Player's Handbook 2

This article is about the fourth edition book. For the third edition book, see Player's Handbook II.
Player's Handbook 2
AuthorRob Heinsoo, Mike Mearls, Robert J. Schwalb
GenreRole-playing game
PublisherWizards of the Coast
Publication date
March 2009
Media typePrint (Hardback)
Pages224
ISBN0-7869-5016-1

Player's Handbook 2 is a supplement to the 4th edition of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game.

Contents

The Player's Handbook 2 includes eight classes: the avenger, barbarian, bard, druid, invoker, shaman, sorcerer, and warden, and five races: the deva, gnome, goliath, half-orc, and shifter.[1]

Publication history

The 4th edition Player's Handbook 2, subtitled Arcane, Divine and Primal Heroes,[2] was released on March 17, 2009.[2] The book was designed by Jeremy Crawford, Mike Mearls, and James Wyatt, and featured cover art by Daniel Scott and interior art by Steve Argyle, Eric Belisle, Michael Bierek, Devon Caddy-Lee, Mitch Cotie, Thomas Denmark, Eric Deschamps, Brian Despain, Vincent Dutrait, Steve Ellis, Wayne England, Howard Lyon, Mike May, Raven Mimura, William O'Connor, Hector Ortiz, Wayne Reynolds, Chris Seaman, John Stanko, Matias Tapia, Franz Vohwinkel, Eva Widermann, and James Zhang.

Shannon Appelcline commented that with Fourth Edition Dungeons & Dragons, Wizards intended to publish only three books for each setting, beginning with the poorly-received Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide, Forgotten Realms Player's Guide and Scepter Tower of Spellgard in 2008, and "The next year saw the clockwork production of Dungeon Master's Guide 2 (2009), Monster Manual 2 (2009) and Player's Handbook 2 (2009), as well as the reappearance of Eberron through the typical two books and an adventure – the latter released as part of Free RPG Day. These setting books were much better accepted, perhaps because the 4e nay-sayers had now moved on to other games."[3]: 300 

Reception

The book reached No. 28 on USA Today's bestseller list the week of March 26, 2009 and No. 14 on the Wall Street Journal's non-fiction bestseller list a week later.[4][5]

References

  1. ^ Crawford, Jeremy; Mearls, Mike; Wyatt, James. "Contents" (PDF). Player's Handbook 2 excerpts. Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 2, 2009. Retrieved 2009-03-06.
  2. ^ a b Crawford, Jeremy; Mearls, Mike; Wyatt, James. "Contents". Player's Handbook 2. Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on June 30, 2008. Retrieved 2011-10-05.
  3. ^ Shannon Appelcline (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. ISBN 978-1-907702-58-7.
  4. ^ "BC-Best-sellers-Books-USA Today". USA Today. The Associated Press. March 26, 2009. Archived from the original on March 28, 2015. Retrieved May 29, 2013.
  5. ^ "BC-Best-sellers-Books-WSJ". Wall Street Journal. The Associated Press. April 2, 2009. Archived from the original on March 28, 2015. Retrieved May 29, 2013.