Enchanted Spellbook ideas

[Zerryzerry]

I always hated the idea of the Spellbook for a wizard (or Prayerbook for an Archivist) being "magical" only in the fact that is used to write magic spells. And the only one with an extra that i have ecer heard of is the one with 1000 pages from the DMG.

Anyone has ideas of which enhancements can be put on a Spellbook to make it a worthy magic item?

I have already dismissed some ideas, like continous personal buff effects (the book is not worn) and things like giving extra slots or metamagic feats for both roleplaying and balance issues.

Anyone has ideas?

[Tzardok]

I always hated the idea of the Spellbook for a wizard (or Prayerbook for an Archivist) being "magical" only in the fact that is used to write magic spells. And the only one with an extra that i have ecer heard of is the one with 1000 pages from the DMG.

Anyone has ideas of which enhancements can be put on a Spellbook to make it a worthy magic item?

I have already dismissed some ideas, like continous personal buff effects (the book is not worn) and things like giving extra slots or metamagic feats for both roleplaying and balance issues.

Anyone has ideas?

In my experience it is quite common to put protective enchantments on spellbooks. I mean, you don't want to lose your spells to fire or water. Besides those I could imagine something based on Shrink Object to make it easier to transport, or traps against being opened by unauthorized people. Or you put a Light enchantment on it that only is active when opened, so you can always read it.

[Melcar]

I always hated the idea of the Spellbook for a wizard (or Prayerbook for an Archivist) being "magical" only in the fact that is used to write magic spells. And the only one with an extra that i have ecer heard of is the one with 1000 pages from the DMG.

Anyone has ideas of which enhancements can be put on a Spellbook to make it a worthy magic item?

I have already dismissed some ideas, like continous personal buff effects (the book is not worn) and things like giving extra slots or metamagic feats for both roleplaying and balance issues.

Anyone has ideas?

I run quite a bit on mine... Its a A3 book, with 2000 pages bound in pure ore mithral. Its adorned with 2 amazing adamantine locks. And has the following enchantments/guards/wards on it. All enchants are CL 34. (Cover has Hardness 87, 290 hp/ Pages has hardness 27, 220 hp). Break dc 112 for cover, 30 for pages. Saves +22.

Passive augmentation:
Resistance to energy (Major)
Levitating
Waterproof
Sign of Sealing, Greater (Maximized)
Hidden Ward
Nystul’s Magic Aura
Magically Treated (Augment Object)
Hardening

Ward (Active):
Arcane Lock, Greater
Arcane Seal
Dragoneye Rune
Glyph of Warding, Greater (Spell) (Shivering Touch, Maximized)
Secret Page (all pages containing personally reasearched spells)
Sign of Sealing, Greater (Maximized)
Symbol of Weakness (Maximized)
Watchware

Spell traps:
Fireburst, Greater [Sonic] (Maximized)

[Vizzerdrix]

Are spellbooks magic items? I remember that not being the case. Anyways, a casting of minor servator can be handy on a spellbook. As a critter, it gets a feat. Make that feat the one that gets you a soulspark familiar so your book always has a defender.

[liquidformat]

AFB but I know there are some other spellbooks out there, MIC has one or two I think and there are others that are waterproof fireproof and so forth. Melcar seems to have a pretty good list of spells.

[Telonius]

Are spellbooks magic items? I remember that not being the case.

It's a bit ambiguous, but I don't believe it's ever outright stated that a standard spellbook is a magic item, or that it radiates magic (even if it has spells written in it). It's the instruction manual for magic, not the magic itself. So Detect Magic wouldn't show it, and Dispel or Disjunction wouldn't affect it. If (somehow) it were in an antimagic field, and the Wizard reading from it weren't, they'd still be able to prepare a spell from it.

Some Googling on the subject showed that apparently it was a common houserule in AD&D to allow direct casting from a spellbook (at the cost of wiping it and possibly others from the book as though it were a scroll), but it's not an official thing in 3.5.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Melcar
I run quite a bit on mine...

That is one customized spellbook.

What level is your wizard, and how much did you spend on all that?

[Zerryzerry]

Well that's interesting, but not at all what i wanted.

I am not asking a RAW explanation of what enchantments your characters put on the books, but to give the books properties to buff your char or spells.

Like preparing spells from that spellbook gets you to cast those spells at CL+1, or letting you use a metamagic feat you don't have for the spells of that spellbook, or giving you +4 INT for 24h when preparing spells...

[Tzardok]

Well that's interesting, but not at all what i wanted.

I am not asking a RAW explanation of what enchantments your characters put on the books, but to give the books properties to buff your char or spells.

Like preparing spells from that spellbook gets you to cast those spells at CL+1, or letting you use a metamagic feat you don't have for the spells of that spellbook, or giving you +4 INT for 24h when preparing spells...

I thought from your original post that you explicitely didn't want anything like that. (And that just as I got the idea for a spellbook that can use Leomund's Safe Shelter once per day. :smallbiggrin:)

[Maat Mons]

I've always wanted a self-sorting spellbook. So no matter what order you fill the pages up in, the pages reorder themselves so that everything is organized in a consistent and logical fashion. Bonus points if it writes and continuously updates both a table of contents and an index for itself.

It would also be really nice if the spellbook automagically opened itself to the page of whatever spell the reader was thinking of. And even better if the spellbook reduces the amount of time needed to prepare spells. That could either be fluffed as a side-effect of how easy it is to use, or it could just be a magical enhancement to the readers faculties.

I liked the 3.0 version of Amanuesis. I'd like to see a spellbook that facilitates adding spells to it in basically no time at all. Maybe you just put a scroll near it, speak a command word, and the scroll divideds itself into pages, which then bind themselves into the spellbook. Or maybe people can just cast a spell "into" the spellbook, regardless of the spell's normal area/target/effect entry, and the writing for the spell just appears on some of the blank pages.

Maybe a spellbook could give the Geometer's Book of Geometry class feature to anyone using it. So anyone could write a spell into the spellbook on just one page, regardless of the level of the spell. And anyone could prepare these condensed spells without an increase to the spellcraft DC. Or maybe the spellbook could just magically impart knowledge of its notation conventions to anyone reading it, so there was no spellcraft check needed at all, even if the spell was written by someone else.

I wouldn't mind a spellbook that functions as a runestaff, but for any spells recorded in it, and an unlimited number of times per day for each spell. This would be coveted by Wizards and Sorcerers alike. It would also be very expensive.

Instead of having a fixed page count, maybe you could have a spellbook that just grows new pages as you need them.

I've always kind of wanted to play a high-level Geometer with the Arcane Shorthand feat and the 3.0 version of Amanuesis. That lets you fit all officially-published spells into a single Blessed Book, and make complete copies of it very quickly. And any other Wizard can prepare spells from your books with a spellcraft check, or eliminate the need for spellcaft checks by using the rules for "mastering" a spellbook written by someone else. I'd go into business selling them, and soon there would just be one standard spellbook that every Wizard used.

[Thurbane]

An intelligent Boccob's Blessed book could be interesting.

Or even make it a custom Legacy item?

You could also slap some minor/cosmetic effects on from Secrets of Xendrik p.157.

[aglondier]

You could use some of the ideas in Wyrd Wands and Rune Staves to make the spellbook an actual caster focus...a +1 spellbook granting a +1 to hit and damage with ranged damaging spells, in addition to the other effects, like the fiery enchant that increases [fire] spells damage by 1d6...

[ShurikVch]

Enchanted Spellbook ideas
If you want to enchant (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm#enchantment) a spellbook, you would need firstly to do something with immunity to [Mind-Affecting] effects, because the spellbook is, likely, a Construct

Otherwise - since everything in the game is a weapon (in most cases - "improvised" weapon - but still a weapon), you can add enhancement bonus (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/theBasics.htm#enhancementBonus) and Weapon Special Abilities to it
Also, if the spellbook is sentient - then it's a Construct, and you may try to add some templates to it


Like preparing spells from that spellbook gets you to cast those spells at CL+1, or letting you use a metamagic feat you don't have for the spells of that spellbook, or giving you +4 INT for 24h when preparing spells...
Ah, like this?
Dragon #325 has article about "Synergistic Spellbooks"
When a wizard prepares certain number of spell levels from the books, they get certain additional advantages - such as swim speed, certain SLA, or Evasion
Note: Synergistic Spellbooks are minor artifacts.
Also, you can't add new spells to a Synergistic Spellbook, but they already have plenty "as is":
one Synergistic Spellbook "contains all sorcerer/wizard spells with the air, earth, fire, and water descriptors";
another one - "every sorcerer/wizard spell from the school of necromancy that doesn’t have the death, evil, or fear descriptors, as well as all other spells of all school from the sorcerer/wizard spell list with the good and light descriptors";
and the last one - "every sorcerer wizard spell of the abjuration school, as well as all divination (scrying) spells from the same spell list".

[Kelb_Panthera]

Are spellbooks magic items?

They sit in a weird, "they're magical but they're also not" spot on that one. Specifically, they require special inks or equivalent that can only be meaningfully interacted with by an actual spellcaster, yet they don't radiate magic and are not subject to being suppressed or dispelled unless you layer proper magics on them with spells and item creation feats.

As for outright magical effects, there's a couple in complete arcane that are made for spellbooks in particular. That section starts on page 139. It's largely a port and update of the same info from Magic of Faerun (pg 172) but I haven't examined in detail to check for differences.

And, of course, there's a personal favorite of mine; The Tome of Ancient Lore relic. If you've got both it and a blessed book, you can eventually learn every spell you ever wanted since you can use it to prepare one spell each day that you don't already know if you can meet its requirements.