It may come as no surprise, then, that of the four books in Jim Zub, Stacy King and Andrew Wheeler's Dungeons & Dragons: A Young Adventurer's Guide series, the book I was most interested in reading was Wizards & Spells, the final book in the series (at least as of this writing).
While I can't necessarily come up with a better title than Wizards & Spells, it seems to be a bit misleading, as "Wizard" is only one of the six different magic-using classes the book covers. Equal time is also given to covering Bards, Clerics, Druids, Sorcerers and Warlocks. Wizards & Spells devotes two-pages to the introduction of each class, with a description of the traits, advantages and limitations, and unique features of each. Different classes have different limitations in the use of armor and weapons, and one may need to keep a spell book with them or their power might be stronger when they're in the type of environment in which they grew up, for example. These descriptions are each followed by a two-page entry depicting a "Legendary" example of that class. All of the examples are colorful and interesting characters, but it is noteworthy that the Legendary Wizard that they chose to profile in Wizards & Spells is Mordenkainen, who is an NPC character of great renown from the World of Greyhawk and is responsible for creating several spells. Three of those spells, "Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion", "Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound" and "Mordenkainen's Sword" are briefly described at the end of his profile.
I should note that, as is true of all of the books in A Young Adventurer's Guide series, there are no numbers given here. D&D is a game of numbers; spells do certain amounts of damage, have a certain range and last for a certain duration, all of which can depend on multiple numeric details, such as your character's level, their caster level and the level of the spell. When you read D&D gaming supplement books, these details are listed, so you can make use of the information in-game. A Young Adventurer's Guide doesn't give you the numeric information you need to actually play, but is, instead, intended to pique the imagination and inspire a reader to try playing the game and, hopefully, purchase those full-fledged source books so that they can make use of the interesting things presented in these books.
There is a section on Types of Magic that fills almost half of the book. This section introduces rituals, scrolls, and spellcasting, then has a section for each of the different levels of spells: Cantrips (think of these as "zero-level" spells) and then First through Ninth-Level spells. Each section has a brief description to indicate how powerful a magic-user would need to be to command spells of a given level, followed by descriptions (again, without the numbers and play mechanics) of four example spells from that level. Magic Missile is included as an example of a First-Level spell and rightly so; it is a spell that should be in the toolkit of any player magic-user and I have seen builds based around the use of Magic Missile. However, I was surprised to not see Fireball (Third-Level Spell) included, as it is powerful and is a very well-known spell. Then again, leaving it out allows the reader to be exposed to four other Third-Level Spells and Fly, Call Lightning, and Speak with Dead all seem worthy of inclusion. If I were selecting the content, I might have included Fireball instead of Water Breathing, but Water Breathing's 24-hour duration makes it noteworthy. (I have to say that, although Fireball's effect duration is instantaneous, improper use can have psychological effects on both characters and players that last much longer than 24-hours and can easily end up the stuff of nightmares, anecdotes, and ballads.)
The last section of the book is devoted to Magical Items, with attention given to Weapons, Staffs, Wands, Magic Armor, Potions, Rings, Cloaks, and Wondrous Items. In a similar fashion to the other sections in the book, the Weapons, Staffs, and Wands sections highlight four (well, five, in the case of Weapons) specific items, then follow them up with a more in-depth look at "Legendary" examples, such as "The Sunsword", "Staff of the Magi" and the "Wand of Wonder". There are no Legendary examples of Magic Armor, Potions, Rings, Cloaks or Wondrous Items, although there are seven different Wondrous Items described. I would have expected to see a mention of Mithral in the Magic Armor and a Deck of Many Things in the Wondrous Items section, based on their power and notoriety. Also, I found it surprising that Rings of Protection weren't included in the Rings section, as these are quite popularly used by adventurers who can't utilize bulky armor, as they provide a way to magically armor themselves a bit.
Dungeons & Dragons is an interactive fiction game that allows players to experience magical, exciting worlds that they, themselves, participate in shaping. And, while playing the game with friends can provide hours and hours of entertainment, so, too, can simply poring over the various source books. The artwork can be breathtaking and inspiring and the descriptions of magical places, items, and creatures can serve as seeds for epic imagined scenarios and adventures. In particular, I really liked some of the illustrations for the spells, such as Call Lightning (Third-Level Spell), Fire Shield (Fourth-Level Spell) and Time Stop (Ninth-Level Spell). Additionally, some of the artwork is amusing, such as the illustration for Polymorph (Fourth-Level Spell) and Otto's Irresistible Dance (Sixth-Level Spell), although the latter pretty much always has some amount of humor involved, as one might expect.
As for the intended goal of inspiring creativity and imagination, I found Wizards & Spells to do just that. I read through the book in its entirety once, but found that I've returned to it to re-read a section or a specific spell or magic item or just to look at the illustrations for more time than it took me to read it through the original time. As I've read through the book, I find myself imagining novel character concepts for player characters and/or NPCs and possible story hooks and adventures for them.
If someone already plays the game, your money would probably be better spent on a specific source book (with the numbers and game mechanics), instead. However, if you're looking for a gift for a non-gaming friend or relative and you don't want to scare them away with math, Wizards & Spells provides a fascinating glimpse at the magical side of D&D and all four books of A Young Adventurer's Guide series would make a great gift for someone who is not familiar with D&D.
