For those of you who don't look at a book before buying it, read the table of contents:

http://paizo.com/download/dragon/compendium/TableOfContents.pdf

It's a good book with good player options, but the advertising has been misleading. To quote the ad on this very page: "The Dragon Compendium collects the most popular classic articles from throughout Dragon magazine's 29-year history,..."

By my count there is roughly 60% of the book that comes to us directly from the long lost days of...D&D 3.0...aka...the year 2000 or later. For those of you counting thats 17.4% of Dragon's print run making up 60% of the book.

I like the book and the options it presents. The three star rating comes from the misleading advertising.

Buy the book, you'll probably like it...Just know what you are getting.

I found Dragon Compendium disappointing. I purchased it because I wanted to read old articles from past, distant numbers of Dragon Magazine: instead, first pages are full of feats and prestige classes. Tsk, tsk. Don´t you think, people from Dragon, that we have had enough of this? I can assure this is not what I was looking for when I bought this book. Classics is the only section I really enjoyed (well, that and chromatic dragons, too). I am a little frustrated Dragon Compendium gave more importance to feats than to old, good lore.

I initially purchased this product with the expectation that I would at least enjoy reading it but probably not have much in the way of material I would directly use in my games. I was very happily wrong.

I found the material in this book to be very clear, concise, and wonderfully detailed. First of all I really enjoyed the races section. These were all very different and fun sounding. Though I may not actually use a few of them, I have mined them for ideas (And Tibbits will forevermore be in my game!) I found the base classes to be wonderfully detailed and quite generic enough to be dropped in most setting. I personally would probably never play a couple of them but I would always give my players the option of playing them. The feat section I found to be chocked full of mega goodness, all of these will be allowed in the next campaign I run. (And to go off on a tangent the Bloodline feats absolutely ROCK!) The prestige class section I found a mixed bag, much less I will use here but all of it is good and well written and it did not spoil the book for me in any way or make me feel as if there was wasted space. The equipment section is again a wonderful treasure trove and I will make heavy use of it. Moving on to the monster section I was amazed to find some wonderful oddities and awesome Seelie and Unseelie templates! (I always have very low expectations for monster sections) The last section I will comment on is the general Dming/Gaming section. I found this less useful as I have been Gming a long time and frankly had heard one variation or the other of this. This however, does not hurt my opinion of the book as I realize this will be a great boon to others, just not necessarily myself. Lastly I will comment on the artwork. On the subject of quantity I find it to be truly adequate. Too many books today have much in the way of “filler” art taking up space where text would be better. On the subject of quality I find it to be a mixed bag, some good, some not so

I felt that this book was quite useful, and contains many excellent articles from all eras of Dungeons and Dragons. It was not an updated reprint of every Dragon issue ever published, which seems to be what some folks were expecting. However, every decent DM should be able to find something useful in this magnificently illustrated volume. Some of the other reviewers at this site have not given a good review to this book, to which I say, "SHAME ON YOU! Do you really think that the best way to get the articles you were wanting is to attempt to convince potential buyers that this VERY WORTHWHILE book is bad? If nobody buys this one, there will never be a second volume. That would be a serious tragedy in my eyes.

Buy this book! I found it to be worth every bit of the five star rating that I gave it. It contains MUCH cooler stuff than most of the books that WOTC is putting out these days...

The feat section was not necessary, in fact it should of been saved for seperate book along the lines of the Spell Compenduim just released by WotC.

Way too few classic articles or classic monsters.

I also could of done without the artwork in liue of few extra pages of articles or monsters.

For a collection of 3.5 material from Dragon, this book is a strong step in the right direction. The layout was nice, the art appropriate, and the content fitting for the d20 system.

However, the material was focused primarily on 3E (updated) and 3.5 material. In essence, a reprint of material from the last 4-5 years.

As for the content ...it's all crunch. If you want more spells, Feats, Prestige Classes, monsters, etc ....this will be a pleasing purchase. On the other hand, if you wanted (or hoped for) a more classic look at both D&D and Dragon ...you might be wise to wait for the second or third compendium to come out before ordering.

Overall, this book isn't as bad as some people would claim ..but it isn't what I think allot of older gamers had hoped it would be. An easy 3 stars.

~Jaye

What's included is good, althought I would have like to have seen more material from the 70's and 80s era. But I liked the Book overall. The included artwork was nice, although I wasn't too keen on the inside front cover art, but overall the included art was very good. (but some of it is rehashed from other sources) The Jester class was a good read as I was able to reminse. I remember almost buying dragon that had that issue when I was a kid....lol. For 40 bucks I think you get your monies worth and I want to see want the next volume has in store. The monsters update was nice as was the magic items / equipment section too.
Rogues and Assassins should love the poisons that are in here...very cool. And the updated crictal hits and misses table...

Overall a good deal.

While I'm a fan of classic 80's Dragon more so than I am of modern 90's through 2001-ish Dragon, I have to say the stuff Paizo included was pretty decent. The artwork on the inside covers was nice (a few of my recent favorites where shown).

The Races were interesting. Dvati, Lupin and Tibbits where my stand outs. I think I might allow the Dvati (soul twins) in my game. It just looks like a cool concept and an interesting role-playing challenge.

Core Classes: The Battle Dancer, Deathmaster, Urban Druid and the "orginal" Jester (by Roger E. Moore sorry Richard) all kick some serious butt. The battledancer in particular is going right in to my game. And I have a player who's seriously looking at the Savant (jack-of-all-core classes and a handy mentorish character to have around). I haven't gotten to the Sha'ir yet, maybe today.

I've never been a big fan of prestige classes. Most of the time they are just too campaign specific and most these look to fall into that territory.

Feats: Yes! I can finally make that Final Fantasy style dragoon I've always wanted. You know Freya from FF9 she jumps in the air (Vault) and hammers you with her partisan (from the equipment chapter). Cutpurse works nicely for the Mug ability. Oh, and Heads Up, which allows you to use the severed head of a creature with a gaze attack as a waepon is just classic. Though of limited use in most games it's worth it even if you can only use it once, just for style's sake. Now you to can be a "Kung Fu Genius".

Granted, if you've been buying every Dragon for the last twenty years and have it all catalogued somewhere then perhaps this isn't the book for you. If like me, you like everything updated and in one book then this might be the book for you. And if you haven't ever read Dragon before then this is definitely the place to start.

GGG

There's more but as the editors will tell you I run long.

I got my copy of the Dragon Compendium Vol 1 the other and after looking it over I am EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED.

When I heard of the "Dragon Compendium" I was expecting primarily material from classical issues from Dragon Magazine way back in the day and updated for the current 3.5e system. Instead, I get another huge list of races, feats, prestige classes, etc. that we get ALL THE TIME. I mean, do the editors (or whomever put this together) realize how many feats and prestige classes are already out there in the recent 3.5e literature. We have been bombarded with these, the sheer number is unbelievable.

I was extremely discouraged with the number of articles pre-dating the 2000-2006 era. Most of these issues are easily available at the local library or by purchase on Paizo.com. The older issues, and in my opinion, the CLASSIC ISSUES were entirely under represented. The bias towards the newer articles was blatant and painfully obvious, and reading some of the posts a number of other members feel the same as I.

I feel robbed at purchasing this volume and it was a kick in the teeth for a player who's been playing D&D since 1979. What about the classic articles you read about all the time but you can never get your hands on: (i) discussions between Mordenkainen, Dalamar, and Elminster, (ii) details of Zagyg and the classic imprisonment of the nine demigods, (iii) the intricacies of the outer planes (Nine Hells, Abyss, Pandemonium, etc.), etc.

Where were all the historical articles? Where were all the classical characters reinstalled in the 3.5e system.

You totally lost me on this one and I'm not going to pre-order the next volume but rather wait this time and see how everyone feels about it. I apologize for the length of this diatribe, but I had to vent as it was brewing all night.

I am disgruntled, disappointed, and frankly I feel cheated and betrayed... It was definitely not worth the money I paid!

Sincerely....Big D!

I had hoped for more "classic" content, but what I got was an extremely useful hardcover book. The artwork is awesome. While I don't plan on using most of the prestige and core classes in the book, there's lots of inspirational material therein and many of the feats are very useful.

The equipment and magic item section is very useful and re-introduced some weapons from 1st edition that had been left out of the PH. I particularly liked the broad-bladed shortspear.

The critical hits and bad misses article was the one I had eagerly awaited--I was curious to see how it was reworked for 3rd edition. It's a workable system, but didn't quite have the instant "cool" impact that the original article did.

Room for improvement? Just a little, I'm reserving the 5 star review for the Dragon Compendium that really blows me away, but I sure got my money's worth and there's lots of stuff in here that I can use in my campaign.

Bloodline Feats--Awesome, I really liked their inclusion in this book!!