Wizard free spells and tattoo spellbooks

[RoboEmperor]

When a wizard levels up, he can add 2 free spells into his spellbook. What if the wizard is using a tattoo spellbook? Can he just add the two free spells onto his body for free upon level up? Or does he have to carry around a spellbook and scribe them onto his body?

The main problem is that scribing tattoos requires a craft tattoo check and can fail, where as regular spellbooks can't fail.

[Kelb_Panthera]

You need to reread the section on expanding your spellbook in the PHB and here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/arcaneSpells.htm#addingSpellstoaWizardsSpellbook).

A wizard very much -can- fail in an attempt to learn and scribe a new spell. The freebies on level up are an explicit exemption to the normal rules.

The tattoo spellbook variant is in most ways identical to scribing spells into a bound book except the double cost and sharply limited space.

To answer your question; yes. The wizard simply gets to add two new spells to his book with no cost and no chance of failure unless the DM has explicitly houseruled that this is not the case.

[RoboEmperor]

I read that section too, but that's only when you're copying spells from scrolls. Both tattoo and normal spellbooks require the spellcraft check when copying, but this is arguably RESEARCH, and the wizard has 0 chance of failure if he spends 1 week + 1000gp per spell level researching a spell.

The spellcraft check is simply to understand the spell.

So like, you level up, you understand 2 spells, and you can skip the 24 hour scribing process and don't pay the 50gp ink cost, but when you're tattooing, you require an additional 8 hour per spell level scribing time and an additional 50gp ink cost, in addition to the craft tattoo check.

Case 1: You're right.
I'm very happy in this case :D

Case 2: You require the additional payment of 50gp per spell level, 8 hours per spell level scribing time, and a craft tattoo check. You can retry infinite times since you understand the spell and just failed writing it down.
This is basically tattoo scribing - normal scribing = result.

Case 3: As case 2, but once you fail the craft tattoo you're screwed.
:(

Case 4: No you can't do it because of too many differences
:'(

I always pictured wizards to become "in the zone" magically when they level up and they scribe stuff into their spellbook in seconds. So likewise you could say a wizard becomes "in the zone" magically and perfectly scribes stuff onto their skin. But then again, there is no special ink cost, so you could say the spells magically appear, but then the fluff says wizards continuously research along their travels so maybe they write parts of the spells down as they travel and only finish it upon level up?

[Kelb_Panthera]

I suppose a DM -could- technically rule that 2 or even 3 is correct but 4 is nonsense; it may be a variant but it's still your spellbook. Choosing 2 or 3 would also be a douchebag move. It's already inherently difficult to learn spells and scribe them into a book (btw, that link isn't just for scribing from a scroll, it goes for copying from another caster's book, or any other form of written spell) and it's bypassed by the level up freebies. Screwing you over just because you've used a variant book that's already costing you extra gold and time, unless you -only- get spells by level up, is needlessly antagonistic.

This is especially true in a game, like yours, where a BBB would be a target for disjunction, thieves, and all the other WBL correcting unpleasantness that gets, unfortunately, overused by some DM's, necessitating a mundane book in the first place.

Bypassing 3 is trivial since a simple removal of the affected skin followed by healing magic can permanently and easily remove the botched tattoo.

[RoboEmperor]

Your logic is sound :)