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With a box
2014-12-08, 01:02 AM
My wizard has 300+ spells scribed in 18 different spellbooks(thank for cheap ink :smallsmile:), and my DM now houseruled that I should make search cheak for find right spell I want. But I don't want to spend skill point for it...
I am considering making a index of them.
But it will Take long time..

I think it's a recommendation to diet them, am I right?

JDL
2014-12-08, 01:07 AM
My wizard has 300+ spells scribed in 18 different spellbooks(thank for cheap ink :smallsmile:), and my DM now houseruled that I should make search cheak for find right spell I want. But I don't want to spend skill point for it...
I am considering making a index of them.
But it will Take long time..

A Wizard doesn't use their spellbook when casting a spell, only during the hour of preparation time they spend each morning memorizing their spells for the day (as well as any time they prepare an empty spell slot). Since Search is an Int based skill you shouldn't have too much trouble with anything but absurdly high DC checks. You can take 10 on the skill to spend 6 seconds finding what you need, or if needed take 20 to spend 2 minutes.

Kelb_Panthera
2014-12-08, 01:45 AM
Congratulations on making your DM nervous. (?)

Simply reminding him that you can only prepare so many on a given day should help to assuage his discomfort.

I don't know what he hoped to accomplish by imposing a search check that you can simply take 20 on. If you can take 15 minutes to prepare the spell, assuming you're doing a mid-day prep' in a slot you left open, then you can take 17 to search through your books and do it with -no- change to how your wizard handles.

That said, why on earth do you have that many spells? That's way beyond unnecessary. You can easily cover all your bases adequately with less than 100.

With a box
2014-12-08, 02:10 AM
That said, why on earth do you have that many spells? That's way beyond unnecessary. You can easily cover all your bases adequately with less than 100.

Because I wrote almost every spell I found.
Having a "spell compendium" in my bag is great
I think few of them is bard only one..

Kraken
2014-12-08, 02:14 AM
I don't really think your DM is being reasonable. Assuming your int modifier is at least 5, you should be able to take 10 and hit DC 15+, which should be more than enough to search through your own possessions to find anything. The PHB lists 10 as the DC to "Ransack a chest full of junk to find a certain item," for instance, and you're beating that by 5.

Kelb_Panthera
2014-12-08, 02:22 AM
Because I wrote almost every spell I found.
Having a "spell compendium" in my bag is great
I think few of them is bard only one..

:smallconfused:

You have wasted a -lot- of gold.

What do you mean by "a spell compendium in my bag?"

BTW your DM has no one to blame but himself if he let you bypass the 100gp per page cost to scribe spells in your book(s).

Crake
2014-12-08, 02:43 AM
I think the real question is why, if you have so many spells, do you not have them in boccob's blessed books. At 1000 pages per book and a 1/8th cost per page of 12.5gp (book costs 12,500gp with no scribing costs) you could have saved a LOT of money. Also if you're scribing so many spells, it might have been worth looking into geometer, they can scribe any spell in 1 page using arcane geometry, that would have cut your costs down even more, to a measly 30,000gp and 3 spellbooks for your entire collection.

Edit: Or a single boccob's blessed book, with 700 pages left to spare (would still be cheaper than 3 full books)

Amon Winterfall
2014-12-08, 03:12 AM
My wizard has 300+ spells scribed in 18 different spellbooks(thank for cheap ink :smallsmile:), and my DM now houseruled that I should make search cheak for find right spell I want. But I don't want to spend skill point for it...
I am considering making a index of them.
But it will Take long time..

I think it's a recommendation to diet them, am I right?

I don't get it.
You have 300 Spells in 18 Books; that's less than 20 per book.
Write all 300 spells on a piece of paper.
Number the Books with a large dribble of Paint.

Problem Solved.
Indexing books would take less than 8 hours.
Bags of Holding give the owner exactly what they want.
Should be fairly straightforward.

Kelb_Panthera
2014-12-08, 03:22 AM
I think the real question is why, if you have so many spells, do you not have them in boccob's blessed books. At 1000 pages per book and a 1/8th cost per page of 12.5gp (book costs 12,500gp with no scribing costs) you could have saved a LOT of money. Also if you're scribing so many spells, it might have been worth looking into geometer, they can scribe any spell in 1 page using arcane geometry, that would have cut your costs down even more, to a measly 30,000gp and 3 spellbooks for your entire collection.

Edit: Or a single boccob's blessed book, with 700 pages left to spare (would still be cheaper than 3 full books)

Where do you get 30k? 100gp per page over 17 spellbooks makes 17,000gp plus a bit more for the 18th, presumably less-than-full spellbook.

EDIT: though I supppose that, given that at least some of that came from scrolls, you could be accounting for a number of expended scrolls. I have no idea how you'd determine how many and of which levels though.

With a box
2014-12-08, 03:24 AM
Why I have so many spells?

because I make a report about every spells I incountered. and if it's on wiz list and I can get a scroll or spellbook contain them, I also scribe them on same book.
It's like I wrote spell compendiom IC
and when DM said I'm metagameing on some spell, I said "I googled it in my spellbook" and there is the spell in it. (written few months ago)

Fouredged Sword
2014-12-08, 08:16 AM
Yeah, index your books. I would also do a simple unbind/rebind of the pages to organize them into sets of schools and levels, (one book for level 1 abjurations, ect). It's basic stuff that changes a search through all 18 books for colorspray into glancing at the index of a single book. You lose some security, as another mage can also look at your index and see what spells you have.

Crake
2014-12-08, 11:16 AM
Where do you get 30k? 100gp per page over 17 spellbooks makes 17,000gp plus a bit more for the 18th, presumably less-than-full spellbook.

EDIT: though I supppose that, given that at least some of that came from scrolls, you could be accounting for a number of expended scrolls. I have no idea how you'd determine how many and of which levels though.

Bro, 100gp per page at 100 pages per spellbook is 10,000gp per spellbook, 18 spellbooks makes 180,000gp

Pyon
2014-12-08, 12:33 PM
Everyone is like "Why do you have so many spells"

Duh =/ Hoarder?

I support your amazing spell collection even if it's not efficient. I think what one of the posters said earlier about organizing the books and pages into schools would help you out. I mean you don't even need an index then. If it's just a school it might narrow down the search enough where you don't need a skill for it.

Fouredged Sword
2014-12-08, 12:37 PM
Another idea, make a travel spell book. Just take all the spells you use frequently and condense that into just one or two books. The rest can go into your library and you can look up spells as needed.

Kelb_Panthera
2014-12-08, 12:48 PM
Bro, 100gp per page at 100 pages per spellbook is 10,000gp per spellbook, 18 spellbooks makes 180,000gp

Huh. Not like me to make a mistake like that. Either way, where's the 30k come from?

Chronos
2014-12-08, 01:37 PM
This seems like a perfectly reasonable thing for a wizard to do, both from a roleplaying standpoint and from an optimization one. Just think of how fun it is to actually be able to pull the equivalent of Bat-shark-repellant from your utility belt, when you hit the niche situation where that obscure spell really is the perfect tool for the job.

But yeah, you should be using Blessed Books, not mundane spellbooks.

Fouredged Sword
2014-12-08, 01:43 PM
There is also a neat shard in Eberon that does the same thing. Just throwing it out there because I had an awesome divination specialist who used a crystal ball to store his spells.

Crake
2014-12-08, 01:45 PM
Huh. Not like me to make a mistake like that. Either way, where's the 30k come from?

I was talking about the geometer prc, which has a class feature called arcane geometry. It allows you to scribe any spell on a single page. 300 spells, 1 page per spell, 100gp/page, 3 spellbooks, 30k.

Or 3/10ths of a boccob's blessed book for 12.5k :smalltongue:

Edit: Page 39 of complete arcane, and it's called book of geometry, not arcane geometry.

With a box
2014-12-08, 07:00 PM
why I'd thought that Boccob's blessed book is minor artifact?:smalleek:
and I can wrote spell in spellbook in low price(20/page:smallbiggrin:) so I won't mind that at all

Crake
2014-12-08, 07:43 PM
why I'd thought that Boccob's blessed book is minor artifact?:smalleek:
and I can wrote spell in spellbook in low price(20/page:smallbiggrin:) so I won't mind that at all

It's actually free to scribe spells into a boccob's blessed book (although you still need a source to scribe from, so either scroll costs or wizard spellbook sharing costs). Since the entire book costs 12,500gp, each page adds up to 12.5gp over 1000 pages. 18 spellbooks is the equivilent to 2 blessed books, so the 25,000gp you'll be paying is much cheaper than the otherwise ~180,000gp you would normally pay