Cost of Adding Spells to Spellbook too high?

[delericho]

Is it just me, or is the cost of adding spells to a Wizard's spellbook insane?

The major benefit of the Wizard class, when compared with other Arcane casters, is the diversity of the spells that the wizard can call upon (well, that, and they gain access to new spell levels one class level earlier than Sorcerers and Warmages). But, when the Wizard only gets two 'free' spells per level, and it costs so much to add more new spells to the spellbook, isn't a lot of that diversity lost?

And never mind the plight of the poor Wizard who wishes to create a 'travelling' spellbook so that his one and only copy doesn't get destroyed by a cruel DM, or worse the Wizard whose one and only copy has been destroyed and needs replaced! At 100 gp per spell level, it could take him months to rebuild, while all the time his Sorcerer friend is stocking up on fun magic items instead.

Personally, I'm inclined to do one of two things:

1) Reduce the cost of scribing significantly. Perhaps reduce it to as little as "one vial of ink (8 gp) per page".

or, perhaps better,

2) Leave the costs as they are, but allow a Wizard to make use of captured and borrowed spellbooks without penalty - that is, they can learn spells from captured spellbooks, and prepare those spells from those books, without going through the pain of first scribing their own copy (and paying the spell tax), and without a Spellcraft check with each preparation.

Any thoughts?

 

[Ranes]

Complete Arcane has an interesting rule on p140: Mastering a foreign spellbook. The wizard, instead of copying another spellbook's contents, studies it, in order that he may use it as his own. Mastering the spellbook requires a Spellcraft check of DC25 + the level of the highest level spell in the book and takes one week plus one day per spell the book contains. If he fails, he must gain at least one more rank in Spellcraft before he can try again.

 

[Glyfair]

Complete Arcane has an interesting rule on p140: Mastering a foreign spellbook. The wizard, instead of copying another spellbook's contents, studies it, in order that he may use it as his own. Mastering the spellbook requires a Spellcraft check of DC25 + the level of the highest level spell in the book and takes one week plus one day per spell the book contains. If he fails, he must gain at least one more rank in Spellcraft before he can try again.

From experience, I'd say you'd better be playing in a campaign with a lot of downtime for any reasonably normal spellbook. The core zero-level spells add a huge amount of time to learning a spellbook, something you're gaining no benefit from. There aren't any rules for ignoring part of a book, it's all or nothing.

Getting a Boccob's Blessed Book is clearly the best way around this (or even better, an Aureon's Spellshard from Eberron). This works out to 12.5 gp per page rather than 100 gp. This assumes you fill the book, which is why I prefer the spellshard (which has half the capacity for half the cost).

 

[Ranes]

Downtime is good for verisimilitude and doesn't need to slow down the game itself. I agree with your assessment that Boccob's Blessed Book is an ideal solution though. Not knowing Eberron, I didn't realise that presented an alternative.

 

[Glyfair]

Downtime is good for verisimilitude and doesn't need to slow down the game itself.

But you don't get downtime if the DM doesn't give you downtime. The campaign I'm in now regularly has 1-2 weeks between adventures, but you need at least a month for a decent size spellbook. The one's I have are don't have higher than 2nd level spells and they still require more than a month of study, which I haven't had.

As I mentioned, the zero-level spells are the killer and every wizard has them. That's 19 days added to the time to master the spellbook right there.

 

[EyeontheMountain]

By the rules as written, yes the costs and time constraints of a spellbook are way too high. Hundreds of gold, and days upon days of doing nothing but scribing is very limiting, and for that matter, not fun at all. I generally handwave most of that as it is a disadvantage no other class has. I mean what other class has such huge time constraints to use basic class features?

Noone

 

[taliesin15]

I must beg to differ, I don't think the costs are prohibitive, and plus there are other ways of expanding the number of spells. Spell Research, for example. Also, IMC, there's two wizards, who've copied each other's spellbooks. In fact, the party is likely to encounter other friendly wizards along the way willing to do the same. In addition to that, there are scrolls, which I allow wizards to copy into their spellbooks (I have no idea if that mechanic is still allowed, I've Sunset Reviewed that one from 1st edition). Much depends on the flavor of the game the DM is running. In addition to all of this, I also create spells not in any published compendium. Consider also that much of the cost of copying goes to Magical Ink--which is greatly reduced if the wizards find the material components and skills to make the Magic Ink.

 

[Ranes]

Well, it seems ironic that a lot of people think level progression is too rapid and yet we have DMs not building enough downtime into their campaigns for legitimate reasons that would, consequentially, slow the level progression of PCs. As I said, downtime is good for verisimilitude and DMs who don't incorporate it risk running shallow campaigns.

 

[jasin]

2) Leave the costs as they are, but allow a Wizard to make use of captured and borrowed spellbooks without penalty - that is, they can learn spells from captured spellbooks, and prepare those spells from those books, without going through the pain of first scribing their own copy (and paying the spell tax), and without a Spellcraft check with each preparation.

Copying a spell is DC 15 + spell level, which means that your iconic Int 15 wizard can do it without fail, for any spell he can cast, from 1st level onwards if he maxes his spellcraft.

Preparing from a captured spellbook is DC 15 + spell level, which means...

In effect, what you suggest is how it already is.

 

[taliesin15]

now that last comment regarding downtime, I heartily agree with you there--as a DM I take great pains to have realism in my fantasy games--in my view, some DMs are simply too lazy, others disinterested--of course, many DMs also don't really say anything at all about the weather, unless the party is in an extreme environment, few care little at all about things like time, what day of the week it is, whether there's a calendar at all--to make matters worse, few seem to give even far-reaching elements much thought like religion, economy, social class, and so on--its much easier just to go with the WoTC standard corps of deities (maybe we should just refer to them as dieties as is usually spelled on these boards), and get back to one's XBox type of campaign