When I first beheld the massive tome, I could sense the awesome power throbbing within it's pages. And when I returned home with the book, pulled away the shrinkwrap and began perusing it’s contents, I knew that I had acquired a truly superb collection!
As Book Of All Spells is a compilation of existing material from a wide variety of published sources, I should first credit Fast Forward Entertainment project developer and editor Christoffer Trossen as well as editors Anne Brown, Christy Everette and Alex Jacobs, but I would be remiss in not at least tipping my virtual hat to all the others who initially created the more than 1,700 spells collected in this single volume.
Weighing in at 448 black-and-white pages (including OGL and copyright acknowledgement), Book Of All Spells is a well-organized assemblage of material originating from over two dozen different published sources including, obviously, the Player’s Handbook from Wizards Of The Coast, as well as material from Alderac Entertainment Group, Bastion Press, Fast Forward Entertainment (obviously), Fantasy Flight Games, Mongoose Publishing, Paradigm Concepts and Sword & Sorcery Studios. All spells originating from the PHB are listed in a standard font while spells drawn from other publishers appear in bold.
After the book’s introduction, we get right into the spells beginning with 39 pages of spell lists covering Bard Spells, Cleric Spells, Druid Spells, Paladin Spells, Ranger Spells and Sorcerer and Wizard Spells. The list is clear and easy to use, broken up into a three-column per page format. Each listing features the spell’s name (and the standard font for PHB, bold font for other sources format is used) along with a brief description of it’s effects. Sorcerer and Wizard Spells are further categorized into their respective schools.
The bulk of the book, of course, is devoted to the detailed spell descriptions and the only noticeable addition to each description is a “Source” category where a two or three-word code is used to indicate the original source material (e.g. PHB, ME, CW, etc.) No modifications to the spells themselves have been made, and I consider this a good thing.
The border art is non-obtrusive (a three-quarter inch, faux-stone trim with inscribed runes and symbols) and the artwork used throughout the book appears to be primarily historic clipart. The book could easily have been published without any art at all, but peppering in the occasional woodcut or illumination from some ancient manuscript does break things up nicely.
The one criticism I have for this book (and I’ve heard it mentioned elsewhere) is that the “cover” is a bit of a letdown. The art by Aaron Campbell depicting a female figure apparently summoning a fire elemental, is well done, but the actual material used for the cover is what is at issue. It is little more than a glossy piece of paper wrapped around the bound pages. Now the book is 3-hole drilled meaning that Fast Forward intended owners of the book to place it into a 3-ring binder, but as I have yet to purchase a binder exclusively for this purpose, I only forsee this cover getting bent and torn through prolonged use. Apart from this, though, I feel that Fast Forward has produced a most excellent product!
Book Of All Spells is one of those grand sourcebooks that really needs to find its way on to most gamer’s shelves (and gaming tables).
