In the end AD&D 1st edition spanned about a dozen books, causing the gaming community to complain about needing an egg crate to carry their rules around in. AD&D was created to refine and integrate these rules into the new core rulebooks. Thanks to the Complete series of rulebooks, the 2nd edition rules became several times more bloated than its predecessor.
Races: Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Half-Elf, Halfling, Human Classes: Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Illusionist, Mage, Paladin, Ranger, Specialist Wizard, Thief Alignments: Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral, Lawful Evil, Neutral Good, True Neutral, Neutral Evil, Chaotic Good, Chaotic Neutral, Chaotic Evil Level Range: 1-20. Maximum level depending on race and class selection.
Players Handbook: Covers all the rules for character creation, equipment, experience, spells, movement and combat. This is the first core AD&D rulebook to include an integrated skill system, termed non-weapon proficiencies.
Dungeon Masters Guide: The DMG covers optional and expanded rules for character creation, aging, disease, lycanthropy, money, NPCs, combat, time, spells, experience, treasure, and the adventuring environment.
Monster Manual: This book compiled several entries from the Monstrous Compendium binder into a single hardback book. The original binder concept seemed like a good idea until it was noticed that more than one monster entry was on a page, eliminating the ability to combine the pages into any order desired by the DM. As a result the binder took up too much space compared to what could have been done with a book.
Complete Psionics Handbook: The core rulebooks did not address psionic powers at all, saving it for a more detailed treatment in this book. Now players could make psionicist characters as well as handle non-psionics with wild talents.
Settings: This edition was marked by great expansion of its available settings such as: Dark Sun, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Lankhmar, Mystara, Ravenloft and Spelljammer.
