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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2009315" data-attributes="member: 1129">Pocket Grimoire DivineEdited by Robert J. TothPublished by Green Ronin PublishingSTOCK # GRR1202ISBN 0971438048www.greenronin.com256 b & w pagesThe 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.</blockquote>

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