Help me with an idea for an item, please.

[BardicDuelist]

I, in looking over the wonderous items in the DMG and remembering BBBook, got the idea of making an intelligent spellbook. I usually avoid intelligent items, but this idea seemed really interesting to me.

My question is this: How would you do it? What ideas for personality/dedicated powers/etc. do you forumites have?

[Ganurath]

What wealth level are we looking at? I'm guessing it's expensive since you want a dedicated power, but a fair baseline is 25% of the WBL.

[BardicDuelist]

By dedicated power I just meant powers in general. If the book is evil, I would discount much of the cost (as it would not be that great of a boon to the party), but any level is fine.

[streakster]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50196

It's built as a monster, but could be used as an item, I suppose.

[Ganurath]

Boccob's Blessed Book: 12,500 gp
Int 16, Wis 16, Cha 10, speak and read four languages: 6,000 gp
Detect Magic at will: 3,600 gp
10 ranks in both Knowledge (arcana) and Spellcraft: 10,000 gp
Total for His Open Eye: 32,100 gp
10 Ego for a book that reads itself: Priceless

[Rigon]

Boccob's Blessed Book: 12,500 gp
Int 16, Wis 16, Cha 10, speak and read four languages: 6,000 gp
Detect Magic at will: 3,600 gp
10 ranks in both Knowledge (arcana) and Spellcraft: 10,000 gp
Total for His Open Eye: 32,100 gp
10 Ego for a book that reads itself: Priceless

i love this. i really do. let us just add UMD too and then we have a book which can cast spells from itself (but i guess that would make the spells burn out one by one).

[BardicDuelist]

i love this. i really do. let us just add UMD too and then we have a book which can cast spells from itself (but i guess that would make the spells burn out one by one).

I love this. Have it cast the spells that the wizard prepared out from underneath him, so at the end of the day, the wizard has less.

The fact that it is free to scribe in there means that it isn't a big deal.

[Ganurath]

I love this. Have it cast the spells that the wizard prepared out from underneath him, so at the end of the day, the wizard has less.

The fact that it is free to scribe in there means that it isn't a big deal.Yeah... except there's a small matter of balance. Plus, as discussed in a previous thread, there are still costs for copying out of another wizard's spellbook.

...I just got a brilliant idea. Precocious Apprentice for a homebrew L2 spell, and charge people 100gp a pop to copy it off for an early money boost.

[nargbop]

Book that Lies
16 Int 10 Wis 10 Cha 15 Bluff... etc etc

You could have a great deal of fun with this - fiddle with mechanics and character of the book for a while, but the gist of it is :
When some important information is needed right then and there, the book provides subtle lies.

It knows there's a bugbear nest around the hill, but advises to take all abjuration for today because of the necromancer-curse specialist it lies about.
It provides slightly-off spells. Takes a Spellcraft check to see if it's real while you're learning it; when you cast it, it does odd things. That fireball goes in the wrong direction; that ray of exhaustion is a ROE and Mage armor spell.
It gives bad instructions for entering a dungeon that leads to a big bad trap.

[Mewtarthio]

Technically, you can only make permanent items intelligent, but I think it would be interesting to have an intelligent rod of rulership that knows it will die after five hundred minutes of use and demands to be used as efficiently as possible to acheive its goals.

EDIT: Wait, never mind, you're looking for an intelligent spellbook. The rules for intelligent items can be found here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/intelligentItems.htm).

I think it goes without saying that Int should be one of the high scores. The other can be whatever you think's best. You get three lesser powers (if you want it to have a dedicated power), so I'd go with 10 ranks of Knowledge (arcana), 10 ranks of Spellcraft, and detect magic. For the miscellaneous greater power, I'd say detect thoughts is nice for a book, particularly a magic spellbook. It's special purpose should be a knowledge-related one, such as amassing all arcane knowledge in the world. Unfortunately, the default dedicated powers don't fit too well with that, except maybe for prying eyes (as a book, I imagine it likes being able to scout around itself, and it could always send a few eyes into a tomb or dungeon to look at arcane designs).

Total cost: 12,500 gp (item) + 12,000 gp (intelligence) + 3,600 gp (detect magic) + 10,000 gp (skills) + 44,000 gp (detect thoughts) + 81,000 gp (prying eyes) = 163,100 gp

It also has an Ego score of 19.

ADDENDUM TO EDIT: I believe the cheapest you could possibly make this while still giving it a special purpose and power would be 74,900 gp. That requires the cheapest intelligence option (it can'd use read magic, but it can still communicate telepathically, speak, and read languages), the cheapest minor powers (bless 3/day, faerie fire 3/day, minor image 1/day), and one of the cheapest dedicated powers (ice storm, confusion, phantasmal killer, or crushing despair).

[TheSteelRat]

Could this concept be combined with an Item Familiar? Rack up some skill points in UMD perhaps?

[Triaxx]

Sounds like Terry Brooks Ildatch. I like it.