Does a Wizard need a spellbook to cast spells?

[True believer]

hello members :D


I had recently gotten into an argument with a fellow player on the subject of how spellbooks work. Specifically, does a Wizard require access to his book in order to cast spells, or just to prepare them?

The fact that each spell takes up one page per spell level keeps me wondering. Lets say that a wizard wants to cast a 9 lvl spell, this spell is 9 pages long , so he must known by hard 9 pages and not to make a single mistake in order to not loose the spell. And that is only for one a spell ....

thank you!

[Macabros]

Look up the Easy Bake Wizard.

[Red Fel]

I had recently gotten into an argument with a fellow player on the subject of how spellbooks work. Specifically, does a Wizard require access to his book in order to cast spells, or just to prepare them?

To cast spells? No. To prepare them, yes. Per RAW (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/sorcererWizard.htm#wizard):
A wizard must study her spellbook each day to prepare her spells. She cannot prepare any spell not recorded in her spellbook, except for read magic, which all wizards can prepare from memory.

In other words, if a Wizard prepares spells in the morning, stuffs the spellbook in a bag in a chest in a vault underground, and goes off to work fighting monsters, he's fine all day. Of course, he can't prepare new spells (except for Read Magic) until he gets the book back.

Unless, as Macabros mentioned, he doesn't need a spellbook at all.

[Enran]

hello members :D


I had recently gotten into an argument with a fellow player on the subject of how spellbooks work. Specifically, does a Wizard require access to his book in order to cast spells, or just to prepare them?

The fact that each spell takes up one page per spell level keeps me wondering. Lets say that a wizard wants to cast a 9 lvl spell, this spell is 9 pages long , so he must known by hard 9 pages and not to make a single mistake in order to not loose the spell. And that is only for one a spell ....

thank you!

He only needs the spellbook to prepare the spell, but if he casts it once, it's gone.

I don't think this carried forward to 3rd edition, but the original justification for this is that spellcasting actually took a while, but wizards were able to cast most of a spell early in the day and then finish the last bit of casting when they needed it, so it wasn't like memorizing and then literally converting that knowledge into power, it was performing the last bit of a longer spellcasting ritual, and you were only "memorizing" the last bits of each ritual, which you'd still remember just as well after casting the spell, but for no benefit since you no longer had a mostly-finished ritual for the spell.

[Malimar]

Your standard wizard does not need his spellbook to cast spells. He only needs it to prepare spells. If his spellbook is lost or destroyed or simply not on his person, he can still cast all the spells he's already prepared.

And note that's "prepare", not "memorize", so no, he doesn't need to remember those 9 pages. All he needs to remember is the gestures, vocalizations, and materials that trigger the spell he spent an hour preparing that morning.

[SkipSandwich]

Vancian casting trips up a lot of people on a conceptual level, I know I had trouble wrapping my brain around it for the longest time. If it helps, consider a 'prepared' spell to be like a grenade. In the morning the wizard carefully assembles all the needed components and attaches them to the charge, then later when he needs to cast it all he has to do is the magical equivalent of pulling the pin and throwing it at the target.

Spells with lengthy casting times are like setting a demolitions charge, no matter how well you design the charge itself, it's practically worthless if you don't take the time to carefully position it on target.