Book are expensive (in-game)

[Quasqueton]

I just realized how expensive a book is in D&D.

Paper = 4sp/sheet x 100 = 40gp
Ink = 8gp/oz = 8gp
Binding & Cover = ?

50gp or more in just material cost for a 100-page book. With this in mind, a library looks more like a treasure trove to me now.

Quasqueton

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

As it should be. In the real world, books were rare during the Middle Ages and very expensive. It wasn't until the printing press came along that books could be made much more quickly and cheaply.

 

[The Amazing Dingo]

Agreed...books are rare treasures. I've heard numbers that in medieval Europe, before the printing press, there were an estimated 3,000-4,000 books and that was likely it. I don't know if they were including scrolls and such in those numbers, but you can imagine how many of those books were probably Bibles.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Yeah, if you're an unskilled commoner! It is quite easy for PCs with a bit of wealth to stock a bookcase full of books.

BTW your cost does not even include any extras that might be built into the base cost of the book

Minor Resistance
Resistance 5 against acid, cold, electricity and fire attacks.
+1,000gp

Major Resistance
Resistance 12 against acid, cold, electricity and fire attacks.
+3,000gp

Glamered
Can look and feel like something else of similar size and weight.
No more than 25% different in any dimension, no less than half as heavy, and no more than twice as heavy
A command word makes the book resume its normal appearance or takes on its glamered appearance.
Anyone touching it is entitled to a Will save (DC 14) to dibelieve the glamer.
+2,000gp

Pungent
Anything attempting to eat the book, becomes ill and must make a Fort save (DC 14) or become naseauated as per the spell stinking cloud. The affect lingers for 1d4+1 rounds after the creatures tastes it.
+2,000gp

Levitating
The book hovers in the air at whatever point it is placed, much like an immovable rod (though the book can only support its own weight).
+2,000gp

Waterproof
The book is impervious to damage caused by immersion in or exposure to water
1,000gp

 

[diaglo]

in ye olde editions... it makes sense.. nobody could read except for a very few.

however, since barbarians are the only class (NPC classes included) who can't read it doesn't make much sense now.

 

[Quasqueton]

It wasn't until the printing press came along that books could be made much more quickly and cheaply.

The printing press doesn't change the price of paper or ink (or binding, however much that is). And my example is for a book of only 100 pages. Imagine the cost of a bible.

Quasqueton

 

[WizarDru]

Those are the costs to purchase. Those are not the costs to manufacture them, or even the costs that a scrivener or paper-maker would incur in their manufacture. A blank Wizard's spellbook is only 15 gp (and that's 100 pages).

Figuring the cost of a book by purchasing individualized components and guessing how much it would be to fashion a book from them is the wrong approach. The PC isn't buying such materials in bulk, and he isn't using them that often. A local lord's major domo, who may say several missives daily, will buy in much larger quantities.

All that said, don't forget hong's law.

 

[Psion]

I just realized how expensive a book is in D&D.

Paper = 4sp/sheet x 100 = 40gp
Ink = 8gp/oz = 8gp
Binding & Cover = ?

Fireballing the bad guy... priceless.

 

[Henry]

Those are the costs to purchase. Those are not the costs to manufacture them, or even the costs that a scrivener or paper-maker would incur in their manufacture.

I was just about to mention the difference between Manufacture and Purchase. If the cost is closer to 15 gp than 50, that's more in line with books being uncommon, but not rare. The average commoner can't afford one, but the whole extended family might have a primer or holy book or two that's passed down.

Besides, even in the Iron Age, people could read proclamations that were written in public areas, including news and events. Wasn't the percentage of people who could read higher pre-Dark Ages? (Can't recall.)

 

[WizarDru]

Well, like I mentioned in another thread, there's a sizable difference between literacy and total illiteracy. Most tradesman understood enough to do their work, even if they might not need to read a full text of philosophy.

As Henry says, society was much oratorically-based in the medieval period. The need for literacy was significantly less for the average person.

In the book "Guns, Germs and Steel", Jared Diamond mentions some anecdotes of his experiences with South Pacific tribesmen in New Guinea, iirc. While camping in the jungle, one of the hunters returns with some mushrooms he's just picked, and offers them to Diamond. Diamond worries out loud that they may not be safe (knowing how some mushrooms can be poisonous, and how many kinds look alike). The tribesmen are actually insulted and angry, when presented with the idea that they might be so stupid. Over his time with them, Diamond realizes that while the tribesmen are illiterate and have no written language, they are virtual encyclopedias of the local flora and fauna, able to easily identify literally thousands of different plants and animals. In short, Diamond realizes that they consider him to be the ignorant one, because he can't even tell a safe mushroom from a poisonous one. It evaporates any sense of cultural superiority he has, when he realizes that he is as helpless in their world as they are in his. Fantastic, entertaining book. Highly recommend it.