Spell Book Oddities

[Tequila Sunrise]

I just realized something weird. Out of the three D&D editions I've played, mages (aka wizards) consistently learn from spell books, according to class fluff. New spells can be researched or pilfered from looted spell books. Theoretically, an archmage can amass a whole library of spell books, which I think is one of the reasons I like the class so much.

But out of my three editions, one has an optional rule that puts a hard limit on the number of spells a mage can have in her spell book/s. As far as I know there's no in-game explanation given, and I'd be hard-pressed to think of one that isn't purely gamist.

Another has no such optional rule. It's also the edition most infamous for the Quadratic Wizard phenomenon.

My most recent edition, neo-clones aside, has a spell book restriction written right into the default rules. No researching spells beyond what the class gives you, no learning from looted spell books. In a way, this wizard is more like a psion or sorcerer because the spell book doesn't provide any opportunities that other casters don't have.

I don't have a final statement about this, other than...well, does it seem weird to anyone else? I'd also be curious to know whether pre-AD&D editions had similar spell book limits.

 

[Alzrius]

I play Pathfinder, but I think it was also true in 3.X that spellbooks came with a default number of pages (one hundred), and spells took up a number of pages equal to their spell level (0-level spells were half-a-page long).

Given that writing will take up a given amount of space, and that the amount of space is standardized for metagame reasons (e.g. ease-of-play) - overlooking how this has a few minor problems - the only major issue with this approach seems to be the assumption that all spellbooks are an even one hundred pages long (why can't they be longer or shorter?).

 

[Corathon]

In 1E there is no limit to the number of spells that could be in your book (other than the size of the books), but there is a limit on how many spells of each spell level that one can know/understand based on INT. At high enough INT that limit disappears. Given that spells are complicated things, seems reasonable to me.