Dungeons and Dragons Blog

I love RPGnow.com.  You can not only find old first and second edition Dungeons and Dragons products available in pdf format, but there’s a variety of various third party products that are well worth the $5-10 price tag.  One of my latest purchases was written by Philip J. Reed and it’s 101 Spellbooks, Tomes of Knowledge and Forbidden Grimoires.  I’ve written about this before, butI’m a magic junkie.  When a book like Spell Compendium or Tome of Magic come out, I consider it a must buy.  I saw 101 Spellbooks in the top five listing for d20 Spell/Magic Books and I liked the description so I picked it up.

I must say, it far exceeded my expectations.  The books are very well put together, not just for their spell listings but for some of their special affects.  As a DM, I immediately started coming up with ideas to place some of these spell books in my campaign.  I figured some of the books would make nice magical item finds by the party but then there were some very cool books that I could form a nemesis around.

In addition to the spell books, you also get a detailed listing of special books.  While these don’t contain spells, they do give the owner a particular benefit.  Sometimes it’s an increase to a skill while others contain direction to building a certain magic item.  There’s also a variety of mundane books (no special effects, but some interesting items to place throughout a campaign).

Well worth the $7 download price, right?  Well, you get even more.  You get around 75 new spells and while there’s a bit here for everyone, there’s quite a bit if you run a necromancer.  Most of the spells are lower level spells (3rd level and lower) but there are some higher level, including two ninth level spells. 

There’s also some new feats, several of which center around poison.  I particularly liked Concealed Magic, which allows a spell caster to cast a spell discretely without giving away the fact that he’s actually casting a spell.   You also get over a dozen new types of poison and four new skills.

To round things out, you not only get a nice landscape colored version of the book, but you get a black and white profile version that is great for printing (which I did, it looks great).  I enjoyed this product so much that I also plan on checking out the other 101 products.  101 Feats looks particularly interesting.