# The premium *Player's Handbook* stealth erratas *divine power*
The 4th-level Clr spell *divine power* [evoc] (*Player's Handbook* (2003) 224) has as its description the following:

> Calling upon the divine power of your patron, you imbue yourself with strength and skill in combat. Your base attack bonus becomes equal to your character level (which may give you additional attacks), you gain a +6 enhancement bonus to Strength, and you  gain 1 temporary hit point per caster level.

(This is also how the *System Reference Document* presents the [*divine power*][1] spell.) The [premium edition *Player's Handbook*][2] (2012) has a nearly nearly identical description of the spell except that its description addresses exactly the question's point:

> Calling upon the divine power of your patron, you imbue yourself with strength and skill in combat. Your base attack bonus becomes equal to your character level (**max. +20**; which may give you additional attacks), you gain a +6 enhancement bonus to Strength, and you  gain 1 temporary hit point per caster level. (224 and emphasis mine)

(This reader and bibliophile finds the abbreviation amusing: Had the word *maximum* been spelled out completely rather than abbreviated the page layout would've been utterly fouled and someone would've had to've gone in and touched up the layout for what I imagine is the remainder of the Spells chapter, likely requiring more money than Wizards apparently wanted to spend on what are largely reprints.) To be clear, a similar limit was inserted by the premium edition *Player's Handbook* into the 6th-level Sor/Wiz spell *Tenser's [transformation][3]* [trans] (*PH* 294), around which similar controversy swirled. (To be clear, though, that spell says, instead of *max. +20*, *max +20* (n.b. no period—*gasp!*). I'm certain that right now a lawyer's arguing in his brief for [gamer court][4] that the *max +20* phrase is meaningless because the word *max* when not an abbreviation isn't a game term. Good luck and godspeed on that, Matlock.)

If the campaign does *not* follow the rules for [primary sources][5] or no one has access to the premium edition *Player's Handbook*, I agree with [this answer][6]: the *divine power* spell works like it says it works, setting the creature's base attack bonus to its caster level even if that base attack bonus would exceed +20 but even a seemingly too high base attack bonus not allowing more than 4 base-attack-bonus-derived attacks during, for example, a full attack. However, the spell granting a seemingly too high base attack bonus is no longer an issue with the premium edition *Player's Handbook*.


  [1]: http://dndsrd.net/spellsDtoE.html#divine-power
  [2]: https://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-3-5-Players-Handbook/dp/0786962461
  [3]: http://dndsrd.net/spellsTtoZ.html#transformation
  [4]: http://www.kodtweb.com/2012/03/08/gamer-court-cont-3/
  [5]: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/q/56771/8610
  [6]: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/a/69438/8610