Wizards: What happens when they lose their spellbooks?

[Hypersmurf]

Altho... hmm... can Nystul's Magic Aura even hide the aura of a spell cast on an item?

I've always said yes, since otherwise the spell that hides the item's aura radiates an Illusion aura...

-Hyp.

 

[clark411]

Recommendation 56
I say they wander into the Goblin Steppes.. they're attacked by 800 goblins who knock them out.. rip their choice gear off (ie - yes even the underwear).. then squabble.. fight till there are only like 30 left who agree, bloodied and bruised, to each walk a different direction and set up a lil Goblin Kingdom in the Goblin Steppes.

Then the players can try to get their stuff back and for a short time be forced to wear Snagglebuck Berry Bushes in the interim. Some survives some is sold for goblin supplies to fund goblin armies.. by the end the party comes out on top as rulers of the G Steppes and get their reasonable stuff back.

Whatever you do end up doing, make it integral to your plot. Don't diminish their posessions, even if they were gained far too easy, by waving your finger and having them lost in a way that is more about logistics than story.

 

[oromancer]

<sarcasm>
Oh, dear, I wasn't aware we were spekaing SOLELY of random acts of petty burglary. Somehow, I was left with the -- apparently incorrect -- assumption we were discussing the removal of spellbooks in general ...

Silly me!
</sarcasm>

Easy there, trigger.

Found, bought, or made by the wizard. You do recall that Wizard get bonus feat options that have to be spell mastery, metamagics, or item creation feats ... right?

Yes, thanks Captain Obvious. This only seves to argue my point - wizards can create their own magical items at about half the price it costs others to buy them. They can also create items to sell. All things that make wizards more wealthy.

Oh yeah, and those bonus feats can also be used to gain free Spell Mastery, to prepare for such a disaster as losing a spellbook.

Third edition, further, assumes that there IS a trade in magic items. Established shops may not be the rule, but, by asking around and investing some time in the right sized urban area, you can eventually find somewhere to purchase MOST magic items that go for less than ~100Kgp.

As I said before, this depends on the campaign & the DM.

I had one GM leery of letting me sell castings of wall of stone (one day's worth of castings per week) during some downtime ... so the ability to sell spellcasting services is NOT guaranteed.

That one instance is irrelevant in this discussion.

On top of which, if the party spellcasters can go into town and make mad amounts of cash for no risk, the party NON-spellcasters are going to get very unhappy.

Which would apparently be appropriate, since they have so little dependence on magical items and gold compared to wizards, at least according to most posters on this thread...

I would like to also make the point that keeping one or two copies of a spellbook
is surprisingly easy and inexpensive, shooting down the arguments of a lot of people. To quote the SRD:

Duplicating an existing spellbook uses the same procedure as replacing it, but the task is much easier. The time requirement and cost per page are halved.

Every wizard should keep an extra copy of their spellbook back at their tower - at 2 spells per day & 50gp per page, it's a bargain!

 

[Voadam]

I would like to also make the point that keeping one or two copies of a spellbook
is surprisingly easy and inexpensive, shooting down the arguments of a lot of people. To quote the SRD:



Every wizard should keep an extra copy of their spellbook back at their tower - at 2 spells per day & 50gp per page, it's a bargain!

But for the number of spells in a say, tenth level wizard, is still a lot of gold and time for what would be a back up holy symbol for a cleric. 1000 gp for his four base 5th level spells alone.

 

[oromancer]

But for the number of spells in a say, tenth level wizard, is still a lot of gold and time for what would be a back up holy symbol for a cleric. 1000 gp for his four base 5th level spells alone.

Oh absolutely. But this isn't the case if he updates both spellbooks each time he learns new spells. A hundered gold pieces here and there isn't really that prohibitive.

 

[Voadam]

Just curious. I'm taking over a group as a new DM, and I don't like the Monte-Haul-ness the old DM let happen.

I'm thinking of throwing a group of level 7-8 PC's into a dungeon and taking away all their equipment and having it destroyed.

What would happen to the Wizard? Would he be totally screwed? Could he benefit from a good number of scrolls being found (kinda like in the beginning of Baldur's Gate II)?

I would have them driven into a dungeon by a powerful dragon instead (EL +6 or something) that cannot follow them into the dungeon for size reasons. This way they choose to go down into the dungeon as the better option then running out.

There are ways to take away the warrior's equipment without taking away total party equipment including the wizard's spell book.

1 rust monsters, a core monster that goobs up magic swords, armor and shields.

2 earth elementals that sunder.

3 blackguards need improved sunder as a prereq. That is an easy way to set up a villain foe for the paladin.

4 If you have the Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary there is the Castigoran Manavore, a rust monster that eats magic instead of iron.

5 Book of Templates has a ferrovore template which gives creatures a rust monster attack breath weapon.

Done right these encounters can feel natural and not forced.