I would have to agree with others that the Kit's in this book are a little weak. In playability as well as game terms. However, the Mythos section gave me many ideas for creating specialty priest's for games that I run as well as characters for other's. It works well if you ignore the sample priesthoods and just use the guidlines it gives to come up with new ideas.

Since the introduction to the 3rd edition D&D a year ago, some 2nd edition books were obsolete, while others were still useful. This very book, "the complete priest's handbook" fits into neither category, however, as it was never good to begin with.

It begins fine with relatively good ways to make up your own pantheons of gods. This is helpful to an inexperienced DM, but for a seasoned DM or any DM using campaign settings providing unique pantheons, this is very little help.

Things go downhill from there. The sample priesthoods are pretty weak. Not one of them comes close to having the spells of a cleric or granted powers of a druid. If you're using 2nd edition rules, you're better off creating priesthoods under the guidelines provided in the players handbook.

Almost everything else is kits and Role-playing personalities taken from other sources.

Uninspired and unimaginative are good words to use for this book.
Numerous superior 2nd edition products are out of print, yet this
one still exists. Go figure.

Where 2nd Edition AD&D endows fighters with the ability to (at first level) swing a longsword in each hand, potentially doing 28 points of damagae in a single round without counting Strength bonuses, the 2nd Edition Priests handbook cuts a Priest's power in half. I didn't find a single Priesthood that allowed it's followers to cast spells from all spheres, and many were reduced in combat ability. The special abilities added often come at the cost of the Priest's ability to Turn Undead creatures.

In short, ignore the sample priesthoods, or at least give them more spheres and/or abilities, if you want your players to still be your friends.

The rest of the book is good. It provides mythos creation guidelines, so if you don't wish to play in Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk, you can create your own pantheon and mythology using the guidelines in this book.

The kits are not all that great, one of them even relying on the heavily flawed Martial Arts system from the Player's Handbook. But with a little tinkering, you can use them. Just about everything in here needs a little work, but it's not unusable.

It's a good reference for DMs who are creating their game world. For players, they will probably get little use out of it.

Read it in the bookstore as a reference book when you are creating your world and putting Gods into it. But thats it...leave it there. This is the book in my TSR library with the most dust on it. But I pass it to new DM's more then i read it so it's not completely useless unless you don't know that many-would be DM's.