Pocket Grimoire Arcane

[Messageboard Golem]

The Pocket Grimoires are your indispensable reference guides to the spells of the d20 System. Each volume collects spells from the core rules and over a dozen of the best d20 supplements, including Green Ronins Freeport: The City of Adventure. These are arranged alphabetically for easy reference, with spell lists and divine domains provided. Pocket Grimoire Arcane includes spells for Assassins, Bards, Sorcerers, and Wizards, while Pocket Grimoire Divine includes spells for Adepts, Blackguards, Clerics, Druids, Paladins, and Rangers. Whether you are a player or a game master, the Pocket Grimoires are sure to find a permanent place on your gaming table.

 

[GameWyrd]

256 pages and nearly all of them are entirely given over to arcane spells. 256 pages for $14.95 US; that’s amazing value. Ah yes, so the title of the book gives the game away "Pocket Grimoire". I watched with some incredulity an online debate as to whether the pocket grimoires could actually fit into a pocket. Don’t get carried away with this pocket concept. The book is just shy of 14cm (5 ½ inches) wide, 21½cm (8 ½ inches) high and 1½cm (½ inch) thick. The pocket grimoire is a book designed to be thrown into your travelling GM back of books, to take up as little space as possible on your table or behind your GM screen. It’s a great idea.

The concept behind the grimoire is to gather together spells from a range of different books and a range of different publishing companies and print them continent book. There is a huge number of spells in the book as a result. I’ve not counted how many exactly but when I say the alphabetical list of spells begins at page 6 and finishes on page 23. That is a total of 17 pages of nothing more than spell names.

Spells are listed in two ways, by class and by straight alphabetic reference. The classes covered in the Pocket Grimoire: Arcane are Assassin, Bard, Sorcerer and Wizard. They didn’t need to include Assassin but I’m glad they did. It must have been hard to decide where to draw the line between those classes and prestige classes which should be included and which should not.

In addition to spells from the core rules a total of 13 different books have contributed to the contents of the grimoire.
Arcana: Societies of Magic (Green Ronin)
Beyond the Veil (Trident Inc / Atlas Games)
Blood Reign of Nishanpur (Paradigm Concepts)
The Book of Eldritch Might (Monte Cook)
Codex Arcanis (Paradigm Concepts)
The Divine and the Defeated (White Wolf Publishing [Sword and Sorcery Studios])
Dungeons (Alderac Entertainment)
Evil (Alderac Entertainment)
Freeport: The City of Adventure (Green Ronin)
Interludes: Brief Expeditions to Bluffside (Thunderhead Games [now part of Mystic Eye Games])
Relics & Rituals (copyright to Clark Peterson [published as a Scarred Lands, Sword and Sorcery Studios book])
The Tide of Years (copyright to Michelle Nephew [published as an Atlas Games book])
Traps and Treachery (Fantasy Flight, Inc).

A quick count shows that that’s a total of eight different companies cooperating under the OGL agreement.

There are no illustrations in the book, not unless you count the three pages of adverts. As you would expect since the Pocket Grimoire: Arcane is a Green Ronin book there’s an advert for the recently printed The Book of the Righteous but there are also adverts for Sword & Sorcery conglomerate as well. We might wonder whether that’s part of deal in order to include their spells in the book. I don’t suppose it matters.

There’s a new school of magic too. The domain of Time, introduced and with the copyright attached to The Tide of Years, means that you’ll be able to find time spells. Yes, spells in this book of arcane magic are listed along with their cleric level and their matching domains even if it’s not so easy to access these spells through the tables of contents. I don’t think there are any spells in the book that can only be accessed by divine spell casters, indeed that would seem to be rather against the grain and would be a bit of a slap in the face for the sister book Pocket Grimoire: Divine.

It seems to be a sturdy little book too. The danger would be that a book of this small size with so many pages squeezed in would start to loose pages but the binding seems secure.

I liked the book. A list of spells is hard to review but I can say that I found the book easy to use and that would seem to be the do or die issue behind the concept. I could quickly find any spell I was interested in and even quickly find a spell suited for a general idea I wanted to exploit. For example, the contents list tells me that spells beginning with the letter "i" begin on page 115 and that’s all you need to begin your search for a scary ice magic spell for your villain.

I think this pocket grimoire is likely to be a great resource for GMs who use a lot of spells in their games and find themselves either needing to find information on a spell quickly in-game or want to have a large range of spells available to PCs and NPCs. I think the book also provides something of a peek at those books from which spells have been taking from.

This GameWyrd review can be found here.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

This review is for Pocket Grimoire Arcane from Green Ronin Publishing. This 256-page book retails for $14.95 and acts as an open content resource for many spells of the d20 system. Drawing from the Player’s Handbook, Book of Eldritch Magic, Traps and Treachery, Codex Arcanis, The Tide of Years, Freeport: City of Adventure and many others, this book is filled with arcane spells making this an essential addition to everyone’s collection. The spells and domains are arranged alphabetically and presented in much the same manner as those in the Player’s Handbook. While not an absolutely comprehensive collection of every spell, it does come close and should satisfy most gamers. I recommend it.

To see the graded evaluation of this product, go to The Critic's Corner at www.d20zines.com.

 

[Simon Collins]

This is not a playtest review.

Pocket Grimoire Arcane is the first in the Pocket Grimoire series from Green Ronin Publishing, a collection of spells from various d20 publishers, publishable under the OGL agreement.

Pocket Grimoire Arcane comes in at $14.95 for 256 half-size (A5) pages. This comes in at an equivalent of about 11 cents per two pages (equivalent to an A4 page) which is pretty good value in terms of content volume. Font size and margins are fairly good whilst there is some white space only at the end of each alphabetical chapter. There is no art as such (even the front cover is just a fake vellum look). The quality of writing varies from spell to spell but is concise and rules-orientated as the subject matter dictates. The editing seems good, with few spelling/grammatical errors.

The OGL is at the beginning of the book and provides an insight into the number of d20 publishers from which this collection is drawn: Atlas Games, Paradigm Concepts, Malhavoc Press, AEG, Thunderhead Games, Sword & Sorcery, and Fantasy Flight Games, as well as all the spells from the Players Handbook and some Green Ronin spells.

The actual book begins with spell lists based on all the spells given in the book - not just for wizards, socerers and bards, but also assassins. The spells themselves take up the remainder of the book, apart from three pages of ads at the end. This constitutes over 600 spells.

Conclusion:
The volume gives a kind of stamp of approval on the spells contained within, since they are theoretically drawn from the best d20 releases so far. However, the major detraction from the book lies in the seemingly positive phrase in the blurb which reads "All the spells have been edited for clarity and revised with all known errata." When 'edited for clarity' can occasionally mean missing out an important part of the spell description and 'all known errata' means that some recent errata may have been missed by the editor or released after the book was sent to print, this makes the book less than perfect. Still, there _have_ been errata updates for spells and most of the spells remain intact, but be wary if you're looking for perfection here.

Apart from this factor, your interest in this book will be dependent on your situation. If you are a GM who wants to give your players access to a wider range of spells than the Players Handbook offers, or you are a player whose GM is willing to allow you access to a more extended spell list than found in the PHB, then this book provides a very handy way of doing this. The major benefit is all the spells are in one volume, rather than having to drag several volumes with different spells along in order to check rules mid-game. Obviously if you are content with, or restricted to, the spells from the Players Handbook then this volume has limited use unless you like collecting new spells for the sake of it.

I can certainly see the value of a volume like this - I would have been reluctant as a GM to allow extended spell access because of the hassle of bringing all the different books together. I can certainly see future releases of this volume, containing newly released spells, though this in itself would detract slightly from its current uniqueness.

 

[Furn_Darkside]

Arcane domains?

 

[JoeGKushner]

Pocket Grimoire Arcane
Edited by Robert J. Toth
Published by Green Ronin Publishing
STOCK # GRR1201
ISBN 097143803x
www.greenronin.com
256 b & w pages

The Pocket Grimoire Arcane is a collection of spells for the D20 system that are meant for the 3rd edition of the Dungeons and Dragons game. This book is one of a pair, the other being Pocket Grimoire Divine. The book itself is a not a standard sized release, but instead the similar in size to the 6’ x 9’ format that The End and Heroes of High Flavor were.

The book is laid out with spell list for all the core classes including the prestige classes found in the DMG. I thought this was a wise move, including the classes from the DMG makes the book useful to those who have assassins and blackguards in their campaigns.

After the massive spell list, one for assassins, bards, wizards/sorcerers, the book goes into the actual spells themselves. These spells have been edited for clarity and include errata so players and GMs are getting fairly solid version of this spells that have had the benefits of play testing. Spells include material from the SRD (read Player’s Handbook), Relics & Rituals, Divine & Defeated, Interludes: Brief Expedition to Bluffside, Arcanis, and a few others.

The book itself has a simple two column lay out with arcane runes, similar to the one on the cover, going around the borders. Tables are not done in black with white text as most other Green Ronin books are, but rather, gray boxed tables with black text. I’m glad Green Ronin is listening to at least one fan in regard to this layout concern as normally I think that the black background with white text is ugly as hell. The big strike against this book is that there is no internal art. Because the book is done in alphabetical order, there are often one-quarter page, or even half page blank spots at the end of each section. A little art could’ve cured that problem right away. The book also has a two-page ad for Sword & Sorcery goods and a one-page ad for Green Ronin’s Book of the Righteous. Because of its small size, the Grimoire is easy to carry around. I am a little worried about stressing the book though as its going to be used on a regular basis and the smaller size may give it a paperback quality where it gets abused pretty easily.

The only problem I had with the text itself was that there is no method of determining which spells came from which sources. When dealing with a book with sources ranging from Eden Studios, Paradigm Concepts, White Wolf Publishing, Thunderhead Games and Fantasy Flight, some companies with more than one product like White Wolf and Paradigm, it would’ve been nice to have some symbol or something to indicate this spell came from Y, this spell came from X. A secondary problem I’ve noticed, is that when spells fall into both divine and arcane magic, they’re in both books. Now I know this is done for the sake of completeness, but it does mean that there is some overlap between the two books.

A minor disappointment I had was that they didn't include any alternative spell casting methods. The Divine book had domains to help it stand out. By including something along the lines of the Blood Magic from the Eden Book, Wonders Out of Time, this book could've added something outside of spells to a campaign.

Time will tell if the Pocket Grimoire Arcane retains its usefulness. Now, the first book is a handy reference for core spells and some 3rd party publishers. It's also very moderately priced and easy to carry around. If you’ve rarely buy unofficial D20 products, you’ve missed out on a lot of great spells and this book collects many of them into one source. Having said that however, because the D20 license is an ongoing project, there are many books that just came out that make the Divine Grimoire already outdated. Bastion just came out with Spells and Magic, Atlas Games has Occult Lore, Malhavok has Book of Eldrich Might II, and the list goes on. Another point of interest will be if D20 publishers continue to be friendly with Green Ronin. For example, I don’t see any Mongoose Products listed here and they’ve certainly had a lot of spells for arcane magic.

If Green Ronin can do one of these books a year, even if it’s not the same size, they’ll be doing the D20 community a great service. Hopefully, they'll be updating the spell lists for open game content Prestige Classes as well. If they can do it and add some art to remove the white spaces and remove or minimize the advertising, they’ll have a product with a 5 rating.

 

[Psion]

Pocket Grimoire Arcane

The concept behind the Pocket Grimoires is simple: a collection of some of the best spells from a variety of d20 system publishers, all condensed into a small book for easy travel and reference. There are two Pocket Grimoires: the Pocket Grimoire: Arcane and Pocket Grimoire: Divine.

Each Pocket Grimoire is a 256 page half-size perfect-bound book priced as $14.95 US.

The Pocket Grimoires have decorative borders with a variety of arcane looking symbols, but lack any other sort of artwork. This is probably necessary to achieve the high density that the book demands to effectively encapsulate of the spells that it contains.

The interior text is relatively dense. The body text is dense. The title of each spell is in a modestly larger font, but still reasonable. The spell descriptions use the same format as those in the Players Handbook.

The Pocket Grimoires contain spells from the following d20 system resources (according to the copyright statement in the OGL of the book):

The d20 System Reference Document
Arcana: Societies of Magic (Green Ronin)
Beyond the Veil (Atlas Games)
The Book of Eldritch Might (Malhavoc Press)
Codex Arcanis (Paradigm Concepts)
The Divine and the Defeated (Sword & Sorcery Studios)
Dungeons (AEG)
Evil (AEG)
Freeport: City of Adventure (Green Ronin)
Interludes: Brief Expeditions to Bluffside (Thunderhead Games)
Relics & Rituals (Sword & Sorcery Studios)
The Tide of Years (Altas)
Traps & Treachery (Fantasy Flight Games)

This is quite a selection of spells. Further, many of the spells thus included have errata and are edited for clarity. Unfortunately, as the WotC errata is not open content, material herein does not reflect that errata, which in some cases is substantial (e.g., polymorph self).

The book has complete spell lists updated with the additional spells for all of the core arcane spellcasting classes: assassins, bards, sorcerers, and wizards. This makes the book a substantial resource.

There are some ways that I felt the presentation of the book could have been better. First, the book makes no distinction between spells from the OGC and other spells, which is a disservice to GMs who make a distinction or wish to selectively filter non-core spells.

Second, the spells from Sword & Sorcery Studios' products have all been renamed due to the fact the S&SS claim the spell name as PI. Further, some of the new names aren?t too obvious, compromising the utility of the book as a reference for those spells. For example, the spell Mormo's Serpent Hands has been renamed Flicker Fingers in the Grimoire. You would think that a name like "viper fingers" or something similar would have been more apparent.

Conclusion

I have been using the Pocket Grimoires in my games for a few weeks now, and I find it to be a dandy reference. Spells are about the most referenced item in the game, and we frequently found it to be of use.

Much of the material in the Pocket Grimoires you already have as part of the PHB, and possibly other books that you have. However, in addition to being a useful reference, the Grimoires include many useful spells that you may not have seen before.

-Alan D. Kohler

 

[The Sigil]

Pocket Grimoire Arcane is one of two Pocket Grimoires (the other is Divine) from Green Ronin Publishing.

OGC Designation: Very good, nearly 100% of the book is OGC.

First Impressions: Any "core" arcane caster (wizard, sorcerer, bard, assassin) will not want to miss this one. It keeps every spell in one handy-dandy location. It's small and relatively easy to carry, and contains a large assortment of spells. What's not to like?

Initial Annoyances: With no artwork, this book is a very dry read. Then again, this is truly an RPG "Reference Manual" and one doesn't really expect artwork from it. Also annoying is the renaming of spells pulled from Relics and Rituals so as to make the names OGC. This annoyance goes to SSS, not Green Ronin, though.

Content Breakdown:

This book contains all the spells in the PHB, plus a good sampling of "best of"s from other sources. Simply put, this is a whole bunch of spells. It's an excellent reference book, though it would have been nice to include the reference to the original product from which each spell was drawn. Also, it's quite redundant if you already have Relics & Rituals and the Player's Handbook.

Presentation: It's simple and clean and very minimalist. Pages are kept nice and tight and full of text.

Conclusion: This is the quintessential collection example - not that this is a bad thing, but it's not exactly bursting with originality. It accomplishes its purpose, but given that most players have the Player's Handbook already (and therefore a good number of the spells already in here), I don't know that it adds a whole lot of utility - especially to those who also have Relics & Rituals. It's not flashy, it's not original, but it IS quite useful to the right person - a player of an arcane caster whose DM allows spells from non-PHB sources, and possibly to DMs who don't have (or don't want to get) all of the other books listed in the Section 15 of this one (for which you can't blame them). There's no "wow" factor at all, so I can't give it a 5. I really can't give it a 4, either - this is a perfectly clean, if visually unappealing (at least on the interior) collection of spells - but at the end of the day it IS just a collection of spells, many of which you probably already have. On the other hand, it does save you from having to lug larger books to the gaming table if all you need are spells (but let's be honest, that's usually not all you need). A high 3, then, will have to do.