DMs - do you enforce spellbook rules?

[Caliban]

I am doing it "by the book". And my players do not complain about it.

Whenever they defeat a wizard, they can get his spell book. All they need to have is high Spellcraft skill rank. For example, one of their PCs, a 10th level wizard with Int 22 (20 +2 from Headband of Intellect) have Spellcraft at +19 (+13 Rank, +6 Int Bonus). Now he can always roll at least 20. That means he never fail to prepare 5th-level spells from borrowed spell book. So he have truly wide variety of spells now.

By the rules, you can't prepare spells from a borrowed spellbook unless that spell has been copied into your own spellbook at some point in the past. (PHB, page 155)


In my campaign I use the standard PHB rules for acquiring new spells, and I have been using the standard rules for my 8th level wizard. No real complaints so far. The extra spells in my spellbook that I can scribe onto scrolls more than makes up for the slightly fewer magic items I can buy. (It's not like we don't find decent magic items from our foes.)

 

[Shin Okada]

By the rules, you can't prepare spells from a borrowed spellbook unless that spell has been copied into your own spellbook at some point in the past. (PHB, page 155)

Oh! I was overlooking that rule. So badguy wizard's spell book is not so good indeed.

I have heard in somewhere that writing a spell on Boccob's Blessed Book is free. Is that true?

 

[IceBear]

But I thought in the MoF supplement there was a rule that allowed you to prepare a spell from a captured spellbook as if it were your own. I think you had to make a Spellcraft check (DC=15+ spell level) to succeed.

IceBear

 

[Caliban]

There is an optional rule in MoF that allows you to "master" a spellbook, so that it is now considered your spellbook, along with all the spells in it.

The Spellcraft check is DC 25+(highest level spell in the book), and takes 10 days +(1 day per spell in book).

My wizard was able to successfully master one enemy spellbook, and has spent about 6,000 gp scribing spells from two others.

 

[kreynolds]

I do it "by the book" as well, and I also support the MoF.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I wouldn't have applied a cost, but we only had a sorcerer so I can't say how it would of worked out. But I got away with no cost, and I didn't end up with a ton of spells, time and availability of spells was enough of a limiting factor.

 

[Ancalagon]

In our game, scribing a new spell costs the same as scribing a scroll. It is less expensive for lower and mid level spells.

Ancalagon

 

[twjensen]

So I changed it to:
Scribing Cost = (Spell Level^2) * 10gp

My Wizard-Bard is happy and I am happy, knowing that enemy Wizard's are equally benefitted.

I like this! It seems more consistent with the other formulas for the costs of things, and leaves low level wizards enough room to actually have a couple extra spells. I plan to use it for my campaign.

 

[Geoff Watson]

The rules are a bit silly, do you know what a fortune a 1st lvl wizard has? if he has 16 int, he has 16 lvl 0 spells, thats 16 pages, plus 6 lvl 1 spells, that is 12 pages. Total: 2800 gp in spells. You could make a very good living out of killing apprentice mages. And the best: they can't even do anything back!

It's only worth that much to the apprentice wizard. It's worth nowhere near as much to anyone else. The zero-level spells are worthless, as any wizard will already have them, and you might be able to find someone to pay a pittance for the few first level spells.

Geoff.

 

[Rashak Mani]

I positively hated these rules... one of my DMs enforces it thou...

Its way to expensive and I figure most campaigns dont follow the WOTC suggested WEALTH level for PCs anyway. My 8th lvl character has like a third of the gold suggested in magic items only.

Wizards should spend gold and time to get new spells... but the way it is now... its so prohobitive as too be castrating.

In my case I was transcribing a 2nd level Scroll... so I lost the scroll AND I paid quite a lot of gold too to put it in my book. So being a wizard is great for having lots of 1st lvl spells... but higher than that only getting my 2 free spells a level...

Wizards need magical items too... not spend all their gold in filling up grimoires... they need AC and better saves like everyone else.