D&D 5E does it seem lke tcoe Order of scribes wizard is largely solutions in search of a problem dressed up as an archetype?

[Mistwell]

Funny you should mention lmop because one of the quests in it is to go see someone & trade for a spellbook on behalf of the questgiver npc.
View attachment 129609
oops... There are scrolls of augury, charm person, & fireball...
From memory... stk & CoS have spellbook(s) but not until basically the very end & few if any scrolls. That's the other problem though, if you get a spellbook a couple sessions before gearing up to fight the bbeg & end the campaign or worse after you beat the bbeg... The campaign is wrapping up or actually over so what good does it do the wizard?. You could point at how a lot of HCs have lvery rare, legendary, & artifact class stuff for martials to find at that point in the campaign too... but it's absurd to suggest that a spellbook falls into a similar value

If you get them just before the big bad battle, that's the perfect time for this particular subclass. ONLY this subclass could copy them for use in time for that big battle. All others would need a lot of downtme to do it.

You have, still, not demonstrated your claim that hardcovers don't have spellbooks. Over and over again I and others have demonstrated where you're wrong. So I am waiting for you to offer the tiniest shred of evidence, beyond your blanket statement that it's fact, that what you're saying is actually fact.

Why should people keep trying to disprove your claim if all you do is handwaive it and never come back with evidence in return? You, again, don't seem interested in a conversation.

How about you name four hardcover adventure paths which have no spellbooks in them?

 

[tetrasodium]

If you get them just before the big bad battle, that's the perfect time for this particular subclass. ONLY this subclass could copy them for use in time for that big battle. All others would need a lot of downtme to do it.

You have, still, not demonstrated your claim that hardcovers don't have spellbooks. Over and over again I and others have demonstrated where you're wrong. So I am waiting for you to offer the tiniest shred of evidence, beyond your blanket statement that it's fact, that what you're saying is actually fact.

Why should people keep trying to disprove your claim if all you do is handwaive it and never come back with evidence in return? You, again, don't seem interested in a conversation.

How about you name four hardcover adventure paths which have no spellbooks in them?

already did that earlier man. Are you suggesting that those first and second level spells are adequate? You just didn't bother reading it.

 

[Mistwell]

already did that earlier man. Are you suggesting that those first and second level spells are adequate? You just didn't bother reading it.

Adequate for the levels they're for? Yes, absolutely. Three spellbooks for levels 1-4 of that adventure is absolutely adequate. You didn't do a full review, you cherry picked the early stuff and claimed that was it with no evidence at all. For one part of one adventure.

CAN. YOU. NAME. FOUR. AP. HARDBACKS. WITH. NO. SPELLBOOKS?

 

[tetrasodium]

Adequate for the levels they're for? Yes, absolutely. Three spellbooks for levels 1-4 of that adventure is absolutely adequate. You didn't do a full review, you cherry picked the early stuff and claimed that was it with no evidence at all. For one part of one adventure.

CAN. YOU. NAME. FOUR. AP. HARDBACKS. WITH. NO. SPELLBOOKS?

You don't get it, there are no other spellbooks and no other scrolls in the entire DiA adventure other than the ones I listed in that post. It's a HC that runs from 1st to about 13th. Not one to four. Nearly every creature in it has multiple energy resist and/or immune & regularly magic resist to boot. There are monty haul levels of martial items and nearly nothing for casters with spellbooks/spellscrolls for wizards so absurdly inadequate that they might as well have a middle finger as one of the spell entries where they couldn't even bother to include multiple dupicates across three inadequate spellbooks found on a single page. I' hate to give the impression that the HC is just that rough on treasure for everyone though...
+1 longsword (pg70) , +1 maul (pg111), +1 short sword (pg 133), +1 glaive (pg136), "+2 weapon"(pg 67), +2 silvered pike & +2 hellfire warhammer (pg83), +2 leather armor for the rogue (pg133)

There's at least one really nice armor (Obsidian flint dragon plate +2 resist poison & more)

A SHIELD that casts fireball firewall & does a bunch of stuff... possibly because a wand or staff with those spells couldn't be used by martial types practically everything is made for. in this... That +2 legendary shield is obtained wayyyyyy into the HC on page 5

An arcane caster can hope to find a wand of magic missile, wand of secrets, wand of the war mage +one & three nonmagical orbs worth 100gp that can be used as a spellcasting focus & the already noted utterly absurd selection of spellbooks with significant duplication.

 

[Willowhelm]

You don't get it, there are no other spellbooks and no other scrolls in the entire DiA adventure other than the ones I listed in that post. It's a HC that runs from 1st to about 13th. Not one to four. Nearly every creature in it has multiple energy resist and/or immune & regularly magic resist to boot.

I don't have time to do this in depth right now (and apologies for the formatting) but i did have enough time to register and do a few quick ctrl+f for "spellbook" and in that chapter alone we also have another mage (with spellbook):

The spellbook contains:
1st level (4 slots): detect magic, mage armor, magic missile, shield
2nd level (3 slots): misty step, suggestion
3rd level (3 slots): counterspell, fireball, fly
4th level (3 slots): greater invisibility, ice storm
5th level (1 slot): cone of cold
plus identify, gust of wind, magic weapon, sending, sleep, and tongues.

Plus, as mentioned already, you can then access candlekeep. If your DM doesn't allow you to find spells in candlekeep then they just plain don't like wizards.

And at the end of the chapter it explicitly calls out that

"A wizard named <spoiler> lives in a tower twenty miles from here. I’ve loaned him a spellbook or two"

Chapter three has more spellbooks explicitly mentioned which include:

1st level (4 slots): detect magic, identify, shield, Tenser’s floating disk
2nd level (3 slots): detect thoughts, mirror image, phantasmal force, suggestion
3rd level (3 slots): counterspell, fear, fireball
4th level (3 slots): banishment, dimension door
5th level (2 slots): contact other plane, hold monster
6th level (1 slot): chain lightning
7th level (1 slot): finger of death
8th level (1 slot): mind blank

I'm not continuing to search because I don't want to read too much and spoil myself in case i play that adventure some time but i think it is clear that there are more spellbooks even in that adventure?

I haven't played DiA but in every (official) adventure i have played or DM'd the wizard ends up with more money to spend and spells to copy than time to copy them. Maybe that doesn't happen for you but it is not unusual. That restriction all but disappears with this subclass. It makes copying spells a practical possibility without stopping the entire adventure for a week and hoping the bad guys take a holiday too.

Quick Edit:

Nearly every creature in it has multiple energy resist and/or immune & regularly magic resist to boot.

This sounds like a perfect opportunity for a subclass with the ability to switch out the damage type on their spells. Imagine if you went from a damage type they were immune to (or even just resistant) to one they were vulnerable to! Thats more that a 400% damage increase! I wonder if one exists...

 

[Mistwell]

You don't get it, there are no other spellbooks and no other scrolls in the entire DiA adventure other than the ones I listed in that post. It's a HC that runs from 1st to about 13th. Not one to four. Nearly every creature in it has multiple energy resist and/or immune & regularly magic resist to boot. There are monty haul levels of martial items and nearly nothing for casters with spellbooks/spellscrolls for wizards so absurdly inadequate that they might as well have a middle finger as one of the spell entries where they couldn't even bother to include multiple dupicates across three inadequate spellbooks found on a single page. I' hate to give the impression that the HC is just that rough on treasure for everyone though...
+1 longsword (pg70) , +1 maul (pg111), +1 short sword (pg 133), +1 glaive (pg136), "+2 weapon"(pg 67), +2 silvered pike & +2 hellfire warhammer (pg83), +2 leather armor for the rogue (pg133)

There's at least one really nice armor (Obsidian flint dragon plate +2 resist poison & more)

A SHIELD that casts fireball firewall & does a bunch of stuff... possibly because a wand or staff with those spells couldn't be used by martial types practically everything is made for. in this... That +2 legendary shield is obtained wayyyyyy into the HC on page 5

An arcane caster can hope to find a wand of magic missile, wand of secrets, wand of the war mage +one & three nonmagical orbs worth 100gp that can be used as a spellcasting focus & the already noted utterly absurd selection of spellbooks with significant duplication.

So no, you cannot name four AP Hardcovers which have no spellbooks? Apparently, cannot even name one? And Willowhelm just demonstrated you had not in fact accurately represented even the one you commented on?

 

[tetrasodium]

So no, you cannot name four AP Hardcovers which have no spellbooks? Apparently, cannot even name one? And Willowhelm just demonstrated you had not in fact accurately represented even the one you commented on?

When did completely inadequate amount to levels that go deep into "you have a bad gm or need to talk with them to show them how badly they are handling the needs of your class'class" in any other edition equal zero? Finding a spell book too late to make any meaningful use of the spells in an adventure with few if any scrolls is not meaningfully different and both are miserably failing to meet the needs of the class.

 

[Mistwell]

When did completely inadequate amount to levels that go deep into "you have a bad gm or need to talk with them to show them how badly they are handling the needs of your class'class" in any other edition equal zero? Finding a spell book too late to make any meaningful use of the spells in an adventure with few if any scrolls is not meaningfully different and both are miserably failing to meet the needs of the class.

So no then? Nothing? No AP hardcover book examples?

OK. Thought so.

This spin your putting on it about being too late in the adventure to matter is also is unproven. Given you got the ONE book you were commenting on badly wrong, I don't buy it. And since you've show you won't go through even one adventure to bother to check your claim, much less more than one, and will dismiss others who do spend the time to go through adventurers and prove their point, why should your spin be viewed as credible?

 

[Don Durito]

Why does it matter what's in the hardcovers so much?

Ok. It seems like probably the majority of groups are using them - but are we assuming they're also doing nothing to tailor the events in the adventure to their particular PC group?

That's a truly depressing thought.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

To an extent, it's up to the player. In my experience, a good wizard player is always badgering the DM "are there any libraries or book dealers in this town?", "I search for the spellbook of the wizard we just defeated".