Would reducing spellscribing costs break anything?

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Isn't the rule to keep wizards from knowing virtually all Sor/Wiz spells? I ran a 2e campaign in which no one actually looked at their spellbooks (Dragon Mountain). So as the wizard falls down the trap, he casts "featherfall?"

Me: Do you even know that spell?

Them: Are you kidding? Every mage knows that.

Besides, wizards get a few free spells, and getting all the spells pushes them way ahead of sorcerers.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Isn't the rule to keep wizards from knowing virtually all Sor/Wiz spells? I ran a 2e campaign in which no one actually looked at their spellbooks (Dragon Mountain). So as the wizard falls down the trap, he casts "featherfall?"

Me: Do you even know that spell?

Them: Are you kidding? Every mage knows that.

Besides, wizards get a few free spells, and getting all the spells pushes them way ahead of sorcerers.

The rule for cost is to force Wizards to make meaningful decisions about which spells they know.

In the bad old days of 1e/2e, every mage in the party would share and trade spells since there was no reason not, too. (And there were a lot of mages due to the broken multiclassing rules.) This had a couple ugly consequences:
(1) DMs had to "cheat" to keep spellbooks of defeated MUs from falling into the hands of PCs or they would soon know every spell in existence.
(2) Gaining new spells would cost a boatload of money to slow the explosion of spells known.
(3) If spells are expensive, every spell book from every MU would be worth a fortune, reinforcing #1.

The 3e rules, whether they make sense or not, encourage Wizards to carefully consider which spells to pick up. If there are two Wizards in one party it is actually likely they will purposefully learn dissimilar spells. That encourages flavor.

There is nothing wrong with lowering the cost of scribing spells into the Wizard's book. The downside of (nearly) eliminated the cost is the DM now has to carefully watch access to spells. Not a problem at all if dealing with a single Wizard in the party played by a good sport. But if you have multiple Wizards to want a mechanism to discourage cloning spellbooks without being heavy-handed.

 

[rhammer2]

There is another consideration, clerics get access to all their class spells for no special cost. I charge the wizards 500 gp for the books and 10 gp per page for inks.

I may have taken the extreme position here: I've lowered the cost of scribing to spell 1 gp per spell level.

I can only see a couple of reasons for the "by-the-book" costs:
1. To constrain the wizard's spell selection. He might have a large pool of spells from which to choose, but has to choose carefully, since he can't afford them all.
2. To reduce a wizard's money, treating spellbooks as an item just like a fighter's sword.

Here's my approach to each of these:
1. As DM, _I_ constrain my campaign's spell availability. In our campaign, magic as a "rare and wondrous thing". There are few stores that sell magical items, and they typically don't have more than a few outrageously overpriced low level scrolls. PC wizards treasure spells because they're hard to find, not because they're expensive. Even if a wizard does find stacks of scrolls, he still needs to find time to scribe them, and needs to be in a large enough city to buy the special inks and materials.
2. Personally, I don't find that "forcing" a wizard to spend most of his wealth to cast spells to be equitible. Yes, fighters need equipment, but there's a huge difference of degree here. A fighter can buy off-the-shelf armor and weapons, and still contribute significantly. A wizard without a spellbook is basically crippled. Does this increase the power of a wizard over a sorcerer? Maybe: it results in more equal wealth across classes to spend on other items, potions for the party and so on. In our campaign, the end result has been the wizard taking item creation feats and crafting weapons for the rest of the group.

In a nutshell, I think there are many, many other ways to control player wealth, and limit a wizard's known spells. Over-inflating the cost of his most basic tools seems, well, silly. A spellbook should be valuable for the knowledge it contains, not the cost of the ink.

Of course, as others have eloquently stated, this decision depends heavily on your campaign, levels of wealth, spell availablilty and so on. It's worked well for us though.

--shaele

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Cleric spells *usually* aren't as good as wizard spells, so they have to have some sort of advantage.

*Usually* doesn't mean always. There are a number of really nasty cleric spells, like destruction that wizards would drool over. However, can clerics cast displacement? I don't think so!

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Cleric spells *usually* aren't as good as wizard spells, so they have to have some sort of advantage.

*Usually* doesn't mean always. There are a number of really nasty cleric spells, like destruction that wizards would drool over. However, can clerics cast displacement? I don't think so!

Cleric spells easily equal wizard spells. Maybe they can't cast displacement, or maybe their invocation style spells are limited, and so are travel spells. But can a wizard go uhm yo god, who did it?, which way do we go?, etc. The closest is contact plane or whatever its called and it sucks masively in comparison. Can a wizard heal. There are plenty on spell types where the cleric is either the exclusive caster or massively better at it than the wizard. Knowing all the spells is just iceing on the cake. Any powergamer able to get past having to kiss a god's butt for power will play a cleric in a second over any of the arcane casters.

 

[Marshall]

Marshall... not defining the specifc materials needed does not mean you turn GP into them.

Fine, post 1000+ words over an exageration.

Nor does it mean you can ignore accessibility. Few of the items used listed for purchase in the DMg list what they are made from in specifics. They just list a cost.

I dont have to ignore availablity, it doesnt apply. There is nothing, nowhere, nada, that says that the 4500gp in 'materials' is anything more than 4500 1gp items or 45000 1sp items or 450,000 1cp items.

As far as the rest of this goes there is also nothing, behind what kind of materials I need to 'Craft' non-magical items, or anything on the availability of said. This actually goes even farther in proving my point, since there isnt even a value assigned to the raw materials for non-magical crafting. If, as a DM, you choose to Roleplay your characters going out to buy the hunk of Iron, to smelt into steel, to work into a sword, be my guest.

However last time i checked, no one was claiming masterwork healers kits are not subject to availability based on price and locale because the specific ingredients are not described.

No but 'Masterwork Healer Kit' is. When you can show me where it says 'Magic Item Creation Kit - 4500gp' I'll buy into your idea that those values are subject to availability.

 

[hong]

From a player's point of view, having to pay the scribing costs can get on your nerves. While a wizard will spend 1-2K on scribing, his fellow adventurerers are puchasing a magic item or two. So the wizard knows an extra spell or three, not a huge advantage given he still must prepare all spells in advance.

As far as the cost itself, I call it a "wizard tax". I don't see the rationale behind "magic ink and quills" and wonder what the difference is between those particular inks and quills and the type of ink used in the libraries to copy books (which last for hundreds of years). Personally, I favor a 10 gp/page approach because writing is writing, whether it be a poem, story, or spell. Scrolls, on the other hand, are actually magical, so they need special ingredients, however I do not see the case for special ink in the case of spellbooks.

See, you wouldn't have any of these problems if you only have sorcerers in your game.

 

[Rel]

Cleric spells *usually* aren't as good as wizard spells, so they have to have some sort of advantage.

I would also consider the fact that they have better weapons, better armor, better hit points and a ready means of healing themselves to be advantages they have over the wizard. Also, although someone above mentioned a house rule to restrict divine casters from getting access to all the new spells from the classbooks, it is just that: A house rule.

I don't like the wizard scribing costs (and therefore changed them for my campaign) for two reasons. First, I think they assume that a wizard is going to be played in a certain way (namely that they are going to be crafting items for sale and therefore have plenty of extra cash that needs to be "bled off" with scribing costs). Second, I don't like the whole wizard spell acquisition scheme because it is inconsistent. When you get the "Free Spells" for going up levels, they require no money or time be spent and they don't require you to have gotten access to the spell. Poof! They're in your spell book. But if you want to get any more spells, those require heavy investments of money, moderate investments of time and a means of access to the spell.

I decided to chuck all of that and build a system that seems fair regardless of how the wizard chose to play his character and that was consistent for all spells the wizard gets. As I mentioned before, I haven't had anyone play a wizard yet (it's only our first 3E campaign) but my players have made it clear that it isn't because they think my rules are too hard or too easy. I would still want to see my house rules playtested before I recommend them too highly, but if they don't work for some reason, I think I'd try to tweak them rather than go back to the rules given in the PH.

From previous conversations on this topic, I know that a lot of other people are not as bothered about this consistency issue as I am. I guess we all have our little peeves about the system.

 

[IceBear]

Yeah, we all do have our own little issues. In my case, because I was skimpy with the money, I reduced scribing costs by 50%.

As for the free spells per level, I've just made the assumption that they aren't REALLY free as the wizard has been spending money here and there over the course of the level to research them.

I kind of gloss over the use of money for food, inns, etc. Likewise I tend to assume that the PCs make a little money doing odd jobs and the like when not adventuring which evens everything out.

Yes, this breaks down big time when the PC did nothing but adventure over the course of the level. I just assume it will all balance out in the long run when the PCs aren't adventuring for a month after that superlong adventure.

Anyway, my wizard PCs didn't like the amount of money it cost to scribe spells, so I cut the cost in half to help them out. At the same time I didn't want it so cheap that the sorcerer PC felt like he had completely chosen the wrong class. The amount you reduce it by would depend on your campaign.

IceBear

 

[Shard O'Glase]

one quote to rule them all

One quote huh, how about PH page 78 1st 3 paragraphs under raw material costs.

Creating a magic item requires costly material componets, most of which are consumed in the process. The cost of these materials equals half the cost of the item.

For example, at 12th level, Mialee the wizard gains the feat forge ring, and she creates a ring of deflection +3. The cost of the ring is 18,000 gp so it costs her 720 xp plus 9,000 gp to make.

Using an item creation feat also requires access to a laboratory or magical workshop, special tools, and so on. A character generally has access to what he or she needs unless special circumstances apply (such as traveling far from home).

And that is what marshal has been saying not your exagerated version of his comments where poof in a dungeon it turns to a magic item and the gold disapears. Just that the stuff isn't detailed and is readily available so in effect it is something like the gps turn into the item. They aren't actually it just isn't a detailed process.