Spell Books

[G.A. Donis]

I am currently 330 miles from my books and was trying to remember if there are any rules/requirements for destroying spell books. I am thinking about a group of sorcerers vs. a group of wizards. It seems to me if the sorcerers could destroy the wizards' spell books, things would get real ugly for those scholarly types.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Spellbooks have no special resistences or immunities. They're just books. Expensive books.

I don't think they even radiate magic.

 

[UltimaGabe]

I am currently 330 miles from my books and was trying to remember if there are any rules/requirements for destroying spell books. I am thinking about a group of sorcerers vs. a group of wizards. It seems to me if the sorcerers could destroy the wizards' spell books, things would get real ugly for those scholarly types.

The only rules/requirements for destroying a spellbook are that you must have some means of destroying it- albeit fire, hitting it with a sword, throwing it in a lake- however you'd destroy a book. After all, that's what it does.

As for destroying a Wizard's spellbook, although it definitely would hamper the Wizards in the long run, it wouldn't do anything bad mid-battle (since they've already memorized their spells for the day) other than piss them off and make them stop playing around. But any Wizard who has his spellbook in any even remotely attackable location mid-battle is just asking for it.

At the same time, though, it would be much more advantageous to destroy, say, their Headband of Intellect or Bracers of Armor.

 

[G.A. Donis]

I was thinking about a long drawn out war between wizards and sorcerors as background for a game. I haven't yet figured out how the sorcerors would go about destroying something that is a wizard's most valueable possession. In the game setting the sorceror's would have won and then ruled over all arcane magic not allowing anybody to "record" magic since they felt that this was a corruption of "true magic" that is innate and any attempt to overcontrol magic would eventually lead to disastrous ends.

 

[Patlin]

I was thinking about a long drawn out war between wizards and sorcerors as background for a game. I haven't yet figured out how the sorcerors would go about destroying something that is a wizard's most valueable possession. In the game setting the sorceror's would have won and then ruled over all arcane magic not allowing anybody to "record" magic since they felt that this was a corruption of "true magic" that is innate and any attempt to overcontrol magic would eventually lead to disastrous ends.

If you win the battle, destroying the spellbook is easy. Destroying all spellbooks everywhere is hard, but you can make life hard on Wizards short of that. For example: Possessing a spellbook carries a death sentence. Searching for spellbooks is a routine activity of the city guard, and many guard posts have detect magic items -- anyone with a spell up or a magic item in their posession gets searched on entering any major city. It won't be 100% effective, but it should make it hard for Wizards to find aprentices, and any PCs that stick it out and study Wizardry should face significant challenges.

 

[Shallown]

This is when researching new spellsis useful. Just develop Spell preperation detecting spells. Book destroying elementals/critters or whatever. Of course the hidden wizards have developed some counter measures but it seems if that is the weakness you are exploiting you would specialize in destroying them.

Later

 

[Krud]

Hmm...

Assuming its sorcerors that developed the spell(s) to detect spell preperation, there would be some holes that wizards could exploit. Spells designed directly to counter wizards would take up some of the sorcerors precious known spell slots, while wizards would be able to develop as many counter-sorceror spells as they wanted to, thus using their increased repetoire to their advantage.

 

[Scharlata]

I am currently 330 miles from my books and was trying to remember if there are any rules/requirements for destroying spell books. I am thinking about a group of sorcerers vs. a group of wizards. It seems to me if the sorcerers could destroy the wizards' spell books, things would get real ugly for those scholarly types.

Hi!

Just three suggestions:

1.) Comlete Arcane: Protecting Spellbooks, page 140 [3.5]
2.) Magic of Faerûn: Protecting Spellbooks, page 173 [3.0]
3.) Player's Handbook: Spell Mastery, page 100 [3.5]

Kind regards