Close
Close
Advanced Search

Spell Compendium (3.5)Click to magnify
Full‑size Preview
https://watermark.dmsguild.com/pdf_previews/28314-sample.pdf

Spell Compendium (3.5)

ADD TO WISHLIST >
Selected Option:

Unlock the Lore of a Thousand Spellcasters

The essential spellcaster's companion, Spell Compendium gather over 1,000 of the best spell from previously published Dungeons&Dragons game supplements and campaign settings, Dragon magazine articles, and articles posted on the Wizards of the Coast website.

The spells contained herein complement those presented in the Player's Handbook and have been updated to include official errata. In addition, this book contains descriptive read-aloud text telling you what a spell looks like, sounds like, or feels like.

Product History

Spell Compendium (2005) by Matthew Sernett, Jeff Grubb, and Mike McArtor, is the first of three capstone Compendiums for D&D 3.5e. It was published in December 2005.

The First Sign of 3e's End? The march toward D&D 4e (2008) began in early 2005, when Bill Slavicsek and his design and development managers chose the core team for the new edition. They conducted a first workshop in May and had designed a set of eight core classes by September. So, was Spell Compendium a purposeful capstone for D&D 3.5e, intended to provide GMs with a definitive spell sourcebook?

Probably not.

This would more obviously be the case when Wizards returned to the Compendium series over a year later, with Magic Item Compendium (2007) and Rules Compendium (2007), but this first release in the series was too early in 4e's development. It probably just reflected the fact that D&D 3e had already produced a lot of spells. The Spell Compendium gave the design staff the opportunity to not just compile those spells, but also to regularize them and (in some cases) to update them for 3.5e.

About the Book. The design team for Spell Compendium didn't try to include all of the spells for D&D 3e and 3.5e, but Andy Collins estimates that they collected 90% of the official spells not in the Player's Handbook (2000, 2003).The major sources for the Spell Compendium are: Complete Adventurer (2005), Complete Arcane (2004), Complete Divine (2004), Complete Warrior (2003), Draconomicon: The Book of Dragons (2003), Libris Mortis: The Book of Undead (2004), Magic of Faerûn (2001), Manual of the Planes (2001), Miniatures Handbook (2003), Planar Handbook (2004), Player’s Guide to Faerûn (2004), Savage Species (2003), and Underdark (2003). Dragon magazine in its various 3e incarnations also contributed much of the Spell Compendium's content.

The Premium Reprints Continue. Following the success of the 2012 premium reprints for AD&D and for D&D 3.5e, Wizards decided to extend those series with some of the more critical supplements for the lines. For 3.5e, Spell Compendium was an obvious choice, so it appeared in April 2013 as the fourth premium reprint for D&D 3.5e.

Expanding D&D. Spell Compendium helped to incorporate swift and immediate actions in the D&D 3.5e core. Swift actions had originated in the Miniatures Handbook (2003) and immediate actions in the Expanded Psionics Handbook (2004). They'd both been referenced in numerous rulebooks since, but their appearance in the various Compendiums (2005-2007) was the closest they'd come to the core D&D 3.5e rules.

Future History. Spell Compendium filled in most of the basic spell design space for the D&D 3.5e game, so when Wizards designed Complete Mage (2006) the following year, they had to "push the familiar boundaries of what spells do".

About the Creators. Spell Compendium is a book that shows how much effort Wizards of the Coast could put into a product in the mid '00s. It had three designers (Matthew Sernett, Jeff Grubb, and Mike McArtor), five developers (Andy Collins, Jesse Decker, Mike Donais, Stephen Schubert, and Rob Watkins) and two editors (Michele Carter and Kim Mohan). Whew!

About the Product Historian

The history of this product was researched and written by Shannon Appelcline, the editor-in-chief of RPGnet and the author of Designers & Dragons - a history of the roleplaying industry told one company at a time. Please feel free to mail corrections, comments, and additions to shannon.appelcline@gmail.com.

We (Wizards) recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website does not reflect the values of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end.

pixel_trans.gif
pixel_trans.gif
 
 Customers Who Bought this Title also Purchased
pixel_trans.gif
pixel_trans.gif
Reviews (1)
Discussions (3)
Customer avatar
Zach C December 20, 2022 8:42 pm UTC
Is there any chance this could get a hardcover option? The 3.5e Rules compendium and the 3 core rulebooks all have hardcover as a POD option. I would like my collection to match as much as possible.
Customer avatar
Matthew V August 12, 2022 10:35 am UTC
PURCHASER
Just recieved my print of this book, and I can say I am very happy with my purchase. The print quality is extremely good even if the pages don't have the 'glossy' finish that the original prints did, no big deal. Considering people are selling hardcopies of this book right now for $250+ AUD this was a no brainer to pick up as my first 'Print to Order' book.

Overall very happy with my purchase and the product was professionally packed for dispatch to me.

Highly recommended. (Just wish that DriveThruRPG had more print licenses for 3.5 Books as I'd love not only fill out my complete collection but I'd love to ensure that if we play 3.5 we have enough of some books *cough* Core Books *cough* that we don't have to take turns accessing them.
Customer avatar
William L September 13, 2021 8:25 pm UTC
Why is this POD and the core rule books are not?
Narrow Results
$ to $
 Follow Your Favorites!
NotificationsSign in to get custom notifications of new products!
 Recent History















Product Information
Platinum seller
Pages
290
ISBN
0-7869-3702-5
File Size:
32.7 MB
Format
Original electronic Click for more information
Scanned image
These products were created by scanning an original printed edition. Most older books are in scanned image format because original digital layout files never existed or were no longer available from the publisher.

For PDF download editions, each page has been run through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to attempt to decipher the printed text. The result of this OCR process is placed invisibly behind the picture of each scanned page, to allow for text searching. However, any text in a given book set on a graphical background or in handwritten fonts would most likely not be picked up by the OCR software, and is therefore not searchable. Also, a few larger books may be resampled to fit into the system, and may not have this searchable text background.

For printed books, we have performed high-resolution scans of an original hardcopy of the book. We essentially digitally re-master the book. Unfortunately, the resulting quality of these books is not as high. It's the problem of making a copy of a copy. The text is fine for reading, but illustration work starts to run dark, pixellating and/or losing shades of grey. Moiré patterns may develop in photos. We mark clearly which print titles come from scanned image books so that you can make an informed purchase decision about the quality of what you will receive.
pixel_trans.gif
Original electronic format
These ebooks were created from the original electronic layout files, and therefore are fully text searchable. Also, their file size tends to be smaller than scanned image books. Most newer books are in the original electronic format. Both download and print editions of such books should be high quality.
File Information
Watermarked PDF Click for more information
Watermarked PDF

These PDF files are digitally watermarked to signify that you are the owner. A small message is added to the bottom of each page of the PDF containing your name and the order number of your purchase.

Warning: If any files bearing your information are found being distributed illegally, then your account will be suspended and legal action may be taken against you.

Here is a sample of a page from a watermarked title:

File Last Updated:
November 13, 2018
This title was added to our catalog on March 01, 2016.