Pocket Grimoire Divine

[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]

The Pocket Grimoire: Divine is the sister of Pocket Grimoire: Arcane and it’ll come as no surprise that the books are very much the same. There’s little chance that a busy GM being pestered by three players at once, fighting for his slice of pizza, stealing the last can of Mountain Dew while quickly checking the rules of an obscure spell will confuse the two books though since Divine is in blue, Arcane in browny-red and the internal page borders of the books are two very different patterns.

The Pocket Grimoire: Divine covers more character classes than the Arcane book did. Adept, Blackguard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin and Ranger spells are all included and the spells for each class are listed, by level, right at the start of the book. The Divine book, as you would expect, also lists its spells by domain as well and there are more domains than just those in the core rules. There’s Air, Animal, Chaos, Construct, Death, Destruction, Distraction, Domination, Dream, Earth, Entrancement, Evil, Fey, Fire, Gateways, Good, Healing, Judgement, Knowledge, Law, Luck, Magical, Missionary, Plant, Protection, Rainbow, Secrets, Shadow, Strength, Sun, Thievery, Time, Travel, Trickery, Vengeance, War and Water. Phew. In order words - there are loads of domains. One concern creeps slyly to mind though. What if two different companies create domains with the same name but those domains aren’t really equivalent? For example, two (or more) d20 companies could create the "Fey Domain" for their products and start to populate it with new spells but the fairies of company one are bright and sparkly creatures who light up forests at night but the fairies of company two are rather sinister, secret creatures who are rarely seen and are rumoured to be responsible for all sorts of nasty curses. It is even worse if the fairies from company one are planar creatures but fragments of dream given form in company two. It wouldn’t seem likely that you could easily put both sort of spells from both sort of fairies into one general "Fey Domain". It seems like a bit of a headache for the editor of the Pocket Grimoire. The chances are that the book would have to pick only one of the available domains when there are multiple choices available. Oh well, let’s not make a mountain out of a mole hill, it was just a mild concern.

In addition to the spells from the core rules a total of 13 different books provided entries for the divine grimoire. The list of contributors is nearly identical to those for the arcane grimoire.
Akrasia (Eden Studios, Inc.)
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)

That means one less Green Ronin book, the publishers of the Pocket Grimoires, is in the list but there’s a new publisher in the form of Eden Studios. I’m left to wonder whether any future printings of the Pocket Grimoire series, any possible updates, will leave d20 publishers forming a queue in order to get their name and their spells (and the prestige that might bring) into the book.

As with the Arcane book there are no illustrations; even the front cover is bare, but there are the occasional grey box of rules and tables.

There has to be slightly less divine spells than arcane spells in the two grimoires. The divine grimoire has a larger list of spells at the start of book since it lists every spell by class and then by domain. In fact, the listing of spells is more than 10 pages longer and since both books have 256 pages this must mean there are 10 less pages of spells. Still; it’s not something you notice, there are still hundreds of spells from a dozen books.

I think the grimoires are a good idea. The two together are about the same size as a single core rule book but the smaller size means they’re a little easier to use, especially when you’re tucked behind a GM screen or sharing table space with four other players.

I’m sure there will be GMs and players out there who don’t particularly think much of the idea of paying twice for the same spells - which is what you’re doing if you already have every contributing book. I suspect there will be more GMs and players out there who’ll genuinely appreciate the chance to add some form of control to their collection of d20 books.

This GameWyrd review can be found here.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

This review is for Pocket Grimoire Divine 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, Akrasia: Thief of Time, The Tide of Years, Freeport: City of Adventure, and many others, this book is filled with divine 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 Divine is the second in the Pocket Grimoire series from Green Ronin Publishing, a collection of spells from various d20 publishers, publishable under the OGL agreement. This one deals with divine spells, where the Pocket Grimoire Arcane (PGA) dealt with arcane spells only.

Pocket Grimoire Divine comes in at $14.95 for 256 half-size (A5) pages. Like its predecessor, this 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 (the front cover is a fake vellum look like the Arcane grimoire though th cover is blue to distinguish it from its red cousin). The quality of writing varies from spell to spell but is concise and rules-orientated as the subject matter dictates. All the spells have been edited for clarity and revised with all known errata. The editing job seems good.

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. As well as the major publishers used for the PGA (including Green Ronin themselves), Eden Studios 'Akrasia' module was used for this volume. Note that like The PGA, all spells from the Players Handbook are included.

Pocket Grimoire Divine begins with spell lists based on all the spells given in the book - for Adepts, Blackguards, Clerics, Druids, Paladins, and Rangers. In addition, clerical domains are detailed including several new ones from various d20 publishers such as Dream, Entrancement, Fey, Shadow, Time, and Vengeance amongst others. The spells themselves take up the remainder of the book, apart from three pages of ads at the end.

Conclusion:
Like the PGA, 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 see its usefulness in a similar way as Pocket Grimoire Arcane - one volume of spells to allow extended spell (and domain in the case of PGD) access without bringing 20 books to the table.

In the same manner as the PGA, editing has removed the full text from some of the spells, and some relatively new errata has not been included. 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.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Pocket Grimoire Divine
Edited by Robert J. Toth
Published by Green Ronin Publishing
STOCK # GRR1202
ISBN 0971438048
www.greenronin.com
256 b & w pages

The Pocket Grimoire Divine 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 Arcane. The book itself is a not a standard sized release, but instead the same 6’ x 9’ that The End and Heroes of High Flavor were.

Unlike the Arcane book, this one is slightly more than just a collection of spells. There are also domains. I think the Player’s Handbook has some odd twenty domains to it. This book has over thirty. These domains include some I’ve forgotten about in my vast library like constructs, missionary, and vengeance among others. The nice thing about these domains is that they make it easier for a GM to customize his gods without having to create all new prestige classes or spells.

The book is laid out with spell list for all the core classes including the prestige classes found in the DMG and the adept NPC class. 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. However, because the book is so new, it doesn’t include a spell list for the Shaman derived from Green Ronin’s own Shaman’s.

After the massive spell list, 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.

Time will tell if the Pocket Grimoire Divine retains its usefulness. Now, the first book is a handy reference for core spells and some 3rd party publishers. 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.

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. 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 Divine

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 divine spellcasting classes: adept, blackguard, cleric, druid, paladin, and ranger. It also contains a number of new domains and adds spells to old domains. The new domains included are:

Construct
Distraction
Domination
Dream
Entrancement
Fate
Fey
Gateways
Judgment
Rainbow
Secrets
Shadow
Thievery
Time
Vengeance

This is a nice selection of domains and rounds out those in the core rulebook nicely. However, as with Relics & Rituals and some other books, spells are added to each domain, but it is not discussed how the GM is supposed to handle this situation, as per the core rules, domains are only supposed to allow access to a single additional spell per level.

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. My wife is new to the game and just started playing a cleric; having the Pocker Grimoire: Divine handy has helped eliminate some of the hassle associated with giving a new player a spellcasting character.

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

 

[Krug]

Ok I'm a bit confused:
> Second, the spells from Sword & Sorcery Studios? products have all been renamed due to the fact the S&SS claim the spell name as OGC.

So you mean they claim it's OGC but you can't use the spellname? If it's OGC shouldn't you be able to use the spellname and spell AFTER getting it cleared with S&SS?

 

[Psion]

Typo... the spell names are PI (fixed.)

 

[JacktheRabbit]

One thing I would like to have seen in the book or maybe added on the web is all of the spells with the origional company listed with them. It could have a small 6 font line below the spell name telling you what D20 company the spell came from.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Right so spells like "Vengeance of the Scorned" wouldn't have any ties to Sethris. Same is true of Vangal's Wrath and Vangal's Warhounds.