficiencies. But this new system makes starting characters almost totally helpless. Starting proficiency rolls are now more likely to be 8 or 9 for a character's best abilities. "Character Points" are awarded over the course of the campaign, but a player must devote them almost entirely to proficiencies if he wants to become as competent as characters were under the old system. It was fun to make up characters in this new system, but playing those characters is another matter. Like most AD&D supplements, I'm sure future books will ignore these rules completely. So, unless you or your DM feel like doing a lot of adapting of future supplements, this book won't be very useful.

If you're still playing 2nd edition like myself, then this book may be for you. So let me tell you exactly what this players option book is all about.This book will help your players develop there characters to even greater depths than ever before. With this book, races have more abilities to choose from, classes have more advantages to choose from, and with the adding of traits, a player can really define what makes his character stand out from the rest. Character Points (CP's) are continuously spent and added through character creation. You are awarded X amount of CPs for your race, then you spend them on abilities, then you get X amount of CPs for your class, again ; spend them on abilites. Non-weapon and Weapon proficiency's both have X amount of CPs based on your class.Players can even add limitations (as defined by the book) to there characters, adding even more depth to their character. For every limitation a character takes, he gets an amount of CPs to add to his/her pool. So even though a fighter may not be able to use a ranged weapon, he did get some more CPs to spend and maybe elected to gain multiple specialization rather than just the regular 1 weapon specialization.Lastly, if you are new to the game, or the edition, I'd suggest not using this book. If you're a Dungeon Master, you should read the book first, and decide if you're ready to handle the responsibility that comes with it. It will add some extra work for you BUT, it also lets you develop villans that also have several special abilities like the PC's do. Overall, if your an advanced group, and want to try something new, get this book, and really live out your adventure.

This book completely revolutionizes the character creation process, and alters character level awards with a new system of character points which can spent to improve almost any aspect of a character, instead of the old "one proficiency slot every three levels". It lets players customize their characters to great detail, allowing for greater diversification over the four classes. The only things keeping it from getting five stars for AD&D is that the system takes a few hours to get used to, and the rules, in my view, short-change the single-class fighter. Otherwise, it's a great book for any gamer.

This is one of the best AD&D books ever created because now you can choose what Abilities you want priority with The new Sub-Abilities Rules. In this book we also have a new System, The Character Point's (CP's). With The CP's we can buy Racial and Classial Abilities. For a example, a Wizard spending 15 CP's can use Armor, and the unspend CP's can be used in Weapon and Non-Weapon Proficiency and much more. If you want more realistic and Exciting for your Campangain This is The Perfect Book for you, GET IT!

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