D&D 5E Creating a spell book as loot for a wizard

[robus]

A wizard in my party has found a spell book and, of course, wants to copy the spells from it. But this spell book doesn't exist, yet...

Does anyone have good ideas for quickly populating a spell book? Letting the PC just take what they want from the PHB seems like a bad idea (and a little un-fun).

My initial thought to randomly generate a set of spells by rolling on some table. But of course the spells will be limited by the level of the wizard who previously owned the book. (or perhaps there could even be some higher level spells which aren't castable yet?

Anyway - open to suggestions on how to make this cool.

 

[leonardoraele]

I once gave a wizard in my table a spellbook, but I didn't give many thoughts on the matter, just rolled random spells: 8 1st level spells and 4 spells of each higher level up to the original owner's casting capacity. Once you have the random list ready, you can make changes as you see fit. For instance, if the wizard was a necromancer, you can replace some spells for necromancy spells of your choice to reflect his or her specialization on the school.

If you want to surprise the player, you can even consider adding homebrew spells to the list.

 

[Shiroiken]

It should have the spells the wizard used against them

If it has no known previous owner, then I'd suggest something like the following (adjust as desired for party level and balance):

1st level 2d4
2nd level 1d6
3rd level 1d4
4th level 1d2
5th level 1d2-1
6th level 1d3-2
7th level 1d4-3
8th level 1d6-5
9th level 1d8-7

 

[Ganymede81]

I just assume a looted spellbook simply allows a wizard PC to transfer over 1-3 spells of their choice into their own spellbook. No fuss, no muss.

 

[xuriel]

Take a look in the MM at some of the monsters that are spellcasters (mind flayer arcanist, drow mage, etc.)—their prepared spell lists can make decent spellbooks.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

One quick and simple way is to briefly think of a personality/character/focus of the NPC wizard who previously owned the book and then assign 2 spells per character level to the book based on that character. (Why two? Because that's the number of spells that a wizard is presumed to learn each level from independent research). For example, a 5th level necromancer's spell book might look like:

1 - Mage Armor, Protection from Good/Evil, Sickening Ray, Sleep
2 - Ray of Enfeeblement, Blindness/Deafness, Darkness, Invisibility
3 - Animate Dead, Stinking Cloud

 

[jgsugden]

Random tables where you actually roll dice are going to take as long to build as just picking spells.

When I make a spellbook for loot/NPC, I take the level of the wizard and figure out how many spells they should have if they were a PC. Then I grab core spells that almost every wizard knows (mage armor, shield, fly, dispel magic), and then grab spells that suit the personality of the wizard to flesh out. It takes me ... well, about as long as it took me to write this response.

Then, I try to toss in one or two original spells that the player would never have heard of before. Usually, they're a little underpowered, but quirky or do something unique. For examples:

I gave a necromancer a 3rd level spell called Crush Bones. It does a small amount of damage and then gives a choice of minor penalties that mimic a broken bone in the hand, foot or rib. The penalty stays until the character is magically healed. Lots of flavor, but nobody is going to mistake it for fireball.

I gave a pirate wizard a 2nd level spell called "Sink". It exerts steady magical force in a downward direction over a large area. PCs in the area are treated as carrying extra weight. When cast at low levels, it can also capsize a small boat. At medium levels it can push a longboat underwater. At higher levels it can capsize a pinnace. At 9th level it can push a galleon underwater if concentration is maintained. No meteor swarm, but very thematic for that wizard.

 

[Nytmare]

One of the things I had really liked from (I'm assuming) the Scarred Lands was the idea of spellbooks being more than just lists of spells. They urged you to think of spellbooks more along the lines of personal text books or even history books, full of hypotheses and conjectures, and scribbled notes and observations. So something like "Meditations on Dread" might be a treatise of fear and discussions about the nature and morality of necromantic energies, that would have a smattering of, and that a player would be able to use to piece together additional fear and intimidation based spells.

They also had a smattering of ideas for common mundane and magical add ons that mages might have. Anything from locks, traps, or water protection to levitation or magical fire resistance.

 

[Curmudjinn]

One of the things I had really liked from (I'm assuming) the Scarred Lands was the idea of spellbooks being more than just lists of spells. They urged you to think of spellbooks more along the lines of personal text books or even history books, full of hypotheses and conjectures, and scribbled notes and observations. So something like "Meditations on Dread" might be a treatise of fear and discussions about the nature and morality of necromantic energies, that would have a smattering of, and that a player would be able to use to piece together additional fear and intimidation based spells.

They also had a smattering of ideas for common mundane and magical add ons that mages might have. Anything from locks, traps, or water protection to levitation or magical fire resistance.

This book belongs to the Half-Blood Prince.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Who owned the spell book, previously?

In my current game, the party is about to meet with a millennia-old lich, and there's a non-zero chance that it will come to blows. Should such happen, and should they prevail in such a conflict, the loot will include several spell books which collectively contain all of the wizard spells in the PHB (and a couple that aren't).