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## About This Content
## D&D Classics: Tome of Magic (2E)

Take your spellcasters to limits they have never reached before! With over 200
new spells and magical items, Tome of Magicstretches the horizons of every
wizard and priest in the AD&D 2nd Edition game.

In these pages are new forms of wizard magic including elementalists,
metamagic, and wild magic, plus expansions of existing schools. For priests,
whole new spheres have been discovered – chaos, law, numbers, thought, time,
war, and wards – and powerful new quest spells lie waiting to be tapped.

All characters will experience the thrill of discovering new magical items
such as the claw of magic stealing, dimensional mine, crystal parrot, ring of
randomness, and staff of the elements. Tome of Magicis an invaluable expansion
for all the spellcasting classes!

Product History

Tome of Magic(1991), by David “Zeb” Cook and a bevy of other TSR writers, was
a hardcover rulebook for AD&D 2e. It was released in June 1991.

Origins. By the time Cook was done working on the 2e Player’s Handbook(1989),
he knew that there were “lots of gaps in the spell lists.” Tome of Magicwas
thus suggested as a book that could fill those holes. Cook decided to write a
book containing lots of new spells meant to help GMs, to help players, or to
fill in gaps in effects. He also intended to introduce some spells “to help
explain the weirdness people were always putting in adventures.”

However, Cook realized that a hodge-podge of spells wouldn’t make for a
compelling book, so he decided to also include new sorts of magic for both
wizards and priests. In the process, he reached out to five other TSR
designers and let them run wild with his ideas, in the end producing a varied
book of magic.

Continuing the 2e Hardcovers. In the days of AD&D 1e, hardcovers were the
focus of the line’s prestige releases. Thus TSR put out 13 hardcovers for AD&D
1e from 1977-88, most frequently releasing a new hardcover at Gen Con, to
maximize each book’s impact.

That plan faltered under 2e, primarily because TSR was publishing in so many
different formats including boxes (which appear to have been quite expensive
to publish) and prestige softcover books like the PHBR series (which were
comparatively cheap to produce). Monster books also initially disappeared form
the hardcover line, thanks to TSR’s sale of looseleaf Monstrous
Compendiums(1989-98).

As a result, after TSR published their three core 2e hardcovers – including
Legends & Lore(1990) – it wasn’t clear where they were going to go with their
hardcover rulebook line. In the end, TSR published a couple of setting
hardcovers for 2e, but only two more hardcover books of rules: Tome of
Magic(1991) and Book of Artifacts(1993).

Of those, Tome of Magic was much more successful. It went through five
printings in the 2e era, then was updated for 2.5e along with the core
rulebooks. It went through at least two printings after that. Comparatively,
Book of Artifactsand even Legends & Loreonly went through a few printings
each.

It wouldn’t be until the 2.5e era (1995-97) that TSR decided to become more
consistent and aggressive with their publication of hardcovers. The result
would be the Player’s Optionsseries.

(Re)Introducing Wild Magic. The idea of wild magic originated in Forgotten
Realms Adventures(1990), which revealed that the Times of Trouble had left
behind areas where magic no longer worked “correctly.” Tome of Magic followed
that up with the creation of a new class of magician who studied wild magic –
the wild mage – and made him available to worlds beyond Toril. These wild
mages were one of Tome of Magic’s most long-lasting additions to D&D, as their
reappeared as a prestige class for 3.5e in Complete Arcane(2004) and as a
paragon path for 4e in Player’s Handbook 2 (2009).

Introducing Elementalism. Tome of Magicintroduced one other major class of
wizard: the elementalist. Though AD&D 2e had given wizards the choice to
specialize, these specialists were focused on the somewhat arcane categories
of magic created by Gygax and Arneson back in the 70s. Thus you had evokers,
summoners, and more – but not elementalists, a fairly traditional sort of
magician in fantasy literature and games. Tome of Magicchanged this by
presenting special rules for wizards who focused on air, water, fire, and/or
earth. Following 2e, the idea of elementalism has reappeared from time to
time: in Tome and Blood(2001) for 3e, in Complete Arcane(2004) for 3.5e, and
in Heroes of the Elemental Chaos(2012) for 4e.

Introducing Metamagic. Tome of Magicalso introduced the idea of “metamagic” –
spells that could affect other spells. This concept came into much wider use
in 3e, where metamagic feats and rods (which could similarly be used to affect
magic) first appeared.

Introducing New Priestly Powers. The priest got a lot of upgrades in Tome of
Magictoo, including super-powerful spells that required a quest before they
could be cast; community-powered spells; and cooperatively cast spells. For
some reason – unlike the magic expansions such as wild magic, elementalism,
and metamagic – these new rules didn’t prove as popular, and thus have largely
disappeared since 2e.

(A few of the quest spells did show up in 3e as 9th-level priest spells.)

Introducing New Spheres of Magic. Finally, Tome of Magicalso introduced some
new spheres for priests, including chaos, law, numbers, thought, time,
travelers, war, and wards. War is the most interesting, perhaps, because it
was specifically created to link to Battlesystem(1985, 1989, 1991), which TSR
was constantly trying to push in that time period.

Chaos, law, travel, and war domains all reappeared in 3e.

Future History. The name of this volume was reused several years later for
Wizards of the Coast’s Tome of Magic: Pact, Shadow, and Truename Magic(2006).
There’s no overlap of the content, however.

About the Creators. Cook was the designer of AD&D 2e and thus arguably knew
the system better than anyone. Tome of Magicwas his first major rulebook since
the release of the 2e rules. Cook wrote the wild magic and faith magic
sections of Tome of Magicand also developed the work done by other authors.
His compatriots in Tome of Magicwere Nigel Findley, Anthony Herring,
Christopher Kubasik, Carl Sargent, and Rick Swan.

Converted by: Franklin Miller

Released on August 12, 2019. Designed for Fantasy Grounds version 3.3.7 and
higher.

Requires: An active subscription or a one time purchase of a Fantasy Grounds
Full or Ultimate license and the included 2E ruleset.

Fantasy Grounds – D&D Classics: Tome of Magic (2E)