Cost of Adding Spells to Spellbook too high?

[painandgreed]

IMO it's insane, and probably a result of metagaming rather than any other kind of logic.

Bad design, IMO. Most everything int he RAW not related to combat has very little design attributed to it and no verisimilitude.

Easiset thing to do is sit down with your DM and work out a compromise. Figure out what is more reasonable to that particular campaign with reguards to cost and time and see if they'll go for it.

 

[delericho]

Easiset thing to do is sit down with your DM and work out a compromise. Figure out what is more reasonable to that particular campaign with reguards to cost and time and see if they'll go for it.

I am the DM. It was just something that came up at the character creation session we had on Wednesday, where we lamented this one aspect of the Wizard. It's also something I've considered doing something about before... and now I have!

(My solution? 8 gp per page - you need a fresh vial of ink for each page, to keep the notes 'clean'. Otherwise, there's nothing special about the ink. Of course, persuading another Wizard to let you copy spells from his book is another matter entirely )

 

[painandgreed]

I am the DM. It was just something that came up at the character creation session we had on Wednesday, where we lamented this one aspect of the Wizard. It's also something I've considered doing something about before... and now I have!

one thing I've considered for such things including spell components, is allowing Spellcraft to be used as a Craft skill. Thus the costs can be cut in half if the wizard spends the time and effort to make his own inks and such.

For costs, I've always prefered something along the lines of spell level squared times 10.

 

[LostSoul]

I played a Wizard from 7th to 11th level using the scribing rules as written, and I didn't have a problem. (When I created the character, I added spells to my spellbook by buying the scroll and then paying the scribing cost. I ended up with a whole lot of scrolls that first session.)

I think the costs are okay.

 

[Arkham]

How many really organized wizards have all of their cantrips in the same book as their real spells? That is like a master artist having his crayon drawings from kindergarten in the same sketchpad as his studies for his masterwork.

And if you want to get really nitpicky about the Mastering a Spellbook rules, you can just remove the pages you don't want to study and re-bind them into a different, smaller book.
But the new costs for scribing your own are fine, though a spell that directly added a scroll into a book would be nifty.

( Isn't it odd that for spell levels 0-2, it is cheaper to by magically active items than a non-magical copy of the same words? )

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I wish the rules either had a way to make scribing spells into spellbooks quick or not having a mechanic at all. We play in a campaign that has gone on for probably 5+ years yet only months of game time have passed. So telling a player it'll take 60 days to scribe a spellbook always incurs a ridiculous look on the player's face as they realize they're character will be LONG dead by then. Now, I realize there must be limits to avoid abuse, but I think the game should come up with alternative methods for slow-running games.

 

[haakon1]

It does strike me as an unbalanced rule, but I haven't seen an alternative I really liked.

In the Temple of Elemental Evil computer game, copying a scroll to a spellbook was an instant action, costing, IIRC no gold or xp. That's a little too free, but it's closer to right than the current cost.

How about making the cost the same as making a scroll? Both GP and XP?

 

[delericho]

So telling a player it'll take 60 days to scribe a spellbook always incurs a ridiculous look on the player's face as they realize they're character will be LONG dead by then.

See, I don't get that. I would have thought that, in that situation, the DM would take a deep breath and then say...

"Two months later..."

 

[Grithfang]

See, I don't get that. I would have thought that, in that situation, the DM would take a deep breath and then say...

"Two months later..."

I have never personlly been involved in a game like that either, some people like getting involved in the minutiae. To each their own game I guess. To me it seems more like vanity stroking.

In context of this thread if my game ran like that I would consider sixty days so extremely long as to be game unbalancing.

 

[Mouseferatu]

See, I don't get that. I would have thought that, in that situation, the DM would take a deep breath and then say...

"Two months later..."

The problem there is that many D&D campaigns are a single, drawn-out story (there was no time for scribing spells in the trip to Mount Doom, for instance). Others are set in circumstances where downtime is contrary to the feel of the game. (Many adventures, including published scenarios like Red Hand of Doom, have a "race the clock" element.)

I agree there should be a mechanic to keep wizards' spellbooks from getting infinitely large with every spell in the game, but I don't think the current mechanic is it. It costs too much (minor problem, but still a problem, IME), and takes far too much time per spell (major problem IME).

IIRC, some older editions had a rule where a wizard could only have X number of spells in his spellbook based on his Intelligence. His mind simply couldn't comprehend any more than that. I wouldn't mind going back to that (as long as X was reasonably large), and reduce the costs and scribing times to a minimal amount.