Spell Compendium review

I've finally had some time to really read this and IMHO this book could save the back of many gamers.


The Good:
The Spell Compendium takes the spells from 13 WOTC books(but NOT the PHB), 23 Dragon magazine articles, 16 WOTC website articles along with several previously unpublished spells and puts them in one book. They cleaned up those spells that were still 3.0 and renamed several so that campaign specific names (Bigby, Elminster, etc.) are not used in this book. Their is a list at the beginning of the spell description section that tells you what the old spell name is and what it was changed to. They slightly altered the spell description format in a way that is really helpful. Any place that they reference another book in the descrition of a spell they give the book and page number where the information can be found.


The Bad:
I don't have much to knock on this book. The $40 retail price is enough to turn off some from buying it but I think considering the amount of information provided it is worth the price. It would have been nice if the Player's Handbook spells were included but it is already almost 300 pages.


The Unsure:
They only covered the core class spell lists but they gave some basic recommendations on how to apply the new spells to prestige and other spellcasting classes that have their own specific lists. The class spell lists are located after the spell descriptions which is also a different format. I think that will take a little getting used to but generally is 6 of one way or half a dozen of the other way.


Overall, I think this is a well produced and useful product that is worth the price. I welcome your comments on this book.