Using Spellbook pages as Spell Scrolls

[viaFAMILIAR]

Does anyone allow one-shot spell use(no spell slots being used) from a wizard's spellbook at the cost of losing that spell(exactly how spell scrolls work), at their table?

[Sigreid]

No. That would be way to cheap of a way to create scrolls. It's much cheaper to copy your spells into another book than make spell scrolls.

[Crgaston]

I would totally allow it if it were in extremis, i.e. the party is under immense pressure to accomplish something with limited resources.

If they were trying to use downtime to scribe extra copies of spells into their spellbooks for this exact purpose? Not so much.

[DrKerosene]

I believe Chris Perkins allowed this a couple times on Dice Camera Action.

I would probably allow it, assuming the spellbook is a minor artifact or something bordering on legendary. Though I’d probably stat it as a stack of scrolls, seeing as I’ve only had one Wizard PC at my table in my years of DMing.

[Zhorn]

On its own? No, I wouldn't allow it.
With the expenditure of additional resources? Maybe.

I like the motto of "you can try" when a player asks if they can do a thing.
What "you can try" is about is letting the player attempt to sell you on an idea and justify you letting it happen. If the players try to MacGyver up something that is close to what the spell scroll equivalent should cost them, then I'm more likely to rule that it works. BUT I'd also put in the effort to make sure they knew that that particular method was sub-optimal.

Example: Wizard uses their page for Fireball (150 gp), component pouch (25 gp) and gem infused chalk (50 gp) to set up a fireball scroll spell, but the spell has a cast range of 0 ft and it's radius is determined by an arcana check. If they sink more resources into it, then it'll operate 'closer' to the standard fireball spell.

[LtPowers]

Absolutely not.

A spell written in a spellbook is just a set of instructions. It has no magic on its own. A spellbook is not a magic item and has no magic in it. The wizard has to study the spell and set the magic in his mind.

A spell written on a scroll is in an almost-cast state. It's charged with magic. It's ready to be cast, instantaneously. The wizard just needs to complete the last step of casting. That's impossible with a spellbook.


Powers &8^]

[OutOfThyme]

I'd allow it. The setting I run games in treats magic like knowledge in the Renaissance, except with a key difference: printing presses can't copy it. There's no mass production of spells, so tearing out pages from your spell book to cast it carries a huge cost. You need to either find another scroll or a spellbook with the spell in it. And since your spellbook is a compilation of notes and arcane schematics, I'd argue that you would only be able to use spell pages as scrolls if they're from your works.

I still wouldn't ever do it as a player, unless absolutely mandatory.

[mephiztopheleze]

back in the day, this was an actual ruled thing you could do.
it was also an absolute last resort type of scenario that you would actually do it as it burned the spell from the pages of the book.

it would be a big problem in 5e as mentioned, because you could theoretically scribe 9th level spell scrolls very fast for a comparative pittance.

[Potato_Priest]

I’d allow it.

Even for those who don’t, you may consider letting looted enemy spell books be used this way in a party without a wizard. Seems like a fun and creative loot reward to replace the normal excitement of a wizard getting to add to their spellbook.

[Chronos]

Yes, of course it would burn the spell out of the book. And that still doesn't matter at all, because it's always been possible to make copies of a spellbook. If you allow this, then you're making it exactly as easy to scribe a spell as it is to copy a page from a spellbook.

If you allow this, then it's not a last resort; it's a first resort. It's not going to be used by a wizard with only one copy of the spell in his book because he's just that desperate. It's going to be used by a wizard who prudently made 15 copies of his book between adventures, so he could burn through 14 of them freely.

[Dalebert]

Yes, of course it would burn the spell out of the book. And that still doesn't matter at all, because it's always been possible to make copies of a spellbook. If you allow this, then you're making it exactly as easy to scribe a spell as it is to copy a page from a spellbook.

If you allow this, then it's not a last resort; it's a first resort. It's not going to be used by a wizard with only one copy of the spell in his book because he's just that desperate. It's going to be used by a wizard who prudently made 15 copies of his book between adventures, so he could burn through 14 of them freely.

This.

It costs 10 gold and 1 hour of downtime to make a copy of a 1st level spell that you already into a spellbook. It costs 90 gold and 9 hours of downtime to make a copy of a 9th level spell! It's SUPER cheap. The reason it's so cheap is because spellbooks in this edition are only good for preparing spells. And btw, it's half off of even these already cheap prices if it's from your specialty. There are costs given for if you want an actual working one-shot casting of a scroll that are exponentially higher.

It's an interesting coincidence that this thread comes right around the time I was doing the math to make a copy of my entire 14th level wizard's spellbook for safe-keeping in case something happened to the one I keep on me and realizing how cheap it was to do and being annoyed with myself for procrastinating on that.

[Asmotherion]

i'm all for PC controled use of scrolls. i'd say it's a cool idea to toy with but not for all campains.

Finally to clearyfy this would definitely be a homerule as RAW does not imply this in any way.

[LibraryOgre]

This idea dates back to before the first Unearthed Arcana (Like, 1985 version), and it's always had the same problem for me: To wit, why am I not doing this all the time?

In the original, it had a side effect of possibly burning out other pages in your spellbook (thus ruining more than just the spell you used) but, as I pointed out, nothing prevents you from copying these things onto loose sheets of paper and using them as a single-spell spellbook. Unless you accept "Spellbook" as a mental object, and using a spell this way as possibly deleting spells from your actual understanding, it seems to be a really weird rule and limitation.

[viaFAMILIAR]

After reading the comments, it does sound highly exploitable but I could see some campaigns where this would actually work well.

Thanks for all the insight!

[Sigreid]

After reading the comments, it does sound highly exploitable but I could see some campaigns where this would actually work well.

Thanks for all the insight!

It would work fine in a campaign where each wizard's spellbook was a unique magic item and they couldn't have a backup.

[Wuzza]

This.

It costs 10 gold and 1 hour of downtime to make a copy of a 1st level spell that you already into a spellbook. It costs 90 gold and 9 hours of downtime to make a copy of a 9th level spell! It's SUPER cheap. The reason it's so cheap is because spellbooks in this edition are only good for preparing spells. And btw, it's half off of even these already cheap prices if it's from your specialty. There are costs given for if you want an actual working one-shot casting of a scroll that are exponentially higher.


I'd completely allow it. Although the spell is gone, so they would have to search out another copy of it. To my mind this would negate any advantage of the re-scribing being super cheap.

[Seclora]

Although the spell is gone, so they would have to search out another copy of it. To my mind this would negate any advantage of the re-scribing being super cheap.
I agree with this, that is a considerable cost for a Wizard.

That being said, I'd let my players know that this wasn't a standard occurrence or practice, that I was letting them get away with it for the drama. I would probably also charge them an equivalent number of spell slots if they had any left(Or take untyped damage, with an inadequate total slot value reducing the damage), and have them roll an Arcana Check against DC: Don't Nat 1.

[Man_Over_Game]

Nah. Casters already have rituals and a lot of power.

I'd sooner come up with more feasible rules for creating scrolls than just allowing them to use their spellbook willy-nilly. Allowing it creates a lot of balance concerns that I don't have the time to look into all of them. If I made up 1 restriction to try and keep it balanced, players would find two loopholes to make things worse.

So while I don't usually say "No", I feel like this is a good example of when to do so.

I suppose a good compromise could be "Yes, but you spend Hit Dice equal to twice the spell's level to pay for the spell slot". Would be a hard enough cost to deal with, since only 50% of your Hit Dice are replenished at the end of a Long Rest.

[Tanarii]

I'd completely allow it. Although the spell is gone, so they would have to search out another copy of it. To my mind this would negate any advantage of the re-scribing being super cheap.
Are you saying your house rule would be that it burns the spell out of all spellbooks the Wizard ha, when you read the spell to cast from any one of them?

[Seclora]

Are you saying your house rule would be that it burns the spell out of all spellbooks the Wizard ha, when you read the spell to cast from any one of them?

Your Wizards keep backups? My rogue has more backup ritual books than my Wizard has copies of his spellbook. But yeah, if they had a backup, I wouldn't allow it.

[Sigreid]

Your Wizards keep backups? My rogue has more backup ritual books than my Wizard has copies of his spellbook. But yeah, if they had a backup, I wouldn't allow it.

A wizard who doesn't keep backups is hopefully the odd man out

[Tanarii]

Your Wizards keep backups? My rogue has more backup ritual books than my Wizard has copies of his spellbook. But yeah, if they had a backup, I wouldn't allow it.
My players almost always do as . Losing you spellbook is a disaster for a wizard. And adventuring is a dangerous profession.

Even with a campaign like mine where henchmen are intentionally left behind to organize a party to recover bodies in case of TPK, there's no garuntee that the bodies won't have been stripped of everything valuable by whomever killed them.

[Sigreid]

My wizard has additional copies. Carrie's one. One in a secret chest. One at home. One hidden.

[LibraryOgre]

I'd completely allow it. Although the spell is gone, so they would have to search out another copy of it. To my mind this would negate any advantage of the re-scribing being super cheap.

No, rescribing being super-cheap exacerbates the problem.

It's not "I have one copy of Blinky's Uncontrollable Shrinking Bladder, read it out of my spellbook, and then I don't have it anymore." It's "We had a few days of downtime and a chunk of gold, so I made copies of these useful spells. I now pull them out of my pack so I can cast Arcihexifer's Screaming Soul on a whim, and the original in my spellbook stays mint-in-the-box."

Basically, it adds a power to wizards, where they can make super-cheap and easy scrolls that only other wizards can use. If you want that, I'd just expand the number of spells available as rituals.... I feel ritual casting was supposed to address this idea.... "I don't have to prepare Magic Mouth; I just cast it as a ritual."

[Wuzza]

No, rescribing being super-cheap exacerbates the problem.

It's not "I have one copy of Blinky's Uncontrollable Shrinking Bladder, read it out of my spellbook, and then I don't have it anymore." It's "We had a few days of downtime and a chunk of gold, so I made copies of these useful spells. I now pull them out of my pack so I can cast Arcihexifer's Screaming Soul on a whim, and the original in my spellbook stays mint-in-the-box."

Basically, it adds a power to wizards, where they can make super-cheap and easy scrolls that only other wizards can use. If you want that, I'd just expand the number of spells available as rituals.... I feel ritual casting was supposed to address this idea.... "I don't have to prepare Magic Mouth; I just cast it as a ritual."

I think you might have misinterpreted what I meant. Sure, the scribing cost would be negligible, however they would have to actively search out another copy of the spell scroll to be able to re-scribe. Burn a level 6 spell in this way, and the only sure fire way to get another scroll would be to buy it, at considerable cost. Or leave it to chance on random loot tables.

It's not come up in my games, in fact nobody has ever thought to make a copy of a spell book. :smallsmile: In this case I may well approach it differently, possibly making copies extremely costly, either in terms of coin, time, or both.

[Willie the Duck]

back in the day, this was an actual ruled thing you could do.
it was also an absolute last resort type of scenario that you would actually do it as it burned the spell from the pages of the book.

This idea dates back to before the first Unearthed Arcana (Like, 1985 version), and it's always had the same problem for me: To wit, why am I not doing this all the time?

Thank you! UA would have been near the last place I looked!

UA was never really playtested, and was rushed out the door as a way to keep the lights on in Lake Geneva. Clearly the cost to craft scrolls vs the cost to scribe spells into spellbooks was never really calc'ed out. That, or the old standby 'this is the TSR era, we expect DMs to have rocks fall on the PCs of any players who discover the abusive builds we've left sitting in the ruleset. :smalltongue:'

When we played, we had a spin on the rule -- any discovered spellbooks found as treasure could have a given spell act as a onetime scroll if you already had the spell in your book (exactly how that worked or the world-implications of that rule were never sussed over greatly). That made a spellbook of mostly spells you already had still be something of a useful find. This is only fair of course if the fighters have a use for those duplicate +1 longswords, but it was the case in those days since we had scads and scads of henchmen bitd.

[LibraryOgre]

I think you might have misinterpreted what I meant. Sure, the scribing cost would be negligible, however they would have to actively search out another copy of the spell scroll to be able to re-scribe. Burn a level 6 spell in this way, and the only sure fire way to get another scroll would be to buy it, at considerable cost. Or leave it to chance on random loot tables.

It's not come up in my games, in fact nobody has ever thought to make a copy of a spell book. :smallsmile: In this case I may well approach it differently, possibly making copies extremely costly, either in terms of coin, time, or both.

I'm still not seeing what you are saying.

Let's say I have Magic Missile. I have a copy in my spellbook. During my downtime, I spend 10 hours and 100 gold to scribe 10 more copies of magic missile. I put one in my library at home, one in my travelling spellbook, and carry 9 copies as looseleaf papers.

In the course of an adventure, I burn one of the copies from the looseleaf. Now, as I picture it, I still have 8 copies on looseleaf, plus 1 in my travelling spellbook and 1 in my library at home. Are you envisioning that ALL of these copies become invalid?

[Man_Over_Game]

I'm still not seeing what you are saying.

Let's say I have Magic Missile. I have a copy in my spellbook. During my downtime, I spend 10 hours and 100 gold to scribe 10 more copies of magic missile. I put one in my library at home, one in my travelling spellbook, and carry 9 copies as looseleaf papers.

In the course of an adventure, I burn one of the copies from the looseleaf. Now, as I picture it, I still have 8 copies on looseleaf, plus 1 in my travelling spellbook and 1 in my library at home. Are you envisioning that ALL of these copies become invalid?

I originally tried to come up with an idea like that, where the localized existence of the spell is burned away (The copy you used, any copies it made, and the copy it came from are all burned from existence, as well as the knowledge of the spell from anyone who's memorized it from any of those sources), but it either was too drastic or too abusable. You'd still be able to replicate it, as long as you made a chain copy (so if you have an original, make a copy of it, and make a 2nd generation copy, the original would be untouched).

In the end, I was all like "nah".

[Sigreid]

I think you might have misinterpreted what I meant. Sure, the scribing cost would be negligible, however they would have to actively search out another copy of the spell scroll to be able to re-scribe. Burn a level 6 spell in this way, and the only sure fire way to get another scroll would be to buy it, at considerable cost. Or leave it to chance on random loot tables.

It's not come up in my games, in fact nobody has ever thought to make a copy of a spell book. :smallsmile: In this case I may well approach it differently, possibly making copies extremely costly, either in terms of coin, time, or both.

In the ancient times it really wasnt uncommon to have a spellbook stolen or destroyed.

[Doug Lampert]

I'm still not seeing what you are saying.

Let's say I have Magic Missile. I have a copy in my spellbook. During my downtime, I spend 10 hours and 100 gold to scribe 10 more copies of magic missile. I put one in my library at home, one in my travelling spellbook, and carry 9 copies as looseleaf papers.

In the course of an adventure, I burn one of the copies from the looseleaf. Now, as I picture it, I still have 8 copies on looseleaf, plus 1 in my travelling spellbook and 1 in my library at home. Are you envisioning that ALL of these copies become invalid?

I'm fairly sure he's envisioning a wizard who doesn't have any backups at all.

And for that matter, he's the only wizard in the party. And for that matter, he's not a member of a guild or organization that shares spells. And for that matter he sprang ex nihilo from the DM's forehead rather than being trained by a master.

Why an intelligence based class, with the ability to make usable copies of a level 9 spell scroll in 9 hours for 90 GP would not do so in advance, kind of baffles me. But then, I'm also not clear on not having both a backup book and a travelling book if you have any sort of home-base.

[LibraryOgre]

In the ancient times it really wasnt uncommon to have a spellbook stolen or destroyed.

A major part of a wizard's cash early on went into finding ways to protect spellbooks. Druids got Fire Trap at 3rd level... they were good friends to a wizard.

[Sigreid]

I'm fairly sure he's envisioning a wizard who doesn't have any backups at all.

And for that matter, he's the only wizard in the party. And for that matter, he's not a member of a guild or organization that shares spells. And for that matter he sprang ex nihilo from the DM's forehead rather than being trained by a master.

Why an intelligence based class, with the ability to make usable copies of a level 9 spell scroll in 9 hours for 90 GP would not do so in advance, kind of baffles me. But then, I'm also not clear on not having both a backup book and a travelling book if you have any sort of home-base.

Likely some tables view it as bad form to mess with the wizard's spellbook. If you know you'll never lose it, why make a backup?

[MaxWilson]

Does anyone allow one-shot spell use(no spell slots being used) from a wizard's spellbook at the cost of losing that spell(exactly how spell scrolls work), at their table?

Nope. The only way I would allow this would be if it were impossible for some reason to copy spellbooks. (That would be an interesting way to play and would make finding ancient spells in treasure much more interesting.)


Are you saying your house rule would be that it burns the spell out of all spellbooks the Wizard ha, when you read the spell to cast from any one of them?

This is insufficient, because you could just give your spellbooks to someone else. It has to burn out all copies of the spell, everywhere, and the simplest way to do that is to just rule that spellbooks cannot be copied in the first place. Only the original researcher has the spell, unless he gives the spellbook away (or is willing to share it with other people). This has campaign implications, e.g. you can make stealing a spellbook a major plothook.

[Man_Over_Game]

On that note:

I originally tried to come up with an idea like that, where the localized existence of the spell is burned away (The copy you used, any copies it made, and the copy it came from are all burned from existence, as well as the knowledge of the spell from anyone who's memorized it from any of those sources), but it either was too drastic or too abusable. You'd still be able to replicate it, as long as you made a chain copy (so if you have an original, make a copy of it, and make a 2nd generation copy, the original would be untouched).

In the end, I was all like "nah".

Although, I suppose this could work out fine enough if the cost of copying a spell twice was more than making a single scroll of it.


Making a scroll = 100% cost.
Copying a spell = 60% cost.


It could also be a clever boss tactic: Steal his book, burn out his spells by using them as scrolls, and leave him with a bunch of spell slots and nothing to cast.

[Willie the Duck]

A major part of a wizard's cash early on went into finding ways to protect spellbooks. Druids got Fire Trap at 3rd level... they were good friends to a wizard.

And of course, money spent on spellbooks (or backup spellbooks) were gold (which came approximately 1:1 with XP) you couldn't devote to training for level-ups (until name level). Therefore, you were cash-poor, and would have to either sell some magic items for training cash or risk having wasted xp.

[MaxWilson]

And of course, money spent on spellbooks (or backup spellbooks) were gold (which came approximately 1:1 with XP) you couldn't devote to training for level-ups (until name level). Therefore, you were cash-poor, and would have to either sell some magic items for training cash or risk having wasted xp.

Aside: I never understood why AD&D encourages DMs to award XP for gold earned, and then looks for ways to take the gold away from you (training costs). Why not just flip it around and say you earn XP on a 1:1 basis for gold spent offscreen during downtime? If you spent that gold on something else, like spellbooks, then you still get value out of it, but not XP.

I've used that method in 5E games and it works well. Just have each PC pick some offscreen activity that's important to them (funding the Resistance back home, wooing a True Love with presents, etc.) and when they've got 10,000 gp to blow, that's what they spend it on, and now they have 10,000 XP.

[Sigreid]

Aside: I never understood why AD&D encourages DMs to award XP for gold earned, and then looks for ways to take the gold away from you (training costs). Why not just flip it around and say you earn XP on a 1:1 basis for gold spent offscreen during downtime? If you spent that gold on something else, like spellbooks, then you still get value out of it, but not XP.

I've used that method in 5E games and it works well. Just have each PC pick some offscreen activity that's important to them (funding the Resistance back home, wooing a True Love with presents, etc.) and when they've got 10,000 gp to blow, that's what they spend it on, and now they have 10,000 XP.

I was never part of a table that used the training rules at all.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Weird idea- what if a wizard didn't have spell slots at all and could only cast from books as though they were spell scrolls? They still 'learn' spells, but can't innately cast them- instead, they always remember them for writing down, as would they remember any other scroll or book they've studied.

On one hand I'd want to dramatically reduce the time required for scribing because of adventuring, but on the other this makes an interesting symbiosis with downtime. It also makes wizards ridiculously expensive to play, but that cost comes with, potentially, even greater power if managed well. And gives sorcerers a reason to exist.

[Willie the Duck]

Aside: I never understood why AD&D encourages DMs to award XP for gold earned, and then looks for ways to take the gold away from you (training costs). Why not just flip it around and say you earn XP on a 1:1 basis for gold spent offscreen during downtime? If you spent that gold on something else, like spellbooks, then you still get value out of it, but not XP.

If my reading on Dragonsfoot, Jon Peterson's Playing at the World, and discussions with Mike Mornard are accurate, that idea (xp only for gold 'wasted' on 'wine, women, and song') was actually an early proposed mechanic. It certainly would have been simpler, with the same hard choices between levelling (which helps you survive and get better at adventuring) and buying better equipment (which helps you survive and get better at adventuring). I think the problem is that, once you got to (or near to) name level, you were supposed to start saving that gold such that you could afford a small keep and garrison of troops (which you would continue to grow, through good leadership or through conquest, after all, everyone is going to want to play Keep&Commander and general of armies and the game would mostly convert to wargames or Braunsteins or the like). Mind you, exactly how 'from levels 1-9, you are spending your money on training, after which there will be other things you will want to spend your money on leadership,' is better than 'from levels 1-9, you only earn xp for gold spent frivolously, after which you earn xp for gold spent on leadership,' I am not sure.

The overall bits and pieces all make sense: xp for gold acquired is a straightforward 'reward for achieving the goals the (early) game is designed around. Keeping you gold-poor is about hard choices (you can have enough gold to train up and never waste xp or never have to sell a magic item or the like, but not both). The change of how things work at ~9th or 10th level is a way to keep gold at higher levels devoted to the wargame/Braunstein style of play while the earlier bit was about finding uses for characters (who might never get to the upper levels). All the bits make sense, but I agree that there seems to be solutions which would be at least as elegant, solve the same issues, and not be nearly as clumsy and wonky (and make it feel like levels were some in-game-universe thing).


I've used that method in 5E games and it works well. Just have each PC pick some offscreen activity that's important to them (funding the Resistance back home, wooing a True Love with presents, etc.) and when they've got 10,000 gp to blow, that's what they spend it on, and now they have 10,000 XP.

I would love to run a short 'straight OSR dungeon crawl game' (maybe levels 1-4) where it was straight up 'XP is how much precious metal you pull out of these dungeons,' but I don't have the time to crunch the numbers on what the new xp thresholds would look like. I'm sure someone already has, though.

[MaxWilson]

I would love to run a short 'straight OSR dungeon crawl game' (maybe levels 1-4) where it was straight up 'XP is how much precious metal you pull out of these dungeons,' but I don't have the time to crunch the numbers on what the new xp thresholds would look like. I'm sure someone already has, though.

Why crunch the numbers at all? Just read them off the 5E XP tables. Since you need 600 XP to go from 2nd level to 3rd level in 5E, if you have 4 PCs, just create a dungeon with at least 2400 gp of treasure in it (in gold, gems, magic items, furniture, trade goods, legal deeds, whatever). If you use secret doors and other "optional content", you can't count on the PCs necessarily finding it all, so maybe put 5000 gp total in the dungeon, gate about a 1500 of it behind secret doors and another 1000 gp behind monsters which are tough but avoidable (e.g. an underwater room full of Gibbering Mouthers). If the PCs finish only the bare minimum they will just barely level up but they will still be poor, or they can get better equipment but not level up; if they find secret doors and fight "optional" monsters they may get to buy themselves some nice armor and still level up.

[Mith]

My musing for reading this thread:

-Make Scroll Scribing an offshoot of the Ritual Caster ability.

-Have Spell Scrolls and Spell books be the same thing. So you need new rules for spell scroll creation to try and strike a balance.

-I suggest a rule where you sacrifice the required spell slot level for the duration of the crafting.

-A caster can prepare spells from scrolls they have made. I would go so far and say that a Cleric that has lost the favour of their deity could potentially prepare Cleric spells if they have other sources of spell-casting power. This probably only works if Clerics only had Domain lists, and couldn't cast spells from outside their Domain's influence.

-A caster invests their own power into a scroll, so them burning a scroll means that they risk sacrificing all records they have of the spell (percentile based on spell level vs casting modifier, so a high level high stat caster can fairly reliably burn 1st level spells, but a spell of a level you just obtained would be difficult).

Not saying the above is all worth it, but that is the line of thinking I would go if I were attempting to bring such a method into gameplay.

[Doug Lampert]

Nope. The only way I would allow this would be if it were impossible for some reason to copy spellbooks. (That would be an interesting way to play and would make finding ancient spells in treasure much more interesting.)

This is insufficient, because you could just give your spellbooks to someone else. It has to burn out all copies of the spell, everywhere, and the simplest way to do that is to just rule that spellbooks cannot be copied in the first place. Only the original researcher has the spell, unless he gives the spellbook away (or is willing to share it with other people). This has campaign implications, e.g. you can make stealing a spellbook a major plothook.

Simple solution that preserves most of the current game:

Each character, when he first learns to cast spells from a spell-book (via wizard level, ritual caster feat, or other), enchants a SINGLE irreplaceable spell-book, linked to him personally, into which he can write spells for the price in the books and from which the creating character (and only the creating character) can cast those spells as if they were scrolls.

Additional or replacement copies of a spell-book spell have costs identical to scribing a scroll of the spell, and the replacement is NOT usable as a scroll, that's the cost you pay for having lost your original magically linked to you spell-book or burned the only "true" copy of the spell you can ever prepare.

[MaxWilson]

Simple solution that preserves most of the current game:

Each character, when he first learns to cast spells from a spell-book (via wizard level, ritual caster feat, or other), enchants a SINGLE irreplaceable spell-book, linked to him personally, into which he can write spells for the price in the books and from which the creating character (and only the creating character) can cast those spells as if they were scrolls.

Additional or replacement copies of a spell-book spell have costs identical to scribing a scroll of the spell, and the replacement is NOT usable as a scroll, that's the cost you pay for having lost your original magically linked to you spell-book or burned the only "true" copy of the spell you can ever prepare.

Doesn't prevent shenanigans: you can just copy spells from the replacement spellbook back into the "main" spellbook. Really it's a scroll-book, because the only thing special about it is the scroll-casting.

[Man_Over_Game]

Weird idea- what if a wizard didn't have spell slots at all and could only cast from books as though they were spell scrolls? They still 'learn' spells, but can't innately cast them- instead, they always remember them for writing down, as would they remember any other scroll or book they've studied.

On one hand I'd want to dramatically reduce the time required for scribing because of adventuring, but on the other this makes an interesting symbiosis with downtime. It also makes wizards ridiculously expensive to play, but that cost comes with, potentially, even greater power if managed well. And gives sorcerers a reason to exist.

I think that'd be a cool thought if the system was designed with that in mind, and I definitely like that more than the default Wizard and all of its renditions throughout DnD history, I just don't think it'd fit well with the magic-centric 5e system.

[Sigreid]

I think that'd be a cool thought if the system was designed with that in mind, and I definitely like that more than the default Wizard and all of its renditions throughout DnD history, I just don't think it'd fit well with the magic-centric 5e system.

I think it could work if the spell book was essentially a unique, and unique to them magic item that they bonded with as an apprentice. So, the source of their magic wasn't the weave or whatever, it was the book. Or it might be the weave, but their book was the channel that they could draw their power from. So, preparing spells isn't memorizing them, it's attuning to that page in the book.

A bit over complicated for my tastes, but it would let magic work the same as it does now, while letting you use the pages as spell scrolls that actually cost you dearly if you use them that way. Even more dearly if you can only copy a spell to the book once, so if you ever use the spell in the book that way it's gone FOREVER.

[PhantomSoul]

My tentative system thus far: you can use spellbook pages as "scrolls", but since they don't have the spell itself in them (they're just instructions), you follow the casting-from-scroll rules but additionally have to provide the components and the spell slot (meaning it can be upcast, though). It hasn't come up in-game so far despite that the wizard has found another wizard's spellbook so I can't comment on how it works in practice and whether the system will stay the same, but it gives a bit of flexibility to risk accessing a spell you don't know/have_prepared in a pinch (at the cost of that page being consumed by the casting, giving it more risk).

[MaxWilson]

My tentative system thus far: you can use spellbook pages as "scrolls", but since they don't have the spell itself in them (they're just instructions), you follow the casting-from-scroll rules but additionally have to provide the components and the spell slot (meaning it can be upcast, though). It hasn't come up in-game so far despite that the wizard has found another wizard's spellbook so I can't comment on how it works in practice and whether the system will stay the same, but it gives a bit of flexibility to risk accessing a spell you don't know/have_prepared in a pinch (at the cost of that page being consumed by the casting, giving it more risk).

This sounds likely to be fun for the wizards, and I bet other players won't complain, but it is definitely a power boost because you're essentially letting wizards prepare extra spells by spending gold. If you're allowing this I hope you're also allowing the fighters to buy poison for their weapons.

[Mith]

I think it could work if the spell book was essentially a unique, and unique to them magic item that they bonded with as an apprentice. So, the source of their magic wasn't the weave or whatever, it was the book. Or it might be the weave, but their book was the channel that they could draw their power from. So, preparing spells isn't memorizing them, it's attuning to that page in the book.

A bit over complicated for my tastes, but it would let magic work the same as it does now, while letting you use the pages as spell scrolls that actually cost you dearly if you use them that way. Even more dearly if you can only copy a spell to the book once, so if you ever use the spell in the book that way it's gone FOREVER.

Gone forever is a bit brutal, and I would make it a ritual to attune a new book. Compare it to Book of Ancient Shadows from Warlocks.

I like the idea that every arcane spell is unique (harken back to when I played BECMI where you needed multiple copies of the same spell to prepare it more than once). In this case, the advantage the Wizard gets from their spell book is that they can "charge" it to make it another source of spell slots, but will lose it all if they are destroyed. Combined with the idea of gold spent = XP, your Wizard spends gold in researching new spells or expanding their limits (training). Much like how Fighters can expend resources in equipment, or training.

I wonder if this style could bring back the effect of "slowly levelled Magic User, fast levelled Fighter", while the exact numbers stay the same.

[Sigreid]

Gone forever is a bit brutal, and I would make it a ritual to attune a new book. Compare it to Book of Ancient Shadows from Warlocks.

I like the idea that every arcane spell is unique (harken back to when I played BECMI where you needed multiple copies of the same spell to prepare it more than once). In this case, the advantage the Wizard gets from their spell book is that they can "charge" it to make it another source of spell slots, but will lose it all if they are destroyed. Combined with the idea of gold spent = XP, your Wizard spends gold in researching new spells or expanding their limits (training). Much like how Fighters can expend resources in equipment, or training.

I wonder if this style could bring back the effect of "slowly levelled Magic User, fast levelled Fighter", while the exact numbers stay the same.

My thought was to make certain that it was an act of desperation.

[Willie the Duck]

Why crunch the numbers at all? Just read them off the 5E XP tables. Since you need 600 XP to go from 2nd level to 3rd level in 5E, if you have 4 PCs, just create a dungeon with at least 2400 gp of treasure in it (in gold, gems, magic items, furniture, trade goods, legal deeds, whatever).

Well sure. I forgot to mention parts of the concept: use the treasure drop tables of the creatures that populate the dungeon, to keep the treasure random (especially the gold/silver/copper ratio, as 'what you can drag back with you' and encumbrance being part of the challenge. Thus, it matters whether ex. 100 xp of opponent (based on by-the-book xp values) drops avg. 50, 100, or 1000 gp in treasure, based on the treasure tables (at least it determines if this would be over in two session or 2 years). That's why I wanted to crunch some numbers first.

Pertaining to the main discussion- I think people have come up with some interesting ways to rebalance the concept. Kudos on that. However, it feels like we got a mechanic (an--apparently fondly remembered--optional rule in a late-edition supplement from 34 years ago, that wasn't particularly balanced in that edition) in search of a purpose, and when the mechanic was deemed unbalanced, changing it to rebalance it to preserve the purpose that never was there to begin with. We already have a mechanic for a wizard to turn money and prep time into extra spell expenditures -- scrolls. Do we add anything to the game by making another way to do so, and tacking on a consequence that we agree isn't that much of a consequence (given that spellbook backups are already a thing), and then fine-tuning the consequence to be just-meaningful-enough?

I understand if it is something like psionics or sorcerers where, even though we've killed Vancian casting in about twelve different ways since 1975, these different options have picked up their own flavors and fanbases and so on.

[The Library DM]

This would be my ruling (based on some ideas I’ve fleshed out):

Yes, a wizard can cast a spell from a spell book. A wizard. can, in fact, cast ANY spell from a spell book, even if it’s a higher level than the wizard can learn.
HOWEVER:
1: The spell takes a full round + a number of rounds equal to the spell’s level to cast the spell. (So if you don’t mind standing there trying to cast a fireball for a 4 rounds while the enemy tries to kill you, go ahead.)
2: You cannot move or take any other action AT ALL while doing so (see 1 for what this means.)
3: It is an act of concentration, so it breaks any spell requiring concentration the moment you start casting it, even if the spell being cast doesn’t normally require concentration.
4: Casting a spell from a spell book requires an Intelligence Check at a DC equal to 10+ the level of the spell being cast + the difference between the caster’s level and the level needed to cast the spell (if the caster is of a lower level).
5: Any roll that is 10 or more below the DC causes the spell to disintegrate, burning out of the spell book (and potentially destroying it), AND burning it out of the wizard’s mind— meaning, even if he has copies, he can’t ever learn or cast this spell again. Ever. For him, it’s GONE.
6: Any natural roll of 1 is a disaster; the spell misfires in a horrible way (DM’s decision), plus rule 5 also applies.
7: If the caster is disturbed (struck, shoved, hit in combat, affected by magic, nudged, etc.) the casting fails, but no other negative results are caused by this.

[Doug Lampert]

Doesn't prevent shenanigans: you can just copy spells from the replacement spellbook back into the "main" spellbook. Really it's a scroll-book, because the only thing special about it is the scroll-casting.

Replacement copies cost as a scroll. You get the discount for your personal book ONCE per spell.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Gone forever is a bit brutal, and I would make it a ritual to attune a new book. Compare it to Book of Ancient Shadows from Warlocks.

I like the idea that every arcane spell is unique (harken back to when I played BECMI where you needed multiple copies of the same spell to prepare it more than once). In this case, the advantage the Wizard gets from their spell book is that they can "charge" it to make it another source of spell slots, but will lose it all if they are destroyed. Combined with the idea of gold spent = XP, your Wizard spends gold in researching new spells or expanding their limits (training). Much like how Fighters can expend resources in equipment, or training.

I wonder if this style could bring back the effect of "slowly levelled Magic User, fast levelled Fighter", while the exact numbers stay the same.

I've been throwing this idea around with my group. I recently introduced training with gold as a means of experience in an otherwise XP-lite game, and it's been working pretty good so far. I only have one wizard player at the moment (well, he's the third now. The other two are dead), but I'm open to the idea of scribe-based wizard casting

I already offer the spell point variant as a sorcerer-only feature. Now I'd just need a way to differentiate cleric and druidic casting and every major caster uses a different system.