Worth of a spellbook

[Tetsubo]

My players will be finding a spellbook in the near future as part of a treasure hoard. It is the spellbook of a 10th level wizard. The party has no wizards that can use it. What would it's "street" value be?

 

[Esiminar]

Unless wizards are very common it would not have a "street" value.

It would have an incredible value to the right people but to anyone other than a wizard it is less than useless.

An equivalent gp value for the book I would guess at the cost for all spells listed within calculated as scrolls of their minimum caster level.

 

[Tyrrell]

You could figure out how much it costs to make the book;

A blank spellbook is has a cost of 15 gp

It costs 100gp per page to scribe a spell into a book

A spell takes up 2 pages per level (level 0 spells fit on to a single page)

Does this help at all?

 

[Jay Lofstead]

Can't use scroll cost

We've discussed this in my game several times. Using the scroll price doesn't fully work. In many of the scroll prices, material components are factored in (wish being probably the most extreme example). Also consider that it takes a spellcraft check DC 15 + highest spell level in the book to learn ANY spell from the book, it is also not as good as a scroll.Using the cost to scribe in the spellbook was about the best we could come up with. I'm a little surprised that there wasn't a rule for this when 3e was published. It seems like finding a spellbook of the evil wizard you just defeated would be a common scenario. Maybe it will be covered in the revised rules.

 

[Lucius Foxhound]

We've had this problem too. Yes, scroll pricing doesn't really work. Scrolls are more valuable than a scribed spell (since anyone, even a low level caster, can use a scroll, but not a scribed spell. Plus, scribed spells need to be rescribed anyhow).

In our game, the Wizard often uses spells he's found and already has for trade. Just rips the pages out and hands them to another Wizard who does the same.

Does anyone else have a method of determining value? I'd say 1/2 the scroll price of the spells would be fair.

 

[Skaros]

Are you using the core spell scribing rules only? Are you allowing things in this world like the forgotten realms rule that allows a wizard to study the whole book and be able to memorize spells from it after succeeding?

If you are just using core, I'd say the book is worth much less than the price of the equivalent scrolls, as it is less versatile than scrolls (can't cast spells from it...can only scribe spells from it into your own book, costing huge amounts of money).

It would be worth somewhat more if it contains any unique spells however.

If other non-core rules are thrown in, the value may go up considerably.

-Skaros

 

[bret]

As others have said, under the normal rules a standard spellbook would have relatively low value except to the wizard who created it.

In the Forgotten Realms, where there are rules for mastering another Wizards spellbook, the value would be higher.

I would base the value on the following things:

• Half to ¾ the value of the book itself, including any protective enchantments.
• If a spell is unique, it should be worth quite a bit. It should be worth at least twice the cost to have the spell cast, and could easily reach 10% of the research cost or more.
• If a spell is rare, it should be worth somewhere between the cost to have the spell cast and double that amount.
• If the spell is a cantrip, it is worth nothing. Every wizard starts the game with all the standard cantrips.
• Otherwise base it on the cost to have a friendly wizard cast the spell ignoring material components and foci cost. PHB 114 gives these costs.

I'm basing cost mostly on the cost to have a friendly wizard cast the spell because I think that is a better estimate of how much a wizard would charge to copy a spell from them. Writing a scroll costs XP and lots of gold, but the scroll is consumed in copying the spell. Reading it from another spellbook and copying it is much more sensible because after the spell is copied both wizards would have a good version of the spell.

 

[Jens]

Worth more/less than scrolls?

Like magic items, I think we have to operate with two prices: PC buying price and PC selling price. Generally the buying price is twice the selling price, with the difference representing the efforrt/time expended by the middle man (magicshop-keeper). Here, I will look at the PC selling price, the price a PC can get by selling to 'anyone'´:

ValueToBuy = ResalePrice + PersonalGainFromContents

PersonalGainFromContents is the value of using the spells for scribing and that of using the spells as a spellbook.

The value of scribing is difficult to evaluate and really depends on the rarity of the spells in question in the campaign. In effect, a table like the cost-to-cast table in the DMG is needed.

Any way, the ScribingValue should be no greater than the scroll-cost of the spell - a scroll can be also used to immediately cast the spell and the spellbook cannot.

HERE is the main proposition of this post: ScribingValue = X*ScrollValue

Assuming ValueToBuy=0.5*ResalePrice (or 2*ValueToBuy=ResalePrice) as above, the proposition leads to

ValueToBuy = 0.5*ValueToBuy + X*ScrollValue
or
ValueToBuy = (0.5/X)*ScrollValue (remember... adjusted for components)

With X=0.75, this means that ValueToBuy = 2/3*ScrollValue
With X=0.5, this means that ValueToBuy = ScrollValue

Of course, this should be calculated for each spell (easy). The main thing is to remember that the trade-value of a spell-book should be no greater than this.

Edit: Errors are likely... I'm tired

Edit2: What is really needed is a rule in the DMG. It only has to state something like "spellbook value = scroll value of individual spells at minimum castilg level"... That would be satisfactory, simple and quite reasonable.