A wizard for the common people (wop, build help, some homebrewing required)

[King of Nowhere]

I have an idea that I really like for a character. I may just be able to play it soon, but it requires some homebrewing, and i would like to present the DM with a full plan for it.

this guy comes from a family of moderately successful merchants. he had skill and talent for magic, so they sent him to an academy. but wizarding is really expensive - one single page in a spell book is several months wages for a skilled worker. the character took to wizardry, and the parents decided to support him, hiding from him how deeply they were sinking in debt to pay his studies. through his experiences - which included his parents eventually ending up as debt slaves and some of his best friends dropping out because they couldn't pay despite being very talented, and realizing how much the wizards could help the people if only they cared - the character took on a very critical stance towards the practice of wizardry, and decided to reform it. he decided that magic should be in service of society.
he took on a wov of poverty; magic should be available to the common people, and it cannot happen if it is so expensive. He studied a way to make a spellbook cheaply. he also decided knowledge should be free, so he started giving lectures on public squares, for everyone who cared to listen. He would like every commoner to learn some basic spells.
His goals, from the short to the long term, are
1) pay his family's debts and rescue his parents from slavery. possibly pay for the studies of his friends who dropped off too.
2) open an arcane academy that would be free for everyone
3) create an utopia based on magic
4) avoid all the various doomsday scenarios associated with such utopia

the first, and most important, thing where i would like some input is the spellbook.
- he must have found a way to have a cheap spellbook; he can't think to teach magic to the average joe if it requires 25 gp for a single cantrip.
- it must also be something easily reproducible; no crazy strange builds with obscure feats to escew the spell books; those could not be taught to the average joe.
- but it must also have a price. "the wizards are morons and decided to spend $$$ for their spellbooks when they could easily have gotten them for free" is not interesting, and it bodes poorly for the worldbuilding consistency. Similarly, "an apprentice quickly figured out something that the top wizards couldn't" is also not interesting; the general arcane community is power-hungry and self-centered, but not moronic.
So, this way of recording spells should be cheap and doable by every student of magic, but it must also have some significant drawback, so that the average wizard would still prefer a regular spellbook. the easiest option is an xp cost, but it's kinda lame

then there is the build. I see this wizard in a support role, because wizards should be in service of the people and not trying to dominate. he can still blast occasionally, but he's mostly dedicated to buff, battlefield control, and out-of-combat utility.
without items, my spell selection would be fairly limited, and i would like to keep some of my low level slots occupied for fluff stuff. Choosing a specialization then makes the most sense, so i'd need two forbidden schools. necromancy is a pretty safe choice, the second could be enchantment, since tampering with the mind of people would be quite rude. but maybe i'm missing stuff. i would like some input here.
And I would like input on all the feats, and some prestige class that would fit the concept. I have the rough idea for the build, but I miss all the details.

[noob]

By the rules as written even if his spell-book did cost 0 gp he would not be able to use it due to WOP
Wop allows a limited set of material possessions:


To fulfill your vow, you must not own or use any material possessions, with the following exceptions: You may carry and use ordinary (neither magic nor masterwork) simple weapons, usually just a quarterstaff that serves as a walking stick. You may wear simple clothes (usually just a homespun robe, possibly also including a hat and sandals) with no magical properties. You may carry enough food to sustain you for one day in a simple (nonmagic) sack or bag. You may carry and use a spell component pouch. You may not use any magic item of any sort, though you can benefit from magic items used on your behalf—you can drink a potion of cure serious wounds a friend gives you, receive a spell cast from a wand, scroll, or staff, or ride on your companion's ebony fly. You may not, however, "borrow" a cloak of resistance or any other magic item from a companion for even a single round, nor may you yourself cast a spell from a scroll, wand, or staff. If you break your vow, you immediately and irrevocably lose the benefit of this feat. You may not take another feat to replace it.
None of them are spellbooks
So even if spellbooks costs nothing you do not have the right to own one.
Unless you use edible spellbooks and say it is the food of the day but then you need to eat a spellbook per day because the food is the only thing not described as simple and simple is exclusive with "being a spellbook".
So I am sorry but your character concept is impossible unless if we make all the edible spellbooks ever be as readily accessible as any other food forever because else you will not be able to get all the edible spellbooks you need.
You can however use an acf that substitutes spellbooks with smoking ridiculous amounts of gold in order to learn spells and it will be compatible with wop because the rules for wop are idiotic.(yes there is an acf where you smoke ridiculously costly things in order to gain spells)
Oh I am dumb there is a simpler solution: the food spellbook burglar.
Simply there is that awful person who steal edible spellbooks and you do not know who is doing that (the truth is that it is one of your team members) so each day you read your spellbook then you want to start eating it and someone in a dark cloak punches you and steals your meal and flees away then a friend says that they will pursue and get back your meal. This friend brings you back your spellbook only after you successfully foraged for another meal and ate it.

I just figured out the solution for wop and having all the non magical possessions you want but not at the same time: become a creature that can eat anything then you can keep any limited amount of things as "the food for the day" provided you can eat all those possessions in one day but it makes things really complicated and expensive.
By the way someone who needs to eat magical items and which took wop can no longer eat because you can not use magical items of any sort.

I just did reread: by the rules as written you can carry food for one day but you do not actually have the right to use or eat food so I guess that you just carry the food in order to be able to give it to poor people and that you are supposed to eat simple clothes and simple weapons but that interpretation is so horribly crippling(you literally need to eat tissue and weapons to not die of hunger) that the first fix is ignoring the inability to use or eat food with the rules as written.

The simplest way to make spell access cheap is sharing a spellbook.
You can divide the price by as much as 24 by sharing a spellbook and when someone finish preparing they give their spellbook to the next in line who then prepares.
If you can also get a geometer among your friends any spell occupies at most one page so for high level spells it can divide the cost by as much as 9 for ninth level spells.
The next improvement is splitting the spellbook in a lot of books with one individual spell each so that sharing is easier: if two people have no spells in common to prepare they can prepare at the same time.
You can go even further in huge communities by using alternate spellbook: architecture and have buildings serving as spellbooks too and having dozens of people studying the same building simultaneously for preparing their spells.

Your character personally can not benefit from any of that because you must use edible spellbooks which are probably more perishable, expensive and would be awfully dangerous for your health if dozens of people touch it.

[AvatarVecna]

MASTERING A FOREIGN SPELLBOOK

Instead of laboriously copying each spell of interest from a found spellbook into his own, a wizard might instead make a dedicated effort to master the spellbook's particular ciphers and notations. This procedure is sometimes referred to as becoming attuned to the spellbook (although it's a matter of time and study, not a mystical process). Mastering a spellbook require a successful Spellcraft check (DC 25 + the level of the highest-level spell in the book) and takes one week plus one day per spell contained within. If the wizard succeeds, he can use the foreign spellbook as his own, requiring no further Spellcraft checks to prepare or copy spells from it. If he fails, he cannot attempt to master that spellbook again until he gains at least 1 more rank in Spellcraft.

Nothing about this indicates that the wizard who previously owned the spellbook is no longer capable of preparing spells with it - it's simply a matter of that old wizard no longer having access to their spellbook, because you murdered them and looted it off their corpse. But if a wizard has a spellbook, and wants to teach others the spells within, the above method would allow him to share his spellbook with his students. The downside (ie "why other wizards don't use this method as the main way to get their spellbook") is that word "share": if you both wanna prep spells today, but the student doesn't have a spellbook of their own, they have to use yours if they want.

The "Collegiate Wizard" feat will give extra spells free via research. This one's a bit more abstract: your students have "spent" the same amount of money, but have learned twice as many spells, in exchange for spending a feat instead of extra money. It's kinda like if you taught them some tricks for saving space and money when making their spellbooks. This is a definite drawback, because feats are precious so most wizards would be fine scribing as normal, but for a wannabe-wizard with an empty wallet, this is a better tradeoff.

[King of Nowhere]

By the rules as written even if his spell-book did cost 0 gp he would not be able to use it due to WOP
stuff about strict interpretations of wop
yes, i am aware that the RAW of wop does not support my character concept, which is why I explicitly specified

I have an idea that I really like for a character. I may just be able to play it soon, but it requires some homebrewing, and i would like to present the DM with a full plan for it.





Nothing about this indicates that the wizard who previously owned the spellbook is no longer capable of preparing spells with it - it's simply a matter of that old wizard no longer having access to their spellbook, because you murdered them and looted it off their corpse. But if a wizard has a spellbook, and wants to teach others the spells within, the above method would allow him to share his spellbook with his students. The downside (ie "why other wizards don't use this method as the main way to get their spellbook") is that word "share": if you both wanna prep spells today, but the student doesn't have a spellbook of their own, they have to use yours if they want.

The "Collegiate Wizard" feat will give extra spells free via research. This one's a bit more abstract: your students have "spent" the same amount of money, but have learned twice as many spells, in exchange for spending a feat instead of extra money. It's kinda like if you taught them some tricks for saving space and money when making their spellbooks. This is a definite drawback, because feats are precious so most wizards would be fine scribing as normal, but for a wannabe-wizard with an empty wallet, this is a better tradeoff.
so, ultimately, you still need a normal spell book. A family, or a small group of people, can share a spell book and the associated costs.
but still, not good enough. If I want every commoner in the city (at least, every commoner with an int of at least 10) to access prestidigitation, there aren't enough spell books around.
most importantly, if i claim that magic can be made cheaply, and I try to prove it by using a ridiculously expensive spell book that i loaned from someone else, i'm not just wrong, i'm also a hypocrite.
EDIT: although pushing for a standardized way of scribing spells so that they can be shared more easily is definitely in my character's to-do list

[noob]

yes, i am aware that the RAW of wop does not support my character concept, which is why I explicitly specified





so, ultimately, you still need a normal spell book. A family, or a small group of people, can share a spell book and the associated costs.
but still, not good enough. If I want every commoner in the city (at least, every commoner with an int of at least 10) to access prestidigitation, there aren't enough spell books around.
most importantly, if i claim that magic can be made cheaply, and I try to prove it by using a ridiculously expensive spell book that i loaned from someone else, i'm not just wrong, i'm also a hypocrite.
EDIT: although pushing for a standardized way of scribing spells so that they can be shared more easily is definitely in my character's to-do list
If you can share each spell between 24 people(by making each spell be in its own spellbook) and use geometer writing each spell costs a total of 4 gp per person which can access it in a day(regardless of spell level) which is only 4 times the cost of the material component a person spends in casting the spell a single time.

With sharing and a geometer the spell component cost is higher than the cost of the spell itself after four days.
You realise that it is hard to do cheaper due to the spell component cost which is of 1 gp when not specified.
You could try to teach the eschew material components feat to people but if the gm pulls out the feat retraining rules it will cost a whole lot to teach it to each commoner.
If you use spell component pouches realise that it will cost 5gp per commoner but it generates components only by raw and if you use that to save the cost of the components you realise that spcs are magical infinite generators of food, salt and many other things.

If you use architecture as a spellbook (alternate spellbook options) then you can have all the commoners of the town prepare spells by looking at a single building.

The cost of components is quickly much higher than the cost of the spellbooks when you share them and have them written by geometers so you can not make magic be cheap without an huge investment in each caster to make them learn eschew material components or abusing the rules as written to have the spc be an infinite component generator.
Or you only use the spells that have no components and there is very few of them but prestidigitation is among them.

So minimum investment to make all the commoners of a village cast prestiditation: make a building that costs roughly 500 gold(cheaper than any non stronghold builder house)
Now all of them can prepare prestidigitation by studying that building and since a building is huge(two cubes of 10 feet by ten feet) they can be numerous around it.

Because yes if you see the rules as written houses costs at least 1000 gp so it is not as if commoners could not invest a lot.
A gold coin is not nearly as huge as you believe so if all the villagers of a village pooled up their money they could get a building with prestidigitation and then save time on cleaning (but only after going on an epic quest of self discovery to change their commoner level to a wizard level and those are much harder to find than gold coins).
Because yes ultimately the cost of spending years training to be a wizard and of doing self discovery quests to retrain their level into a level of wizard is far higher than the cost of pooling up some gold to get a shared spellbook.

So unless you make them go and do quests to gain exp to gain a level in wizard the least expensive thing in the whole chain is already the spellbook.

[King of Nowhere]

What's this thing about 1 gp per spell? I find no mention of it in the srd, anywhere

[noob]

What's this thing about 1 gp per spell? I find no mention of it in the srd, anywhere

It is usually deduced from the eschew material component clause about components being eschewed only if they cost 1gp or less.
So people assumes that since no spells ever says their material component cost unless the cost is over 1 gp that it means that spells usually have a component costing 1 gp for rounding things out instead of having to calculate how readily accessible bat guano, tiny bits of fur with glass rods, pinches of iron dust, tiny bells and so on are.
If the spell have no components then it does not cost anything but I am not sure you will find hundreds of tiny bells without starting to pay significant wages to someone to start making them(likewise for pinches of iron dust)
You could start having fun trying to explain how you somehow keep commoners fed, train them to be wizards and manage to oversee the production of all the odd things for spell components but that will quickly become boring and very much like playing an artificer and not like playing a wizard.

[DMVerdandi]

Homebrew I can give you an idea.
RAW, what you want is next to impossible.

Ready? So, here is what you do. Make a wizard variant class. Lets call it... the renunciate [tyagi in sanskrit].

Here is how it works:



By sacrificing all of the bonus feats of the wizard, all weapon and armor proficiencies[only has proficiency in unarmed attacks], and any starting wealth:

-Wizard becomes a divine caster, casts from all spell casting lists. Prepares as cleric.
-must use wis and int as main caster score

-Cannot own use or craft magic items
-INT and WIS to AC
-Can transfer a spell slot to another spellcaster on a successful diplomacy check
-Can make a improvised spontaneous domain daily
- gets divine version of "collective" from pathfinder.


Spells come from worship of the Nousphere [world mind, akasha, interlinking web of consciousness].
Instead of studying books, the Renunciate communes with the concept of magic and knowledge itself and gains insight into magic and spellcasting.

They can cast it all, but have to give up all worldly goods to do so. Attempting to do any of the things that it cannot cuts off their connection to the nousphere and they must either have the atonement spell cast on them or sacrifice 1-d6 levels to regain the connection.



TEACHING the connection is easily doable but because it's not profitable, less people do it. You can't have any magical possessions at all. Everything must be done through effort of casting, or by hand.

[noob]

By the rules as written a commoner is a powerhouse in productivity once they get some skill ranks and the skill focus feat and at that point it can snowball and once the whole population is skilled the current spellbook costs are merely huge investments even without sharing.
You are trying to reach standards of costs way too low to make sense: just by teaching commoners to be skilled at farming you can already get them to produce enough gold for them to save up enough for a spellbook at full cost per commoner in a short time.
spellbooks are cheap it is the rest of wizarding that is expensive such as studying for 1d6 years, going on quests where you risk your life to progress or spending even more years in dedication to studying and so on.

By rules as written profession farmer works the following way when trained:

You can practice your trade and make a decent living, earning about half your Profession check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work.
so a farmer that have 4 ranks in it, -2 from wisdom because they were unlucky and +3 from skill focus because you went and helped them study farming will gain on average 7.5 gp per week.
So assuming the cost of living is of a half gp per day(in fact it is much lower) they will buy a masterwork farming item after on average 13 weeks at which point they gain on average 8.5 gp per week(so 5 gp saved a week).
So afterwards they can buy 1 spell per twenty weeks if they want to.
Since the number of spells interesting for a level 1 commoner or level 1 wizard that lives as a commoner is very low they will buy like 5 spells in two year and have all the spells they will ever want and actually be able to cast.

So it all breaks down to "teach commoner how to be skilled farmers and outfit them with masterwork tools and they will be able to gain enough gold for spellbooks to not look that much expensive"
Because the reason commoners are poor is that they are unskilled labour and so are very unproductive in their fields.
So add to your build "maximise skill ranks in profession farmer and take skill focus farmer in order to be good at teaching farming to commoners" and you will do better your job at increasing spell access and wealth than by trying to find ways to cheapen spellbooks which are not the expensive part of wizarding.

What is expensive however is the cost of spending 1d6 year studying magic which probably also needs a lot of things other than a spellbook such as a tutor, a lot of writings about magical theory, the opportunity cost of not farming, the day to day costs of living and so on.
On the very long term however casters are useful to increase significantly the wealth gain of farmers because they can create items that grants competence bonuses to farming that will grant boosts over long times(ex: an item that grants +10 to farming costs 10.000 and will provide back its cost in 2000 weeks so after 40 years).

[mabriss lethe]

Instead of training the common people as wizards... why not Magewrights? They don't need spellbooks, they simply memorize the spells they learn, and a lot of their spell list is geared toward utility.

[noob]

Instead of training the common people as wizards... why not Magewrights? They don't need spellbooks, they simply memorize the spells they learn, and a lot of their spell list is geared toward utility.

magewrights probably also needs huge training times and as I said the cost of training to take a class is quite prohibitive(it includes at least one year of training in which you are not productive yet) so the spellbook is quite negligible.
However the spell list is probably way more useful for commoners.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Geometer is the first thing I can think of that grants a cheaper spellbook, but it's actually quite high-level and not suited for NPC apprentices.

Collegiate Wizard and Greyhawk Method get you more free spells on level-up (they have to be taken at level 1 and don't stack, but a little homebrew could solve that). Aerenal Arcanist adds one more free spell per level. Apprentice (Spellcaster) lets an apprentice copy spells from the master's spellbook at no cost.

So if you had a sixth-level elven wizard with two flaws, you could take Collegiate Wizard (normal benefit) and houseruled Greyhawk Method (stacking +2 free spells at each level) plus Apprentice at level 1, Aernal Arcanist at level 3, and Mentor at level 6. That gets you a "free" spellbook with 15 + INT first-level spells, 12 second-level spells, and 13 third-level spells, and your apprentices can copy any of these spells for free. That effectively turns your tutoring into the #1 source of free scribing, and you got them free for yourself, too.

[zlefin]

From a homebrew perspective, my thought would be that the alternate 'spellbook' is each person's own body. And since the ingredients and ink normally used in a spellbook are also fancy, you need something cheap yet in some sense valuable, so you have to use your own blood. So using your own blood to write with, and something to ensure the writing stays (something like a branding iron maybe?, except suited to writing with, so basically just a hot poker; or maybe you can use anything to apply it, but the blood has to be heated to near boiling)

Then you can write down spells, and reference them as needed. Much as how each wizard needs their own personal spellbook (who knows why, let's say every spell requires a little bit of customization to work right for each caster, or something), each person needs to write their own copies of spells on their skin.

Also everytime you memorize or cast the spells, the etching on your body hurt, and maybe glow as well.

Spells known has some limits based on the amount of space on your body; it doesn't much matter if you only have a few, but it significantly interferes were you to know many of them.

From a worldbuilding perspective, this could explain why most wizards don't do it; because it hurts, a lot at times.

[noob]

From a homebrew perspective, my thought would be that the alternate 'spellbook' is each person's own body. And since the ingredients and ink normally used in a spellbook are also fancy, you need something cheap yet in some sense valuable, so you have to use your own blood. So using your own blood to write with, and something to ensure the writing stays (something like a branding iron maybe?, except suited to writing with, so basically just a hot poker; or maybe you can use anything to apply it, but the blood has to be heated to near boiling)

Then you can write down spells, and reference them as needed. Much as how each wizard needs their own personal spellbook (who knows why, let's say every spell requires a little bit of customization to work right for each caster, or something), each person needs to write their own copies of spells on their skin.

Also everytime you memorize or cast the spells, the etching on your body hurt, and maybe glow as well.

Spells known has some limits based on the amount of space on your body; it doesn't much matter if you only have a few, but it significantly interferes were you to know many of them.

From a worldbuilding perspective, this could explain why most wizards don't do it; because it hurts, a lot at times.
Once the practice is spread a bit among commoners I could see an increase in high level wizards deciding "I should get teleport this way in order to still be able to cast it when I lose my spellbook".
Or not since tattooing spells on yourself can be done less painfully when using ink (with ink it already exists in the alternate spellbook list).
So only high level wizards that wants to fit in would take the painful way.

[aglondier]

It seems to me that a Vow of Poverty runs counter to your stated goals.
You want to
• pay your parents debt and free them from slavery
• pay for your friends to finish their studies
• research an affordable alternative to expensive spellbooks
• educate the common folk in basic magic

Expensive. But achievable. Providing spellcasting services can be quite lucrative.

Perhaps instead of gold, you could substitute a sacrifice of some sort... writing your spellbook in your own magical blood rather than spending gold on expensive reagents...perhaps the blood of magical creatures harvested yourself, with crushed ore/feathers/bones you gathered yourself...yes, college wizards are institutionally lazy, paying for their components rather than getting them themselves...

Unless you are suggesting that every commoner pick up a level of wizard, then you need a way to give them a taste of magic. In a long ago Birthright campaign, my wizard regent developed a feat that he "retrained" his commoner population in, since everyone gets a feat at 1st level...

Arcane Dabbler, prereq Int 10, character gains a single Cantrip spell slot and a 'spellbook' containing 3 cantrips of their choice, chosen from the Wizard spell list.

Most chose Mending, Light, and Prestidigitation. And we were using the rule variation of at-will cantrips like pathfinder.
Many also chose to take Find Familiar as their second 1st level feat (for being human), making it very common to see talking animals and such around town. I also had a follow on feat that granted a single 1st level spell slot and 2 spells for their spellbook with Int 11 and Arcane Dabbler as prerequisites...One of the other players had his rogue take it...

Also, look into cut back versions of the high level Item Creation feats. Ring Apprentice (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/3rd-party-feats/d20pfsrd-com-publishing/general-feats/ring-apprentice/) for example. The common folk have no great need for mighty rings of Power, whereas a ring of neat-little-quirk works just fine...

[noob]

It seems to me that a Vow of Poverty runs counter to your stated goals.
You want to
• pay your parents debt and free them from slavery
• pay for your friends to finish their studies
• research an affordable alternative to expensive spellbooks
• educate the common folk in basic magic

Expensive. But achievable. Providing spellcasting services can be quite lucrative.

Perhaps instead of gold, you could substitute a sacrifice of some sort... writing your spellbook in your own magical blood rather than spending gold on expensive reagents...perhaps the blood of magical creatures harvested yourself, with crushed ore/feathers/bones you gathered yourself...yes, college wizards are institutionally lazy, paying for their components rather than getting them themselves...

Unless you are suggesting that every commoner pick up a level of wizard, then you need a way to give them a taste of magic. In a long ago Birthright campaign, my wizard regent developed a feat that he "retrained" his commoner population in, since everyone gets a feat at 1st level...

Arcane Dabbler, prereq Int 10, character gains a single Cantrip spell slot and a 'spellbook' containing 3 cantrips of their choice, chosen from the Wizard spell list.

Most chose Mending, Light, and Prestidigitation. And we were using the rule variation of at-will cantrips like pathfinder.
Many also chose to take Find Familiar as their second 1st level feat (for being human), making it very common to see talking animals and such around town. I also had a follow on feat that granted a single 1st level spell slot and 2 spells for their spellbook with Int 11 and Arcane Dabbler as prerequisites...One of the other players had his rogue take it...

Also, look into cut back versions of the high level Item Creation feats. Ring Apprentice (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/3rd-party-feats/d20pfsrd-com-publishing/general-feats/ring-apprentice/) for example. The common folk have no great need for mighty rings of Power, whereas a ring of neat-little-quirk works just fine...
Ring apprentice is still quite hard to access needing a cl of 3.
The spellbook granting feat you described have a non homebrew variant but I think that the benefit to the quality of life from skill focus (profession: farmer) is probably higher than either of those feats due to the increased wage.

[King of Nowhere]

It seems to me that a Vow of Poverty runs counter to your stated goals.
You want to
• pay your parents debt and free them from slavery
• pay for your friends to finish their studies
• research an affordable alternative to expensive spellbooks
• educate the common folk in basic magic

Expensive. But achievable. Providing spellcasting services can be quite lucrative.


the wop states that you can give your gold to a charity or other good cause. you can keep the gold for a while, if you are not using it and you are planning to give it away at a future date.
so if i start by saving money to pay my parents debt, i don't see any problem.
afterwards, i would start a university, and my idea is that all my money would go to it. it is a non-profit organization devoted to teaching for free, so it should be fine.




Unless you are suggesting that every commoner pick up a level of wizard, then you need a way to give them a taste of magic. In a long ago Birthright campaign, my wizard regent developed a feat that he "retrained" his commoner population in, since everyone gets a feat at 1st level...

Arcane Dabbler, prereq Int 10, character gains a single Cantrip spell slot and a 'spellbook' containing 3 cantrips of their choice, chosen from the Wizard spell list.

Most chose Mending, Light, and Prestidigitation. And we were using the rule variation of at-will cantrips like pathfinder.
Many also chose to take Find Familiar as their second 1st level feat (for being human), making it very common to see talking animals and such around town. I also had a follow on feat that granted a single 1st level spell slot and 2 spells for their spellbook with Int 11 and Arcane Dabbler as prerequisites...One of the other players had his rogue take it...

tthat would be an excellent RAW framework for what my character would be trying to achieve with the population.

[noob]

the wop states that you can give your gold to a charity or other good cause. you can keep the gold for a while, if you are not using it and you are planning to give it away at a future date.
so if i start by saving money to pay my parents debt, i don't see any problem.
afterwards, i would start a university, and my idea is that all my money would go to it. it is a non-profit organization devoted to teaching for free, so it should be fine.


tthat would be an excellent RAW framework for what my character would be trying to achieve with the population.

If you use pathfinder rules it costs 50 gp and 5 days to retrain a feat for a level 1 commoner.
with 3.5 rules it takes 2 weeks and 50 gold to retrain a feat(does not increase with level but the time cost is higher).
Since you were considering that spending 4 gold per spell per person who wants to cast it was too much then this retraining cost is 12.5 times too much.
You can if you think xp is entirely free use dark chaos shuffle and instead spend 1000 xp.

[aglondier]

If you use pathfinder rules it costs 50 gp and 5 days to retrain a feat for a level 1 commoner.
with 3.5 rules it takes 2 weeks and 50 gold to retrain a feat(does not increase with level but the time cost is higher).
Since you were considering that spending 4 gold per spell per person who wants to cast it was too much then this retraining cost is 12.5 times too much.
You can if you think xp is entirely free use dark chaos shuffle and instead spend 1000 xp.

My read is that it would cost You 50gp and 5 days to retrain if you were the level 1 commoner and had to pay someone to train you. As you are actually the Trainer, you can choose to forego the fee and just give the retraining for free.

[noob]

My read is that it would cost You 50gp and 5 days to retrain if you were the level 1 commoner and had to pay someone to train you. As you are actually the Trainer, you can choose to forego the fee and just give the retraining for free.

It can also be interpreted as "you need materials costing nearly 50 gp for the retraining such as training dummies, spheres of annihilation, the eye of vecna, the extra food due to how you are doing unusual amounts of efforts and so on as well as the person retraining you"

[aglondier]

It can also be interpreted as "you need materials costing nearly 50 gp for the retraining such as training dummies, spheres of annihilation, the eye of vecna, the extra food due to how you are doing unusual amounts of efforts and so on as well as the person retraining you"

Eh...sounds like a deliberately-left-vague-so-the-gm-can-deal-with-it kind of situation...

[noob]

Eh...sounds like a deliberately-left-vague-so-the-gm-can-deal-with-it kind of situation...

So the question is how much cooperative the gm is with the idea to insert high amounts of magic in their setting or with the character concept.
As a plus this character task should fit within downtime and not be an adventure in itself in order to avoid stealing screen time.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Even a first level spellcaster can make a very decent living just by offering his spellcasting services (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm#spell).
Silver Marches also has some examples of this (spellcasters using Mage Hand to serve drinks in crowded bars is one).

Apprentice: Spellcaster (DMG2) also lets you copy off your mentors spellbook for free (you still have scribing costs though).

And since he comes from a family of merchants shouldn't he have Mercantile Background (PGtF)?
That would open up Scribe Scroll as another possible income source, as would any other crafting cost reducer.

So i have to assume that your character and the people who dropped out are simply very lazy or just not very smart,
since anyone looking to hire a spellcaster would probably look at the local magic school first. :smalltongue:

Ignoring that though you could always open a public spell library and let people use the rules to master a foreign spellbook (DC 25 + spell level), perhaps for a small fee to cover costs and acquire more spells.
Obviously they'd need some help to reach the necessary spellcraft DC, but that's what Aid Another and loaned masterwork tools are for.

Realistically all your little charity project needs to offer would be useful cantrips and first level spells. That's a few thousand gp at most, which shouldn't be too hard to get.
It's not like you need to get copies of Wish or Meteor Strike, anyone who gets above 1st level spells should be more than capable of paying for further training on their own.


tthat would be an excellent RAW framework for what my character would be trying to achieve with the population.
PGtF also has the Magical Training feat which does this. You could just file off the regional requirements and use it as-is.

[lylsyly]

Dragon #357 Eidetic Spellcaster Alternate Class Feature.

1st Level Lose Familiar and Scribe Scroll. Retain your spells in your awesome memory. No Spellbook needed ;-)

[sleepyphoenixx]

Dragon #357 Eidetic Spellcaster Alternate Class Feature.

1st Level Lose Familiar and Scribe Scroll. Retain your spells in your awesome memory. No Spellbook needed ;-)

You still have to pay the scribing costs though, so it's useless for the OPs purposes.
If your main concern is scribing costs it's actually worse than doing things the normal way since you can't use Blessed Books.

[Hish]

I think a shared spellbook is still an option here. There are two things that allow a spellbook to be shared among many people: Spells don’t have to be prepared every day, and spells don’t have to be prepared immediately following 8 hours rest

If a town has one spellbook, 16 people can use it in a day without anyone having to prepare their spells in the middle of the night. Even if your time slot is 5 PM, you don’t have to sleep from 9 to 5, you just have to get a good night’s sleep the night before. Splitting the cost of a spellbook 16 ways is still expensive for a commoner, so to further cut costs you only prepare spells once per week. This allows 7x16=112 people to use one spellbook, as long as they stretch their prepared spells out for a full week. This brings the cost of a cantrip or a 1st level spell down to 9 sp per person.

Now that I’ve worked that all out, I realize it’s a lot worse than Magical Training with the regional requirement removed, since you still need a level in Wizard and you get fewer uses of your spells. On the other hand, this allows higher level spells

[King of Nowhere]

I am not interested in the RAW mechanics of teaching magic to commoners. let fluff be fluff, please. if we wanted to apply RAW to commoners and economy, the world economy would break in weeks.
giving lessons to commoners is like putting a tutorial video on youtube; there's no reason to make a fuss about RAW.

And of course there is a lot of stuff that will have to get dm approval. Which is why I'm trying to form a plan so that I can present the dm something detailed and he can take an informed decision.

The first thing that came to my mind regarding the spellbook is that it would take more time to prepare spells. Say, I need 3 hours in the morning instead of just 1. enough that most wizards would still rather pay a small fraction of their wbl.
Sharing the spellbook is also a good idea. I'm certainly going to leave all my spells freely accessible in my academy (well, except perhaps the nasty ones that will require something akin to gun licence). But how can I adventure if I have to leave it behind? It can be made to work, though, if the DM agrees.
Having to use my own blood to write it and taking a permanent constitution penalty for it would also be possible; though it's not exactly something I can recommend to other people.

Nobody has suggested anything for the rest of the build. To recap: I want to be mainly a support, and I want to stretch my spell slots as much as possible because I won't get many.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Nobody has suggested anything for the rest of the build. To recap: I want to be mainly a support, and I want to stretch my spell slots as much as possible because I won't get many.

War Weaver (HoB) is probably the best option for both of those.

[noob]

An alternative is just pilfering treantmonk guide to being a god wizard (exactly what you described: support rather than murder)
Outside of that there is tricks to cast all the spells you want if you are willing to have your build come online only at high levels like "healer then take rainbow warsnake and finally cast spontaneously all the cleric spells"
Or yet "abuse massively chaos spells to spontaneously recall any spell you ever did cast"
And the vast majority of the people would benefit from becoming healers over commoners especially since sanctified spells are a thing (prove you are a nice person just like that: what is not to like?).

[King of Nowhere]

anything good i can get out of exhalted feats? none of them look like they could be much useful for a wizard...

[King of Nowhere]

also, i'm sure there was a feat to promote some cross-class skills to class skills. I'll need to max diplomacy and have at least a decent perform, already at low level.
what was the feat's name?

[Hish]

also, i'm sure there was a feat to promote some cross-class skills to class skills. I'll need to max diplomacy and have at least a decent perform, already at low level.
what was the feat's name?

There’s Flexible Mind from Dragon 326, which gives you two class skills and an aura of chaos. There’s also Skill Prodigy from Kingdoms of Kalamar, which gives a number of class skills equal to your int score.

[DMVerdandi]

Alright, so because the homebrew I made didn't work, we are just going to go dragon at best.


Wizard
>WIZARD 4[Eidetic spellcaster, Spontaneous Divination, Spell point Variant Casting, Vitalizing Spell point variant] 1
>Mage of the Arcane order 7
> War Weaver 5
>Blood Magus 4

Feats needed [Cooperative spell, Enlarge spell, Endurance, Great fortitude]

This makes it cheap for you, to keep spells, you basically cast like a 5e wizard, you become apart of a guild which allows you to research spells for free, you get to be apart of a spell pool, you can create an eldritch weave for your friends, and you can use your blood and flesh as spell components.
19/20 casting

[Falontani]

Geometer is the first thing I can think of that grants a cheaper spellbook, but it's actually quite high-level and not suited for NPC apprentices.

Collegiate Wizard and Greyhawk Method get you more free spells on level-up (they have to be taken at level 1 and don't stack, but a little homebrew could solve that). Aerenal Arcanist adds one more free spell per level. Apprentice (Spellcaster) lets an apprentice copy spells from the master's spellbook at no cost.

So if you had a sixth-level elven wizard with two flaws, you could take Collegiate Wizard (normal benefit) and houseruled Greyhawk Method (stacking +2 free spells at each level) plus Apprentice at level 1, Aernal Arcanist at level 3, and Mentor at level 6. That gets you a "free" spellbook with 15 + INT first-level spells, 12 second-level spells, and 13 third-level spells, and your apprentices can copy any of these spells for free. That effectively turns your tutoring into the #1 source of free scribing, and you got them free for yourself, too.
Race/Class/Alignment: Lawful Good Grey Elf Saint Wizard 12/Geometer 3/Mage of the Arcane Order 3

Starting Stats:



Stat

28 Pt

32 Pt

Racial

Level Ups (28)

Level Ups (32)



Strength

9

10

-2

12




Dexterity

12

12

+2





Constitution

14

14

-2


4, 12



Intelligence

16

16

+2





Wisdom

10

12


16

16



Charisma

13

14


4, 8

8











Level

Class

Base Attack Bonus

Fort Save

Ref Save

Will Save

Skills

Feats

Class Features


1

Elf Domain Wizard

+0

+0

+0

+2

2+int

Scribe Scroll(b), Sacred Vow, Apprentice: Spellcaster(f), Aereni Focus: Diplomacy(f)

Generalist Wizardry, Summon Familiar, Wizardly Domain (see below)



2

Wizard

+1

+0

+0

+3

2+int





3

Wizard

+1

+1

+1

+3

2+int

Vow of Poverty




4

Wizard

+2

+1

+1

+4

2+int

Vow of Nonviolence(v)




5

Domain Granted Power Wizard

+2

+1

+1

+4

2+int

Apprentice: Spellcaster, Mentor: Spellcaster

Community Domain



6

Wizard

+3

+2

+2

+5

2+int

Leadership, Celestial Familiar(v)




7

Geometer

+3

+2

+2

+7

2+int


Glyph of Warding, Draw Spellglyph



8

Geometer

+4

+2

+2

+8

2+int

Words of Creation(v)

Book of Geometry



9

Geometer

+4

+3

+3

+8

2+int

Favored in Guild*

Sigilsight, Pass Sigil



10

Wizard

+4

+3

+3

+8

2+int

Nimbus of Light(v)




11

Wizard

+5

+3

+3

+9

2+int





12

Wizard

+5

+4

+4

+9

2+int

Guildmaster, Sacred Radiance(v)




13

Wizard

+6

+4

+4

+10

2+int

Eschew Materials(b)




14

Wizard

+6

+4

+4

+10

2+int

Servant of the Heavens(v)




15

Wizard

+7

+5

+5

+11

2+int

Cooperative Spell




16

Mage of the Arcane Order

+7

+5

+5

+13

2+int

Defender of the Homeland(v)

Guild Member, Spellpool 1



17

Mage of the Arcane Order

+8

+5

+5

+14

2+int

Nonlethal Substitution(b)




18

Mage of the Arcane Order

+8

+6

+6

+14

2+int

Craft Wondrous Item, Stigmata(v)

Spellpool 2



19

Saint

See the template… I can’t be bothered at the moment



20




OKIDOKI!

Right off we start out as an elf so we can get the Elf Wizard subclass, then we nab the ACF of Domain Wizard.


At 1st level, a domain wizard selects an arcane domain from those listed below. (At the DM's discretion, the player might create an alternatively themed domain instead.) Once selected, the domain may never be changed.
Well we need our own custom arcane domain. I suggest the community domain.

0—Create Water
1—Amanuensis
2—Unseen Crafter
3—Create Food and Water
4—Fabricate
5—Wall of Stone
6—Permanent Image
7—Bones of the Earth
8—True Creation
9—Genesis
We get diplomacy as a class skill and gain a +5 bonus to it right off. Add in Cha and ranks and you are a decent diplomancer for a wizard.
You stated you were doing well as a wizard before you took your vow, so I took your vow of poverty at level 3, rather than try to fit it at level 1. Vow of Nonviolence is harsh, yes. But your dedication is rewarded. If you do not think it apt, then please feel free to change it. I personally enjoy that +4 bonus to DCs.

The community domain will grant you an additional +2 to your diplomacy, and give you an SLA that isn’t native to the wizard spell list. You also become a mentor for free as described in the Apprentice feat.

Leadership is a powerful feat, and I think this is the true beginnings of your nonprofit. Favored in Guild is a sad tax feat for you. Although it is necessary for your level 12 feat.
Guildmaster! It’s benefits are astounding in that you effectively get swappable cohorts, but it is a fluff feat for you. This is you fully creating your guild. And that is what you are intending to make if you wish to teach others. Decide your guild fees, but I expect the guild to somewhat look like the following:
[SPOILER=Arcane School for All]
Arcane School for All
Associated Classes: Adept, Artificer, Beguiler, Duskblade, Magewright, Sorcerer, Wizard, and Wu Jen.
Associated Skills: Concentration, Craft (any), Decipher Script, Knowledge (arcana), Spellcraft, Use Magic Device.
Entry Requirements: Anyone who wishes to join may attempt to join. The initiate must have at least 10 intelligence, wisdom, or charisma, and be literate. An initiate who does not wish to take a level in one of the associated classes must select the Magical Training feat, and after two weeks of learning may use the retraining rules to swap out a preexisting feat for the Magical Training feat.

The Arcane School for All is open to all and easily accessible. Anyone coming to a city that the guild operates in may learn of its existence with a Gather Information check DC 10.


At the simplest level, walls can be graven or painted with spell scripts (essentially serving as an oversized spellbook of plaster and stone).
Aside from the advantage of its permanence and strength, a structure can record spells that can then be prepared or learned by any number of spellcasters for as long the structure stands. At the same time, that openness means that anyone who visits the site (friend or foe) might be able to comprehend and ultimately use the spell scribed there.
Preparing a spell from a structure works like preparing a spell from a borrowed spellbook (see page 178 of the Player’s Handbook). A spellcaster must first decipher the arcane markings with a read magic spell or a Spellcraft check (DC 20 + spell level), then succeed on a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + spell level) to prepare the spell. An arcanist can also scribe a structure spell into her spellbook (as if transcribing from another caster’s spellbook) if she so desires.
Wall Spells: Carving or painting an arcane formula on a structure’s walls works much like scribing a spell into a spellbook on a larger scale. It takes 100 square feet of wall space to serve as one page of a spellbook (so that a 9th-level spell requires 900 square feet, or an area 30 feet on a side), and with the increased size, an arcanist must use up a greater volume of special materials to record the spell (a cost of 300 gp per spell level).
Recording a spell on a wall requires a 24 hours plus an additional 12 hours per 100 square feet of space used, and the spellcaster scribing the wall must succeed on a DC 15 Craft (painting) check. Carving or chiseling a spell into a wooden or stone wall requires a 24 hours plus an additional 48 hours per 100 square feet of space used, and requires the spellcaster to succeed on a DC 20 Craft (woodworking) or Craft (stoneworking) check.
It’s possible for a wizard to map out the precise symbols to be painted, cut, or carved without doing the final work. Preparing the surface by sketching or penciling the design in such a way that workers unfamiliar with the spell can then paint or carve its symbols requires a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + spell level) and takes 24 hours plus an additional 1 hour per 100 square feet, after which other workers can make Craft checks in the wizard’s place and complete the process as described above. Scribing a spell upon an outer wall costs 3 times as much as putting it in a spellbook. Anyone that has learned from you, or learned from someone that has learned from you, and so forth gains a +2 bonus on spellcraft checks to prepare a spell that you have written down. Once a mage has made a spellcraft (DC 25+highest spell level) check they may freely use a public spellbook from then on. The average commoner with 10 int and spellcraft cross classed will have a +4 bonus, and having a masterwork tool (such as a writing denoting how to do it) gains an additional +2. Taking 10 on the check allows them to prepare up to first level spells daily without mastering the spellbook, hitting the DC 25 allows them mastery over the cantrips and DC 26 for the first level spells.
… I’m sorry I’m getting tired and want to submit this post soon, so I’m going to summarize from here on…
Blessed Book of Boccob. Each one costs 12,500 GP. It makes it free to scribe spells within the book. Then from Eberron are the Spellshards. Spellshards are cheap, but only contain “20” pages. Instead of costing 100 GP for a spellbook it is 3 GP. Having several spellshards within the guild with varying degrees of spell level allows for multiple people to prepare spells at once.

Yea… someone else take over please…[/spoiler

[zlefin]

I am not interested in the RAW mechanics of teaching magic to commoners. let fluff be fluff, please. if we wanted to apply RAW to commoners and economy, the world economy would break in weeks.
giving lessons to commoners is like putting a tutorial video on youtube; there's no reason to make a fuss about RAW.

And of course there is a lot of stuff that will have to get dm approval. Which is why I'm trying to form a plan so that I can present the dm something detailed and he can take an informed decision.

The first thing that came to my mind regarding the spellbook is that it would take more time to prepare spells. Say, I need 3 hours in the morning instead of just 1. enough that most wizards would still rather pay a small fraction of their wbl.
Sharing the spellbook is also a good idea. I'm certainly going to leave all my spells freely accessible in my academy (well, except perhaps the nasty ones that will require something akin to gun licence). But how can I adventure if I have to leave it behind? It can be made to work, though, if the DM agrees.
Having to use my own blood to write it and taking a permanent constitution penalty for it would also be possible; though it's not exactly something I can recommend to other people.

Nobody has suggested anything for the rest of the build. To recap: I want to be mainly a support, and I want to stretch my spell slots as much as possible because I won't get many.

using blood shouldn't cause a permanent constitution penalty, the blood gets replaced over time. It's just painful and unpleasant.

[Jack_Simth]

You want an Easy Bake Wizard (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?325933-Easy-Bake-Wizard-Handbook).
They key bits for you:

"Sub level: Eidetic Spellcaster ACF (DragMag #357) – No Familiar, No Spellbook, No Scribe Scroll – spells stored in your mind, burn magical incense to learn more for same price as writing more into a spellbook"
"Feat: Collegiate Wizard (CArc) – not compatible with prestige classes unfortunately, gives you lots of spells known for free"

There's more, useful things you can do, but that's the core of it that you'll want for this.

Eidetic Spellcaster does cost you a lot - no scribe scroll, no familiar (and thus, you also can't take those sweet, sweet ACF's that replace your familiar), and you're not making money selling scrolls to adventurers out of the gate. You can still learn more spells... if you find a source... but sharing them is also much harder (can't just copy them out of your book, you'll need to scribe a scroll first, and you traded out that feat). You'll also never be able to make use of a Blessed Book.
Collegiate Wizard helps with that (doubles the free spells per level), but of course, you're spending a feat for it.

In general, though, you actually want to figure out how to train folks to be Clerics and Druids. No spellbook dependency, and the lower-level spells are more useful for society at large.

[King of Nowhere]

Race/Class/Alignment: Lawful Good Grey Elf Saint Wizard 12/Geometer 3/Mage of the Arcane Order 3

Starting Stats:



Stat

28 Pt

32 Pt

Racial

Level Ups (28)

Level Ups (32)



Strength

9

10

-2

12




Dexterity

12

12

+2





Constitution

14

14

-2


4, 12



Intelligence

16

16

+2





Wisdom

10

12


16

16



Charisma

13

14


4, 8

8











Level

Class

Base Attack Bonus

Fort Save

Ref Save

Will Save

Skills

Feats

Class Features


1

Elf Domain Wizard

+0

+0

+0

+2

2+int

Scribe Scroll(b), Sacred Vow, Apprentice: Spellcaster(f), Aereni Focus: Diplomacy(f)

Generalist Wizardry, Summon Familiar, Wizardly Domain (see below)



2

Wizard

+1

+0

+0

+3

2+int





3

Wizard

+1

+1

+1

+3

2+int

Vow of Poverty




4

Wizard

+2

+1

+1

+4

2+int

Vow of Nonviolence(v)




5

Domain Granted Power Wizard

+2

+1

+1

+4

2+int

Apprentice: Spellcaster, Mentor: Spellcaster

Community Domain



6

Wizard

+3

+2

+2

+5

2+int

Leadership, Celestial Familiar(v)




7

Geometer

+3

+2

+2

+7

2+int


Glyph of Warding, Draw Spellglyph



8

Geometer

+4

+2

+2

+8

2+int

Words of Creation(v)

Book of Geometry



9

Geometer

+4

+3

+3

+8

2+int

Favored in Guild*

Sigilsight, Pass Sigil



10

Wizard

+4

+3

+3

+8

2+int

Nimbus of Light(v)




11

Wizard

+5

+3

+3

+9

2+int





12

Wizard

+5

+4

+4

+9

2+int

Guildmaster, Sacred Radiance(v)




13

Wizard

+6

+4

+4

+10

2+int

Eschew Materials(b)




14

Wizard

+6

+4

+4

+10

2+int

Servant of the Heavens(v)




15

Wizard

+7

+5

+5

+11

2+int

Cooperative Spell




16

Mage of the Arcane Order

+7

+5

+5

+13

2+int

Defender of the Homeland(v)

Guild Member, Spellpool 1



17

Mage of the Arcane Order

+8

+5

+5

+14

2+int

Nonlethal Substitution(b)




18

Mage of the Arcane Order

+8

+6

+6

+14

2+int

Craft Wondrous Item, Stigmata(v)

Spellpool 2



19

Saint

See the template… I can’t be bothered at the moment



20




OKIDOKI!

Right off we start out as an elf so we can get the Elf Wizard subclass, then we nab the ACF of Domain Wizard.


Well we need our own custom arcane domain. I suggest the community domain.

0—Create Water
1—Amanuensis
2—Unseen Crafter
3—Create Food and Water
4—Fabricate
5—Wall of Stone
6—Permanent Image
7—Bones of the Earth
8—True Creation
9—Genesis
We get diplomacy as a class skill and gain a +5 bonus to it right off. Add in Cha and ranks and you are a decent diplomancer for a wizard.
You stated you were doing well as a wizard before you took your vow, so I took your vow of poverty at level 3, rather than try to fit it at level 1. Vow of Nonviolence is harsh, yes. But your dedication is rewarded. If you do not think it apt, then please feel free to change it. I personally enjoy that +4 bonus to DCs.

The community domain will grant you an additional +2 to your diplomacy, and give you an SLA that isn’t native to the wizard spell list. You also become a mentor for free as described in the Apprentice feat.

Leadership is a powerful feat, and I think this is the true beginnings of your nonprofit. Favored in Guild is a sad tax feat for you. Although it is necessary for your level 12 feat.
Guildmaster! It’s benefits are astounding in that you effectively get swappable cohorts, but it is a fluff feat for you. This is you fully creating your guild. And that is what you are intending to make if you wish to teach others. Decide your guild fees, but I expect the guild to somewhat look like the following:
[SPOILER=Arcane School for All]
Arcane School for All
Associated Classes: Adept, Artificer, Beguiler, Duskblade, Magewright, Sorcerer, Wizard, and Wu Jen.
Associated Skills: Concentration, Craft (any), Decipher Script, Knowledge (arcana), Spellcraft, Use Magic Device.
Entry Requirements: Anyone who wishes to join may attempt to join. The initiate must have at least 10 intelligence, wisdom, or charisma, and be literate. An initiate who does not wish to take a level in one of the associated classes must select the Magical Training feat, and after two weeks of learning may use the retraining rules to swap out a preexisting feat for the Magical Training feat.

The Arcane School for All is open to all and easily accessible. Anyone coming to a city that the guild operates in may learn of its existence with a Gather Information check DC 10.

Scribing a spell upon an outer wall costs 3 times as much as putting it in a spellbook. Anyone that has learned from you, or learned from someone that has learned from you, and so forth gains a +2 bonus on spellcraft checks to prepare a spell that you have written down. Once a mage has made a spellcraft (DC 25+highest spell level) check they may freely use a public spellbook from then on. The average commoner with 10 int and spellcraft cross classed will have a +4 bonus, and having a masterwork tool (such as a writing denoting how to do it) gains an additional +2. Taking 10 on the check allows them to prepare up to first level spells daily without mastering the spellbook, hitting the DC 25 allows them mastery over the cantrips and DC 26 for the first level spells.
… I’m sorry I’m getting tired and want to submit this post soon, so I’m going to summarize from here on…
Blessed Book of Boccob. Each one costs 12,500 GP. It makes it free to scribe spells within the book. Then from Eberron are the Spellshards. Spellshards are cheap, but only contain “20” pages. Instead of costing 100 GP for a spellbook it is 3 GP. Having several spellshards within the guild with varying degrees of spell level allows for multiple people to prepare spells at once.

Yea… someone else take over please…[/spoiler

wow, thanks. i'll look this over, i doubt i'll use it like this but i'll certainly take something from it.
i'd regret giving up my familiar, as i was toying with the idea of having a familiar own named archimedes that could give lessons in my place when i'm busy, in a sword in the stone ripoff homage. but that part is flexible


using blood shouldn't cause a permanent constitution penalty, the blood gets replaced over time. It's just painful and unpleasant.

using it in a magical ritual, tying your life force to something else, may cause whatever side effect i want it to cause for plot reasons :smallcool:
but i'm probably not going to use this one

[noob]

wow, thanks. i'll look this over, i doubt i'll use it like this but i'll certainly take something from it.
i'd regret giving up my familiar, as i was toying with the idea of having a familiar own named archimedes that could give lessons in my place when i'm busy, in a sword in the stone ripoff homage. but that part is flexible



using it in a magical ritual, tying your life force to something else, may cause whatever side effect i want it to cause for plot reasons :smallcool:
but i'm probably not going to use this one

Depending on how you read the rules you can reobtain your familiar with the obtain familiar feat.

[Biggus]

I'm confused, are you guys using WOP to stand for Vow of Poverty?

[King of Nowhere]

I'm confused, are you guys using WOP to stand for Vow of Poverty?

yep
though it would be a somewhat refluffed version

by the way, i may not be able to play this guy, as some other players are veering towards more evil pcs, which would be incompatible with an exhalted good:smallfrown:

[Falontani]

In the build that I posted you can drop the saint template and most of the exalted feats and the build would still work. Some aspects would be more difficult, but you could do it without the vow. Being a good wizard in a group of slightly evil is still possible, but it would take a heck of a good role player to not end up in interparty conflict. But it seems you were trying to be more of a roleplayer than anything anyways.

[noob]

In the build that I posted you can drop the saint template and most of the exalted feats and the build would still work. Some aspects would be more difficult, but you could do it without the vow. Being a good wizard in a group of slightly evil is still possible, but it would take a heck of a good roll player to not end up in interparty conflict. But it seems you were trying to be more of a roleplayer than anything anyways.

Fixed: role players are people who actually places themselves in their role and so since an actual exalted good person would think "hey I will find other adventurers to go on an adventure with rather than those evil people" if they met an evil group there would not even be conflict: they would just not join the team.
Meanwhile roll players have no problems having their character associate with whatever is available.
Good people however can associate with evil people just fine because they do not impose themselves hardly reachable standards that would be impossible when in team with someone evil.
We are talking about people who thinks that doing a single action is horrible and awful and that would instantly lose their exalted powers: those people would associate with evil people only if it was the most likely to suceed way to save the world and then would still lose their exalted powers and feel bad about themselves or try to redeem those evil people(both of which are bad for party dynamics thus why you should roll play instead of role playing).

[Falontani]

Fixed: role players are people who actually places themselves in their role and so since an actual exalted good person would think "hey I will find other adventurers to go on an adventure with rather than those evil people" if they met an evil group there would not even be conflict: they would just not join the team.
Meanwhile roll players have no problems having their character associate with whatever is available.
Good people however can associate with evil people just fine because they do not impose themselves hardly reachable standards that would be impossible when in team with someone evil.
We are talking about people who thinks that doing a single action is horrible and awful and that would instantly lose their exalted powers: those people would associate with evil people only if it was the most likely to suceed way to save the world and then would still lose their exalted powers and feel bad about themselves or try to redeem those evil people(both of which are bad for party dynamics thus why you should roll play instead of role playing).

I'm sorry... WHAT?!
Say you have placed yourself in the world. You meet a group of like minded people. People that wish to undergo an adventure to get money for reasons of their own. People who haven't done anything *yet* to show they have less than stellar morals. So you adventure with them. Eventually they do something, that while you see as evil, you understand others may consider it morally grey. Such as killing a bandit that has given up. An exalted good person wouldn't immediately say, "Eff it, I'm out mate." An exalted good character would try to teach, to help them realize why killing the bandit was a not good act. How the bandit had given up and how you could have helped the bandit get back on their feet, and do better in the world.
The difference between TN, NG, and Exalted Good isn't so black and white. A Neutral person may do good simply because it is easy. Not for the right reasons. Neutral Good will do the good thing, because it is good. Exalted Good will do the good thing because they *care*. You want everyone to be good, because in a good world many things.

In my opinion. An "Exalted" character that is only doing good because of the vows that they have made, or for the power that comes with it, should not be exalted. They are not Exalted Good, they are selfish. A person that gives money to a homeless man for clout on social media is not an exalted good person. An exalted good person is the person that anonymously gives money to charity. Who runs the charity and doesn't try to get a buck off the people they are helping. The person that goes to an area and does volunteer work for hours/days at a time, and receives only what is needed to live.

If this person saw someone about to kill a bandit for banditry, after the bandit had given up, the person would attempt to stop the execution. They would try to help the bandit.

I *did* agree that if the party is going less than good, an exalted character may not be good for the party dynamic. But a good character can easily play with less than good characters.

[noob]

I'm sorry... WHAT?!
Say you have placed yourself in the world. You meet a group of like minded people. People that wish to undergo an adventure to get money for reasons of their own. People who haven't done anything *yet* to show they have less than stellar morals. So you adventure with them. Eventually they do something, that while you see as evil, you understand others may consider it morally grey. Such as killing a bandit that has given up. An exalted good person wouldn't immediately say, "Eff it, I'm out mate." An exalted good character would try to teach, to help them realize why killing the bandit was a not good act. How the bandit had given up and how you could have helped the bandit get back on their feet, and do better in the world.
The difference between TN, NG, and Exalted Good isn't so black and white. A Neutral person may do good simply because it is easy. Not for the right reasons. Neutral Good will do the good thing, because it is good. Exalted Good will do the good thing because they *care*. You want everyone to be good, because in a good world many things.

In my opinion. An "Exalted" character that is only doing good because of the vows that they have made, or for the power that comes with it, should not be exalted. They are not Exalted Good, they are selfish. A person that gives money to a homeless man for clout on social media is not an exalted good person. An exalted good person is the person that anonymously gives money to charity. Who runs the charity and doesn't try to get a buck off the people they are helping. The person that goes to an area and does volunteer work for hours/days at a time, and receives only what is needed to live.

If this person saw someone about to kill a bandit for banditry, after the bandit had given up, the person would attempt to stop the execution. They would try to help the bandit.

I *did* agree that if the party is going less than good, an exalted character may not be good for the party dynamic. But a good character can easily play with less than good characters.

You misinterpreted.
I never told exalted people wanted to keep their powers nor that they acted only to keep their powers.(I mentioned the loss of their powers as a disruptive thing and not as a problem for the character)

I told that exalted good people could not do a single evil action because it is contrary to their ethics.
If you are not willing to do a single evil action and want to make the world a less evil place then you will probably have problems with associating with evil people because you are helping them to keep doing evil stuff even if you also patronize them and try to stop them from doing evil stuff.
If you were not here to help them in the fight against the goblins maybe those evil people would not be able to kill the surrendering goblins despite the fact you are telling them that they should not kill defeated people.
You are responsible for the evil actions those evil people could do after the fight if you helped them fight.
This is why you can not stay exalted good if you associate with evil people who do bad things to the people they defeat: by definition once you did one evil thing you are no longer exalted good.

So if your character was willing to associate with evil people the odds were that they already did lose their exalted status earlier and so were regular good people and not exalted good people.

Meanwhile good people can associate with evil people just fine.

Exalted good is very special in the way it is basically not possible to keep it if you do dumb stuff like associating with evil people.

So exalted people who did not lose their tag yet would first ask "are you good people because you know I do not want to be a participant in an evil action because it is contrary to my ethics"
Then the thief would say "I stab people in their sleep in order to sell their orphaned children" Or lie.
If the thief told the truth the exalted person does not want to be a participant in the next evil action of the thief and so would not join the team.
If the thief lies then the exalted person would think "oh so they are nice people I will follow them in their quest to 'totally redeem goblins and not kill horribly surrendering goblins' " then they would feel betrayed once the fight with the goblins ends and that the thief stabs the goblins in order to sell their orphaned children and at that point the exalted person have no choice other than leaving the team so that they does not participate in further evil actions and they lose their exalted alignment because dnd morals are consequentialist (so it did not matter that exalted individual did not know they were helping the thief to do their next evil action)

Exalted is a tag that can be lost: if you still have the tag it means that you were not doing the kind of actions that risks you losing it or you would not have it right now.

So if someone is exalted the odds are that they are someone which does not associates with evil people or that they were ridiculously efficient at backstabbing evil allies non lethally before they commit evil acts and bringing them into prisons.
In any case it is disruptive.

It is the difference between good and "good and also never ever commits any evil act"
Exalted is not just about going further toward good it is also something that is instantly lost when you do something evil.

I think you were confusing exalted good with very good.
Very good is in no case exalted good and many very good actions are actions that would not be exalted good.
For example someone very good could try to associate with evil people going to save the world "to help them save the world, reduce their kill count and also redeem them by showing them the virtues of good" that would be very good but not exalted good(an exalted good person would lose their status when doing that)
Despite the fact that ultimately that very good action is a better path of action than going with a less skilled good team and trying to save the world too but with less odds of success(which is the exalted path)
Objectively the very good person is doing something better than the exalted good person but the exalted good person is doing what they are doing due to how they work: they would not be exalted good if they were willing to commit evil actions such as helping evil people win a battle which ends up with the evil people causing harm to those who lost.

Exalted good is "tries to strive to be a better example through self sacrifice and never commit evil actions" which is far from wanting to be efficient or as much good as possible.(hence why many of the exalted good feats are so bad)

[King of Nowhere]

3 players are leaning towards evil tendencies, though none seem completely evil.

one describes his character as a vengeful rogue. at first he won't be doing anything wrong, and afterwards, it will depend. he may not be doing anything too bad.

one wants to be basically a swindler, but one with good reputation. at least at first, he can fool me.

one wants to be a dread necromancer, but basically a loon. possibly something akin to tsukiko. if he wants to use undead for menial job, i may ally with him because it would be using magic to help people. now, maybe there really is smething inherently wrong with making undead, but if that's the case, it may be something to be discovered later, and my character would try to find a solution.

i could manage with each one of the three. but all three in the party will be hard. we're still discussing about it.

[noob]

3 players are leaning towards evil tendencies, though none seem completely evil.

one describes his character as a vengeful rogue. at first he won't be doing anything wrong, and afterwards, it will depend. he may not be doing anything too bad.

one wants to be basically a swindler, but one with good reputation. at least at first, he can fool me.

one wants to be a dread necromancer, but basically a loon. possibly something akin to tsukiko. if he wants to use undead for menial job, i may ally with him because it would be using magic to help people. now, maybe there really is smething inherently wrong with making undead, but if that's the case, it may be something to be discovered later, and my character would try to find a solution.

i could manage with each one of the three. but all three in the party will be hard. we're still discussing about it.

The dread necromancer is okay unless he gets tempted by the value of high quality corpses but they are less likely to do bad stuff to get high quality corpses if there is someone that is disturbed by murder around them.
The swindler is probably not going to do war crimes (but that depends on the player).
I think the vengeful rogue is very likely to cause friction with an exalted good character.
Seems doable but you have significant odds of stopping to be exalted if the rogue is faced with their nemesis.
Unless the gm manages to get the nemesis killed in the fight to avoid moral problems.

[King of Nowhere]

Well we need our own custom arcane domain. I suggest the community domain.

0—Create Water
1—Amanuensis
2—Unseen Crafter
3—Create Food and Water
4—Fabricate
5—Wall of Stone
6—Permanent Image
7—Bones of the Earth
8—True Creation
9—Genesis
We get diplomacy as a class skill and gain a +5 bonus to it right off. Add in Cha and ranks and you are a decent diplomancer for a wizard.

Please clarify a couple things:
1) you mentioned i should be some kind of elf to be a domain wizard. i looked up domain wizard, but found nothing about elves. I also found no mention of other bonuses, and only a handful of domains. on one hand, it looks very powerful because you get one extra spell slot for free. but on the other, you have no choice of spell, and most of them are useless, so it's not much of a gain.
2)is this "community domain" an homebrew? I don't know the dm, and i already asked some refluffing/adaptations to play the concept. i am very reluctant to ask for further homebrews. or is it mentioned somewhere? because i'd take it if i could find it in a manual.

I also ask another question:
I would give up my familiar, as I have a plethora of exhalted feats and nothing useful to take, and i may as well regain the familiar with exhalted familiar. (related question: are there any extra sources of exhalted feats that would be useful for wizards?).
what can i trade for my familiar? i looked for wizard ACF, but aside from the abrupt jaunt trick (which i would not be able to take as a domain wizard, it requires a specialist) i came up blank.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Please clarify a couple things:
1) you mentioned i should be some kind of elf to be a domain wizard. i looked up domain wizard, but found nothing about elves. I also found no mention of other bonuses, and only a handful of domains. on one hand, it looks very powerful because you get one extra spell slot for free. but on the other, you have no choice of spell, and most of them are useless, so it's not much of a gain.
2)is this "community domain" an homebrew? I don't know the dm, and i already asked some refluffing/adaptations to play the concept. i am very reluctant to ask for further homebrews. or is it mentioned somewhere? because i'd take it if i could find it in a manual.
The trick is to be a domain wizard as well as an Elven Generalist (the substitution levels are in RotW).
It's technically RAW because both merely require you to not specialize, but it's considered rather cheesy since you're trading away your ability to specialize twice.

And yes it's homebrew, the only official domain wizard domains are those in UA.
Though some of them come with very solid spells and you can still give them up for things like the Spontaneous Divination ACF (CC), so it's almost certainly better than specialization all by itself.


I also ask another question:
I would give up my familiar, as I have a plethora of exhalted feats and nothing useful to take, and i may as well regain the familiar with exhalted familiar. (related question: are there any extra sources of exhalted feats that would be useful for wizards?).
what can i trade for my familiar? i looked for wizard ACF, but aside from the abrupt jaunt trick (which i would not be able to take as a domain wizard, it requires a specialist) i came up blank.

There are a few exalted feats in Champions of Valor. That and BoED is it afaik.

As for trading your familiar your options are pretty limited as a non-specialist iirc.
Though there's one notable option to trade your familiar for a magic staff, but it's Dragon Magazine (#338). It has some neat options so it's worth considering if it's allowed.

Edit: Do keep in mind though that Celestial Familiar requires you to already have the ability to summon a normal one.
If you trade it away you'll need to take Obtain Familiar first or go without.