Destroying a tomelocks book of ancient secrets

[king_steve]

The description of the pact of the tome states you can receive a new tome with a 1 hour ceremony if your tome is lost or destroyed. The Book of Ancient Secrets invocation lets you learn new ritual spells and add them to your tome.

If your tome is destroyed, would the new tome contain all the rituals you’ve learned up to that point or would it just have your starting 1st level rituals?

[Spacehamster]

Ask your DM territory as most things 5e, would personally let the lock roll a die how many rituals he could recall and get over in his new tome.

[Evaar]

RAW doesn’t specify but I would say it arguably hints toward not including the rituals. It says you get a “replacement from your patron.” That vaguely suggests your patron is giving you what they’d normally give you.

Really, that’s tenuous and it’s up to the DM. If it was me, I’d let them keep the rituals.

[king_steve]

In this case, I am the DM, I was mostly curious how others might handle the situation.

I do like the idea of rolling to see how many spells they can keep or just letting them keep all their spells they had last time they took a long rest.

[Glorthindel]

I would rule it depending on how you have the tome manifest - If their Patron literally sends a fiendish servant holding a new book, saying "and try not to lose this one dummy", then no, I would rule anything added to the old book is lost (as it is a new book), but if you have something like their book reform from the shadows or wisps of smoke, then I would rule it is literally their original book reforming, so it has everything in it it had when it was destroyed.

[Mikaleus]

I agree it’s a DM ruling. If I were DM, I’d say you could keep them.

[Sjappo]

Is there anything you wish to accomplice by removing and returning the book?

Taking stuff from players is a lousy move in any situation. Especially is you don't talk it over with the player first. In that case I would return the book as it was.

If the player was stupid enough to lose the book or get the book destroyed, anything is fair game. I would still return the book as it was. It's usually not worth the hassle to mess with items.

[Sigreid]

I would have it just have their first 2 rituals. That said, I would also allow the warlock to buy a spell book and keep copies of the rituals in it, though that book would not have the power to let them cast the rituals.

[Vogie]

The way I'd play it is that the Book of Secrets is essentially a familiar. When you resummon it with a ritual, you get it all back, all the rituals and everything

[Xetheral]

I rule that the book is recovered exactly as it was, with all rituals, notes, and other writings intact.

[king_steve]

Is there anything you wish to accomplice by removing and returning the book?

Taking stuff from players is a lousy move in any situation. Especially is you don't talk it over with the player first. In that case I would return the book as it was.

If the player was stupid enough to lose the book or get the book destroyed, anything is fair game. I would still return the book as it was. It's usually not worth the hassle to mess with items.

I don't have any plans on trying to destroy a PC's book, but I was just curious how it compared to a wizards spellbook.

I was mostly just thinking of the differences between a wizards spellbook and a pact tome. Seeing as the pact tome is more of a gift from extraplanar being (e.g. their patron that may be a feind, fey or even celestial) it might make sense for their patron to replace some spells. Or maybe if the warlock was communing with their patron, they might make 'backups' of their tome.

[iTreeby]

I'd rule that they get all the spells back, the rule of cool says that maybe the warlock adding spells to the tome is part of their pact or even that the tome contains their pact and cant truly be destroyed.

[J-H]

Agreed, they get to keep the rituals in their books... just like they get to keep pact weapon or familiar.

[Nagog]

I'd rule that they get all the spells back, the rule of cool says that maybe the warlock adding spells to the tome is part of their pact or even that the tome contains their pact and cant truly be destroyed.

This sounds awesome! Consider this amendment: The Tome is the contract they signed away their soul with. So while you're consulting your patron for your spell slots on a short rest, you also ask them for another copy of the Contract, which includes all the amendments you made to allow you to use the magics you found, including but not limited to: (Insert Rituals here)

[Reynaert]

If a Wizard loses their spellbook, they're royally buggered. So why should the same not hold for a Tomelock? (Not to mention the ritual caster feat which would be even worse).

Also: Don't ever ever ever do that to your player. Even if they did do something stupid which would realistically lose them their spellbook. It would be the same as having the archer character losing an arm.

[Zuras]

If a Wizard loses their spellbook, they're royally buggered. So why should the same not hold for a Tomelock? (Not to mention the ritual caster feat which would be even worse).

Also: Don't ever ever ever do that to your player. Even if they did do something stupid which would realistically lose them their spellbook. It would be the same as having the archer character losing an arm.

Wizards can make multiple copies, so they can proactively avoid the problem.