Are Ritual Books and Spellbooks the same thing?

[JET73L]

Are Ritual Books and Spellbooks the same thing put to different purposes? Say, I fill enough pages in my Ritual Book from the Ritual Caster feat that I don't have enough space to add a ritual spell that I want. Can I just buy a 50gp Spellbook from the nearest Wizarding College or Magical Emporium and scribe my rituals into that? My reading of the 5e corebooks seems to indicate that Ritual Caster 5e doesn't require buying a Ritual spellbook like the earlier edition's version, you just... suddenly had it all along. Or it appears from nowhere. Something like that. Wizards can cast Rituals from their spellbooks, and can buy additional/replacement spellbooks. Am I reading too much into this, and one way or another it should be totally obvious?

[Logosloki]

Spells no longer take up a certain amount of pages per spell level. Your ritual book essentially can hold it all in one book. If you want to make a new book i would suggest that the player should have to buy a spellbook, which is listed in the equipment section. A kind dm would just require you to buy a book.

[JET73L]

In that case, I'll just need to ask my DM if he'd rather I have to buy a spellbook when I take the feat or just have it. If it gets destroyed or I choose to create a backup, buying a spellbook should therefore be sufficient (unless someone responds to this thread stating otherwise). Thank you very much!

[Logosloki]

The feat gives you a freebie so it is any after that that you would have to buy.

[JET73L]

Still more thanks for that confirmation ^_^

[Laucian]

On a separate but similar note: What are the implications of a wizard losing his spellbook (stolen, destroyed or otherwise lost)

Does this prevent the wizard from casting spells? preparing a new list of spells? learning new spells?

If a wizard gets a new book after he/she levels up, does it prevent the wizard from learning the 2 extra spells?

[JET73L]

If a wizard loses their spellbook, they can only cast their memorized spells and cantrips (Edit: Cantrips and memorized spells, I meant, just to be clear). It doesn't prevent them from casting spells they've already memorized, but it does prevent them from preparing new spells or performing spells as rituals. There used to be backup options like writing on one's arms (three pages each), back (five pages, I think), or legs (don't remember how many pages), so the wizard could use those for their new spells from leveling up or copying spells from scrolls, but I haven't yet seen any such rules in 5e.

Previous rulings (if I recall correctly) have been that the wizard can add spells learned from leveling up to their book once they get it back/get a new one, and I don't see why that would be different for 5e.

[Dalebert]

Pretty much. The wizard can create a new spellbook from the spells he has prepared. Cantrips are irrelevant. He always knows the same ones and they don't go in the book. Of course, it's cheap to have backups so it's not a bad idea to have at least a couple in more than one location. I might even bury one somewhere obscure.