Editing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (section)

===OPTION BOOKS===
The Option series brought in several piecemeal procedures for character and scenario creation. Due to a no-playtesting policy at TSR, many builds under the OPTION books can be horribly broken. Allow these at your own risk, DMs. OPTION Series books are often referred to as 2.5 by newbies looking for some sense of revenge after 2E fans made fun of them when Wizards released 3.5. It's not 2.5; none of the core books are invalidated or changed. The OPTIONs are broken, but they still require the 2E core books and as such are still 2E, much as it pains most fans to admit it. Although there are broken class combinations possible under the Option series assuming the DM ignores the fact that he is supposed to provide oversight (notably, it's possible by not turning the page and reading the additional rules on page 40 of S&M to make a priest character who can use Meteor Swarm as an at-will ability), the series also introduces or reintroduces balanced and archetypal classes such as the Monk, Crusader and Shaman and provides critical special abilities for level 10+ characters. Amongst the latter, the Hardiness ability, usable by fighters, paladins, and rangers, allows those characters to delay more "unfair" attack forms such as instant death, paralysis, energy drain and mind control spells briefly, and then to sleep off the effects. Many aspects of these books, such as Combat & Tactics combat systems, and many of the options from High Level Campaigns, made it into 3e.