<< Back to the Hero System Roleplaying Stuff page

The Ultimate Grimoire and Spellfinder Utility

My friend Mark Doherty went to a huge amount of trouble to collate and format all the spells he could find for Fantasy Hero back in the 4th Edition HERO days, and he has recently updated the results to conform to the 5th Edition rules. I've reformatted that document and created a PDF specifically for display on a computer screen — each spell has its own page, instantly accessible from the hyperlinked table of contents. Personally, I use it from a laptop at the gaming table.

You can get the online-display version of The Ultimate Grimoire here (about 1.9 megabytes).

If you have Hero Designer 2, then you can use these prefabs to simplify adding spells from the Ultimate Grimoire to your characters. Most of them were created by Shadowcat1313 on the Hero Games Discussion Boards, but some are courtesy of others (including your's truly). I've added descriptions for all the spells that didn't already have them.

As spectacularly useful as it is, The Ultimate Grimoire has one major flaw. It describes over a thousand distinct spells, and though it includes a useful list of all the spells with their types and active point values, it's still a major job to find the spell you want in among the mass.

Not to worry, another friend (Steve Rennell) came to the rescue and wrote a little utility for me which will allow the user of The Ultimate Grimoire to find exactly the right spell with a few clicks of the mouse.

This utility works with a comma-delimited text file listing all the spell names, their active point values, and their spell types — that is, whether they're necromantic, nature, elemental, divination, and so forth. It will allow the user to select a spell type and active point range, and it displays all the spells which fit those parameters.

In the screen-shot to the right, I've selected both Nature Magic and Divination, and set the Active Point range from 0 to 999 points, so I know I'm going to get pretty well any spell there is — as it turns out, there are 8 spells in The Ultimate Grimoire that fit all those parameters, ranging from 8 to 55 Active Points.

Note I've also checked the "Sort by Points" radio button and the "Auto-Update" checkbox, so that the list updates whenever I make a change, without having to manually hit the "Start Search" button, and I get a list in ascending order of power.

Notes

• The utility is Windows-only I'm afraid — tough luck if you're not using that platform. I don't know if it will run under an emulator or not since I've never had the need to try.
• The EXE and the TXT file don't neccessarily have to be in the same directory, but it makes life easier if they are.
• The TXT file included in the ZIP hasn't been updated to reflect the most recent edition of the Ultimate Grimoire, so the Active Point values may not be correct and there may be spells which aren't included. If you feel the urge, you can update it yourself in any ascii text editor.
• The utility matches all the selected parameters; it's not an and/or search. The more spell types you select therefore, the more restricted the results.

If you think this little utility might be helpful, you can grab it here. The ZIP file is about 130 kilobytes, and includes the executable and the comma-delimted spell list. Just extract them to any folder, and run the EXE — no other installation hoo-ha required.

<< Back to the Hero System Roleplaying Stuff page