Li Shenron said:
Everyone can just manage to demonstrate by numbers that his opinion is the right one: it's enough to base one's reasoning on the best situation, infinite spell sources or zero spell sources, depending which opinion you are supporting. One could say that a feat which gives a +1 enh to charisma every 3 levels to a sorcerer is weak, because you can do the same with cloaks of charisma and it's only 36kgp, around 5% of your expected wealth at very high levels.
One
could say that, but one
could also call that a straw man, since it's not an apples-to-apples comparison. The main issue was that Dalamar felt that this feat resulted in, essentially, 68,000 free gold. Several folks have disagreed with those numbers.
It's a good feat, I think that's generally agreed upon. However, I don't think you'll get universal agreement that a wizard would always take this feat. Many would, but others would not. At 1st level, for example, a +1 to your DC is much more valuable than having two additional free spells when you turn 2nd level. As with most "
but by 20th level" analyses, the breakdown assumes a vacuum of pure numbers, and not practical adventuring, which is what many of the numbers above are addressing.
Dalamar said:
So if I made a feat that gave sorcerers a spell book with the normal wizard progression, but they still needed to memorize spells each day the same amount they would normally know, it would be balanced since they could lose everything too?
How often in a standard campaign does a wizard loose their spellbook? I bet about as often as the paladin's Holy Avenger gets sundered. That is, very rarely.
I'm not sure what you're saying here...that you would create a feat that turned a sorceror into a wizard? Sorcerors get more spell slots in return for their lack of spell choice. A feat like you describe, forcing them to memorize their spells would essentially make them wizards with a slightly different skill list and more spell slots. Does it remove their choice to choose spontaneous spellcasting? Are their spell choices still limited? You've given too few details to make any sort of an analysis, or why anyone would take it.
Most of the applications you mention make a bunch of assumptions that center around ignoring the various workarounds provided in the system for wizards to have an easier time of scribing, and also assumes that the only way to get said spells is from purchase at market price. Treasure, fellow party members and serveral magic items make this an easier task. You also make the mistake of producing lump numbers for the gp value. You're using the 'at 20th level' number...but it's not a cash check for 33,000 gp (assuming you accept that number), but more like 1650 per level. A free stat item at 20th level is not the same thing as a Belt of Giant Strength at 5th or 10th, and it's not a fair comparison, I think.
Assuming a character makes extra spellbooks on the cheap, as you describe, what is the practical ingame effect of this? Having two, ten or thirty extra spellbooks is effectively the same. You're still not casting more than one spell a round, and you're not getting more damage, a higher DC, better spell penetration, added effects or anything else to your spells. It's not found money. Just like you make the assumption that someone would normally only pay for certain spells, since they're only for crafting. I might buy that for Boccob's book, but not for Boots of Speed.
Again, I agree it's a good feat. I just don't see it as being particularly powerful or unbalancing.
The other guy was assuming one would have to buy each spells from scrolls, but you were talking like you can always find a wizard who lets you copy any spell you need for the minimum price. I just wanted to point out that both were having extreme circumstances on their mind.
As I recall, no wizards I've seen in our games had scribed more spells from scrolls than the ones they got for free, that's why my reaction. Also, when it was me to play wizard I was always craving for more spells all the time, and always copying new scrolls into the spellbook, I would have spent a feat for even just 2-3 new spells but that's because IMXP it's very hard to find exactly the spells I wanted to learn. Of course, in a campaign with scrolls shops or similar it would be very different.
