Wizards: What happens when they lose their spellbooks?

[Rath the Brown]

My idea will be that I'll run it with the above plan, or I'll start a new campaign. No one else in the group is willing to DM.

It's a tough choice, but they're going to have to make it.

There is where you have the advantage.

If you feel it would be easier to start a brand new campaign (and it probably would be) then do so; if nobody else wants to DM (and I assume that the old DM either can't or won't continue, hence you taking over for him/her) then they are either going to have to start over or they aren't going to be able to play at all.

If I had to choose between not getting to play a favorite character anymore (even if that character is only favorite due to all of the magic items he/she has ) or not playing at all, then I'm going to get over losing the character and flesh out a new one.

 

[frankthedm]

"Things will be Different Around Here" is a statement you don't want to make by putting frowns on everyone else at the table.

Its probably the best way to do it with Players who think they are ENTITLED to always have the k3w1 l00+ they find. Characters die, Stuff breaks, happens and this type needs to understand it. Wotc tried to push the game in a direction to placate this type of player and sell more PHBs. Little wonder why it is getting harder for people to enjoy running games.

 

[Thanee]

Yep, wizards are screwed w/o a book for as long as they need to aquire a new one.

They can write a new one without much problem, but it costs quite a bit of money.

If you let them use non-self-written spellbooks, then you could let them find a new one instead to use until he has recovered.

But I also find it a bit harsh to simply take away ALL the PC's stuff, just because you feel some items might be inappropriate.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Dimwhit]

I'm in the "total screwed" camp if a Wizard loses his spellbook. Sure, he can rebuild it. But with the rules for scribing into a spellbook, it would be ridiculously expensive and take a stupid amount of time to do it.

My advice: never purposely destroy a Wizard's spellbook. Now if he does something stupid and gets it destroyed, that's another story.

 

[blargney the second]

I think you really ought to start hitting them with some new tactics. There are all sorts of options:

Dispel Magic followed by Shatter was mentioned in one of the threads a few days ago. You can nuke that breastplate easily that way.

Bullrush the barbarian off a cliff. Two-weapon fighting means both your hands are full. He has two choices: let go of a weapon and grab the ledge, or fall all the way down. Needless to say, if he drops the weapon, he never finds it again.

Continue running a monty-haul game, but start using intelligent item-destroying tactics copiously. It's just common sense: if you live in a high magic world, someone somewhere is eventually going to hit on the idea that it's both no big loss if you break magic items as well as a really effective tactic for decreasing your enemies' abilities!

It's actually kind of fun to play high magic games as a DM - you get to use all the toys first on the PCs!!!

-blarg II

 

[Hammerhead]

Why wouldn't he find the item again? Couldn't he use a combination of Feather Fall to reach the bottom of the cliff, then a Locate Object spell while he runs around the general area? Or use Scrying?

Also, intelligent people will generally avoid breaking their opponents stuff whenever possible, except as a last resort. I know that I want to keep their magic stuff as treasure, not have it broken in half.

 

[blargney the second]

Why wouldn't he find the item again? Couldn't he use a combination of Feather Fall to reach the bottom of the cliff, then a Locate Object spell while he runs around the general area? Or use Scrying?

Because it's a story and someone just happens to come along and take it before he can get down there to find it. For more cinematic non-recoverableness, just add water (and a fish big enough to swallow whatever items need to disappear). Or acid. Or lava. Contrived excuses can turn into great plot twists later on.

Also, intelligent people will generally avoid breaking their opponents stuff whenever possible, except as a last resort. I know that I want to keep their magic stuff as treasure, not have it broken in half.

If a world is sufficiently high-magic, the heavy supply devalues magic items and spells. If I already have two +3 weapons, a third one is going to be of less value to me whole and in the hands of an enemy than in pieces on the floor. It's a very effective tactic that can neuter enemies quite quickly.

YMMV
-blarg II

 

[Uriel]

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.

Admantium weapons gain a nifty Sunder bonus as well. A few Duergar (Invisible as well) attacking said Dwarven barbarian for the obvious reasons spelled out in their background (he being the wimpy-non-evil-variety of Dwarf) give you easy justification for them targeting him.

I used to play in a game (Rolemaster using the the Underdark as a converted setting) that used the Ars Magica style of revolving/sharing DM duties. I was the group's DM for everything, and, sick of never getting to play, I told them all that we would run a game where we all took on the duty(each DM would have theor character tag along as an NPC). Most of them jumped at the idea, since it allowed for short games/ideas and the more timid of them didn't have to plan out long campaigns...

Well, I was 4th in the rotation, and by the time the DMing duties got to me, we had had the 'Oops, that NPC item is worth a fortune, oh well...you guys have 10,000GP each...' didn't-think-it-through-guy (1stDM), the 'Magic Items?, Sure, you all have 10,000GP (at Level 2, no less) each', check-out-these-wicked-items-Monty-Haul-guy (2nd DM), and the 'You aren't all that tough, guys...' try-to-murder-the-party-guy who threw hordes (over a hundred) of Wights at us (at 2nd-3rd level no less), we moved faster, thank Lolth...

Anyways, when I took over the reins, deciding that I would just (sigh) be the proper DM for the game (which had some very cool characters, truth be told), I was stuck with a bunch of monty characters and some poor ones (that had joined the game late). I delt with the problem in game. These characters had higher-ups, Noble Drow in this case, who didn't exactly like flashy Underlings running about showing off their +20 swords (+4 in D&D). Solution: Some items were confiscated in-game for the obvious reasons (the greed of the higher-ups), some were left. We had an advantage in Rolemaster in that (with such a brutal critical hit system), a lot of the money was spent on healing herbs, which only the most horrible and callous DM would take away due to their value, but there were enough rediculous magic items that I had to do a bit of clean up.

We face a similar (possible) situation in Living ENWorld, where I am one of 3 Judges. With several folks running games, there is bound to be th situation arise where DM5 has to deal with the stuff that DM4 gave out on his/her adventure. At least we have Judges to oversee and attempt to regulate power levels (Dms have to have anything big approved by us, lest the balance shift in a wacky manner).


My suggestion regardling the amount of magic items follows as above, sooner or later, those fireballs etc..will get rid of some of the volume.

I'm not sure how many spells your Wizard has access to, but I am not of the opinion that even 3 or 4 times the amount of possible spells for them to pick from is a big deal.
So he has access to 30 1st level spells, big deal. He's still only memorizing 5 a day (or whatever). It's the barbaria (or whatever) with the massive weapon that is the problem (as you have stated).

 

[Norfleet]

You don't have to strip characters: Just use battlefield equipment attrition. In a real battlefield, soldiers simply will NOT be able to hang onto every single piece of equipment they may be lugging around. Give the characters a few seriously pitched battles where small, poorly attached items simply get smashed, broken, dropped, or otherwise lost. Items which are intended to be easily accessed, and therefore are hung from things like belt loops and straps, are also items which are easily detached from characters in the course of combat. In truth, the typical D&D character is probably carrying an unrealistic amount of gear if he expects to be able to use it at all. Start tracking where on the character these items are carried. This should make it very easy to start attritioning off pieces of equipment. Involve the party in some larger scale battles, rather than simple party vs. monsters. This should give ample opportunity for other, non-party combatants to acquire the dropped gear and subsequently lose it somewhere else, making it effectively nonrecoverable, while also providing a source of replacement items.

Done properly, the players won't even realize you're systematically stripping them of their excess, especially if the equipment of both opponents and allies are treated similarly, and after the battle, their gear becomes a scrambled hodgepodge of stuff they managed to hang onto, and stuff they grabbed from the battlefield.

 

[apsuman]

You could have the characters captured and stuff taken away from them. Have them escape (sans spellbook) and they find a dead body that upon investigating is that of a mid to high powered sorcerer. Put on the body a few usefule magic items, a wand or two, a magic dagger or long spear, and enough scrolls to compensate the wizard for a lack of a spell book.

You could have one of those scrolls summon a a hut or better yet, open a door to a "house" in a dimentional rift so that the characters could go there to rest.

Maybe in this "house" you have the actual equipment that the characters could use. Maybe even a diary so the characters can learn some about the dead guy.

Let me be clear. I would not give the characters a complete replacement to all of their lost equipment. That's why I suggested a sorcerer. You could have lots of scrolls, but no spell book. You could have a mace or long spear (both simple weapons useable by sorcerers) but no swords or armor.


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