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My question regards the rules on a character scribing spells into a spellbook without having the 'spellbook' class feature.
To explain: I have a bard magician who claims to be "The Greatest Magician of Qadira" and pretends to be a wizard (with the help of a decent UMD). I bought him a spellbook to carry around but I was wondering if I would actually be allowed to scribe spells in there like a wizard would.
Of course, my character would not be able to benefit from it at all except for the RP purpose of pretending to study a spellbook in the morning-but I was wondering if I would be allowed to put spells in there (of course following the normal rules for deciphering arcane magical writings and paying the scribing cost, etc). That way when I played with another wizard I could trade spells with them.
In the section of the magic chapter about copying spells into spellbooks it always specifically calls out "a wizard can. . .", etc, so my guess is that you have to be a wizard or some other class with the 'Spellbook' feature, but I thought it was worth asking about, especially because the only real benefit is for other players to have access to my spells without paying the additional NPC cost they would pay for copying spells between scenarios.
You could always just use the spellbook as a collection of 1 page scrolls.
I don't believe there are RAW costs associated with this, but your GM might be able to slap some together. When you want to have new spells added to the book, you can pay an NPC wizard to scribe them. To keep your subterfuge in tact, if anyone asks why you don't do it yourself, you can reply something to the effect of
"The greatest Magician in Qadira doesn't have time for such minor trivialities. His time is far too valuable to be spent writing. I also do not bother to grow my own food, sew my own clothes, or empty my own chamber pot. To waste MY time is to deprive the world of its greatest resource"
If people don't buy it, that's what Bluff is for.
There is a wondrous item you should look at with this idea, Mnemonic Vestments. They allow (among other things) you to use that spellbook and your spell slots to cast the spells written within.
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etc.
Yes, that's a good 'in game' way to explain the difference. But mechanically the only thing you need to decipher a wizard's spellbook is read magic and a decent Spellcraft, both of which a bard could have. Besides, the magician archetype has access to limited numbers of wizard/sorcerer spells. I was just wondering if, using the standard scribing rules concerning Spellcraft checks and scribing costs etc, I would be allowed to carry around a spellbook and copy things into it.
I'm not talking about using the spellbook in any way for myself. I'm not actually going to try to 'prepare' spells from it. I just want to carry it around as a library of spells and perhaps let other 'real' wizards use it as a reference.
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There is a wondrous item you should look at with this idea, Mnemonic Vestments. They allow (among other things) you to use that spellbook and your spell slots to cast the spells written within.
Yeah, I'm definitely going to look into that when I have the money.
As for the "have an NPC scribe it for you, that's a brilliant idea to make it work within the rules set: just play with a wizard and ask them to do the scribing for me. I'll just pay the cost and keep the book but they can do all the work. I don't see any reason why that method wouldn't be completely within the rules.
I'd still like to know if it's within the rules for my bard to do it but the above should be sufficient to suit my needs for now.
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No reason that I can think of that you couldn't claim as your share of treasure one or more spellbooks and use them as a prop. Absolutely nothing in the rules prevents you from carrying stacks of spellbooks around or hiring others to create your books. Heck it could be one of the reasons to justify all that Bardic Knowledge ... maybe a Bard can't fully understand all that scribbling but nothing says he can't glean general information from it.
Except that in PFS an NPC's spellbook will disappear and be liquidated.
But yeah, I'm definitely going to have to play with a wizard now so he can copy some spells in my book for me. Or copy them myself if I ever get a ruling on that.
Ultimate Magic: Mastering Magic: Spellbooks
Some ready-made spellbooks you can buy if you want to. I don't know if this is somehow on the PFS ban list, but you should be able to buy any of these you want just like any other purchase. Just grab one/some and add subterfuge from there.
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Couldn't you just get another PC wizard/magus at the table to scribe into your spellbook for you? With you paying all the scribing costs.
Would come down to a simple note on the chronicle sheet that you did so at that point, no?
That's what I'm hoping for. I made a separate post about it in the PFS forums (this one was actually originally in the PFS forums and got moved over here for some reason, although my main goal was to find out the PFS-legality of doing this.
RE: the Ultimate Magic ready-made spellbooks: I think those are illegal. (they're in Chapter 2, right? everything from Chapter 2 is illegal.)
RE: Scribe Scroll: Well, that feat isn't legal in PFS anyways but hypothetically it would kinda work except that feat is only required to make scrolls; you don't have to have Scribe Scroll to put things in a Spellbook. Presumably it's a different process, as scrolls are used up when they are cast but spellbook pages are not. I could just carry around a bunch of scrolls and describe them as a spellbook but that's not really the effect I'm going for.
Is there an actual wizard in the party? If so, just forge what it says in his book. :D
Is there an actual wizard in the party? If so, just forge what it says in his book. :D
Since you don't accrue spells naturally through leveling, your only way would be stealing them from others. For extra fun, write non sense every other page and say that if they can't read it its because they're not the greatest wizard in the world.
That might work in a Vancian system,
I don't think you understood what I said. I didn't say you could actually cast from it. One of the big draws of having a spell book is that you can let other characters take spells from it in PFS, not that you can cast from it yourself. The idea of holding one in your possession and putting actual spells in it and claiming to be a great wizard is pretty cool, and for a homegame I couldn't see much reason not to do it, but PFS can have some funky rulings so I'm not sure if it works in that setting. Ideally you could just with a spellcraft like anyone else, but even a small bit of funky writing means that even a character with 20 ranks in knowledge(arcana), Spellcraft, and linguistics and a 300 intelligence might not actually be able to.
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Just for your amusement, here is the update I just made in the PFS version of this thread (copied below).
Option 2? That is the one that needs adjudication form Mike Brock.
Option 1 should not need or require any adjudication. It just means that you would have to track the spells written into the spellbook by noting that "Spell X was written into my spellbook by John, PFS #X-Y, scenario Z."
All scribing costs would have to be paid by the Sorcerer/Bard/what-have-you.
I don't see anything that would need to be adjudicated in that option.
Yeah, I don't really see any problems with Option 1 so I'm probably ok to go ahead and do that. My bard wouldn't have any use for it but it would be a legitimate spellbook written by an actual wizard, so there would be no issue with a second wizard using it as a reference to learn new spells.
Option 2 is a little trickier. Here are some quotes to help:
A wizard can also add a spell to his book whenever he encounters one on a magic scroll or in another wizard's spellbook. No matter what the spell's source, the wizard must first decipher the magical writing (see Arcane Magical Writings).
I think we've already established that a bard/sorcerer with read magic has this part taken care of.
Next, he must spend 1 hour studying the spell. At the end of the hour, he must make a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + spell's level). A wizard who has specialized in a school of spells gains a +2 bonus on the Spellcraft check if the new spell is from his specialty school. If the check succeeds, the wizard understands the spell and can copy it into his spellbook (see Writing a New Spell into a Spellbook). . . .
Once a wizard understands a new spell, he can record it into his spellbook.
Now I realize the text repeatedly and consistently says "a wizard" but the CRB was written before the other spell/formula book classes were written and before Mnemonic Vestments existed. There is nothing in the above that says you have to have the "Spellbook" class feature or that you have to be able to use the spellbook once you are done copying spells into it. The only things required to copy spells into a spellbook are read magic and Spellcraft, both of which bards/sorcerers have access to. If you are flexible in realizing that the language "a wizard" was used simply because there was no reason for anyone else to use a spellbook when the CRB was written and realize that since then with the advent of Mnemonic Vestments bards and sorcerers do have a use for spellbooks now, I don't see much reason why those classes wouldn't be able to copy spells into a spellbook. As quoted above, once you understand a spell (read magic), you can record it into a spellbook (with Spellcraft).
Now, if a bard can write things into a spellbook, another question is raised as to whether he can copy bard spells into that spellbook for use with the Mnemonic Vestment of if he's limited to sorcerer/wizard spells. I don't see why he couldn't write down bard spells since to copy a spell down you just have to understand it and then make the Spellcraft check to write it down correctly.
Of course, when a wizard comes across Cure Light Wounds in your spellbook and gives you a funny look because wizards can't cast that spell, you can just respond, "Well, I guess that's because I am a mightier wizard than you! Haha!" A decent Bluff should take care of those situations.