D&D 5E Buying Your Spellbook? (Quick Poll)

[DND_Reborn]

I was just looking over the equipment list in the PHB and saw the spellbook for 50 gp and wondered:

Do you play that wizard PCs must spend starting gold for their initial spellbook?

For reference, here is the spellbook description:

Given that wizards start with 4d4 x 10 gp, you have about a 2% chance of rolling just 40 or 50 gp, barely enough (or not enough) to buy a spellbook, and nothing else...

If you tack on the cost of a spell focus or spell component pouch (why would anyone buy this when foci are cheaper...?), even getting 50 gp really isn't enough for your base costs.

So, how do you handle this?

EDIT: FWIW, if you tally up the starting equipment options, it gives you the following:

Going with the most expensive options would be dagger, component pouch, scholar's pack, and spellbook for 117 gp, towards the higher end of a wizard's starting fund (not including the value of items gained from background).

The least expensive options (quarterstaff, staff (focus), explorer's pack, spellbook) would be valued at 65.2 gp.

So, it would seem based on starting equipment options wizards are expected to buy their first spellbook...

UPDATE: Averaging out the starting equipment based on all the backgrounds in the PHB is about 30 gp worth of equipment.

I went through all the classes starting equipment options, taking the average, and adding 30 gp for the average equipment for backgrounds, and the starting funds by rolling is pathetic.

Barbarian: Max 80, Average 100, 0%
Bard: Max 200, Average 142, 33%
Cleric: Max 200, Average 127.5, 50%
Druid: Max 80, Average 87.5, 0%
Fighter: Max 200, Average 194.5, 1%
Monk: Max 20, Average 49, 0%
Paladin: Max 200, Average 196, 1%
Ranger: Max 200, Average 137, 35%
Rogue: Max 160, Average 117.5, 25%
Sorcerer: Max 120, Average 93, 30%
Warlock: Max 160, Average 143, 5%
Wizard: Max 160, Average 129, 14%

What the above means: The max is the most you can roll, the average is the average starting equipment by class + background, and the % is the chance of rolling enough to purchase the average starting equipment and background combined. Only the cleric has a 50% chance of rolling enough money, most classes are 15-35%, and some are just 1% or 0%!

Clearly, whether intended or not, you are better off just picking starting equipment by class and adding background--otherwise you probably will have less...

 

[theCourier]

I imagine that description comes in handy for if you happen to lose your spellbook somehow, but most PC wizards are probably prepared enough to start the game with a spellbook in hand.

 

[Asisreo]

I imagine that description comes in handy for if you happen to lose your spellbook somehow, but most PC wizards are probably prepared enough to start the game with a spellbook in hand.

Yeah. Seems like it's be unnecessarily complex and unfun otherwise.

 

[Malmuria]

Back in my day we saved up all our gold pieces for our first spellbook. It was more important to us than rations. Kids these days just find a warlock patron...No respect for the art of magic!

 

[steeldragons]

Absolutely not. A 1st level mage starts with their "starting spellbook." What I always picture/imagine is, like,...I dunno, a "primer." Like your most filled apprenticeship notebook...just a kind of plain leatherbound journal. Your cantrips and starting 3 first level spells are in there. Probably not more than 50 pages total.

Now, as you level up, you want a hardbound book? How about some nice metal strapped corners (I hate it when the edges of my spellbooks get all bent). Precious metal/stone gilding/embossing?

You want a book with a latch on it? A lock and key? A trapped lock? Magical lock? Magical trap? Magical protections -like, say, against burning in fire. Sure, there's yer classic "Explosive Runes!" or Bestow Curse or Blindness on the first page. But I mean more advanced enchantments like...ensorcelled to appear as gibberish (or a harmless work of fiction) to anyone except its owner. Or unable to be opened by demons (or clerics or warlocks or anyone who doesn't share the owner's alignment or etc..., etc...). Held/kept in/create an extradimensional space...able to be "conjured" or "put away," at will, by the mage.

All those sorts of fun flavorful spellbook additions on some or all of your grimoires as you advance is all chargeable...and can get verrrry 'spensive.

 

[Shiroiken]

If starting at level 1, I normally do one of these options, in this order of probability. Most campaigns start at level 3, making the top option the default.

1. Everyone starts with maximum roll for wealth by class
   1. It's just easy, and makes sure everyone has enough to start (yes the wizard has to buy their spellbook).
2. Everyone starts with class + background equipment
   1. Makes interesting setups (such as the unarmored barbarian for level 1), but the equipment from background can greatly influence their decision. They're really not balanced at all, and I hate the idea of a player changing their background concept solely for the money/equipment. If backgrounds change significantly (such as providing a feat), this concern will obviously go away.
3. Choice of rolling or class + background equipment
   1. I think this is officially RAW, but I'm not a huge fan. It can create some oddities though, since someone might take a rich background for their monk instead of rolling their poor option. A greedy player could fail to afford a spellbook for their wizard, as the OP suggests.

 

[Krachek]

Even in harsh old school style the wizard was starting with his spell book.
It would be very funny in 2022 to say to a player that his character dont have enough money to buy his spell book. 5ed more harsh than old school style!?

 

[DND_Reborn]

5ed more harsh than old school style!?

Well, concentration spells abounding is pretty harsh compared to old school, so it wouldn't be the first instance...

 

[aco175]

I look at it like a basic book. It can get you to around level 5 and may have some of the free spells that wizards get already in it that you are studying but do not know how to cast yet. Wizards and casters in general tend to pay more along the way and get scrolls and such to help out, so the free book at 1st level is fine.

I have seen parties give the casters more of the share of gold to make up for buying more scrolls and such. I have also seen a party share where something like this or potions come out of.

 

[jgsugden]

The class states the following in the class description:

Spellbook
At 1st level, you have a spellbook containing six 1st-level wizard spells of your choice. Your spellbook is the repository of the wizard spells you know, except your cantrips, which are fixed in your mind.

This is a feature of the class, and independent of the equipment section. They redundantly list the spellbook in the default equipment, but it is a feature of gaining one level of wizard that you obtain a spellbook.

If your first level is as a wizard, this is easy to explain. If a PC multiclasses into wizard, we work in an explanation. Often, the PCs will have befriended someone capable of arcane magic early in their career, and it is often easy to have that person provide it to the PC in gratitude for prior service. Alternatively, they might find a spellbook of 6 spells and a blank spellbook out there in treasure, as well as the materials to copy those 6 spells into their own book. Regardless, we work it in pretty easily - but the PC is never required to pay for their (first) spellbook.

 

[Charlaquin]

I was just looking over the equipment list in the PHB and saw the spellbook for 50 gp and wondered:

Do you play that wizard PCs must spend starting gold for their initial spellbook?

For reference, here is the spellbook description:
View attachment 153246

Given that wizards start with 4d4 x 10 gp, you have about a 2% chance of rolling just 40 or 50 gp, barely enough (or not enough) to buy a spellbook, and nothing else...

If you tack on the cost of a spell focus or spell component pouch (why would anyone buy this when foci are cheaper...?), even getting 50 gp really isn't enough for your base costs.

So, how do you handle this?

EDIT: FWIW, if you tally up the starting equipment options, it gives you the following:

View attachment 153249
Going with the most expensive options would be dagger, component pouch, scholar's pack, and spellbook for 117 gp, towards the higher end of a wizard's starting fund (not including the value of items gained from background).

The least expensive options (quarterstaff, staff (focus), explorer's pack, spellbook) would be valued at 65.2 gp.

So, it would seem based on starting equipment options wizards are expected to buy their first spellbook...

UPDATE: Averaging out the starting equipment based on all the backgrounds in the PHB is about 30 gp worth of equipment.

I went through all the classes starting equipment options, taking the average, and adding 30 gp for the average equipment for backgrounds, and the starting funds by rolling is pathetic.

Barbarian: Max 80, Average 100, 0%
Bard: Max 200, Average 142, 33%
Cleric: Max 200, Average 127.5, 50%
Druid: Max 80, Average 87.5, 0%
Fighter: Max 200, Average 194.5, 1%
Monk: Max 20, Average 49, 0%
Paladin: Max 200, Average 196, 1%
Ranger: Max 200, Average 137, 35%
Rogue: Max 160, Average 117.5, 25%
Sorcerer: Max 120, Average 93, 30%
Warlock: Max 160, Average 143, 5%
Wizard: Max 160, Average 129, 14%

What the above means: The max is the most you can roll, the average is the average starting equipment by class + background, and the % is the chance of rolling enough to purchase the average starting equipment and background combined. Only the cleric has a 50% chance of rolling enough money, most classes are 15-35%, and some are just 1% or 0%!

Clearly, whether intended or not, you are better off just picking starting equipment by class and adding background--otherwise you probably will have less...

You might want to take starting gold instead if there’s a lot of stuff in the starting package you don’t really want, and you want to save up for a weapon or something that doesn’t come in the starting package. But yeah, for the most part taking the starting package is usually better.

 

[Cruentus]

Two options present themselves (aside from just giving the Wizard the spellbook (which clearly is the intent) at first level:

1) the spell book at first level holds exactly the number of spells the wizard starts with, no more. That would require the Wizard to buy a ‘traveling spellbook’ or a ‘full spellbook’ as part of adventuring.

2) have the spellbook be a traveling spellbook, which is half the size of a full Wizard book. I can‘t remember if 5e differentiates between different types of books for wizards. I also can’t remember if 5e spells out a number of pages the spells take up: 1 page per spell level sticks in my head, with cantrips taking up a page.

My 5e Wizard had to make some major choices in terms of spells when he left his tower. I didn’t want to risk my full book out there, and my traveling book only held so many spells. Actually, come to think of it, I think I had two full books to fit all my spells.

 

[Yardiff]

Standard spell books have 100 pgs. Spells require 1 or more pages per spell, so one spell book isnt enough for all the spells that a wizard can potentially have.

That being said in most/all games of D&D I played in the wizard started with a standard spell book with their beginning spell already scribed inside.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

"At 1st level, you have a spellbook containing six 1st-level wizard spells of your choice....". As I read it the spellbook is granted by this class feature, and the fact that it is also listed under starting equipment is just to avoid confusion.

Personaly I not only do not make wizards buy it, but I let people anticipating an early multiclass into wizard start with a spellbook they can't use yet, provided they can work it into their backstory. That said the reason for generosity in the latter case is that I do not generally treat a spellbook as something that just appears for characters that later become Wizards, which I think is how it would work by RAW.

Ultimately starting equipment matters so little to most campaigns of 5e D&D that unless the campaign explicitly involves low level equipment-based survival as a major theme or something I think characters should just start with whatever reasonable loadout of basic equipment they like. The starting equipment or gold buy options are just useful tools to fascilitate this. At the point were you are worrying about how to parse them they have become an unnecessary hindrance.

 

[Bacon Bits]

I went through all the classes starting equipment options, taking the average, and adding 30 gp for the average equipment for backgrounds, and the starting funds by rolling is pathetic.

Barbarian: Max 80, Average 100, 0%
Bard: Max 200, Average 142, 33%
Cleric: Max 200, Average 127.5, 50%
Druid: Max 80, Average 87.5, 0%
Fighter: Max 200, Average 194.5, 1%
Monk: Max 20, Average 49, 0%
Paladin: Max 200, Average 196, 1%
Ranger: Max 200, Average 137, 35%
Rogue: Max 160, Average 117.5, 25%
Sorcerer: Max 120, Average 93, 30%
Warlock: Max 160, Average 143, 5%
Wizard: Max 160, Average 129, 14%

What the above means: The max is the most you can roll, the average is the average starting equipment by class + background, and the % is the chance of rolling enough to purchase the average starting equipment and background combined. Only the cleric has a 50% chance of rolling enough money, most classes are 15-35%, and some are just 1% or 0%!

Clearly, whether intended or not, you are better off just picking starting equipment by class and adding background--otherwise you probably will have less...

We realized this quite awhile ago. We have even had characters take the starting packages and background packages, and then sell that equipment and buy what they wanted. They ended up with more.

Rolling for starting gold is just really bad.

Sometimes we play that you get the starting packages, then we can spend 150-200 gp before play begins, with the caveat that weapons, armor, and healing potions cost double with that gold. Any left over gold from this pool is lost, so you only get your background amount in your pocket.

 

[CleverNickName]

At my table, they do. Fighters also have to buy their own swords, Rogues have to buy their own Thieves' Tools, and Bards have to buy their own musical instruments.

Now I understand that some players might not want to fiddle with shopping lists and coins when they are starting out at 1st level, but that's what the "starting equipment" lists for background and class are for.

 

[Stormonu]

Fighter gets his starting armor/weapons "for free", Wizard gets his starting spellbook "for free".

I think the last time I had characters actually spend coin to purchase their starting equipment was in 3.0; I believe by 3.5 there were starting package gear and that just saved a lot of time.