Wizards and spell preparation

[Crake]

So something that recently occurred to me when I was rendered helpless at the start of a recent fight by means of 0 str (damn ugly hags), If I rest for 8 hours, the spells that I've already memorized become open to re-memorizing another spell in the slot, but it still maintains the previous spell in the slot unless I either expend it or re-memorize.

Does that mean that I could memorize all my spells, rest for 8 hours and then be able to go adventuring with any of my spell slots capable of being swapped with a minimum of 15 minutes of spell preparation? Or did I misinterpret something?

[JellyPooga]

She cannot, however, abandon a previously prepared spell to replace it with another one

Nope. Not without another full rest period to 'clear' the spell slot.

[Crake]

Nope. Not without another full rest period to 'clear' the spell slot.

but you've already rested for 8 hours after preparing spells, so you've had a full rest period

[JellyPooga]

To expand upon what I think is the relevant information from the SRD:


To prepare her daily spells, a wizard must first sleep for 8 hours.

If her rest is interrupted, each interruption adds 1 hour to the total amount of time she has to rest in order to clear her mind, and she must have at least 1 hour of uninterrupted rest immediately prior to preparing her spells.

When preparing spells for the day, a wizard can leave some of these spell slots open. Later during that day, she can repeat the preparation process as often as she likes, time and circumstances permitting. During these extra sessions of preparation, the wizard can fill these unused spell slots. She cannot, however, abandon a previously prepared spell to replace it with another one or fill a slot that is empty because she has cast a spell in the meantime. That sort of preparation requires a mind fresh from rest.

To "clear" spells, you need to have a 'true preparation' period (i.e. 8 hours rest followed by at least 15 minutes prep time). During a 'mini-prep' period, you may only fill unused slots.

In your scenario, although you have had 8 hours rest, your activities between resting and prepping precludes the possibility of 'clearing' a spell prepared in a slot.

[Crake]

To expand upon what I think is the relevant information from the SRD:



To "clear" spells, you need to have a 'true preparation' period (i.e. 8 hours rest followed by at least 15 minutes prep time). During a 'mini-prep' period, you may only fill unused slots.

In your scenario, although you have had 8 hours rest, your activities between resting and prepping precludes the possibility of 'clearing' a spell prepared in a slot.

Oh, ok in that case, the SRD states i need at least 1 hour of rest before a major prep, even if I've already had 8 hours rest, so I could only overwrite spells during my first prep after said 8 hours, and it would take an hour and 15 minutes minimum?

[ericgrau]

That 1 hour is part of the 8 hours. You need 9 more hours to change prepared spells. If you rested for 8 hours and didn't prepare any spells at all, you might try to argue that a little time that followed was an "interruption". But if you tried to claim 5 hours after that as an "interruption" and that you only require an hour after that to change all your spells, I think you'll be dodging a flying DMG.

[Flickerdart]

The relevant text is "When preparing spells for the day, a wizard can leave some of these spell slots open." If the slot is already full from before, it's not empty and cannot be "left empty", nor do they qualify as "unused" for determining whether or not you can prepare new spells in them later.