D&D 3.x [3.5] Spell books & Blessed Book

[ZSutherland]

From the SRD (emphasis mine)

Writing a New Spell into a Spellbook
Once a wizard understands a new spell, she can record it into her spellbook.
Time: The process takes 24 hours, regardless of the spell’s level.
Space in the Spellbook: A spell takes up one page of the spellbook per spell level. Even a 0-level spell (cantrip) takes one page. A spellbook has one hundred pages.
Materials and Costs: Materials for writing the spell cost 100 gp per page.
Note that a wizard does not have to pay these costs in time or gold for the spells she gains for free at each new level.

Also from the SRD (emphasis still mine)

Blessed Book: This well-made tome is always of small size, typically no more than 12 inches tall, 8 inches wide, and 1 inch thick. All such books are durable, waterproof, bound with iron overlaid with silver, and locked.
A wizard can fill the 1,000 pages of a blessed book with spells without paying the 25 gp per page material cost. This book is never found as randomly generated treasure with spells already inscribed in it.
Moderate transmutation; CL 7th; Craft Wondrous Item, secret page; Price 12,500 gp;Weight 1 lb.

So, which is it? I was thrilled to see adding spells cost half as much as 3.0 since they reduced the # of pages per spell level from 2 to 1, but 25 gold per page (an overall reduction of 7/8 the price from 3.0) seems a bit much. Anyone run into this yet? How do you plan to handle it?

Z

 

[Skinwalker]

My gut reaction in this case would be to go with the higher cost (100 gp), which is still a price break from 3.0, until errata says otherwise.

 

[kreynolds]

What Skinwalker said.

 

[coyote6]

What kreynolds said.

I suspect that the first idea was to quarter spellbook costs; then they decided that was too much, and chose to halve the page requirements and keep the ever-so-slightly-easier-to-multiply 100 gp figure. Then the guy that did the blessed book entry in the DMG either forgot to go go back & make the change, or didn't get the memo at all.

 

[ThirdWizard]

This has been confirmed as a mistake in the magical item description. It's supposed to be 100 gp, and somebody botched it.

 

[Voadam]

My gut reaction in this case would be to go with the higher cost (100 gp), which is still a price break from 3.0, until errata says otherwise.

I came to the same conclusion for different reasons.

The spellbook section sets down the base situation while the single item description references the base situation.

A single conflicting reference should not trump the base description when interpreting rules.

 

[ZSutherland]

Thanks

Thanks for the replies.

You guys pretty much confirmed my suspicion, but of course, my players were watering at the mouth for 25 gp per page, wicked little things that they are.

ThirdWizard,

Any chance you can point out where that's been confirmed? I'm not doubting, but it'd be nice to take back with me.

Z

 

[ThirdWizard]

It's somewhere on Sean K. Reynold's board. When he got the books a month early, he had a lot of correspondance with WotC about various rules mistakes he found in the books (such as the PrC XP penalty thing), and that was one of the things he got them to clarify. I can't remember which thread its in, through, so I can't seem to find it. It would be nice if he compiled a list of those emails, but he's a busy man, so I'm not gonna bug him about it.