Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 819210" data-attributes="member: 3146">Boccob's Blessed BookIn my experience, 9 times out of 10, a wizard prepares the same spells that a sorceror would know and the extra 20, 40, 60, or 200 spells that he might have in his spellbook do him no good whatsoever. The important difference is that at odd levels, he has two spells of a level the sorceror has no spells of and at even levels, he can choose from at least 4 spells at his highest level while the sorceror has no choice at all. The ability to add spells to a spellbook functions more to reduce the opportunity cost of taking spells that will be useless at higher levels (sleep, scare, etc), to make up for bad spell choices (I learned Blur! What was I thinking? Oh well, it's only 400gp to get a spell that's worth casting), or to adapt to a different party configuration (Hmm, there's another wizard in the party now and our cleric is 6th level after failing those two fort saves. I guess I'll take Greater Magic Weapon in case we run into critters with DR and let the other wizard take Slow).My 10th (almost 11th) level fighter/wizard/spellsword in Living Greyhawk, for instance hasn't scribed enough spells to even replace the cost of crafting a BBB. Four first level spells (Alarm, Protection from Evil, Magic Missile, Expeditious Retreat), four second level spells (Flaming Sphere, Cat's Grace, False Life, Scorcher), and two third level spells (Greater Magic Weapon, Slow). Total scribing cost: 3200gp. He can scribe two fourth level spells before he'd have been better off making the book (and considering that he doesn't have the feat, he could scribe 8 fourth level spells before he'd really break even). To be honest, a more careful spell selection (and resisting the lure of "oh, cool, I captured a spellbook with a unique spell--I'd better learn it") would have made even the scribing he's done unnecessary.Given the opportunity to reselect his spells, he would probably have spent only 1600 gp or so on scribing. The rest of the cash would go for a nifty magic weapon or something.WRT the hypothetical 20th level character, I can think of a whole lot of things that would be more useful than 83,750gp worth of spells--most of which--you probably never prepare anyway. A gem of True Seeing would be one. Or a +5 vest of resistance, Luckstone, and Pale Green Ioun stone. Or an +1 Sure Striking Holy Evil outsider bane Adamantium longsword (Any character who regularly uses more than one weapon could use a good backup). Or, if the character is a pure sorceror, a +4 mithral buckler of heavy fortification. Or a major cloak of displacement, a +5 vest of resistance, and a spell storing ioun stone. Alternately, a metamagic rod of Quicken spell might come in handy for the sorceror (more than 84k for the good ones but even a minor one would be useful). Heck, the sorceror could spend the 84k on 4 scrolls of each of the spells that the wizard scribed and a Heward's Handy Haversack to hold them; then he'd be able to immediately cast them in the rare event that they were actually wanted. The wizard is likely to--at the very least--need to spend a few minutes filling an empty slot. However wisely the wizard spends his other money, the 84k that he's spending on spells (which will probably not significantly enhance his abilities in any way whatsoever since he'll probably only prepare them occasionally).Given the very marginal utility of adding spells to a wizard's spellbook (and that only my foolishness in spell selection has made my wizard spend even 1/3 of the cost of a BBB on scribing in almost 11 levels), I don't see anything broken about allowing BBB to negate the cost of scribing spells. Maybe it's different for epic levels but there's a reason that epic levels come in an entirely different book and that epic spells have a different mechanic than non-epic ones.</blockquote>

Verification