2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons
The 1989 2nd edition saw a complete revision of the Players Handbook and the Dungeon Master Guide. The Monster Manual was replaced by the Monstrous Compedium loose leaf binder which was in turn replaced by the Monstrous Manual (1993)
The second edition expanded the number of books, most notably with the "Complete Handbook" or "Complete Book of" series, which featured handbooks for almost every race and class; gnomes and halflings shared one handbook, and the only specialist wizard to receive his own handbook was the necromancer. Several other archetypes, such as the barbarian, and campaign-specific concepts, such as the gladiator of Dark Sun, were also given their own handbooks. The handbooks introduced the concept of "kits", which were essentially specialized versions of character classes. Many of these, such as the Bladesinger (an elven fighter/wizard who could fight and cast spells at the same time), were considered to be grossly unbalanced, both in comparison to other kits and in particular to characters who did not use kits.
Several sourcebooks, such as the Book of Artifacts and Monstrous Compendium Appendices, provided new versions of rules, items, spells, or creatures that had been present in previous editions of the game but had been removed, for whatever reason, from the second edition of the game. While some of these conversions were direct adaptations of existing statistics into the slightly modified second edition rules, others, like the optional psionics system, were completely reinvented from the ground up and had little in common with their previous incarnations.
The Player's Option series of rulebooks were released in the mid-1990s and introduced many optional rules into the game: combat and warfare rules in Player's Option: Combat & Tactics; a character customization system in Player's Option: Skills & Powers; new spells and spellcasting rules in Player's Option: Spells and Magic; and rules for advancement to what would later become known as epic character levels in Dungeon Master's Option: High Level Campaigns.
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