Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bacon Bits" data-source="post: 7320068" data-attributes="member: 6777737">I guess I don't find that disappointing at all, since, historically, classed NPCs have represented about 1% of NPCs, and Wizards are less than 5% of that (most are Fighters and Rogues).  (Are city demographics broken down anywhere in 5e?  I can't recall.)  In other words, in any given good sized city, you'll find maybe 1 or 2 Wizards tops.  Even then, there's no guarantee that a) the Wizard has the spell you want, or b) the Wizard is amicable to a deal (i.e., you have something the Wizard wants and he's willing to listen to some neophyte wandering hedge wizard), or c) the Wizard is even available.  Even then, in our games Wizards typically only deal spells for spells, and if the PC Wizard hasn't got anything the NPC wants, well, then the PC is out of luck.  Some Wizards won't give out combat spells at all, fearing the damage that might be done.  If there's a Guild or School, you might find perhaps a dozen Wizards and an appropriate number of apprentices.  However, you might find the masters only give spells to other masters or only to masters and students.  Like library access, it's limited to members only.If you want to make it difficult, model it after the Buying a Magic Item rules from Xanathar's Downtime Activities.  I'd treat probably set the cost to 50% [Edit: of the cost of a spell scroll] since limited access to a spellbook is less useful than a scroll.  At the very least, I'd allow the Research downtime activity to research an existing spell, possibly with modifications.  For some napkin spell research rules, I'd require four items of lore per spell level, 100 gp/wk/spell level, a minimum of 2 weeks per spell level, and then at the end have the PC make an Arcana (Intelligence) check DC 15 + Spell level.  Failure indicates that the Wizard must start again from scratch.  Success indicates the Wizard can scribe the spell into their spellbook, paying all associated costs.  Additionally, in no case can a spell be researched that cannot be cast by the Wizard (either by spell list or spell level).  When researching a new spell or researching any spell of level 6 or higher, the Wizard makes all checks at disadvantage including the weekly Intelligence checks (this basically requires access to a well-stocked library, a deep purse, or an extremely long lifespan).  For a level 17 character researching a level 9 spell, that's 18 weeks and a minimum of about 16,000 gp just for the chance to make a DC 24 Arcana (Intelligence) check at disadvantage (without a well-stocked library).  Even if you have expertise in Arcana and 20 Int, that's less than a 50% chance of success.  This is, of course, extremely dice-heavy.Frankly, I'd probably allow any spellcaster to make use of the above rules, and at the end allow the character to exchange the spell known or add it to their class lists if they're not a Wizard.</blockquote>

Verification