Wizard and spellbooks

[Trevelyan]

RE: having 6 15th level powers at 15th level. Guys, think about this carefully for a moment.

Any non-wizard class at 15th level has three daily abilities that it can use per day. If you turn to the table in the DMG that covers creating higher level characters and/or look at the similar table in the PHB you'll not that they are generally expected to have a 15th level, a 9th level and a 5th leevl power, having traded up their weak 1st level power for a more potent 15th level power.

They can still only have one 15th level power. They might have two 9th level powers, but that would require that they traded up their 1st level (or even 5th level) power for a 9th level rather than a 15th level power. They cannot, under any circumstances, use multiple 15th level powers per day.

No think about how this applies to the Wizard. The spellbook feature let's the wizard select which daily power he has available each day from a larger list, but the wizard explicitly still adhers to the usual limit of powers per day.

Even if you were to load up your spellbook with six 15th level powers at 15th level, you still couldn't use more than one such power per day, and you lower level "slots" would go to waste.

 

[Drowmage]

One question.
What hapens if the wizard lost the spellbook??

 

[silentounce]

One question.
What hapens if the wizard lost the spellbook??

The DM laughs maniacally.

 

[Thasmodious]

At 15th, characters are meant to replace their 1st lvl daily. You are gaining a new daily spell at this point, but 4 daily spells starts to see a lot of power creep. So, the number stays 3 and you replace. But you are still getting access to a new level of daily spells. A wizard would replace all his 1st level dailies with new 15th level dailies, just like every other class. The ability of the wizard is that he has more dailies at any given level than other classes as a class feature. He still has the same power progression and expectation.

 

[Amurayi]

Here is WOtC customer support answer:


1. When you swap can you swap just one power or do you have to swap both?

The book does not outline this but following the retraining rules you could swap 1 daily spell of the two. So for example at 15th level you get a chance to retrain a daily attack power and you had Lightning Serpent and Ice Storm in your spell book from your level 9 dailies. You want to swap Ice Storm out for Wall of Fire and could do so at L15. Ice Storm vanishes from your book and Wall of Fire replaces it.

2. When you swap can you swap just one power or do you have to swap both?

It works exactly as I described it above.

3. If you swap one power at the levels mentioned above, do you still get 1 extra (daily or utility) power of the higher level?

You still gain the same spell power usage as listed at L15 - 2 at will / 4 encounter / 3 daily / 4 Utility. Nothing changes and you are not forced to swap if you do not wish to.

4. How does this all work with Expanded Spellbook when you get 3 spells instead of 2?

Again. Nothing changes. Look at the example above:
So for example at 15th level your wizard with Expanded Spellbook gets a chance to retrain a daily attack power and you had Lightning Serpent, Ice Storm, and Mordenkainen's Sword in your spell book from your level 9 dailies (3 spells instead of 2) You want to swap Ice Storm out for Wall of Fire and could do so at L15. Ice Storm vanishes from your book and Wall of Fire replaces it.

5. What happens if you loose your spellbook?

Your DM would have to adjudicate what would happen here. Likely the Wizard would lose their ability to swap spells out with whatever was in their spellbook and any other powers associated with the spellbook until they recovered it. The cost for replacing or reworking a spellbook is up to your DM to determine. However, as it appears you would be "stuck" with your current lineup of daily/utility spells.

6. Do you loose all powers then as a Wizard?

As I mentioned in #5 the DM can determine this but likely what would happen was you would be unable to "swap" daily/utility spells and be "stuck" with the last ones you had prepared for the day until you were able to replace the book. Again, how the DM would run you recovering your book or replacing the spells within is theirs to determine based on the needs of their campaign.

 

[silentounce]

That is very interesting because someone posted a response from CS earlier today that said that you get to swap two at 15, three if you have the extended spellbook, but that you are restricted on usage of those powers, only one at a given time.

HA! Different answers on rules depending on whom you talk to. I don't have search or I'd find this post for you.

Of course, I could just be very tired. But I thought I remembered reading that.

 

[vagabundo]

That is very interesting because someone posted a response from CS earlier today that said that you get to swap two at 15, three if you have the extended spellbook, but that you are restricted on usage of those powers, only one at a given time.

HA! Different answers on rules depending on whom you talk to. I don't have search or I'd find this post for you.

Of course, I could just be very tired. But I thought I remembered reading that.

Hmmm, to my mind the solution given in the post above yours sounds more like 4e. Siloing up your spells and keeping track of what you can and cant use sounds a pain.

 

[Tervin]

Hmmm, to my mind the solution given in the post above yours sounds more like 4e. Siloing up your spells and keeping track of what you can and cant use sounds a pain.

On the other hand, that solution follows how the system works in the other cases, and also makes it a lot easier to build a high level wizard. The answer you prefer sounds like a total mess to me.

I don't think it would be a pain to know which powers you can use on the same day, as they all have levels attached to them.

My prediction: Errata will try to solve this. And still confuse people.

 

[Samurai]

Here's how I currently plan to handle it:

When a Wizard replaces a Daily or Utility spell after gaining a level, he must lose 1 spell, but gains 2 new ones of the higher level (3 with Expanded Spellbook). When he uses retraining, he merely trades 1 spell for another 1 of the same level.

This is pretty much by the book IMO. It says you "Replace 1 power", meaning you lose 1 and gain 1, and then the spellbook description says "When you gain a level that lets you select a Daily or Utility spell, choose 2 different spells of that level to add to your spellbook." So, by those quotes, when you replace an older power, you lose 1 and gain 2.

This system will leave 1 (or 2 with Expanded) Daily and Utility spells of lower levels each time he replaces such spells. Those lower level spells may not be as powerful, but there may be situations when they come in handy because of circumstances (maybe all his higher level spells use Fire, so against foes with Fire Resistance, he takes a lower level spell with a different descriptor.) And Utility spells may come in handy depending upon the situation as well.

So, at 30th level, a Wizard would have:

Daily powers: P, 29, 29, 25, 25, 19, 19, 15, 9, 5, 1

Utility: E, P, 22, 22, 16, 16, 10, 10, 6, 6, 2, 2 (Utility powers are never replaced, though they may be retrained if you gain a better version of an earlier power)

 

[lutecius]

Here is WOtC customer support answer:

wow, this is confusing. "swap", "retrain" and "replace" are used interchangeably.
the example mentions "swapping Ice Storm out for Wall of Fire" at 15th level, when "you get a chance to retrain a daily attack power".
But these are spells of the same level. Following the retraining rules, you could do that every time you gain a new level.
At 15th level you can replace one (or two, depending on interpretation) daily power with a level 15 power.
So what does that answer refer to?

There should be different specific terms for:
retraining (every level, you replace a power or feat with another of the same level or lower *)
replacing a power at specific levels (15th, 19th, 25th, and 29th levels for dailies) with one of your new level.
swapping your prepared spells after an extended rest.

*I wish this was clarified too. Does the wizard's spellbook allow you to retrain and prepare several dailies of the highest level you have access to, like some seem to understand?