Would reducing spellscribing costs break anything?

[Black Omega]

Ok,here's a rules balance question. How important for balance is the rule about scribing spells into spellbooks costing 100 per page.

I'm running a Rokugan game and that's a lower gold level. I've been thinking about just dropping scorbing costs to more like 1g per page. Since there are nearly no other arcane casters around, it's not like the cost is the only limit what spells the wizard can put in his books. Would this break anything?

 

[Dr. Zoom]

I am not familiar with Rokugan, but I would certainly think reducing it from 100 per page to 1 per page is too much. Half at most is what I would suggest (50gp per page). Of course, the 100 per page always supplies a reason for adventuring.

 

[Marshall]

Drop em alltogether. They play little to no part in game balance and WotC now has so many ways to get around them it doesnt really matter.

 

[hong]

Ok,here's a rules balance question. How important for balance is the rule about scribing spells into spellbooks costing 100 per page.

I'm running a Rokugan game and that's a lower gold level. I've been thinking about just dropping scorbing costs to more like 1g per page. Since there are nearly no other arcane casters around, it's not like the cost is the only limit what spells the wizard can put in his books. Would this break anything?

No, I don't think it'll break anything. 1gp per page sounds completely trivial, though, unless you're _really_ skimpy with the cash. You might as well just drop it altogether. On a more long-term basis, you could also look at the average gold per character and compare it with the recommended starting cash in the DMG. Then adjust the scribing costs proportionally.

 

[Geoff Watson]

If you're playing Rokugan, there is no need for scribing costs, as none of the spellcasters need spellbooks.

I would suggest not reducing it to less than half, unless you are extremely stingy with treasure.

Geoff.

 

[Black Omega]

If you're playing Rokugan, there is no need for scribing costs, as none of the spellcasters need spellbooks.
Geoff.

I have been pretty stingy. And in this case it's a Rokugan crossed with FR. Rokugan taking the place of the Chinese style kingdom in Kara-tur. The player has a Wizard and of course is not exactly fighting alot of people that use arcane magic for the exact reason mentioned. He's been having to deal with the Red Wizards shop in town to buy spells.

 

[shilsen]

I don't know how it would fit in Rokugan, but in my Greyhawk campaign, I dropped scribing costs to half and it's working great. I originally tried dropping it to 10% (10 gp per page), but that seemed a little over-much, so I shifted to 50% and it is working well so far. It still makes decisions about whether to scribe or not (based on time and money) important, but it ensures that lower-level mages aren't scrimping and saving desperately in order to get a single new spell besides the 2 per level.

 

[Petrosian]

A balancing factor for the wizard is THE SPELLBOOK.

The spellbooks means that spells beyond his FREE ones take away both time and money from thw wizard. Net result he has less time and wealth to turn into magic items, either by making them himself or by buying them.

Comparably, a wizard at 6th level who has scribed 3 additional spells at each level 1st-3rd has spent 3600 gold and 27 days. His compatriot, a bard, has those 27 days and 3600 gold to turn into items by feats or purchase or whatever.

That serves to offset the wizard's extra spells somewhat.

Often i think of the wizards extra spells as if they were magic items, just ones with no experience cost. Like a fetish which allows you to prepare a spell not on your list for instance.

Now lets drop this to 1 gp and we see the wizard now has little reason other than time to not scribe every spell he can into his spellbook. Unless this is a campaign where time matters he does not seriously have to choose between SPELLS or ITEMS but can have it all.

They are meant to make the wizard have to make a choice, item or new spell, and dropping them drastically will eliminate this choice, just increasing the power.

This will show up severely when the wizard loses a spellbook. His equipment like the fighter's sword or armor is subject to loss too and costs to replace. A fighter losing a +2 sword is at risk for about 8k+, which is about the same as a full spellbook (10k).

If the full spellbook costs only 100 gp to replace, suddenly the wizard is making out much much better.

My recommendation... if your campaigns money overall if off the baseline...

check your PCs loot and wealth totals. Figure out the average. Compare it to the average expected PC wealth tables in the DMG. If you plan to keep that ratio of loot, then adjust the cost of spells appropriately.This should offset any campaign skews while still keeping the costs in balance.

But, IMO and IMX, just dropping the cost altogether or making it trivial will simply up the power of the wiz and remove a very significant balancing feature.

 

[Deadguy]

Depends on Campaign Flavour

For my own Shattered World campaign, I reduced scribing costs to 10gp per page; later this was amended to (spell level^2)*10gp total scribing cost (I wanted to make higher level spells more of a burden than low level spells, and the use of a square scaling gave me this).

I haven't found it to be a problem. But then the setting presumes that Wizards will acquire a lot of the lower level spells - one 6th level Wizard now has 80% of the 1st level spells, for example. I want to emphasis the Wizard's verstaility over the Sorcerer's innate power.

So I suggest that changing the price will affect the feel of the campaign, so you need to take this into account. Of course, the Wizard also needs time to scribe spells and an opportunity to acquire them in the first place (the PC above has had the advantage of befriending the exceedingly dull Chief Librarian of a large and old magical academy).

In terms of time, this is always a problem in campaigns it seems (at least from discussions on this board). Cheap scribing means nothing if they never are allowed time to scribe spells into their books. As a DM you can have significant control over this. I encourage more downtime, by allowing PCs to undergo training which they 'buy' (literally or figuratively) in month-long blocks. This way the Wizard (and indeed all item crafters) can actually have time to scribe, research and craft, whilst the other PCs feel they are getting something for the time.

I guess that you may have to try it and see how things develop.

 

[CRGreathouse]

If you drop the scribing cost, you'll have to compenate sorcerers...