Spell book of a dead wizard

[Zhorn]

Arveiaturace (aka Iceclaws) is an ancient white dragon in SKT, and has a wizard's corpse saddled to her back. I plan to use it as a loot delivery mechanism for a random encounter.

One of my players has expressed intent on multiclassing their warlock into a few wizard levels, and so I'm like to give them some narrative reason for that happening, an so one of the items dropped is going to be the tattered remains of a wizard's spell book. Most of the pages will have been damaged beyond all recognition, but a few pages will be intact enough that a learned person could be able to piece together over time what the spells are and transcribe the spells into a new book.

So, I need advice of some spells that would have been in this wizard's spellbook.
They were in the frozen north, and were on friendly enough terms with a white dragon that they were permitted to ride on its back, so bonus points if it fits into that. But some good wizard spell choices that would compliment a celestial warlock would be good too.

[Demonslayer666]

Feather Fall would be a good choice. :smallsmile:

Something to protect from the elements, like Leomund's Tiny Hut.

[nickl_2000]

Unseen Servant. What self respecting wizard does their own work?
Earthbind would make sense to assist in aerial combat
Gust of Wind to knock other riders off flying mounts?
Skywrite to communicate across the barren icy tundra.
Spider climb to be able to stay on the dragon in odd positions

[Rob the robber]

I would consider one or two from these.... I have picked out the ones that do cold damage as the main damaging ones. Probably don't give him that many reaction-based spells plus you might what to add one or two more rituals for utility. If he takes wizard he will get 6 spells to start of with and 2 per level without any cost. The ones in the book he finds would be costing him 50 gp per lvl to transcribe plus time unless you homebrew it.

Cantrips: Frostbite and/or ray of frost (both has cold damage plus effects), mage hand (so he could retrieve stuff he needed from the dragons back without stepping off)

Some level 1 spells: Shield(so he is not nocked of the dragons back, reaction) , Magic Missile (guaranteed hit), Feather Fall (in case he does fall off, reaction), Detect Magic (ritual good to have), absorb elements(absorb cold damage??, reaction), ice knife (cold dmg)

Lvl 2: Blur(harder to hit), Suggestion, snillocs snowball swarm(cold dmg)

lvl 3: Sleet Storm(cold dmg), haste(imagine a dragon with haste cast on it)

With the spells above the wizard could have been lvl 5-6 which might be a bit low to ride a dragon som potentially add one or two spells from a higher level... for example

Lvl 5: animate objects(to animate ice shards in the surrounding to attack with)

I would just be careful with giving to much high stuff that he can not use anyway unless he goes very deep into wizardry...

What lvl is the warlock?

[Nagog]

Is this wizard high-level? I would assume so from the riding a dragon bit, but at the same time, a full spellbook from a high level wizard for a level 1 multiclass may end up severely buffing this multiclass dip far beyond what you may now realize (I made the mistake a while back of giving a caster an infinite spellbook. Very bad idea. It was the first of many things that ended up killing that campaign).

Considering the wizard is dead (and has been a while..?) while on the back of a dragon, I could see the spellbook being heavily damaged and only a few spells are still legible, keeping it more on-par with what the dip combined with a loot item would provide. On that note, how does the Warlock play? As a Celestial Warlock, I'd imagine they're primarily a healer/buffer, no? If they have Pact of the Tome with BoAS, I could see providing a good chunk of ritual spells in the book so they can use it both on the fly and with their Book. If not, I'd look into putting some quick-burn defensive spells into the book like Misty Step, Shield, and the like, so they don't have to burn their precious Warlock slots for those.
Unfortunately there isn't a ton of overlap between the roles of Wizard and Cleric spells, so I'd stick with the Wizard Spells that are applicable for all classes.

Another good question to narrow down the spells: Do you know what subclass they plan on grabbing for Wizard?

[Zhorn]

The player is level 7 and was intending to get at least 9 levels in warlock to unlock those 5th level spell slots, which he's asked me about my ruling on multiclass spell slots and pact magic (my ruling: spells learned by leveling will be limited by his pure class levels, but copying into his spellbook will only be limited by his highest level spell slots). Their intent was to prime his character to be able to provide teleportation circle for the group. Teleporting spells will not be in the book, though I might include a mystery circle as a hook. I have no idea what wizard subclass they had in mind

The spells in the wizard's book will still be too damaged to use as is, and the majority of pages will be worthless mechanically with all but a handful (3-5), the player will need to spend the time to transcribe them into their own book first. The time between the player getting the book, getting the wizards levels, finishing their base warlock levels, and transcribing, will all be thematically treated as the research time the player character needed to research and understand the spells enough to complete the damaged components to get the spells to a usable state.

The level of the dead wizard will be whatever level is needed to justify the spells I end up giving over. It is a subplot device at best.

[Rob the robber]

my ruling: spells learned by leveling will be limited by his pure class levels, but copying into his spellbook will only be limited by his highest level spell slots.

Okey, so any spell up till level 5 that he finds in the book will be available to him after spending the time to transcribe them into his own book. Seeing he only have 2 spell slots to cast with for higher levels i would look at what ritual spells you are willing to give.

Ritual spells that you might choose to give from: (in descending order of level)

Alarm
Find Familiar
Tenser's Floating Disk
Unseen Servant
Comprehend Languages
Detect Magic
Identify
Illusory Script
Gentle Repose
Magic Mouth
Feign Death
Leomund's Tiny Hut (lvl 3, shelter)
Phantom Steed
Water Breathing
Rary's Telepathic Bond (lvl 5, good if you like to give the party the ability to communicate unhindered)
Contact Other Plane

[Zhorn]

Taking some of the advice here as inspiration, I'm leaning towards the following spells

1st Absorb Elements (Defensive)
2nd Dragon's Breath (Support)
3rd Sleet Storm (Control)
5th Cone of Cold (Offensive)
5th Far Step (Utility)

There are quite a few spells mentioned in the thread that I agree are better picks for a wizard to want, but those would likely be getting picked by the player anyway, where as none of these would be on the first round, but they all feel on theme for the dead wizard.
Plus, it would be a bit too convenient for all of the better spells be the ones that just happened to not be on the destroyed pages of the spell book.

[Rob the robber]

Taking some of the advice here as inspiration, I'm leaning towards the following spells

1st Absorb Elements (Defensive)
2nd Dragon's Breath (Support)
3rd Sleet Storm (Control)
5th Cone of Cold (Offensive)
5th Far Step (Utility)

There are quite a few spells mentioned in the thread that I agree are better picks for a wizard to want, but those would likely be getting picked by the player anyway, where as none of these would be on the first round, but they all feel on theme for the dead wizard.
Plus, it would be a bit too convenient for all of the better spells be the ones that just happened to not be on the destroyed pages of the spell book.

Sounds like you got a few fun thematic "gifts" for your yet to be wizard :)
Good luck with your campaign!

[Wizard_Lizard]

continual flame? (for wRmth)