Boccobs Reading Room

[quick_comment]

"blah blah blah...a spellcaster who prepares spells can write one new spell of any level he can cast into his spellbook. Doing this requires 1 hour blah blah blah"

It does not say anywhere that the spell must be on your class list, or even that it has to be an arcane spell.

[The Neoclassic]

Um, it says any spell that he can cast. In order to cast it, it must be on his spell list. So what's the problem?

[Pharaoh's Fist]

Now, if you had taken levels in, say, Rainbow Servant or something...

[Douglas]

Where is this quote from? Writing a new spell into a spellbook takes 24 hours for a wizard, not 1 hour.

[AstralFire]

Um, it says any spell that he can cast. In order to cast it, it must be on his spell list. So what's the problem?

By that reading, if it's a spell he can cast, then he already knows it, due to the word choicing used her.

It's more RAW IS WAR silliness.

[quick_comment]

It doesnt say a spell he can cast, it says a spell of a level he can cast.

[The Neoclassic]

By that reading, if it's a spell he can cast, then he already knows it, due to the word choicing used here.

Hehe, I suppose.

RAW IS WAR

So it would seem. I think I'll let people fight this out without me then; I forgot how stuff like this gets into a ridiculous argument over RAW vs. RAI (is that how we abbreviate Rules-as-Intended?). That's what DM judgement calls are for. And if it was my players, I wouldn't let them try any such loophole nonsense. It means "Any spell you would normally be able to write down in a spellbook" and boohoo to any player who gets upset over not being able to use it as their ultimate access key to every spell ever.

[Kylarra]

It's not very helpful though as RAW explicitly says

A wizard casts arcane spells which are drawn from the sorcerer/wizard spell list.

So even if you wrote down a divine spell or a spell off another class's list into your spellbook, you're just wasting time and pages.

[Philaenas]

When does a wizard get time to write spells anyway? Any campaign I've been in has never seen a wizard scribing a spell in his book... Oh have fun writing dude, we're off to this next adventure you know, and no we don't have your phone number !

[Kylarra]

When does a wizard get time to write spells anyway? Any campaign I've been in has never seen a wizard scribing a spell in his book... Oh have fun writing dude, we're off to this next adventure you know, and no we don't have your phone number !

So you don't ever have downtime between adventures? That seems rather silly.

[Philaenas]

So you don't ever have downtime between adventures? That seems rather silly.

I've only had experience with two different DnD DM's. With the first I would have virtually no downtime at all, possibly because we never finished an adventure completely, since we would usually get a TPK before it was finished (did about 6 different campaigns with him I think). The second DM we only did one campaign, yet we stopped playing after finishing it lol. So no, I don't have a lot of experience with downtime :p.

[Kylarra]

I've only had experience with two different DnD DM's. With the first I would have virtually no downtime at all, possibly because we never finished an adventure completely, since we would usually get a TPK before it was finished (did about 6 different campaigns with him I think). The second DM we only did one campaign, yet we stopped playing after finishing it lol. So no, I don't have a lot of experience with downtime :p.

Doesn't seem like you ever had a second adventure to go to either...

[Kallisti]

Special Ability (Ex): Upon drawing forth the power of a Boccob's reading room, a spellcaster who prepares spells can write one new spell of any level he can cast into his spellbook. Doing so requires 1 hour, and there is no cost for materials except for the required pages in the spellbook. A spellcaster who employs spellbooks cannot benefit from the same Boccob's reading room more than once per year, but he can benefit from any number of different Boccob's reading rooms within the same year.

RAW: Any spell of a level he has access to, even if its not on his spell list. Yes, this is a good benefit. Good thing DM's control whether you can find one of these. Unless the players are all elves or something, and just lapse a bunch of time, getting the benefits once per year...

[PurinaDragonCho]

"blah blah blah...a spellcaster who prepares spells can write one new spell of any level he can cast into his spellbook. Doing this requires 1 hour blah blah blah"

It does not say anywhere that the spell must be on your class list, or even that it has to be an arcane spell.

Since it doesn't explicitly say that you can write spells into yoru spellbook that are not on your class list, I see no reason why this should be an exception from the general rule that you can only learn and cast spells on your spell list.

[Kelpstrand]

Since it doesn't explicitly say that you can write spells into yoru spellbook that are not on your class list, I see no reason why this should be an exception from the general rule that you can only learn and cast spells on your spell list.

Actually, the general rule is that you can write whatever spells you want in your spellbook. You can even copy a Divine Scroll into your spellbook.

However, since you can only cast spells on your class list, you can't do anything with them afterwards, except show off to your archivist friends.

This also creates a problem in that lots of things that are supposed to let you break this restriction don't. Arcane Disciple adds them to your class list, but I'm pretty sure Wyrm Wizard just adds them to your spellbook, technically preventing you from casting them.

[PurinaDragonCho]

Actually, the general rule is that you can write whatever spells you want in your spellbook. You can even copy a Divine Scroll into your spellbook.

However, since you can only cast spells on your class list, you can't do anything with them afterwards, except show off to your archivist friends.

Hmm... you may be right about that. However, although I may have written an imprecise answer, I think the OP's intent is to scribe a spell into his spellbook that isn't on the wizard list for purposes of casting that spell. And the SRD says "A wizard casts arcane spells which are drawn from the sorcerer/wizard spell list." I think that's the answer - whether or not you can scribe it into your spellbook is irrelevant if you can't cast it.

This also creates a problem in that lots of things that are supposed to let you break this restriction don't. Arcane Disciple adds them to your class list, but I'm pretty sure Wyrm Wizard just adds them to your spellbook, technically preventing you from casting them.

Adding spells to the class list would still give you an opportunity to learn them as you level, or by scroll. I don't really see that as being that big of a problem.

Wyrm Wizard, I don't know. I don't have that book. But I would certainly allow anyone who took the PrC to cast those spells. Otherwise, there's no point to that feature.

[Kelpstrand]

Hmm... you may be right about that. However, although I may have written an imprecise answer, I think the OP's intent is to scribe a spell into his spellbook that isn't on the wizard list for purposes of casting that spell. And the SRD says "A wizard casts arcane spells which are drawn from the sorcerer/wizard spell list." I think that's the answer - whether or not you can scribe it into your spellbook is irrelevant if you can't cast it.

Well that's kind of my point. Boccobs reading room may or may not have been intended to allow you to use a Cleric spell. But it doesn't by RAW.

Adding spells to the class list would still give you an opportunity to learn them as you level, or by scroll. I don't really see that as being that big of a problem.

Wyrm Wizard, I don't know. I don't have that book. But I would certainly allow anyone who took the PrC to cast those spells. Otherwise, there's no point to that feature.

Well that's my point. Arcane Disciple does what it is supposed to. Wyrm Wizard does not. It's not that big of a flaw, it's just that since intent can never really be understood for a lot of these things, and the RAW is so useless, it's best to ask if it should be allowed. And for that, I would say you can get a Cleric spell, because it's not like Cleric spells are better than Wizard spells, or Wizards can't already duplicate ever level 5 and lower Cleric spell for 50XP anyway but from as a spontaneous choice.