Randomly Generated Spellbooks (3.5)

[Twilight Jack]

Does anyone have a resource or any ideas on how I could randomly generate the contents of a spellbook for a wizard of a given level as an appropriate bit of treasure?

I suppose I could just start rolling on the arcane scrolls table in the DMG, but that seems like a pain in the ass.

Essentially, I'm running a low-level adventure where the party is attempting to track down a group of adventurers who have disappeared, in order to retrieve an item that one of them possessed. The missing adventurers are now all dead, but the party is going to come upon their bodies, and I'd like to include the wizard's spellbook in the various possessions they're carrying. So, I'd like to randomly generate the spells contained within, rather than tailor them to what the PC conjurer might want. That way, there's a bit of interest in the damn thing, as the PC wizard deciphers and discovers this other dead wizard's spellbook/journal (I've a notion that the guy used the book for both purposes, wizard's spellbooks being highly personalized affairs).

So I'd like its contents to be relatively random, while still cohesive and somewhat usable.

Any interesting ideas, other than just poring over the scroll listings (which wouldn't get me any out of core spells in any event)?

[Flickerdart]

Just open the Spell Compendium and point fingers randomly?

[Devils_Advocate]

Well, a wizard's spells aren't going to be completely random. A given adventurer wizard's spellbook will contain specific spells that she deliberately acquired or researched, spells scribed off of scrolls she found, spells copied from the spellbooks of defeated wizards, spells she got by trading spells with other wizards, and/or etc.

You could just roll on a treasure table a bunch of times until you get enough scrolls, but just doing that won't give you something that looks like a normal wizard's spellbook. Rather, do that for some of the spells, choose others based on the wizard's needs and magical inclinations, and maybe even choose others based on whose spellbooks she's had the opportunity to copy from. (That last bit has the potential to make this exercise time-consumingly recursive, of course...) If you have the Spell Compendium, look at the Wizard/Sorcerer spell list there as well as in the PHB for spells that the deceased wizard would want.

If you want the spellbook to serve as an interesting glimpse into the dead wizard's life and research, you definitely shouldn't make it random. It should be built more like a PC's spellbook, so that it looks like something that a sensible mage would have actually compiled. Remember that if the wizard is a specialist, at least one spell per Wizard level should be from his specialist school.

In short: Instead of tailoring the spells to what the PC wizard would want, they should be mostly tailored to what the dead NPC wizard would want.

If you don't want to have to build the dead wizard from scratch, find a Wizard build or three online that you think would be suitable for him, and use spells from there.

Heck, you should decide on all of the dead party's items like this, not just the wizard's spellbook. Everything they had they had for some particular reason or other, right?

[Maerok]

Use items from another party you've DMed.

How is a wizard's spellbook converted to value in gp?

[SSGoW]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/scrolls.htm

roll it :p

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Use items from another party you've DMed.

How is a wizard's spellbook converted to value in gp?

Depends on whether or not the Wizard is allowed to keep it. if it's going to be given back to the other party, the value is 50 GP*the number of days he'll have it for or the number of useful pages of spells in the book, whichever is lower. If the book is going to be his forever, it's the number of useful spell levels in the book*150 GP.

In essence, a spell that he can copy is worth 50 GP/spell level, if the spell is already copied for him it's 150 GP/spell level. Useless spells and spells that he won't have time to copy are ignored.

[Keld Denar]

When I run NPC wizards, I usually plan out their spell lists of spells memorized. Then I usually roll about 1d4 spells out of the PHB that they have on top of the ones memorized. That way, if the player wants access to exotic spells from SpC, PHBII, or CMage, they have to take them as one of their 2 spells learned/level, or face the wrath of someone who has access to them. Of course, I don't tell my players this, and no one has ever complained. I've never seen a wizard so happy to get hit by a Freezing Fog though...

Plus, this ends up with a lot of overlap, which inhibits the wizard a bit. Most NPC wizards are gonna have Haste memorized, or Fly, or Web, or Glitterdust, or Solid Fog, or Greater Magic Weapon, or a handful of other standard wizardy faire. The player is gonna get their hands on these because they are gonna fight people who use similarly optimized tactics, so that takes a lot of the value out of a spellbook when the wizard runs his fingers across the pages repeating: got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, etc.

[holywhippet]

What level was this wizard? To be realistic you need to consider that the wizard will be getting spells from 3 sources:

a) Spells from levelling up. These should be hand chosen and should match the nature of the wizard. A blaster type would be grabbing plenty of direct damage spells for example.

b) Spells from treasure. These should be quite random - some might suit the wizard while others might be handy but not something they will usually cast. They will likely be scribed anyway so that the wizard can use them if need be.

c) Purchased spells using funds gained from adventuring. These will be a mix of a) and b). The wizard can only buy what is available but will be aiming for their preferred casting style.

[Twilight Jack]

Heck, you should decide on all of the dead party's items like this, not just the wizard's spellbook. Everything they had they had for some particular reason or other, right?

I do. It's just much easier when you're looking at most other classes. A spellbook is a lot more fiddly, so I was hoping for some ideas on how to do that part a bit more quickly, while keeping it interesting.

The party found the spellbook in tonight's session, but the conjurer hasn't had time to crack it open yet. So I need to have it ready to go by the next session.

[Cyrion]

It will be much less of a pain if you don't do it randomly. The advice about picking spells that would have fit the style of the dead wizard is good. Add to that spells that you know the party will need but not necessarily choose on their own. Then just go by whimsy- choose something oddball or that just amuses you. Let the party wonder what the dead wizard was doing with Prufrock's Plentiful Pornography in his spellbook.

[Twilight Jack]

Spellbook generated, using a sprinkling of a few different methods outlined in this thread. I'm very pleased with the results.

My thanks to everyone.

[Devils_Advocate]

Any chance that we could see it? I'm curious how it turned out now.

(If it would take too long to type up, just forget it.)