New answers about spellbooks in the FAQ

[mach1.9pants]

Nice one Baberg, and NMcCoy....although it did bring back terrible memories of school maths classes!

 

[The Grackle]

[
Can a 5th level wizard memorize two 5th level daily spells instead of a 1st and a 5th level daily spell?

At the end of each long rest, a wizard prepares one 1st-level Daily spell chosen from the list of 1st level daily spells in her spellbook. If she were at least 2nd level, she would also prepare one 2nd-level utility spell chosen from the list of 2nd-level utility spells in her spellbook. At 5th level she would also prepare one 5th-level daily spell from her list of 5th-level daily spells in her spellbook. She would repeat this process for every level that she has access to wizard daily or utility spells. She could not, as a 5th-level wizard, prepare a second 5th-level daily spell in place of a daily spell of a different level.​

This doesn't seem like a very good answer. What about a 15th level wizard who's replaced his first level daily spell with a fifteenth level daily? Does he prepare a 1st lev spell and then un-prepare it?

This is all correct. However, I'd like to mention an addendum as provided by an official clarification seen elsewhere.

- I am level 15 and want to replace my level 5 spells with new level 15 spells, but really like spell 5a.
I relearn spell 5a as one of my 15th level spells.
The pages devoted to 5a/5b/5c are erased and replaced by 5a/15a/15b.

link?

 

[baberg]

I relearn spell 5a as one of my 15th level spells.
The pages devoted to 5a/5b/5c are erased and replaced by 5a/15a/15b.

link?

I think that's covered by two steps, actually. The first would be the replace that I mentioned above, where you remove all 5s and replace them with 15s. Then you retrain as per p.28 of the PHB where you can replace any power with any other power of the same level or lower.

Unless NMcCoy has a specific link as to what would allow for that, I would allow for it just by doing the two actions as part of a general levelling up. I'm not sure how I'd handle replacing a single level 5 power with a single level 15 power (i.e. going from 5a/5b/5c to 5a/5b/15a). I'm thinking that you would have to have an "intermediate" level where you have 5a/15a/15b and then the next time you level up you can replace 15b with 5b.

 

[Falling Icicle]

That's just stupid.

What's just as stupid is that Wizards can't copy a spell from another spellbook. He's stuck with the spells he picked until he gains a level and adds 2-3 more, gets the Expanded Spellbook feat, or retrains (in which case the old spell disappears). The 4e spellbook system for Wizards is, IMHO, asinine.

 

[pnewman]

I think that the old spells stay in the book but you can no longer prepare them from it because when you leveled up you altered the structure of your brain so that it could understand the new more powerful spells instead of the old ones. It would be like upgrading your 'ordinary' artificial arm to one with a sword built in and then complaing that you can't tie your shoelaces any more. You knew this was going to happen when you made the change, and if you weren't ok with it than you shouldn't have made the change.

Besides if the spells stay in the book than you can let your apprentice learn them from it someday.

 

[kerbarian]

This is all correct. However, I'd like to mention an addendum as provided by an official clarification seen elsewhere.

- I am level 15 and want to replace my level 5 spells with new level 15 spells, but really like spell 5a.
I relearn spell 5a as one of my 15th level spells.
The pages devoted to 5a/5b/5c are erased and replaced by 5a/15a/15b.

I'd also like to see a link to that clarification.

In any case, if you now have 5a/15a/15b, could you prepare both 5a and 15b on the same day, because they're not the same level, or do you only get to use one of them because they're in the same level "slot"?

The whole thing does make more sense if it's treated in terms of level slots, where you have two (three with the feat) spell choices per slot, but you have to replace an entire slot if you take a multiclass power swap feat or when you replace a daily power due to leveling, and you can only prepare one spell from each slot each day.

 

[Particle_Man]

I think that's covered by two steps, actually. The first would be the replace that I mentioned above, where you remove all 5s and replace them with 15s. Then you retrain as per p.28 of the PHB where you can replace any power with any other power of the same level or lower.

I would rather phrase it "you replace 3 spells with 3 spells, but 1 or 2 of the spells in the first group could be identical to 1 or 2 of the spells in the second group".

The reason is that this wording doesn't require you 1/level retraining to be used for replacing spells in this manner, leaving you free to use retraining for something else.

So basically, you keep the 2 (or 3) spells together as packages (and regardless of using retraining or replacing resulting in a disparity of levels within the package, it is all part of the same package). I can live with that.

 

[Particle_Man]

I'd also like to see a link to that clarification.

In any case, if you now have 5a/15a/15b, could you prepare both 5a and 15b on the same day, because they're not the same level, or do you only get to use one of them because they're in the same level "slot"?

The whole thing does make more sense if it's treated in terms of level slots, where you have two (three with the feat) spell choices per slot, but you have to replace an entire slot if you take a multiclass power swap feat or when you replace a daily power due to leveling, and you can only prepare one spell from each slot each day.

I would say it counts as one "slot" so you still only get one of them.

Hmmm...so now the multi-class feat to swap the wizard daily for a cleric daily might be a hard choice. Do I retrain for this feat at 29th level in order to go for the uber-29th level Cleric prayer Astral Storm, at the cost of access to 2 (or all 3) 29th level wizard dailies?

 

[vagabundo]

I think my Wizards will have Spell Binders with detachable spell pages; for archiving purposes.

 

[Malachor]

I'm surprised they didn't put the powers by class level table from pg 143 of the DMG into the PH.