The wizard's spellbook revisited

All comments on this revision of the wizard's spellbook class feature gratefully received:

Spellbook

You possess a spellbook, a book full of mystic lore in which you store your rituals and your daily and utility spells.

Rituals: Your book contains three 1st-level rituals of your choice that you have mastered. At 5th level, and again at 11th, 15th, 21st, and 25th level, you master two more rituals of your choice and add them to your spell book. Any ritual you add must be your level or lower.

Daily and Utility Spells: Your spellbook also holds your daily and utility spells. You begin knowing one daily spell. Each time you gain a level that lets you select a daily spell or a utility spell, including levels where other classes are entitled to replace an existing power with a new power, you choose an additional daily spell or utility spell of that level to add to your book. You are not able to retrain or replace a spell from your spellbook.

You can also purchase additional daily and utility spells to record in your spellbook. The cost of a spell is equal to the cost of a magic item of that level. Spells can be purchased from other wizards who request payment for training you in the new spell or from any of the same places as you can purchase new rituals. Alternatively, at the DM's discretion, you can spend money and resources researching a new spell, paying the cost of a magic item of the new spell's level to purchase rare ingredients and other research materials used to aid your study.

You have a number and level of spell slots equal to the number and level of the daily and utility powers available to members of other classes. For instance a 15th level wizard has a 15th, 9th and 5th level daily spell slot and a 10th, 6th and 2nd level utility spell slot (in addition to powers granted by any paragon class). After an extended rest, you can decide which daily and utility spells recorded in your spellbook to prepare. A given spell slot can hold a spell of that level or lower, and can only be used to prepare spells of the appropriate type (daily or utility). You can’t prepare the same spell twice.

Currently, that's very hard to judge, simply because there is such a narrow selection of powers. I mean, people have to think twice about taking the Expanded Spellbook feat, simply because sticking to a single spell is often working pretty well, so I reckon that change isn't too bad, now.

How it looks after splat #23, however, is an entirely different matter.

Cheers, LT.

Something I have allowed in my game which is similar, is to allow players 10 buy additional spells for their spell books but have them work like the spells granted from wands. This gives can potentially give them a large number of powers while not giving them an edge over other players.

I like it. This is pretty much exactly how I think spellbooks should have worked. I think the cost may be a little too high though. Spells would end up costing alot more than rituals of the same level, and those are expensive enough.

As far as the expanded spellbook feat, I would change that to just give you an extra free spell for your book each time you gain one. This would still make the feat worth getting, as you are saving alot of money and time.

As to the concern voiced by Lord Tirian, I don't think it is going to be a problem. The cost of adding new spells prevents a Wizard from knowing dozens or hundreds of spells, and if a Wizard really wants to blow all of his cash to gain a little more flexibility, I say let him. He still can't use any more powers per day than anyone else, and he's sacrificing alot to get them.

The cost and potential for increased versatility with additional suppliments were my two chief concerns when I looked at this.

Aside from the convenience of using the magic item costs, I was working on the assumption that the highest level spells the wizard can cast at any given moment are going to be sufficiently expensive that he can't really afford to buy them, and if he does then it represents a significant proportion of his resources. So under this system the wizard will inevitably have fewer high level spells than under RAW.

However, the scaling price of magic items, with cost increasing five fold every five levels, means that, by the time the wizard obtains a new spell level, he can purchse multiple spells of his second higest spell level for the same cost as one of his highest, and spells of his lowest available slot level are a fairly trivial expense. For example a 15th level wizard can purchase either 1 extra 15th level spell, approximately 5 extra 9th level spells, or pretty much as many 5th level spells as he is likely to need. Hence the flexibility as regards spells in new suppliments is only really applicable to the lowest level spells that the wizard will practically choose to cast, and that flexibility comes at the cost of reduced flexibility in his highest level spells where it would presumably be most valuable.

I must admit that the option to learn additional spells is of most interest personally when it comes to utility spells. The low number of available utility spells coupled with the lack of an official "expended utility spellbook feat" leaves 4E wizards a pale shadow of their former selves, in particular when it comes to interesting non-combat utility spell selections. While the ability to prepare a wide range of spells made wizards powerful in previous editions, the limited number of spell slots available alone cuts back on potential abuse in 4E. I personally worry that the additional limit of only two utility spells known per level is too much of a hinderance for the party as a whole in 4E.

Taking level 6 as an example, restricting any given wizard to only two spells known from a list including Dimension Door, Disguise Self, Dispell Magic, Invisibility, Levitate and Wall of Fog is detrimental to the group as a whole, forcing the wizard towards selfish choices and generally making the likes of Disguise Self too expensive in terms of opportunity cost to ever learn and reducing the story poential inherent in the wizard's spell list accordingly. Likewise, the limitations on Invisibility make it unappealing for personal use and therefore an unpopular choice, and the story potential of being able to prepare Invisibility for espionage type stories is lost.