Can you prepare spells more than once a day?

[victorysaber]

Say I'm a wizard. I slept from 12am to 8am today.

I prepared spells from 8am to 9am.

I went out to fight, and I came back home at 11am.

I decide to sleep to 7pm again.

Can I prepare my full allotment of spells again after I wake up?

 

[Deset Gled]

For a wizard, yes. You can prepare spells at any time after you have had 8 hours rest. So, you can wake up, prepare some spells, fight for an hour, rest for 8 hours again, and prepare your spells again.

Clerics and Druids, OTOH, always prepare their spells at the same time of day. So they cannot pull this trick.

 

[Caliban]

For a wizard, yes. You can prepare spells at any time after you have had 8 hours rest. So, you can wake up, prepare some spells, fight for an hour, rest for 8 hours again, and prepare your spells again.

Clerics and Druids, OTOH, always prepare their spells at the same time of day. So they cannot pull this trick.

This is a debatable point for arcane casters. If it's not abused, I don't see any great harm in allowing it. If it is abused, I would enforce the "Spells per day, not spells per rest" interpretation of the wizard class ability.

 

[blargney the second]

It wouldn't fly in my game.

 

[frankthedm]

For a wizard, yes. You can prepare spells at any time after you have had 8 hours rest. So, you can wake up, prepare some spells, fight for an hour, rest for 8 hours again, and prepare your spells again.

No. They get spells per day. They don't have to be be prayed for at a certain time of day like spellbeggers do.

 

[Korak]

No. A wizard has a daily allotment of spell slots to prepare. Rest is required to complete the preparations, but rest does not trigger them. The key words are "daily allotment." The slots may not be abandoned and refilled until the following day. The relevant rules can be found in the 3.5 PHB on pages 56, 57, 177, and 178.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Tell me something. If you've been awake for two hours, after a full eight-hours of sleep, do you think you could just nod back off at the drop of a hat?

More to the point, the rules very specifically call out the spells as "daily." The requirement of preparation is in addition to that; it doesn't overrule it.

Bottom line? No, you cannot prep spells more than once per day.

 

[frankthedm]

Bottom line? No, you cannot prep spells more than once per day.

Like other spellcasters, a wizard can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. Her base daily spell allotment is given on Table: The Wizard. In addition, she receives bonus spells per day if she has a high Intelligence score.

Yep.

 

[Twowolves]

Tell me something. If you've been awake for two hours, after a full eight-hours of sleep, do you think you could just nod back off at the drop of a hat?

Well, I can, but that's beside the point.

 

[Henry]

Actually, isn't there a rule saying that spells cast 8 hours before a new day count against the next days' allotment? I know it was there in 3.0E, but I haven't checked 3.5E - it was there specifically for this sort of thing.

Recent Casting Limit/Rest Interruptions: If a wizard has cast spells recently, the drain on her resources reduces her capacity to prepare new spells. When she prepares spells for the coming day, all the spells she has cast within the last 8 hours count against her daily limit.

From the Magic Overview section of the SRD, I don't know where it is in the PHB.