Wizards: What happens when they lose their spellbooks?

[AuraSeer]

Maybe I'll select some of their equipment and let them find it in the first session, including the Wizards spellbook (it's not the Wizard I'm worried about, it's the dwarven barbarian).

If you just want to take the melee dude down a notch, you need not resort to railroading, or the tired old "captured and naked" gimmick. There are plenty of other ways to remove equipment from the campaign.

Various oozes will eat weapons used against them. A bebilith (CR 10) will rend armor. To destroy lots of metal in one encounter, throw the party against a pack of advanced fiendish rust monsters.

Ethereal filchers are good in all situations.

For high-level parties, the best way to destroy magick stuff is with disjunction, but it's not fair to use that against 8th-level PCs.

 

[Spatula]

He would be totally screwed, not to mention your use of railroading is infuriating and annoying. Never, ever, take away the PCs equipment for a significant period of time or capture them. Players universally HATE it when they're railroaded into being captured. Never never never do that.

Wimp. Real gamers understand that setbacks are a part of the adventurin' life.

Still, something of this magnitude should probably be talked about with the players beforehand, rather than springing it on them in the middle of the game. Tell them about your concerns, and see if they're willing on giving up some of their loot for the sake of everyone's enjoyment. Explain it away in-game however you please (or not at all). A wizard that irrevocably loses his only spellbook is pretty screwed, and while a pile of scrolls would soften the blow, scribing them into a new spellbook takes time and a lot of money.

 

[Victim]

One solution might to toast the original spellbook, but allow the wizard to adopt a spellbook found RIGHT AWAY as his own. This way, the wizard quickly gains access to a book and can do things.

Of course, you could just ask the players to voluntarily tone down their characters. In the face of forced capture scenario, I'd relent.

Really, any kind of attack on a wizard's book can cripple the character. For one game, I made a 9th level wizard. He ended up with one spellbook containing his free spells, and a BBB loaded with many spells learned from scrolls. Probably around a 1/4 to athird of his wealth was tied up in spells. A backup copy of all his spells wouldn't be feasible, and several backups wouldn't be possible.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Ethereal filchers are good in all situations.

Hell, that's a good rule of thumb even if you don't have PCs with too many
items.

Can't get enough of them Filchers

-Hyp.

 

[KarinsDad]

If you want to go with capture and loot stripping you can do it, but it's really better if you can come up with a less intrusive way of resolving it. I'd suggest at least trying to DM the group for a while as is to see if it really is as bad as you're expecting. It might turn out okay. If it doesn't, try to work with the players rather than bludgeoning them with your idea of how the game should be.

Lots of good suggestions all around.

Another one I thought of is to send LOTS of minor damage area affect spells against the group (for example, a small cadre of low level sorcerers throwing 5D6 fireballs and lightning bolts from wands) over an extended period of time. Possibly along the lines of hit and run and/or ambush tactics for the spell casters. Not enough to even come close to killing the PCs outright, but enough to have them making a lot of saving throws.

Sooner or later, the PCs will roll ones. When that happens, they will have to start making saving throws for their items.

Granted this is an extremely slow process (and you will probably have to throw at least 6D6 spells if you want to destroy bigger items like armor or shields), but it has the advantage of the players probably not figuring out what you are trying to do (like various oozes might).

Sunder is another possibility, but do not overplay that card. One reason is that the enhancement bonus on the weapon attacking has to be as high as the one on the defenders weapon or shield, hence, if the NPC loses, the PC gets another weapon of that bonus (and your intent is not to give them even more magic). Dispel Magic in combination with Sunder against a given weapon can be potent (you could destroy a +5 sword with a +0 sword that way), but if you do that, then your PCs will know that you are attempting to destroy at least one item.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Sunder is another possibility, but do not overplay that card. One reason is that the enhancement bonus on the weapon attacking has to be as high as the one on the defenders weapon or shield, hence, if the NPC loses, the PC gets another weapon of that bonus (and your intent is not to give them even more magic).

"Line up, line up, get yer GMWs here... single file, no shoving... right, everyone ready? Go Sunder me some PC gear!"

-Hyp.

 

[AuraSeer]

Sunder is another possibility, but do not overplay that card. One reason is that the enhancement bonus on the weapon attacking has to be as high as the one on the defenders weapon or shield, hence, if the NPC loses, the PC gets another weapon of that bonus

...for a few hours. Then the enemy's greater magic weapon spell expires, and the spiffy new sword reverts to a nonmagical, nonmasterwork chunk of junk.

 

[KarinsDad]

"Line up, line up, get yer GMWs here... single file, no shoving... right, everyone ready? Go Sunder me some PC gear!"

...for a few hours. Then the enemy's greater magic weapon spell expires, and the spiffy new sword reverts to a nonmagical, nonmasterwork chunk of junk.

Good point guys. You can tell I haven't played for a year and a half.

Mental note: write this one down for when my PCs get higher level...

 

[Li Shenron]

I think that the Wizard who must reconstruct his spellbook for free is in dire straits.

First of all he must find one source for each spell he "knew" to copy it into the new spellbook, except Read Magic and spells he mastered with Spell Mastery (let's face it: usually none).

Then it takes one day per spell to scribe them. Obviously it is better to start with most important ones so that you are able to prepare something useful once you have used up all the spells you still had in memory.

The cost is not enourmous in 3.5 but still it's like you have to pay twice for the same thing. Actually more than twice because I don't think that the 2 spells you got for "free" when you leveled up are still free now, as well as all the cantrips and the starting 1st level spells.

As the spellbook rules, a Wizard never really "knows" any spell except Read Magic or the ones chosen with Spell Mastery. Furthermore, the description of these rules is very poor, and most of us play them quite by instinct or based on previous editions.

edit: Ok, maybe "very poor" is exaggerated... let's say that they could be better

 

[Pax]

Taking away a Wizard's spellbook is like saying to the party fighter, "You have a 0 BAB now".