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Market price for a spell book?
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<blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 7947574" data-attributes="member: 20323"><p>As a minimum baseline, the wizard who penned the spellbook needs to be recompensed for time (lifestyle) and materials, and wants to turn a pretty profit.</p><p></p><p>For each level of the spell, the process takes 2 hours and costs 50 gp. Assuming wizard wishes to maintain comfortable lifestyle, that's 2 gp per day (or 8 hours of work).</p><p></p><p>And then there are materials – we'll say the base spellbook (50 gp) and whatever the ink cost will be. One ounce of ink (10 gp) = 30 ml, you can get about 20 pages per ml, so 30 ml (1 oz) gives about 600 pages. There's no guideline in 5e for how many pages a spell takes up, but in past editions it was one page per spell level. So any single spellbook only needs 1 oz of ink.</p><p></p><p>We'd also assume higher level spells are more valuable because higher-level casters are rarer than low-level casters. A multiplier can used for the spell level. 1.0 for cantrips & first-level, 1.2 for second-level, 1.3 for third-level, and up to 1.9 for ninth-level.</p><p></p><p>Let's take a 9th level wizard who penned the following spellbook:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">1st Level (x6): Alarm, Burning Hands, Charm Person, Chromatic Orb, Color Spray, Comprehend Languages</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">2nd Level (x5): Alter Self, Arcane Lock, Blindness/Deafness, Blur, Cloud of Daggers</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">3rd Level (x6): Bestow Curse, Blink, Clairvoyance, Counterspell, Dispel Magic, Water Breathing</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">4th Level (x6): Arcane Eye, Banishment, Confusion, Conjure Minor Elementals, Control Water, Ice Storm</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">5th Level (x4): Animate Objects, Bigby's Hand, Cone of Cold, Teleportation Circle</li> </ul><p>Cost maths would be:</p><p></p><p><strong>60 gp</strong> materials costs</p><p></p><p>1.0 level multiplier * (1*6*50) level of spell * # spells * 50gp + (2 * (total hours / 8) comfortable lifestyle = 1.0 * 300 + (2 * (12 / 8)) = <strong>303 gp</strong></p><p></p><p>1.2 level multiplier * (2*5*50) level of spell * # spells * 50gp + (2* total hours / 8) comfortable lifestyle = 1.2 * 500 + (2 * (16/8)) = <strong>604 gp</strong></p><p></p><p>1.3 level multiplier * (3*6*50) level of spell * # spells * 50gp + (2* total hours / 8) comfortable lifestyle = 1.3 * 900 + (2 * (36/8)) = <strong>1179 gp</strong></p><p></p><p>1.4 level multiplier * (4*6*50) level of spell * # spells * 50gp + (2* total hours / 8) comfortable lifestyle = 1.4 * 1200 + (2 * (48/8)) = <strong>1692 gp</strong></p><p></p><p>1.5 level multiplier * (5*4*50) level of spell * # spells * 50gp + (2* total hours / 8) comfortable lifestyle = 1.5 * 1000 + (2 * (40/8)) = <strong>1510 gp</strong></p><p></p><p>For a total price of <strong>5,348 gp</strong>.</p><p></p><p>Now comes the question of how much profit the wizard wants to turn. This is a niche product, highly valued by specific individuals, and there's a reason the wizard is doing this rather than baking bread. So a 20% profit margin doesn't seem unreasonable.</p><p></p><p>So the selling price might be around <strong>6,417 gp </strong>and <strong>6 sp</strong>.</p><p></p><p>If you go by the <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/deconstructing-5e-typical-wealth-by-level.402507/" target="_blank">wealth by level breakdown</a> that was done by [USER=35915]@tankschmidt[/USER], then a 9th level PC would have amassed ~16,200 gp over the course of their career thus far. So purchasing this spellbook represents a major investment, on par with establishing a guildhall/trading post (5,000 gp), buying the majority share in a sailing ship (10,000 gp), or negotiating a very good price on a rare magic item (2d10 x 1,000 gp).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Quickleaf, post: 7947574, member: 20323"] As a minimum baseline, the wizard who penned the spellbook needs to be recompensed for time (lifestyle) and materials, and wants to turn a pretty profit. For each level of the spell, the process takes 2 hours and costs 50 gp. Assuming wizard wishes to maintain comfortable lifestyle, that's 2 gp per day (or 8 hours of work). And then there are materials – we'll say the base spellbook (50 gp) and whatever the ink cost will be. One ounce of ink (10 gp) = 30 ml, you can get about 20 pages per ml, so 30 ml (1 oz) gives about 600 pages. There's no guideline in 5e for how many pages a spell takes up, but in past editions it was one page per spell level. So any single spellbook only needs 1 oz of ink. We'd also assume higher level spells are more valuable because higher-level casters are rarer than low-level casters. A multiplier can used for the spell level. 1.0 for cantrips & first-level, 1.2 for second-level, 1.3 for third-level, and up to 1.9 for ninth-level. Let's take a 9th level wizard who penned the following spellbook: [LIST] [*]1st Level (x6): Alarm, Burning Hands, Charm Person, Chromatic Orb, Color Spray, Comprehend Languages [*]2nd Level (x5): Alter Self, Arcane Lock, Blindness/Deafness, Blur, Cloud of Daggers [*]3rd Level (x6): Bestow Curse, Blink, Clairvoyance, Counterspell, Dispel Magic, Water Breathing [*]4th Level (x6): Arcane Eye, Banishment, Confusion, Conjure Minor Elementals, Control Water, Ice Storm [*]5th Level (x4): Animate Objects, Bigby's Hand, Cone of Cold, Teleportation Circle [/LIST] Cost maths would be: [B]60 gp[/B] materials costs 1.0 level multiplier * (1*6*50) level of spell * # spells * 50gp + (2 * (total hours / 8) comfortable lifestyle = 1.0 * 300 + (2 * (12 / 8)) = [B]303 gp[/B] 1.2 level multiplier * (2*5*50) level of spell * # spells * 50gp + (2* total hours / 8) comfortable lifestyle = 1.2 * 500 + (2 * (16/8)) = [B]604 gp[/B] 1.3 level multiplier * (3*6*50) level of spell * # spells * 50gp + (2* total hours / 8) comfortable lifestyle = 1.3 * 900 + (2 * (36/8)) = [B]1179 gp[/B] 1.4 level multiplier * (4*6*50) level of spell * # spells * 50gp + (2* total hours / 8) comfortable lifestyle = 1.4 * 1200 + (2 * (48/8)) = [B]1692 gp[/B] 1.5 level multiplier * (5*4*50) level of spell * # spells * 50gp + (2* total hours / 8) comfortable lifestyle = 1.5 * 1000 + (2 * (40/8)) = [B]1510 gp[/B] For a total price of [B]5,348 gp[/B]. Now comes the question of how much profit the wizard wants to turn. This is a niche product, highly valued by specific individuals, and there's a reason the wizard is doing this rather than baking bread. So a 20% profit margin doesn't seem unreasonable. So the selling price might be around [B]6,417 gp [/B]and [B]6 sp[/B]. If you go by the [URL='https://www.enworld.org/threads/deconstructing-5e-typical-wealth-by-level.402507/']wealth by level breakdown[/URL] that was done by [USER=35915]@tankschmidt[/USER], then a 9th level PC would have amassed ~16,200 gp over the course of their career thus far. So purchasing this spellbook represents a major investment, on par with establishing a guildhall/trading post (5,000 gp), buying the majority share in a sailing ship (10,000 gp), or negotiating a very good price on a rare magic item (2d10 x 1,000 gp). [/QUOTE]
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