D&D 5E UA Spell Versatility: A deeper dive

[tetrasodium]

Still double-speak. The reasons for vague magic items were given. I gave 3 reference points to use in your games (general magic purchasing, costs based on item creation rules, the AL guidelines). This was to help you because you are concerned about the resource. Helping you with some of the options available has nothing to do with any concerns for or against spell versatility.

The only person hung up on the cost and / or the availability of additional spells for a spell book in this thread so far has been you. You've been clinging to it and repeating it as a rebuttal to the discussion on spell versatility while making posts like the one above that don't give any information regarding "issues" with spell versatility.

What do you think is actually going to happen in play? A group with a wizard and a sorcerer go into town, sleep for the night, the sorcerer changes out 1 spell maybe and the wizard changes to his or her "in town" list? Or the group doesn't have both and it's not possible for one to overshadow the other? Replacing "sorcerer" with bard doesn't change anything because the bard is just going to take different spells from the wizard.

I'm not dismissing the "stepping on toes" argument. I'm disagreeing with it. And giving reasons why. The reasons why, to be clear, are:

1. There is no incentive to regularly change spells for spells known classes. How often something can be done has nothing to do with how often something will be done.
2. The wizard's connection to the spell book is reinforces in his identity because it's still the key to his spell selection as different from other arcane spell casters.
3. Other aspects of the wizard's identity are completely untouched. These include class features and traditions.
4. Spell versatility is completely underwhelming as a short rest mechanic in comparison to spell preparation. There's no comparison between swapping a single spell for a single spell with the same level compared swapping any number of spells among any number of levels available.
5. This is a move to correct a concern to meet the intended spell swapping of these classes. A class cannot step on any toes in doing what it was originally intended to do.
6. This started in the concept stage years ago according to interview with Crawford that you also reposted. That demonstrates a lot of though and feed back has gone into it before getting to this point.
7. Crawford stated several times in several ways how this did not negatively impact the wizard identity as he sees it. As a designer and player this should be a consideration at the very least.
8. What happens in downtime play is a minor consideration. Downtime is mostly not playing by definition and simply things that happen as time goes by. Once play begins it's become a detail in history. What's important is what happens in actual gameplay.

The problem isn't that I have been ignoring what's been said. It's that what I've said in response seems to have been ignored.

Through the swap on a level up?



You know, mentioning how much money it costs wizards all the time reminded me of something.

There is a fun part of the Player's Handbook I bet many player's do not take advantage of, pg 159, Spellcasting Services. Wizards can sell spells at a rate of 10 to 50 gp for a 1st or 2nd level spell. And, I know what you are thinking, "but sorcerers could do that too and they don't have spell costs". However, Sorcerers do not get Ritual Casting. Which means, at 10 minutes a spell, with no cost, over let us say a month of downtime, a 3rd level wizard could potentially make 1,800 gold... assuming they get 6 customers a day for a total of a single hour of work a day.

Just saying, money and time are rarely the costs that people seem to think they are, if a player is determined.



You know what I do when I find "yet another longsword?" I sell it.

I wonder how much an Archmage's spellbook sells for on the open market.

did you not read the section you were pointing at enough to realize that it's talking about hirelings?

services
Adventurers can pay nonplayer characters to assist them or act on their behalf in a variety o f circumstances. Most such hirelings have fairly ordinary skills, while others are masters of a craft or art, and a few are experts with specialized adventuring skills.
S om e of the most basic types of hirelings appear on the Services table. Other common hirelings include any of the wide variety of people w ho inhabit a typical town or city, when the adventurers pay them to perform a specific task.

....
spellcasting services
eople who are able to cast spells don’t fall into the category of ordinary hirelings. It might be possible to find someone willing to cast a spell in exchange for coin or favors, but it is rarely easy and no established pay rates exist. As a rule, the higher the level of the desired spell, the harder it is to find someeone who can cast it and the more it costs.

You do realize that PCs and NPCs don't follow all of the same rules

You accurately note that an archmage's spellbook might sell for a notable amount, but the fact that people think spellbooks are still considered to have the same kind of astronomical value as they did under the LFQW days. There are prices for spell scrolls on xge174, raritydc/atack bonuses for spell scrolls on dmg200, but neither gives even a suggested formula for converting filled spellbook pages to an estimated price. A scroll does quite a bit more than a spell book as it can actually be scribed or cast while the book can only be cast. The answer is "literally whatever the gm decides because spellbooks don't even have example rarities" for anything shy of artifacts like the book of vile darkness/book of exalted deeds on dmg222... It's almost like you've brought up yet another basic question about wizards wotc provides no guidance for guiding a GM.

Following the guidelines for a PC's spellbook, with 8 1st, and 2 of each from 2nd to 9th, you would get the following:

If you use the rules in XGtE for scribing scrolls, about 700,000 gp.
If you use the rules in XGtE for selling scrolls, about 330,000 gp.

Those are about the minimums. If you had more spells, of course the value would increase.

That's great, but a spellbook with a bunch of spells only useful for a wizard wanting to scribe it is extremely different from an enormous stack of scrolls that anyone can cast using the rules on dmg200. To a non-wizard, one is useful & the other one is somewhere between "worth a lot" & "soft toilet paper" depending on f you can find a wizard to buy it or not. Back in 3.5 page 54 of the dmg said "If you’re designing an encounter with a wizard, subtract the valueof a spellbook and material components (see Selling a Spellbook,page 179 of the Player’s Handbook) from the averagetreasure value, but I'm not aware of any such rules in 5e, are you?"

edit: For arguments sake, that section back in the 3.5 phb read
"
Selling a Spellbook
Captured spellbooks can be sold for a gp amount equal to one-half the cost of purchasing and inscribing the spells within (that is, one-half of 100 gp per page of spells). A spellbook entirely filled with spells (thatis, with one hundred pages of spells inscribed in it) is worth 5,000 gp.
"

5e isn't the sort of gold fountain as 3.5, so it's safe to say dramatically less than the 330,000-700,000 guesstimate above & probably even less than the 3.5 value of 100gp/spell level

 

[FrogReaver]

been an interesting debate. Came looking for thoughts, as one of my Sorceror PC's is excitedly asking for this, which made my suspicious before I even read it. It does seem to step in Wizards identity. In a short term sense, if adventuring is constant, and often changing, and of shorter duration one spell a day change is useful, but not a full scale optimization. In ohter circumstances, where the players have significant preparation time, the basic adventure is longer with a constant similar set of obstacles or foes, or can enter and exit at will (which is more common at mid and higher levels), the Sorcerer becomes much better at preparing and specializing for a chosen task than they have in the past, and perhaps moreso than the wizard.

I understand the complaints of sorcerer players, but its part of the package they get in exchange for their exclusive metamagic and numerous other abilities. This solution sadly erodes from the Wizards identity, and elevates a Sorcerer above them in what was supposed to be a strength in certain situation. I think its back to the drawing board--or maybe just telling Sorcerer players that they have to accept limitations in exchange for their advantages. They cant have their cake--and the Wizards cake, and eat both of them.

Probably going to have to say no to the whole kit and caboodle, just to soothe the offended Sorceror PC.

Yep. Mid levels and beyond sorcerers are nearly always better off at combat than wizards and that's due to metamagic. It's a flat out power boost. Wizards are still better than them out of combat though.

Consider that even if you had all wizard spells prepared that you still have to know what save to target - which isn't necessarily easy to determine. So while that's still a benefit - it's not nearly the benefit it's portrayed to be.

 

[DND_Reborn]

That's great, but a spellbook with a bunch of spells only useful for a wizard wanting to scribe it is extremely different from an enormous stack of scrolls that anyone can cast using the rules on dmg200. To a non-wizard, one is useful & the other one is somewhere between "worth a lot" & "soft toilet paper" depending on f you can find a wizard to buy it or not. Back in 3.5 page 54 of the dmg said "If you’re designing an encounter with a wizard, subtract the valueof a spellbook and material components (see Selling a Spellbook,page 179 of the Player’s Handbook) from the averagetreasure value, but I'm not aware of any such rues in 5e, are you?

First, not anyone can cast the arcane spells found in a wizard's spellbook. Whether or not you can find a buyer for a spellbook depends entirely on the DM, really. As far as its value to a wizard in the group, that depends a lot on how much overlap there is between the character's spellbook and the captured one.

As for the 3.5 reference, no clue, I hardly played it and what little I did was over 10 years ago. Still, there is no "hard-and-fast" rule for selling a spellbook, which is why I offered two options from the ideas presented in XGtE.

When you consider a legendary item can sell for 200,000+ gp, and a single scroll with a 9th level spell is legendary and worth a base of 100,000 gp, I don't think it would be unreasonable to think an archmage's spellbook could be worth a lot more.

 

[Chaosmancer]

did you not read the section you were pointing at enough to realize that it's talking about hirelings?


You do realize that PCs and NPCs don't follow all of the same rules

I did read it. Are you telling me that if a PC was to hire themselves out as a messenger between cities they wouldn't get paid the same as any other messenger?

In fact, I can prove that those values do apply to PCs. Look under "Skilled Hireling", it says 2 gp a day. Now turn to page 187, where under "Practicing a Profession" it says that if you are a member of an organization, like a Guild, you can afford to maintain a "Comfortable lifestyle". Checking back on lifestyle costs that is... 2 gold a day. The exact same as a skilled hireling, which makes sense for someone who is guild affiliated. If you are not part of an organization, you make 1 gold a day, which makes sense for a traveling figure with no credibility.

So, I see no reason why we should say that the people in the street ask for someone's "Non-Player Character Card" before deciding how much money to pay them for a service.

You accurately note that an archmage's spellbook might sell for a notable amount, but the fact that people think spellbooks are still considered to have the same kind of astronomical value as they did under the LFQW days. There are prices for spell scrolls on xge174, raritydc/atack bonuses for spell scrolls on dmg200, but neither gives even a suggested formula for converting filled spellbook pages to an estimated price. A scroll does quite a bit more than a spell book as it can actually be scribed or cast while the book can only be cast. The answer is "literally whatever the gm decides because spellbooks don't even have example rarities" for anything shy of artifacts like the book of vile darkness/book of exalted deeds on dmg222... It's almost like you've brought up yet another basic question about wizards wotc provides no guidance for guiding a GM.

That's great, but a spellbook with a bunch of spells only useful for a wizard wanting to scribe it is extremely different from an enormous stack of scrolls that anyone can cast using the rules on dmg200. To a non-wizard, one is useful & the other one is somewhere between "worth a lot" & "soft toilet paper" depending on f you can find a wizard to buy it or not. Back in 3.5 page 54 of the dmg said "If you’re designing an encounter with a wizard, subtract the valueof a spellbook and material components (see Selling a Spellbook,page 179 of the Player’s Handbook) from the averagetreasure value, but I'm not aware of any such rules in 5e, are you?"

edit: For arguments sake, that section back in the 3.5 phb read
"
Selling a Spellbook
Captured spellbooks can be sold for a gp amount equal to one-half the cost of purchasing and inscribing the spells within (that is, one-half of 100 gp per page of spells). A spellbook entirely filled with spells (thatis, with one hundred pages of spells inscribed in it) is worth 5,000 gp.
"

5e isn't the sort of gold fountain as 3.5, so it's safe to say dramatically less than the 330,000-700,000 guesstimate above & probably even less than the 3.5 value of 100gp/spell level

So, scrolls can only be cast if someone has the spell in the scroll on their spell list. Scrolls are only useful for the class they belong to, or thieves.

Next, since a spellbook can be scribed to copy into your personal retinue, and they allow you to cast rituals indefinetly, unlike a scroll which can only be used once, it would be reasonable to assume they are worth at least the same amount.

Even if that were not true, we do know a base value for a spellbook, because the cost of making one is laid out in the wizard class. 50 gp per level of spell.

So, an Archmage has 4 first, 3 second, 3 third, 3 fourth, 3 fifth, and 1 each of sixt thru ninth.

(50*4)+(100*3)+(150*3)+(200*3)+(250*3)+300+350+400+450 = 3,800 gold at a bare minimum. Most things in DnD economics cost twice as much to buy as they do to make, so I'd say the average price of that spellbook would be 7,600 gold.

And, since you need to respend the cost in making copies of your own book in case it is destroyed, buying a book would likely be tempting to wizards who do not want to spend the hours scribing, even if it was full of spells they already had.

 

[tetrasodium]

=

First, not anyone can cast the arcane spells found in a wizard's spellbook. Whether or not you can find a buyer for a spellbook depends entirely on the DM, really. As far as its value to a wizard in the group, that depends a lot on how much overlap there is between the character's spellbook and the captured one.

As for the 3.5 reference, no clue, I hardly played it and what little I did was over 10 years ago. Still, there is no "hard-and-fast" rule for selling a spellbook, which is why I offered two options from the ideas presented in XGtE.

it was 100gp/spell level (which doesn't even come close to the cost of buying scrolls in xge). The fact that wotc never included costs for copying from spellbooks (3,5 had em iirc) or buying/selling spellbooks other than a couple dmg artifacts is itself contributing to why there were initial concerns from people (more than myself, the OP of this thread & multiple people posted within it) about concerns of spell versatility infringing on wizards in bad ways The tools to help[ guide a gm are completely lacking unless they are confident enough to build an economy, draw from an old version with a wildly different economy, or simply substitute the price of spell scrolls anyone can use for spell books

First, not anyone can cast the arcane spells found in a wizard's spellbook. Whether or not you can find a buyer for a spellbook depends entirely on the DM, really. As far as its value to a wizard in the group, that depends a lot on how much overlap there is between the character's spellbook and the captured one.

As for the 3.5 reference, no clue, I hardly played it and what little I did was over 10 years ago. Still, there is no "hard-and-fast" rule for selling a spellbook, which is why I offered two options from the ideas presented in XGtE.

When you consider a legendary item can sell for 200,000+ gp, and a single scroll with a 9th level spell is legendary and worth a base of 100,000 gp, I don't think it would be unreasonable to think an archmage's spellbook could be worth a lot more.

A spell book is not a spell scroll & should not be priced at anything even similar. Since we have a price for selling a spell book in 3.5, the price of selling a cleric/druid/wizard scroll* was
12gp 5 sp, 25 gp, 150gp, 375gp, 700gp, 1,125gp, 1,1650gp, 2,275gp, 3,000gp, 3,825 for L0/cantrip, then 1st through 9th level spells

XgE only lists them up to 5th level spells & they bear massive differences in the 0/cantrip then 1st-5th. Numbers in (##) were the 3.5 equvalent
25gp(12gp5sp), 75gp(25gp), 150gp(150gp), 300gp(375gp), 500gp(700gp), 1,000gp
(1,125gp)
* prices changed based on class & I'm not reproducing the whole chart on dmg287 when only one column is needed. Again, the economy is too massively different in 5e from 3.5 to draw much meaning other than the fact that guidance for something important to only the wizard is missing.


before I'm done, here's what 3.5 said about copying spells from a wizard

"In most cases, wizards charge a fee for the privilege of copying spells from their spellbooks. This fee is usually equal to the spell’s level × 50 gp, though many wizards jealously guard their higher-level spells and may charge much more, or even deny access to them altogether. Wizards friendly to one another often tradeaccess to equal-level spells from each other’s spellbooks at no cost."

and from a scroll or found spellbook or scroll (unless there's some rule I'm forgetting):
"Space in the Spellbook: A spell takes up one page of the spell-book per spell level, so a 2nd-level spell takes two pages, a 5th-level spell takes five pages, and so forth. Even a 0-level spell(cantrip) takes one page. A spellbook has one hundred pages.
Materials and Costs: Materials for writing the spell (specialquills, inks, and other supplies) cost 100 gp per page."

Since the 5e base pice is 50gp/spell level plus spell level & pages map 1:1 with the 3.5 cost to scribe being 100gp/level... the cost of copying from a wizard's spellbook would be at most 25 gp... but probably less due to gp value changes between editions.

 

[Ashrym]

The differences in those classes are greater than the differences in the sorcerer and wizard classes. Consider that a comparison of Druid's to Rangers would yield a large number of differences.

Yeah, rangers also have more damage options, skill options, hit points, and armor options. Those differences are really not demonstrating how the ranger doesn't also cast more spells, know more spells, can have the same spell DC's, or swap out any number of spells during downtime as a spells known class; those are the arguments being given.

If the issue is that spell versatility is too close to spell preparation (as argued) then that concern applies to all classes granted the same mechanic. Looking at it from the similarities to the sorcerer but differences to the ranger isn't an equivalent comparison. Dismissing rangers because the class is different even though the mechanic and arguments are exactly the same indicates that spell versatility being too close to spell preparation isn't the actual issue.

Meanwhile, the wizard does have access to almost every spell the sorcerer does, the sorcerer does not have access to nearly the options the wizard does, the sorcerer is still going to rely on meta-magic to be competitive, and the wizard is still going to run around with more spells prepped and rituals.

Allowing a Sorcerer to retrain spells as proposed essentially turns the sorcerer into an arcane prepared caster with more spells known than wizard. That's a design decision I will never agree with.

You are going to have to prove that spell versatility actually turns the sorcerer into an arcane prepared spell caster. Are you arguing the 1 week work day at this point?

Let me repost the spells available at any given time.

Show me how it's possible for a sorcerer to select more spells than the wizard on a long rest at any level, and which spells on the sorcerer list you think might create the issue here that the sorcerer would want to actually trade. Also, look at the ranger spells known compared to the sorcerer given the UA changes. That's inline with divine casters, to be sure, but it demonstrates the ranger can actually do the same thing you are concerned about with the sorcerer.

The differences between a wizard and sorcerer are mostly about spell origin - sorcerers power is innate and wizards is through study and intellect. Wizards aren't competing in any way with rangers for relevance in the full arcane caster domain - but they are competing their with sorcerers.

According to the PHB fluff they are both manipulating the weave. The difference is the sorcerer has some innate ability that works with it and the wizard has to study hard. Magic itself doesn't come from sorcerers.

Rangers, sorcerers, and wizards are all doing the same thing. They are accessing strands of the weave to make a magical effect. There's no difference between any of them casting enhance ability but if it's not in the wizard's spell book then there's no difference between the ranger or sorcerer picking it up after a long rest.

All you're doing is associating sorcerers with wizards and disassociating rangers from wizards in spite of the mechanic instead of actually looking at the mechanic. There are situationally useful spells on the ranger list too, so the ability to swap that one spell is still the ability to swap that one spell.

The only valid difference is the slower spell progression rangers get for higher level spells, but that doesn't eliminate the useful lower level spells that might get swapped in.

 

[Ashrym]

did you not read the section you were pointing at enough to realize that it's talking about hirelings?


You do realize that PCs and NPCs don't follow all of the same rules

You accurately note that an archmage's spellbook might sell for a notable amount, but the fact that people think spellbooks are still considered to have the same kind of astronomical value as they did under the LFQW days. There are prices for spell scrolls on xge174, raritydc/atack bonuses for spell scrolls on dmg200, but neither gives even a suggested formula for converting filled spellbook pages to an estimated price. A scroll does quite a bit more than a spell book as it can actually be scribed or cast while the book can only be cast. The answer is "literally whatever the gm decides because spellbooks don't even have example rarities" for anything shy of artifacts like the book of vile darkness/book of exalted deeds on dmg222... It's almost like you've brought up yet another basic question about wizards wotc provides no guidance for guiding a GM.


That's great, but a spellbook with a bunch of spells only useful for a wizard wanting to scribe it is extremely different from an enormous stack of scrolls that anyone can cast using the rules on dmg200. To a non-wizard, one is useful & the other one is somewhere between "worth a lot" & "soft toilet paper" depending on f you can find a wizard to buy it or not. Back in 3.5 page 54 of the dmg said "If you’re designing an encounter with a wizard, subtract the valueof a spellbook and material components (see Selling a Spellbook,page 179 of the Player’s Handbook) from the averagetreasure value, but I'm not aware of any such rules in 5e, are you?"

edit: For arguments sake, that section back in the 3.5 phb read
"
Selling a Spellbook
Captured spellbooks can be sold for a gp amount equal to one-half the cost of purchasing and inscribing the spells within (that is, one-half of 100 gp per page of spells). A spellbook entirely filled with spells (thatis, with one hundred pages of spells inscribed in it) is worth 5,000 gp.
"

5e isn't the sort of gold fountain as 3.5, so it's safe to say dramatically less than the 330,000-700,000 guesstimate above & probably even less than the 3.5 value of 100gp/spell level

You quoted me and didn't respond to what I said again. Why did you quote me?

 

[Ashrym]

Yep. Mid levels and beyond sorcerers are nearly always better off at combat than wizards and that's due to metamagic. It's a flat out power boost. Wizards are still better than them out of combat though.

Consider that even if you had all wizard spells prepared that you still have to know what save to target - which isn't necessarily easy to determine. So while that's still a benefit - it's not nearly the benefit it's portrayed to be.

I don't disagree that metamagic makes sorcerers better in combat. Where I disagree is in spell versatility being a power boost.

There aren't spells to swap in that are better than the sorcerer already has. An ability that isn't going to be used much isn't much of an ability. It's like having a spare tire. Sure it's nice to have and might even be important someday, but it's not actually changing anything or making the car any better.

For spell versatility to be relevant there has to actually be a reason to use it. The lack of a reason to change spells makes spell versatility minor.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

;Yep. Mid levels and beyond sorcerers are nearly always better off at combat than wizards and that's due to metamagic. It's a flat out power boost. Wizards are still better than them out of combat though.

Interesting. In my experience I've found that wizards are generally better at combat than sorcerors. Use of metamagic can give a sorcerors spell a boost, but the combination or Ritual Casting and Arcane Recovery mean that Wizards generally have more spell slots available and so don't get reduced to using cantrips so often.
I imagine that our different opinions might simply be due to game differences. The fewer encounters a party has to deal with a day, the more powerful a sorceror built to capitalise on that gets relative to the wizard.

Out of combat, ritual casting and a wider variety of spells on the wizard are also useful, but the sorceror's use of skills can sometimes be better due to Charisma being their casting stat.

Consider that even if you had all wizard spells prepared that you still have to know what save to target - which isn't necessarily easy to determine. So while that's still a benefit - it's not nearly the benefit it's portrayed to be.

I don't think that anyone is portraying it as a class-breaking difference. It is just an illustration as to the advantages of having more spells available to you in the first place.
Resistance to specific elemental damage types would be an example that probably works just as well.

 

[DND_Reborn]

=

it was 100gp/spell level (which doesn't even come close to the cost of buying scrolls in xge). The fact that wotc never included costs for copying from spellbooks (3,5 had em iirc) or buying/selling spellbooks other than a couple dmg artifacts is itself contributing to why there were initial concerns from people (more than myself, the OP of this thread & multiple people posted within it) about concerns of spell versatility infringing on wizards in bad ways The tools to help[ guide a gm are completely lacking unless they are confident enough to build an economy, draw from an old version with a wildly different economy, or simply substitute the price of spell scrolls anyone can use for spell books


A spell book is not a spell scroll & should not be priced at anything even similar. Since we have a price for selling a spell book in 3.5, the price of selling a cleric/druid/wizard scroll* was
12gp 5 sp, 25 gp, 150gp, 375gp, 700gp, 1,125gp, 1,1650gp, 2,275gp, 3,000gp, 3,825 for L0/cantrip, then 1st through 9th level spells

XgE only lists them up to 5th level spells & they bear massive differences in the 0/cantrip then 1st-5th. Numbers in (##) were the 3.5 equvalent
25gp(12gp5sp), 75gp(25gp), 150gp(150gp), 300gp(375gp), 500gp(700gp), 1,000gp
(1,125gp)
* prices changed based on class & I'm not reproducing the whole chart on dmg287 when only one column is needed. Again, the economy is too massively different in 5e from 3.5 to draw much meaning other than the fact that guidance for something important to only the wizard is missing.


before I'm done, here's what 3.5 said about copying spells from a wizard

"In most cases, wizards charge a fee for the privilege of copying spells from their spellbooks. This fee is usually equal to the spell’s level × 50 gp, though many wizards jealously guard their higher-level spells and may charge much more, or even deny access to them altogether. Wizards friendly to one another often tradeaccess to equal-level spells from each other’s spellbooks at no cost."

and from a scroll or found spellbook or scroll (unless there's some rule I'm forgetting):
"Space in the Spellbook: A spell takes up one page of the spell-book per spell level, so a 2nd-level spell takes two pages, a 5th-level spell takes five pages, and so forth. Even a 0-level spell(cantrip) takes one page. A spellbook has one hundred pages.
Materials and Costs: Materials for writing the spell (specialquills, inks, and other supplies) cost 100 gp per page."

Since the 5e base pice is 50gp/spell level plus spell level & pages map 1:1 with the 3.5 cost to scribe being 100gp/level... the cost of copying from a wizard's spellbook would be at most 25 gp... but probably less due to gp value changes between editions.

You keep referencing 3.5, which is fine for you, but has no bearing whatsoever to me as far as 5E is concerned. In prior editions, you could cast spells directly from a spellbook, as if it was a scroll, and then the spell was gone and your risked losing the spells in the book before and after it as well. Is that in 5E? Nope. Could you include it? Sure. So, if you want to use 3.5 rules for a baseline for 5E, that is fine for your table and others will do other things.

For the information available in 5E, the prices I quoted based on XGtE information are perfectly reasonable IMO.