Spellbook shenanigans

[Quoxis]

Hello again, playground!

This came to my mind just recently and i'm not entirely sure about it:

Let's say we've got a character, let's call him Bob, that is a wizard. Bob the wizard now decides he wants to follow his parents' wish and enter the clergy of whatever deity, let's say it's one of the trickery domain. He multiclasses like the good boys do, and he's baffled because he can now prepare a list of spells during each long rest - he can know this spell today and exchange it for another one tomorrow, how exciting.
Now Bob is a greedy bastard, and as such he'd like to have more spells available each day, so he thinks about combining his class features: he tries to inscribe one of his cleric spells that is also on the wizard spell list into his wizard spellbook.

A) is it possible to inscribe spells out of thin air/memory? The flavor text of the spell book made me assume it's mainly a handwritten manual about what words to say and in which position the magic wand has to be shaken, and the spells a wizard learns at each level-up have to somehow appear in the book too, soooo...

B) is it then possible to prepare the former cleric spell as a wizard spell? Let's assume the spell was "disguise self" from the trickery cleric's expanded spell list - it's a spell wizards can cast too, but he didn't explicitely learn it as a wizard.

C) is it possible to cast the spell - let's assume it's something mundane, maybe detect magic - as a ritual out of the book even if it's not on Bob's cleric list of prepared spells?

Sorry if i'm bothering anyone, i'm sure i'm not the first one to ask this, but i'm not proficient in google-fu and i rolled too low to get any results...


Edit: Is there anything preventing clerics from crafting spell scrolls? If not, i'd consider that a clue pointing in the direction of "yeah, you can do all of the above", as there's no possible way to discern whether a wizard or a cleric wrote that scroll your party found in that one dungeon that hasn't been entered for 248 years.

[Sigreid]

Unless the DM decides to change it you can't interchange spells the way you are talking about. In over simplified terms, one is memorization of formula, and one is essentially a prayer.

DMs can do whatever they want in their campaign, of course.

[Quoxis]

Unless the DM decides to change it you can't interchange spells the way you are talking about. In over simplified terms, one is memorization of formula, and one is essentially a prayer.

DMs can do whatever they want in their campaign, of course.

Without wanting to sound rude, but that sounds like you think it should be handled that way. I'd prefer a definite statement along the lines of "there's this section in the phb that says" or "Crawford said in a sage advice" etc.
Thanks for the contribution though!

[MrStabby]

So I think you can inscribe any spell into your spell book but you can only prepare wizard spells from your spell book (phb on the wizard spellcasting). So you can have cleric spell in the book but they won't do anything. Clerics don't cast spells that way and the wizard preparation is explicitly linked to wizard spells.

[Quoxis]

So I think you can inscribe any spell into your spell book but you can only prepare wizard spells from your spell book (phb on the wizard spellcasting). So you can have cleric spell in the book but they won't do anything. Clerics don't cast spells that way and the wizard preparation is explicitly linked to wizard spells.

The spellbook text of the phb mentions you have to "find a wizard spell", indicating your interpretation is somewhat correct (going by that you couldn't even copy a cleric spell into the book).

However, as i just added as an edit to the OP:
Can't clerics craft scrolls? If they can, wouldn't that mean that Bob could craft a scroll of detect magic, only to copy the spell into his spellbook later - a scroll isn't written with a specific class in mind if i remember correctly (in that case: no "scroll of detect magic as a cleric" and " scroll of detect magic as a wizard", but "detect magic as whoever the nine hells is reading this scroll").
And as that seems both illogical and counterintuitive (hey, lemme write that so i can write it again, because i can only write here if i wrote it there already!), i'm not entirely sure.

[Millstone85]

A) is it possible to inscribe spells out of thin air/memory?
If you lose your spellbook, you can use the same procedure to transcribe the spells that you have prepared into a new spellbook.So yes, you can.



B) is it then possible to prepare the former cleric spell as a wizard spell?
Each spell you know and prepare is associated with one of your classes, and you use the spellcasting ability of that class when you cast the spell.Your cleric spells are your cleric spells. Even one that is also on the wizard spell list is presumably prepared by you in its cleric version. So I would say no.

[Sigreid]

Without wanting to sound rude, but that sounds like you think it should be handled that way. I'd prefer a definite statement along the lines of "there's this section in the phb that says" or "Crawford said in a sage advice" etc.
Thanks for the contribution though!

Well, there is the UA with the wizard subclass that has a specific and unique ability to convert a small number of cleric spells into wizard spells.

[Asmotherion]

The phb does not directly say you can't do so. It is also not covered by any Raw I personally know of.

However, Role-Playing wise, it is implyed that Divine Magic and Arcane Magic have many diferances and work with diferent ways. For example, in a custom setting we are playing, Divine Casters have to Pray to their Deity to perform a "wonder" when casting a spell, wile Arcane Casters simply say some words in an exotic language, describing what they wish to happen. This would imply it is not possible in that particular setting, thus the answer may vary from DM to DM. On the other hand, if you create a character with this exact concept in mind, a DM might allow it, as some sort of Arcane Domain Cleric/Wizard multiclass I suppose?

[Koren]

An extension of this: if the issue is that the spells are still technically cleric spells, what if an Eldritch Knight multiclass into Wizard (or vice versa)? Could he then copy the full EK spell list into his spell book? From then on any time he leveled up he could trade out one Spell, write the new one into the spell book, rinse and repeat for +1 spell known?

[Sigreid]

An extension of this: if the issue is that the spells are still technically cleric spells, what if an Eldritch Knight multiclass into Wizard (or vice versa)? Could he then copy the full EK spell list into his spell book? From then on any time he leveled up he could trade out one Spell, write the new one into the spell book, rinse and repeat for +1 spell known?

That I would allow as they are pretty expressly called out as being wizard spells.

[Azgeroth]

mechanically, no, only wizard spells can be scribed into the spell book, so yes an AT or EK theoretically could,
but those are already wizard spells, so what would be the point?

thematically, a wizard learns his spells through research and experimentation, which he records into his spell book, spell scrolls are condensed version of this, and a wizard must spend time deciphering/interpreting that writing into a form he can understand, and replicate (ala, the research and experimentation)

druids/clerics/warlocks are granted their magic through a patron, they ask for it, the patron grants it, they are not directly invoking that magic. thusly, if a wizard took a clerics scroll and tried to scribe it, they would simply be recording a prayer, not some mystical words of power attached to the weave.

either way, the answer is no.. closest thing to this is the tome warlocks invocation that allows them to record any ritual.