[5e] Copying spells from spellbooks?

estar · February 03, 2016, 08:27:44 AM

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;876737If you have a party of multiple wizards, can the wizards all pass their spellbooks around and copy their spells of each other?

Yes an adventuring party would do that just that.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;876737Also if it's 50 gp per level, does that mean cantrips are free?

Cantrips are not written in spellbooks. They are learned as part of the wizard's training as he levels. A cantrip is always available and can be cast at-will as many times during the day the wizard needs. There is no such thing as having extra cantrips.

If you want to CHANGE your existing selection of cantrips then you will need to make a ruling based on how you want it to work in your setting. I would recommend looking at the level training rules in the DMG and charge a fraction of the time and cost to do that

mAcular Chaotic · February 03, 2016, 09:07:29 AM

Quote from: rawma;876544Sorry! I didn't mean to offend.

No problem and thanks for the help.

Also interesting re: cantrips. I thought of them as "level 0" spells rather than something wholly different.

Omega · February 03, 2016, 09:38:05 AM

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;876737If you have a party of multiple wizards, can the wizards all pass their spellbooks around and copy their spells off each other?

Also if it's 50 gp per level, does that mean cantrips are free?

1: Yep. Trading spells used to be a passtime in BX and AD&D to fill in gaps.

2: Cantrips are imprinted in the caster and are akin to a power as it were. And as per the rules. You can not copy cantrips into a spellbook. Which re-inforces the idea that they are not treated as normal spells. Think of them as like race, backgrounds or feats. Once set. They dont change.

RPGPundit · February 06, 2016, 12:39:30 PM

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;876417But where do you spend it. Do you just sit down and decide "OK I'm deducting 50 gp" and poof, like magic, you have some inks? Even if you're in a desert? Can you use these inks for other things? Or are they only limited to the scrolls?

See, stuff like that.

No, I would say "if you have the time" also means that you have access to the things you need.
If you're in a cave somewhere and didn't bring 50g in special inks beforehand just in case, you're shit out of luck.

And why wouldn't you, presuming you could afford it? It would probably be way lighter and less space-filling to take with you than coins, or even many gems.

Old One Eye · February 07, 2016, 09:25:35 AM

Magical inks are common loot items when sacking wizard lairs. Or there may be a place to purchase magical inks in town, perhaps with ink prices changing with demand. Depending on background, the party may be able to harvest/make their own magical inks, which sounds like an adventure.

RPGPundit · February 08, 2016, 07:55:35 PM

Quote from: Old One Eye;877423Magical inks are common loot items when sacking wizard lairs. Or there may be a place to purchase magical inks in town, perhaps with ink prices changing with demand. Depending on background, the party may be able to harvest/make their own magical inks, which sounds like an adventure.

I'd say that if inks are important to writing spells into spellbooks and scrolls, they should definitely be common loot items in Wizards' lairs.
But they should also be rare enough that they could only be bought in very large cities, for the most part.

Omega · February 08, 2016, 08:19:27 PM

Replace one or two of the "jewelry found" entries in the treasure table with "wizard inks"

IE in 5e replace one of the 25 gp Art Objects entry with "1 jar Wizard Ink", a 250 entry with "2 jars Wizard Ink" and so on.

I did the same with replacing some of those entries with trade goods like spices.

mAcular Chaotic · February 08, 2016, 09:01:04 PM

In 5e at least, the ink you see is just bottled ink, not "magic ink." And the ink you need to copy spells is just "fine inks."

So I don't think it would be that rare. Unless you just wanted to have some super rare special spell that needs special ink to copy.

Omega · February 09, 2016, 06:29:38 AM

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;877807In 5e at least, the ink you see is just bottled ink, not "magic ink." And the ink you need to copy spells is just "fine inks."

So I don't think it would be that rare. Unless you just wanted to have some super rare special spell that needs special ink to copy.

True. But for me the reasoning for the general rarity is that the inks get used up fairly readily so at any given time a caster probably wont have much on them. Now a lair roll might be a different matter. But carried on the person I figured they might not have much on their person.

The entry says material components to experiment and the fine inks. So I bundle in some experimenting components with the inks. Normal inks cost 10gp.

mAcular Chaotic · February 09, 2016, 12:20:25 PM

Yeah that was another thing that confused me about the 50gp cost for copying the spell.

If it goes towards inks, how many bottles of ink are involved? 1? But then that's just 10 gold, there's still 40 left to account for. Or maybe it's 4 bottles of ink, leaving 10gp for other stuff.

If I want to make it more concrete that means figuring that stuff out.

Christopher Brady · February 09, 2016, 01:33:46 PM

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;877933Yeah that was another thing that confused me about the 50gp cost for copying the spell.

If it goes towards inks, how many bottles of ink are involved? 1? But then that's just 10 gold, there's still 40 left to account for. Or maybe it's 4 bottles of ink, leaving 10gp for other stuff.

If I want to make it more concrete that means figuring that stuff out.

The cost implies that it may be 'magic' ink, after all.

mAcular Chaotic · February 09, 2016, 01:41:30 PM

The issue then becomes whether it should be allowed during stints in small towns where there aren't lots of expensive magical supplies. Suddenly the ability to copy spells is much more limited.

Christopher Brady · February 09, 2016, 01:51:02 PM

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;877952The issue then becomes whether it should be allowed during stints in small towns where there aren't lots of expensive magical supplies. Suddenly the ability to copy spells is much more limited.

Fair enough.

Omega · February 09, 2016, 05:47:44 PM

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;877952The issue then becomes whether it should be allowed during stints in small towns where there aren't lots of expensive magical supplies. Suddenly the ability to copy spells is much more limited.

Probably the point.

Its much like the PCs walking into some small town and expecting full plate in the shops or magic components in every town.

There are going to be times when, NO, you can not copy a spell because you are out in the boonies or away from more civilized locales.

Or the druid for example. The druid does not automatically know every animal shape in the PHB just because its in the PHB.

Old One Eye · February 09, 2016, 08:47:19 PM

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;877952The issue then becomes whether it should be allowed during stints in small towns where there aren't lots of expensive magical supplies. Suddenly the ability to copy spells is much more limited.

Thinking about matters such as this is one of my primary methods of world building. I find that setting up a rough supply chain for inks and other wizardry goods gives more grist-for-the-mill for a long-term sandbox than spending prep time on, say, some NPC' s backstory.