D&D General Is this use of a wizard's spellbook accurate?

[TwoSix]

It's a frustrating article to see especially because this topic was litigated over and over again in the first few years after 5e's release, and the explanatory text in the PHB is unfortunately opaque enough to confuse people pretty easily.

 

[cbwjm]

My instinct was also to say that AI had something to do with it, buuut to be fair we've had things like "this cantrip is better than 5th level spells!" clickbait videos before AI. So human slop is equally likely :'D

We've also had plenty of people argue for one level of wizard allowing for you to add every wizard spell to your spellbook. If this article is AI, I wouldn't be surprised if it got some (incorrect) info from ENworld.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This claim is incorrect under both the 2014 and 2024 rules. It does, however, reflect how multiclassing works in Baldur's Gate 3, so either an author is incorrectly extrapolating into the tabletop game or an LLM is repeating language from BG3 guides.

Rory's a real person who got it wrong.

 

[FrogReaver]

Article Argument: by taking only 1 level in wizard, you learn & cast every wizard spell, using scrolls to add spells.

Answer: No. On p44 (PHB 2024), it specifically says you "prepare" spells as if you were a "single-class" wizard of that level. So, you'll be limited always to only preparing 1st level wizard spells, no matter your available spell slots.

On p45, it notes your spell slots may be higher than what you can prepare. You might even get to a point that you have, for example, 3rd level slots and no class that can cast 3rd level spells. Whether multi-classing or not, you can always slot in a lower-level spell into a higher spell slot. Sometimes this boosts the spell, sometimes it won't. In this instance, you can slot in a 1st level spell, for example, to cast in that higher slot (e.g. boost burning hands to deal more damage) but you'll never be able to cast a wizard's fireball.

I don't see any authority that supports the author's claim that "scrolls" let you bypass the rules. That's nonsense.

I think it’s ambiguous under pure 2014 RAW. I don’t feel like dragging out those books to explain the reasoning, but iirc the crux is wizard classes spell book feature didn’t specify wizard levels. This was similar to the warlock invocations level prerequisites not stating warlock level.

I think ultimately it was either clarified in a tweet or sage advice or both and so no one really brought it up anymore.

Though I think for most it’s purely a what is RAW question. I don’t expect any or at most extremely few actually play or played it that way.

 

[SkidAce]

Thanks, everybody. It definitely felt off, but I lost internet shortly afterwards so just now got back to read yall's thoughts.