3.P - (Boccob's) Blessed Book Enhancements?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The SRD (and DMG) has the (Boccob's) Blessed Book (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#blessedBook):


Blessed Book
This well-made tome is always of small size, typically no more than 12 inches tall, 8 inches wide, and 1 inch thick. All such books are durable, waterproof, bound with iron overlaid with silver, and locked.

A wizard can fill the 1,000 pages of a blessed book with spells without paying the 100 gp per page material cost. This book is never found as randomly generated treasure with spells already inscribed in it.

Moderate transmutation; CL 7th; Craft Wondrous Item, secret page; Price 12,500 gp; Weight 1 lb.

I don't play wizards or archivists at all, but I was wondering what kinds of magical and mundane enhancements would be fun (and practical) to add to it? Crafting it partially out of fey cherry wood (Dragon #357), for instance, would reduce the base price (gp and xp) by 10%. Crafting it from riverine (Stormwrack) would make it indestructible via most means. There are ways to craft a spellbook (also from a Dragon issue, I think) that allow it to be used as a melee weapon, which opens up weapon enhancements.

You might be able to get away with enhancing a psychoactive skin of proteus as such a book, if whoever's wearing it could stand to remain in book form for that long...

Using these and others, what crazy combinations would you want to add to your blessed spellbook, if given the chance? Let's say you're limited to pre-epic stuff, but that's the only limitation you've got. Anything else is fair game! Just make sure you tell us what your enhancements do, and (preferably) where they come from!

[Jervis]

Not a enchantment specifically but i know there are plenty of hardness and hp enhancing spells for items. Also correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't dispel magic destroy riverine?

As for the spellbook weapon the only thing i know thats similar is a pathfinder inquisitor archetype that turns your book into a cold iron bludgeoning weapon. I believe one dragon mag article has a wizard that uses carved sticks as a spellbooks so maybe theres something you can do there?

[sleepyphoenixx]

There isn't really much point investing a ton of gold into enhancing your book when you ideally want it hidden in your pack or otherwise away from enemy LoE all the time.
I certainly wouldn't use it as a weapon, that's just begging to have it disintegrated or otherwise destroyed.

That said my go-to are spells like Dragoneye Rune (DrM), Fang Trap (SK), Fire Trap and such and putting it into a Possum Pouch (CAdv) to make it difficult to steal, but otherwise i tend to not invest much into it. Combine that with Spell Mastery and tattooing (CArc) a couple essential spells to get it back if stolen and it should be enough without spending a lot of gold.

If i'm spending more WBL on my spellbook than that it's usually to upgrade to a Necklace of the Phantom Library (ExH) or Quill of Rapid Scrivening (DMG2) to scribe new spells faster.

[Maat Mons]

I'm somewhat fond of Aureon's Spellshard (Eberron Campaign Setting, p265). It's mechanically the same as Boccob's Blessed Book, but it's a crystal.

Whether you use the book or the crystal, it's worth asking the DM if you can pay to add more "pages" instead of buying a second one. If you find yourself needing to cary several, I think a Wand Bracelet (Magic Item Compendium, p147) is a fun way to store them.

In Pathfinder, the Poleiheira Adherent archetype lets a Wizard store an unlimited number of spells in a single spellbook. It also ups your number of free spells to 4 per Wizard level, and it also gives you free spells if you need to replace your old spellbook.

Pathfinder also has an inexpensive item called Book Plate of Recall that gives you a limited ability to summon your spellbook to you, potentially even from another plane.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Not a enchantment specifically but i know there are plenty of hardness and hp enhancing spells for items. Also correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't dispel magic destroy riverine?Riverine is made from walls of force compressing water between mobile planes, and wall of force is immune to dispel magic and antimagic field.


There isn't really much point investing a ton of gold into enhancing your book when you ideally want it hidden in your pack or otherwise away from enemy LoE all the time.
I certainly wouldn't use it as a weapon, that's just begging to have it disintegrated or otherwise destroyed.I'unno, a +1 aurorum morphing/splitting spellbook can turn into an arrow which can be fired out of a bow, clone itself, and then be harmlessly put back together again to create copies for free.

Not all weapon enhancements are only useful in a fight.

[Chaos Jackal]

Pathfinder also has an inexpensive item called Book Plate of Recall that gives you a limited ability to summon your spellbook to you, potentially even from another plane.

The spell secluded grimoire also allows for indefinite storage of it.

[sleepyphoenixx]

I'unno, a +1 aurorum morphing/splitting spellbook can turn into an arrow which can be fired out of a bow, clone itself, and then be harmlessly put back together again to create copies for free.

Not all weapon enhancements are only useful in a fight.

Morphing is restricted to light, onehanded and twohanded melee or thrown weapons. Arrows are ammunition.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Morphing is restricted to light, onehanded and twohanded melee or thrown weapons. Arrows are ammunition."The wielder of a morphing weapon can reshape it into any other weapon of the same type (light, one-handed, or two-handed) as a standard action."

And if you're using a different version than the one in Underdark, arrows can also explicitly be used as melee weapons. Also, sizing is fantastic to combo with morphing.

If you don't have sizing yet or don't want to spend the money, then remember that weapons larger and smaller than your size increase or decrease handed-ness, as appropriate. A Medium arrow, for instance, would be considered a one-handed weapon for a Small creature, and a Large arrow would count as a two-handed weapon. So use whichever is appropriate for the "spell book bludgeon" you're wielding.

Some other transforming item would work just as well. The aforementioned psychoactive skin of proteus could be enhanced as any number of things, including spellbooks and arrows.

[sleepyphoenixx]

"The wielder of a morphing weapon can reshape it into any other weapon of the same type (light, one-handed, or two-handed) as a standard action."

And if you're using a different version than the one in Underdark, arrows can also explicitly be used as melee weapons. Also, sizing is fantastic to combo with morphing.

Morphing was updated in MIC. Melee and thrown only.
And arrows can be used as an improvised melee weapon, which if anything makes it clear that they're not actually a melee weapon.

The penalties for using a weapon of inappropriate size don't change the type of the weapon either, just how you're using it.
A light weapon is a light weapon even if you have to wield it like a onehanded weapon - the enhancement affects the weapon itself, not the wielder.

Even if you disregard that the MIC version specifies that you can only morph into a weapon of the same size and type, so sizing wouldn't let you circumvent the type restriction either way.

[MornShine]

I can't believe no-one has mentioned this yet...

Complete Arcane, p. 139-141, has rules for spellbooks including various mundane materials, and importantly a handful of magical enhancements to spellbooks.

These enhancements consist of:

resistance to energy
make one's spellbook appear as something else
full waterproofing
insect (and nosy teammate) repellent
trapping one's spellbook with (any) magical spell

And most importantly,

making your spellbook levitate for ease of reading.

Complete Arcane p. 186-187 also has rules for tattooing spells on onesself, and using inscribed tokens (of unspecified material-- adamantine? Perhaps) as a spellbook. (And creating buildings as spellbooks, but that's probably less useful.)

[Ramza00]

I'm somewhat fond of Aureon's Spellshard (Eberron Campaign Setting, p265). It's mechanically the same as Boccob's Blessed Book, but it's a crystal.

Whether you use the book or the crystal, it's worth asking the DM if you can pay to add more "pages" instead of buying a second one. If you find yourself needing to cary several, I think a Wand Bracelet (Magic Item Compendium, p147) is a fun way to store them.

In Pathfinder, the Poleiheira Adherent archetype lets a Wizard store an unlimited number of spells in a single spellbook. It also ups your number of free spells to 4 per Wizard level, and it also gives you free spells if you need to replace your old spellbook.

Pathfinder also has an inexpensive item called Book Plate of Recall that gives you a limited ability to summon your spellbook to you, potentially even from another plane.

Athas aka Dark Sun has Mnemonic Crystal aka Blessed Books with the smallest size of 50 pages and adding another 100 pages is the same formula of Aureon Spellshard and Blessed Book of 100 pages for 1250 gp.

https://athas.miraheze.org/wiki/Universal_Items#Mnemonic_Crystal

Cool thing is these Mnemonic Crystals look like Cognizance Crystals so if you want to fake being a Psion, this helps.

Also you can quickly store non magical information just by moving your crystal next to a book or computer screen and it captures that info as a move action. Later on one can delete pages if your crystal fills up or make duplicates with a drawing check. Thus it is only a move action to read and store a page worth of information which is nice if you can not easily hit a DC 15 Autohypnosis check which is similar but different being a wisdom based skill and one of the things Autohypnosis allows is memorization.

[spectralphoenix]

Get a spellbook with adamantine covers, gilded pages, and glowing gems set into the cover. Wear it proudly on your belt. Don't write your spells in it, but fill it with magical traps, scrying beacons, contact poisons, whatever else you can think of. The real spellbook is a sturdy but shabby volume with a dust jacket that labels it a treatise on the habitats of certain obscure tree frogs. It never leaves your portable hole.

[Jervis]

The penalties for using a weapon of inappropriate size don't change the type of the weapon either, just how you're using it.
A light weapon is a light weapon even if you have to wield it like a onehanded weapon - the enhancement affects the weapon itself, not the wielder.

Even if you disregard that the MIC version specifies that you can only morph into a weapon of the same size and type, so sizing wouldn't let you circumvent the type restriction either way.

That’s debatable. There are rules for weapons of different sizes counting as something else too. Example a large longsword counting as a medium greatsword for the purposes of proficiency, weapon feats, and properties. So use sizing to make a medium longsword into a large longsword, and then morphing to turn that large longsword -which also counts as medium greatsword- into a medium greataxe would work under those rules. IIRC they were including in the 3.0 rules and were omitted but never explicitly overwritten in 3.5. If that doesn’t work there’s a weapon in one of the Drow books that can change between a one handed and a two handed weapon so adding morphing to that also works.

[sleepyphoenixx]

That’s debatable. There are rules for weapons of different sizes counting as something else too. Example a large longsword counting as a medium greatsword for the purposes of proficiency, weapon feats, and properties. So use sizing to make a medium longsword into a large longsword, and then morphing to turn that large longsword -which also counts as medium greatsword- into a medium greataxe would work under those rules. IIRC they were including in the 3.0 rules and were omitted but never explicitly overwritten in 3.5. If that doesn’t work there’s a weapon in one of the Drow books that can change between a one handed and a two handed weapon so adding morphing to that also works.

It's explicit RAW:

This
designation is a measure of how much effort it takes to wield a
weapon in combat. It indicates whether a melee weapon, when
wielded by a character of the weapon’s size category, is considered a
light weapon, a one-handed weapon, or a two-handed weapon.

Just because you can treat a large longsword as a medium greatsword when wielding it doesn't make it become a greatsword or a medium weapon.

[Jervis]

It's explicit RAW:


Just because you can treat a large longsword as a medium greatsword when wielding it doesn't make it become a greatsword or a medium weapon.

I’d need to find the exact wording for it but I’d argue treating a weapon as something else qualifies for commanding said weapon to use a magical effect.

[sleepyphoenixx]

I’d need to find the exact wording for it but I’d argue treating a weapon as something else qualifies for commanding said weapon to use a magical effect.

You're treating it as something else for purposes of wielding it, but you're not actually transforming it. A large longsword still takes longsword proficiency to wield for a medium creature.


...
The measure of how much effort it takes to use a weapon
(whether the weapon is designated as a light, one-handed, or twohanded weapon for a particular wielder) is altered by one step for
each size category of difference between the wielder’s size and the
size of the creature for which the weapon was designed. For
instance, a Small greatsword (a two-handed weapon for a Small
creature) is considered a one-handed weapon for a Medium creature,
or a light weapon for a Large creature. Conversely, a Large dagger (a
light weapon for a Large creature) is considered a one-handed
weapon for a Medium creature, or a two-handed weapon for a Small
creature. If a weapon’s designation would be changed to something
other than light, one-handed, or two-handed by this alteration, the
creature can’t wield the weapon at all.

You could argue the other way if you take the second half of this paragraph out of context but by my interpretation the bolded part makes it clear that you only treat the weapons type differently for purposes of wielding it, and nothing else.

[Ramza00]

Does it really matter? Improvised Weapons are a mere -4 penalty with attack, and there are ways to reduce that. Then you find the appropriate weapons damage and size like if it was a normal sword and such.

We have complicated rules, but we also have simple “fall back” rules.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Even if you don't allow morphing and sizing (or just morphing) to work, there are other ways to get around that particular trick. A quick dispel magic followed by polymorph any object, for instance, or dispel/fabricate, or the above-mentioned psychoactive skin of proteus. I'm sure there are others, as well.

Is there a way to take an animated object as your arcane familiar? You could always be a changeling wizard with the ACF in Races of Eberron so your familiar can turn into a spellbook that you can enhance as a blessed book (and a masterwork arrow to be enhanced as a +1 splitting arrow). That'd be a neat way to protect your spellbook, I think.