JoeGKushner
Adventurer
The Ultimate Divine Spellbook by Mongoose takes a wide variety of divine spells and supposedly updates them to 3.5. I say that because to be honest, I still don’t trust Mongoose 100% when it comes to 3.5. They’ve had way too many errors and issues with the whole revised edition and haven’t done enough to make up for those errors. (3.0 NPCs in their 3.5 drow city book anyone?)
In spell lists, the book drops the ball. It provides spell lists broken down by class and level. We have adept, blackguard, cleric, cleric domains, druid, paladin, and ranger spells. One of the best things about the Player’s Handbook arrangement of spells is that it’s tight and provides a quick description of what the spell does. Unlike the Ultimate Arcane Spellbook, Mongoose actually put the spell lists in this one, but no descriptions and it’s not as compact or nice looking as the Player’s Handbook lists.
Another part they dropped the ball is in the domains. Hammer & Helm is an older Green Ronin product and had some fantastic domains in it in addition to tons of ideas. Since they’ve hit up Hammer & Helm for other products, to miss it now is silly. So that means for example, that we have no Sword Domain. Another ball they dropped with domains is no listing of deities. Sure, most of the mare going to be self-obvious but to new players some quick notes on which deity types would be appropriate for which domains would be a good thing. As it stands, we have name, granted power and domain spells.
As this is a huge product, I can’t speak for how well they’ve done a job of summing up everything until extensive play testing is done. For example, one thing I never understood about Bless Weapon from the Player’s Handbook, is that it’s treated as having a +1 enhancement for bypassing damage reduction, which shouldn’t matter since damage reduction magic would be overcome by it being magic, not +1, something they acknowledge latter by bypassing damage reduction of good. This note is repeated in the Ultimate Divine Spellbook. If there is errata for that PHB spell, it wasn’t taken into account in this book, which makes me think that if there were errors the first time around in multiple spells that there are going to be the same errors in this book.
Mongoose is also determined to use a faded gray version of its cover in every book despite the fact that it’s not a good looking picture and putting it in, as a background piece is not a good thing. Adding art to tables and lists is also not a good thing but is done. I have no problem with illustrations when they add something to the text but tables and lists don’t need illustrations and in such a case, they act as nothing more than filler.
The text is also big. A direct comparison to the Player’s Handbook shows this text is much bigger than the original material. There’s also a lot of materal here that is normally exclusive to an arcane spellcaster and included here only because its on a domain list. On one hand, this is a great service to the reader but if you already own the original source or if you own the Ultimate Arcane book, do you now have two copies of the spell?
One of the only things this book has going for it is that it collects a lot of spells and domains. If a spell is listed in a domain, it’s fully detailed here. These are good things. If after extensive playtesting I find that the book is indeed fully 3.5 compliant, I’ll come back and change my grade but in the meanwhile, the large font, the lack of domains for older products and the dubious nature of Mongoose and 3.5, lands this solidly at 2.
In spell lists, the book drops the ball. It provides spell lists broken down by class and level. We have adept, blackguard, cleric, cleric domains, druid, paladin, and ranger spells. One of the best things about the Player’s Handbook arrangement of spells is that it’s tight and provides a quick description of what the spell does. Unlike the Ultimate Arcane Spellbook, Mongoose actually put the spell lists in this one, but no descriptions and it’s not as compact or nice looking as the Player’s Handbook lists.
Another part they dropped the ball is in the domains. Hammer & Helm is an older Green Ronin product and had some fantastic domains in it in addition to tons of ideas. Since they’ve hit up Hammer & Helm for other products, to miss it now is silly. So that means for example, that we have no Sword Domain. Another ball they dropped with domains is no listing of deities. Sure, most of the mare going to be self-obvious but to new players some quick notes on which deity types would be appropriate for which domains would be a good thing. As it stands, we have name, granted power and domain spells.
As this is a huge product, I can’t speak for how well they’ve done a job of summing up everything until extensive play testing is done. For example, one thing I never understood about Bless Weapon from the Player’s Handbook, is that it’s treated as having a +1 enhancement for bypassing damage reduction, which shouldn’t matter since damage reduction magic would be overcome by it being magic, not +1, something they acknowledge latter by bypassing damage reduction of good. This note is repeated in the Ultimate Divine Spellbook. If there is errata for that PHB spell, it wasn’t taken into account in this book, which makes me think that if there were errors the first time around in multiple spells that there are going to be the same errors in this book.
Mongoose is also determined to use a faded gray version of its cover in every book despite the fact that it’s not a good looking picture and putting it in, as a background piece is not a good thing. Adding art to tables and lists is also not a good thing but is done. I have no problem with illustrations when they add something to the text but tables and lists don’t need illustrations and in such a case, they act as nothing more than filler.
The text is also big. A direct comparison to the Player’s Handbook shows this text is much bigger than the original material. There’s also a lot of materal here that is normally exclusive to an arcane spellcaster and included here only because its on a domain list. On one hand, this is a great service to the reader but if you already own the original source or if you own the Ultimate Arcane book, do you now have two copies of the spell?
One of the only things this book has going for it is that it collects a lot of spells and domains. If a spell is listed in a domain, it’s fully detailed here. These are good things. If after extensive playtesting I find that the book is indeed fully 3.5 compliant, I’ll come back and change my grade but in the meanwhile, the large font, the lack of domains for older products and the dubious nature of Mongoose and 3.5, lands this solidly at 2.
