used in the basic Dungeons & Dragons rules set. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition The mage, as part of the "wizard" group, was one of the standard character classes available in the second edition Player's Handbook. The second edition of AD&D discarded the term "Magic-User" in favor of "mage". The second edition Player's Handbook gives a few examples of mages from legend and myth: Merlin, Circe and Medea. In this edition, the mage became an all-purpose wizard who could cast any wizardly spell, including many only available to illusionists in the first edition, like color spray and chromatic orb. The wizard spell list was unified, and illusionists became one of many specialist wizard types who focussed on a specific "school" of magic. The other specialists were abjurers, conjurers, diviners, enchanters, invokers, necromancers and transmuters. As a trade-off for various bonuses with magic from their chosen school, specialists became unable to cast spells from one or more "opposition" schools. Aside from school restrictions, all wizards could cast spells from up to 9th level, assuming they had the required intelligence. The Complete Wizard's Handbook was published in 1990, written by Rick Swan. It detailed the schools of magic (illusion, necromancy etc.) and the careers a wizard might have (such as alchemist or treasure-hunter), added new spells to the wizard list, and introduced rules for spell research, adjudicating illusions, and casting spells in unusual conditions. The book also introduced wizard "kits": character packages with role-playing hooks linked to game benefits and limitations. Examples of wizard kits include the Academician, the Anagokok, the Amazon Sorceress and the Witch. The Tome of Magic (1991) introduced elementalists, specialist wizards who focussed on spells related to one of the classical elements of air, earth, fire or water, and wild magic, which promised greater power at the cost of a built-in chance of backfire and other side effects. Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition The 3rd edition renamed the mage to "Wizard". The term "magic user" is rarely used in the current edition of the game, and when it is used it is usually a synonym for an arcane spellcaster or for an arcane spellcasting character class. A similar paradigm of spell schools was retained for the 3rd edition of D&D as well. Despite removing the restrictions on race/class combinations, D&D 3.0 edition retained the gnomish affinity for becoming illusionists by making illusionist (not wizard) the gnome's favored