Nixitur's page

I know that the players have access to computers in general, but could I (as a player) purchase a computer that could remotely fire a weapon or start our starship? What about store secure data to have access to when not in range of an infosphere? Or even to have an AI for those lonely nights out in the drift?

I would say definitely yes on all accounts, except maybe starting a starship. Because the rules state that "the control module for a more complex device, such as a spy Drone, Starship, Vehicle, or weapon turret, costs 10% of the device to be controlled." But since starships only have a price in BP, not in credits, that doesn't really make sense.

It's important to note what computers can't do, though. They can't access, let alone control devices they don't have a control module for. Most importantly, this includes hacking. This still leaves you with a ton of possibilities, if you're creative and prepared.

That's just it, we don't know be because the history before the Gap is lost.

I'm pretty sure that's not the case. It's stated that history lines up again before the Gap, and that historians do know quite a bit about that.

The term I've seen used the most as a derogatory term for the living in canon has been "breathers".

I came up with "breather" as an Eoxian curse before I even saw it in official content. It's a wonderfully organic (as it were) epithet.

I don't own Dead Suns, so this is some major hivemind.

Pre-transition, early form, biologically animate, chemical energy dependent (given PF cosmology - positive or radiant energy dependent?), first order consumers... just brainstorming ideas for names the more pompous unliving might give the living. They might well get worn down in actual use, bioanimate or bios, chemdependent or chems, etc.

I like "bios" as a laconic term for non-undead a lot. It's punchy, immediately clear from the context, and neither insulting nor pompous.

Battledwarf wrote:

Another question about Microbot Assault... would casting this break Invisibility? It's not actually attacking anyone, so should an invisible caster be able to summon these up and harass his foes?

No. It's a harmful effect on the square - negatively impacts the foe.

So the invisibility would break.

It's not an area effect, though, nor an effect targeting an opponent. I don't see how it's a more direct form of attack than using Summon Creature which has never broken Invisibility.

pithica raises a good point in regards to the CRB. The only creatures it lists as being absolutely, unquestionably locked to an alignment are the outsiders of the Outer Sphere. Everything else can be of any alignment. Undead are not mentioned.

-snip-

That doesn't seem very useful unless you are stealthily listening to a group of creatures speak to each other. Even then, what creatures (other than Tolkien-like treants) take ten minutes to say "leave immediately"?

You don't need ten minutes of "leave immediately" for it to function as a translator. You can attune it to some language beforehand, perhaps by just listening to the locals. Heck, with the omnipresence of infospheres on civilized planets and stations, a character could probably just tune in to the local radio or TV and that would be that. Then, you can take your translator with you to more risky endeavors.

Where are we getting all this data on SF undead?

There's a few Undead listed in Alien Archives and Dead Suns 3 apparently has quite a bit about Eox. I don't own the latter, but there is a non-evil Undead listed in AA, the Cybernetic Zombie.

I don't think there's mention of a neutral Eoxian method. Or has the nature of necromancy changed since PF? Or has magic progressed such?

Well, I don't know about that, but Animate Dead certainly doesn't have the "Evil" descriptor any more. In fact, the only spell which can have descriptors indicating alignment is Planar Binding. I feel like that was sort of overlooked.

Fabricate Tech can definitely use some clarification. The ability may be useless. But certain interpretations of the ability could make it overpowered, as Nixitur and I briefly discussed in another thread.

Oh yeah, I was wondering why this discussion seemed familiar. I'm also just going to shamelessly quote myself here, because I have already argued over the "items with limited [...] charges" wording.

Also, as for the "charges" wording, it says that you're not allowed to create stuff that has limited charges. It doesn't say anything about items that use charges. The "Capacity" heading in the table denotes "the maximum capacity for an item that requires charges to function", not that it has that amount of charges to begin with. Yes, when you buy them, they come precharged, but that's obviously not required.

I'm pretty sure the wording is not intended to keep you from fabricating motion detectors and microphones, but just so that you can't create ammo. But because the items you create aren't allowed to have charges, they will be empty when you fabricate them. Which is fine, though, because they can be recharged with batteries.

So, yeah, I'm fairly certain you can create items which use charges. Just not ones that have charges.

Well, technological items also include "any minor piece of equipment with a real-world equivalent". So, a spectrum analyzer would probably fall under that, given that they're already quite affordable nowadays. It doesn't say what level such an item would have, but I'm guessing it would be 1.
Also, I agree with Azalah that not allowing any item running on charges is too restrictive. I read that rule as meaning that they don't want to allow a PC to get "free" charges that way. I find it more likely that you can create items which require charges, but they're empty, and can then be powered up.

I completely missed the following until getting reminded of it in this thread: Readied actions which are not purely defensive resolve after the triggering event. This is a pretty huge deal.

In this case, its not the vacuum that kills ya, its the differential pressure that pushes you through a quarter-sized hole that deforms you irreversibly.

I'm pretty sure this doesn't happen. It's just a difference of one atmosphere which is not enough to exert much of a pull.

Also it's an [Evil] spell, which is its own balancing factor in some games.

No, it's not. In fact, the only spell so far that can have descriptors indicating alignment is Planar Binding.

Yeah, the formatting makes this kind of impossible to read. Your conclusions do seem sound, though.
Also, as an aside, the average roll on a d6 isn't 3, it's 3.5. I don't know if this would change your conclusion, but this can make quite a difference.

Ifirts occupy quite a bit of roles deemed unsavoury to most people, such as bounty hunting, snuggling, and assassination.

Oh boy, is it time for the Space Ifrit in a Space Grapple thread?

Yakman wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

I've also found it odd that mechanics can somehow wirelessly hack devices that aren't wireless.

the computers skill is easily overwhelming. DMs should be wary of player abuse. In our game, my technomancer and my fellow mechanic have a 12 in this skill at 3rd level.

That is doable at 3rd level, but if you haven’t noticed it yet in SF a lot of things are insight bonuses. Pay attention to bonus types so you don’t double or triple dip.

Including Skill Focus which is a surprising change that is gonna trip up Pathfinder veterans for quite a while. It's especially weird for Operatives who get Skill Focus in their specialization skills at level 1 which gets completely eaten up by Operative's Edge at level 7.

How do you have an infinite rough draft of a universe that is mapped to the full version, which is a finite and mostly empty space? It'd be one thing if it was a completely separate plane of existence with no physical connection to the material plane--but in Pathfinder the planes aren't like that, they're nested Dyson Spheres with all of reality inside them.

You're taking that image way too literally. They are completely separate planes of existence. Seeing them as nested spheres is just one (metaphysical) way of looking at them. It's moreso to illustrate which planes are coterminous. And even that isn't perfect. If I recall correctly, the Ethereal Plane is adjacent to every other plane which you can't really see in that image.

I'd say probably not. Even Alien Archive has stuff like a devil that morphs into a spaceship and angels whose duty is specifically to hunt down and destroy dangerous technology. Triune has really shaken things up, so the Outer Planes seem to have changed quite substantially.
I'd love to know what happened to the Inner Planes, though. The Elementals at least are pretty much the same as in Pathfinder, though I wouldn't be surprised if the Mephit and especially Genies have adapted to technology.

Another weakness of Wyrwoods that has to be considered is that when they're dead, they stay dead. Not even True Resurrection will help with that as constructs simply do not have a soul.
That's another reason I wouldn't allow construct PCs. At mid-to-high levels, I think it's generally accepted that PCs have access to Raise Dead or at least Breath of Life and a character who can't make use of that is a serious risk.

If you want to have just one fairly powerful Undead, the Occultist with a focus on Necromancy can get the Necromantic Servant focus power. It's actually more summoning than Animating Dead as it doesn't require a corpse, it has half your HP and it doesn't have an Evil qualifier. At level 5, you can also keep it alive by pumping more focus into it. And the Resonant Power for Necromancy can hugely increase how many HD of Undead you can control.
The Occultist even has an Archetype that is entirely focused on Necromancy, the Necroccultist. You have less Occultist spells at your disposal (only one school instead of two at level 1), but you get another Necromancy spell known from the Wizard spell list every level for free.

Of course, the Occultist is only a 2/3 spellcaster, but a 3/4 martial. It's a very different flavor from the classic Wizard Necromancer standing at the sidelines throwing loads of Undead at their problems. As an Occultist, when you're creating flanking buddies for your party, you could be the one making use of that flanking opportunity.

dc 30 seems way to low a lvl 1 character can get that with a good die roll

If that character basically went all-in on Intelligence and Knowledge (Arcana/Religion), then and only then would they even have a chance and still a pretty slim one.

which weight 10,000 lbs and cost 7500 of lead so if we do the division lead cost 1,33 periodically, so for 1 GP 3 SP and 3 CP a thousand pounds of lead is worth 1333 GP 3 SP 3 CP, which is a a great amount of GP gain, so its better to transform lead instead of iron

Edit: if someone can correct me on my math do it, because i know i am not the best at math maybe i have done my calculation wrong (very surely)

Nope, you got it wrong, what you just calculated is how much lead you get for 1 gp which is 1.33 lbs.

It's still ridiculous that the rules to work with an artifact in Ultimate Equipment are in Bestiary Freaking 5. But thanks for the answer, anyway.

So, 1 lb of lead costs 7.5 sp.

Being an Occultist with Globe of Negation would also work. It's like Globe of Invulnerability, but instead of negating only spells of certain levels, you can negate all spells, but have an upper limit on the total number of spell levels it can negate. It's also stationary instead of centered on you.
Since it's a class-specific option, it's not too useful for most characters, but it's a pretty damn good class-specific option.

Check this out.

Active and Automatic Perception: There are two ways Perception checks happen in the game. The first way is automatic and reactive. Certain stimuli automatically call for a Perception check, such as a creature using Stealth (which calls for an opposed Perception check), or the sounds of combat or talking in the distance. The flip side is when a player actively calls for a Perception check because her PC is intentionally searching for something. This always takes at least a move action, but often takes significantly longer.

The core rules don’t specify what area a PC can actively search, but for a given Perception check it should be no larger than a 10-foot-by-10-foot area, and often a smaller space if that area is cluttered. For instance, in an intrigue-based game, it is fairly common to look through a filing cabinet full of files. Though the cabinet itself might fill only a 5-foot-by-5-foot area, the number of files present could cause a search to take a particularly long time.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of that rule. As the rules even say, it depends on the context. If I'm scanning the horizon for something, requiring that I take a move action for every 10 feet of whatever "the horizon" is, is ludicrous.

One thing you have to consider with a non-native Outsider player character is that nothing short of True Resurrection will actually resurrect them which makes them probably the most risky in that regard short of Wyrwoods.

I could be wrong, but isn't a force effect out side the typical Elemental/energies effect category?

Even if it is, Elemental Spell does not care whether the spell was originally elemental, only that it does damage.

You can skip the admixture part of you just have Elemental spell(cold)

No, because Elemental Spell does not change the spell descriptors, only the damage type. Jack even pointed that out in Step 1. The Draconic bloodline (white) specifically only works with spells with the cold descriptor, not just spells that do cold damage.

To answer the question, I think that's entirely fair. Everything checks out. Versatile Evocation doesn't state that the damage type has to match the descriptor, only that the damage needs to be elemental and that there has to be some descriptor indicating a damage type for it to be changed. And since [force] is a descriptor indicating damage type, that seems fine.

To be quite honest, I think Elemental Spell not changing the descriptors is an oversight. Because going purely by the rules about descriptors, "Force spells affect incorporeal creatures normally", so your Elemental (Fire) Magic Missile with the [force] descriptor would still do full damage against incorporeal creatures even though its damage type is fire. The determining factor whether a damage-dealing spell is a "force spell" is, oddly, not whether it deals force damage, but whether it has the [force] descriptor which Elemental Magic Missiles do.

Arden Oakwald wrote:

Would improved familiar work straight out from familiar bond (without taking improved familiar bond?)

RAW sure, but don't be too surprised if a GM says no.

The GM would have a pretty solid case against it, too, given this FAQ. Going by that, Improved Familiar works more like an archetype, meaning that your familiar needs the ability to speak with animals of its kind because Improved Familiar swaps it out. The rules text itself doesn't say that it replaces that, though, it only says that an Improved Familiar doesn't gain that ability which is very different.

What of taking a familiar archetype, any issues doing so with Familiar Bond? For example, if one wants to take a Sage or Emissary familiar?

Sage familiar would be fine, but Emissary is not. Emissary swaps out Share Spells and Deliver Touch Spells, neither of which your Familiar gains if granted by that feat.

The rules text is pretty clear. You do not get a bonus to Disguise checks unless you otherwise have scars that grant you a mechanical benefit.
Now, would I allow that to work with cosmetic scars? I'm not entirely sure. A +2 bonus to Disguise for an entire day for a meagre 10 gp seems a bit out of line in terms of power. On the other hand, the disguise kit gives you a similar bonus, costs 50 gp and is expended after 10 uses. On the third hand, Scarsalve gives you a much rarer type of bonus, so should be more expensive just by that measure.

At my table, characters suffer adverse effects immediately when rolling a 1 while attacking, no confirmation roll necessary. The effects are drawn from a deck of cards and some are downright crippling like a -4 to attack with that weapon until you fix it.
I really hate that rule, so I appreciate all good arguments against it.

So, "dot", as others put it.

Here's another annoying thing: Of the skills listed, Knowledge (Planes), Perception, Sense Motive and Stealth are class skills granted by the Outsider type. Outsiders have 4 extra class skills, of which are listed Fly, Knowledge (History) and Profession (Scribe).
This means that the Nosoi must have another class skill which we can't possibly know.
I would say that Linguistics fits its theme of an extraplanar scribe fairly well, but that's something to talk about with your GM.

Yeah, I agree, Point-Blank Shot and Precise Shot are non-negotiable at early levels.
I would absolutely take Rapid Shot at some point. I would take it over Extra Bombs personally, but that depends on how many fights per day your GM does.
Void Bomb is "available to Drow alchemists", so I don't think you're allowed to take it. I'd recommend Sticky Bomb instead as it seriously increases your damage output as a bomber. If you hit an enemy with four bombs in a round, that's another about 4*splash damage on the round after which is pretty huge.
Blinding Bomb is brutal, Combine Extracts can essentially be bought for 5000 gp. Yes, the latter is only once a day, but still.
I would take Tumor Familiar over Improved Initiative. A Compsognathus or Greensting Scorpion gives you +4 to Intiative as well and if you get the Protector archetype, you effectively multiply your HP by 1.5 from level 5 onward. A Protector with fast healing 5 is also just absurdly good. It also allows you to seriously screw with the action economy once you get Infusions and Touch Injection.

Frost Bomb is a great level 4 bomb. Yes, it's almost as often resisted as fire, but it does full damage and has a pretty great side effect. Acid Bomb's effect is much worse, but it's less resisted. Your choice, I'd say.
You really, really want to fit in Force Bomb at some point. It depends on the campaign, of course, but there's quite a few monsters that have resistances against both Fire and Cold damage and Force damage just hits for full every time, even against incorporeal opponents. It has quite a nice side effect, too. I'd take it at level 11 (Extra Discovery) and Splash Weapon Mastery at level 13. The other way around might be fine, too.

It doesn't look like you'll be able to fit in Madness Bomb or Cursed Bomb, but if you can, that seems like an extremely brutal combination. You're essentially throwing out multiple Bestow Curse castings in a round, at range, and even if it doesn't stick, you reduce your opponent's Will save, making it easier for the next one to stick.

For Smoke Bomb and related Discoveries, I don't think you can choose which squares to affect as with Precise Bombs. 'cause it's not just doing splash damage, it's a spell effect simply related to your splash radius, so Precise Bombs doesn't work. So, you're going to be nauseating and inferno-ing your teammates as well. A fine bomb to throw out when you're going first, but that's only one round per battle where you can realistically use them unless you want your party to hate you.

Try to be a legally registered necromancer that do that for your kingdom. You acted by your king's comment, he is legally obligated to not get in your way.

A Paladin who knows what you are doing would absolutely try to stop you, regardless of the local laws or the king's command. The "lawful" in a Paladin's Lawful Good is not the law of the land. And even if it was, Paladins always put Good before Law. They have Smite Evil, not Smite Chaos.

Honestly, trapping souls and using them to power constructs is way more evil than just good ol' necromancy. Creating mindless undead doesn't do anything with the victim's soul while soul crafting keeps them from their final rest. And buying souls from the poor who don't know the real value of a soul is something devils do, except in that case, they do at least get to the afterlife and still have a chance in Pharasma's court. I would be extremely skeptical of a Paladin who would be okay with what your character is planning.

Also, by the way, an average peasant's soul would be a Basic Soul costing 100 GP on the soul market, not a Mindless Spirit which is worth 10 GP.

There is a ripple to suddenly revealing that a majority of at least forum goers assumed that it worked contrary to the way the FAQ explains it.

A lot of forumgoers and clearly a lot of designers and writers for Pathfinder, too. As toastedamphibian pointed out up above, all printed items that this rule would apply to use the calculation that everybody assumed, i.e. that the cost for masterwork and special material items is never multiplied.

And I've seen some people state that this FAQ does not apply to the masterwork cost, but it very clearly does. The example stated in the FAQ is about a mithral chain shirt for which we know that "the masterwork cost is included in the prices".
The mithral chain shirt costs 1100 gp, 150 of which is the masterwork cost. If the masterwork cost was not to be multiplied, then a mithral chain shirt for a rune giant would only cost (1100 - 150) * 8 + 150 = 7750 gp rather than 8800 gp. So, by the ruling in the FAQ, the masterwork cost would need to be multiplied which contradicts a lot, including Amiri's gear.

that's not an effect of the spell, its you swinging so close to him that you cut through an image and it disappears.

That interpretation of the flavor of the spell is all fine and well, but if you let that flavor affect the rules, you are in houserule territory.

or are you saying because I can't see the image being cut in half it doesn't remove an image?

That is not only what I'm saying, that's what the rules are saying.

what about my party members or other people watching does it die for them?

No.

if it doesn't then why does it die normally when you cut through it?

Because it says so in the spell description.

Sorry to necro this thread but I noticed some thing new, the Blinding Effect/Ability affects all Humanoids within 30ft of the Nymph, however, Tieflings and Aasimars are Native Outsiders, which are their own creature type, and given that spells/effects that target Humanoids have no effect on them, would they also be therefore immune to a Nymphs Blinding Beauty ability?

Four years...

With that out of the way, yes, it does not affect Tieflings, Aasimars, Ifrits, Oreads, Sylphs, Undines, Fetchlings or a bunch of the "Other Races". You might argue that that doesn't make sense, but it's a magical ability, so it's entirely possible that it's based more on the target's connection to the Material World than anything else.

avr wrote:

The slumber hex is the next best thing to a kill. Sometimes better if you want to take prisoners. An alchemist's bombs often do enough damage to KO enemies on their own - tanglefoot bombs etc. still do the full normal bomb damage.

It will often be better for you to do control, but if you need to do damage yourself spells like snowball and ice spears are on your list.

I didn't know Tanglefoot bombs did actual damage? I thought they just imposed conditions on enemies?

Unless a bomb specifically states that it doesn't deal damage (Dispelling Bomb) or that it deals less damage (Madness Bomb), it still does the full bomb damage, Fire by default. In fact, if an enemy doesn't take any damage from the attack, I'm pretty sure it's not affected by the conditions either.

the effect of mirror image is a bunch of images that give you a miss chance. even if your eyes are closed if you swing into his square and cut one in half it still goes poof. they don't cease being there because your eyes are closed

Please quote the part of the spell description that states that "if the attacker is blind, the spell has no effect except it still totally does and they can still hit the images". 'cause I'm not seeing it. A blind attacker can no more hit your mirror images than an area effect can.

good argument I see your point.

The point is that it's literally in the spell description that Mirror Image does jack and crap if the attacker is blind. And part of the effect of Mirror Image is the ability to destroy the images.

And given that pathfinder has put out paladin codes for all the gods who could have an antipaladin/paladin I submit that it doesnt seem secondary to the alignment in the eyes of Paizo.

Honestly, CE strikes me as probably the weirdest alignment to have a Paladin-equivalent. From all descriptions of it that I've read, it doesn't really gel with "living according to a strict code".

This is, of course, exactly the sort of thing that they reworded the spell to prevent. Sometimes people legitimately don't understand the intent of rules, but in this case we do. Trying to find ways to subvert clear intent seems pointless to me. If too many people start doing this, they are likely to just rewrite the rule. That sort of escalating, legalistic war over words doesn't seem fun to me.

Well, I suppose we disagree on that, then. To me, this is very fun, but different strokes for different folks. It's clear as day that no GM would allow this and I doubt any player would seriously try this either.

Nixitur wrote:

Gisher wrote:

Even if you are allowed to treat the arrows as a single item by tying them into a bundle, you still have to retrieve the bundle, store it, and then retrieve it again. I don't see how you would have the actions to accomplish this in one round.

Well, as the OP states, we have two casters, so the answer is "very easily".

Please explain in detail.

Well, surely, removing the bundle of arrows is a move action and putting them in another quiver is a move action as well.

Initial State: quiver A contains a bundle of arrows, quiver B is empty.
Round 1:
Caster 1: Casts Abundant Ammunition on quiver A.
Caster 2: Casts Abundant Ammunition on quiver B.
Round 2:
Caster 1: Takes bundle of arrows from quiver A and puts them in quiver B (two move actions)
Caster 2: Takes bundle of arrows from quiver B and... I dunno, stabs Caster 1 with it?
Round 3:
Caster 1: Arrows taken from quiver A are replenished
Caster 2: Arrows taken from quiver B are replenished, bundle outside quiver from the previous round vanishes

This would lead to a bundle of arrows in both quiver A and quiver B.

Rope trick is transmutation, that might get you out of the demiplane's effect.

I hadn't even considered that, that's brilliant! And then, you just Plane Shift out of your rope trick and you're good to go.

As an aside, I just noticed that Blink specifically states that you shift back and forth between the Material and the Ethereal Plane which makes me wonder what would happen if you cast it on any other plane. Do you just leave that plane to blink back and forth between the Material and Etheral Plane, essentially giving you a cheap, but very temporary Plane Shift?
That is very obviously not the intention, but the only reasonable interpretation I can think of from the rules as written. Shadow Walk specifically talks about the Material Plane as well.

Wanted to make a Goblin Alchemist who would be riding a mount to do hit an run tactics. I am not sure what the mount is going to be yet, don't know if I want a flying mount or a fast ground mount.

The Winged Marauder gives you a flying mount animal companion for what amounts to very little. Mutagen is a discovery away and the loss of Persistent Mutagen is not a huge deal. And early flight is just so exceedingly good.

I wanted him to either throw a bomb attached to a spear. Thinking that I could get both spear dmg and bomb dmg.

The Explosive Missile discovery does almost exactly what you want. You're trading off the biggest advantage of bombs which is that it goes against touch AC, but do tons of damage at high range. However, it only works with ammunition, not spears.

Or throw a spear syringe with a poison cotangent in it infused with a bomb for dmg.

You can blow a lot of feats and discoveries on being the best at poison and poison is still going to suck a whole lot. Poison is expensive, the save DCs are low and a ton of opponents are going to be immune against it anyway. Do not go for poison.

Just to be clear, you guys are passing judgment on this GM for 200gp.

Well, yes. Yes, I am. Depending on what level you are, 200 gp might be important. And even if 200 gp were peanuts, if my GM offered me such a deal, I would probably just stare at them incredulously and wonder how stupid they think I am. It is such a transparently bad deal. Trying to trick your players in such a way strikes me as very bad form.

Honestly, the best way to handle this is to allow the enchantment to be moved for free. There should always been an easy way to help a player enact their vision without breaking the game.

You shouldn't have to pay to play your character.

I don't know if I entirely agree with this. For example, replacing your dead familiar with the exact same type of creature is always way cheaper than reviving your old familiar and makes no mechanical difference. But if my GM made them cost the same, that would remove all the emotional impact of my familiar's death. This actually happened to me and my character, who is otherwise very distant and unfriendly to other people, gladly paid the 5000 gp to get her old familiar back rather than get Familiar 2.0 for less than half that cost. This really highlighted what kind of character she is which is what you want in a roleplaying game.

There's still no reason to present the player with such a transparently bad deal, though.

So, unless the wizard was mind wiped, he still has cantrips memorized. This gives him the potential to have some sort of way to gain assistance from the outside world or a way to slowly (think Shawshank redemption) reduce the integrity of his prison and eventually escape.

Not to mention that if he has Mending prepared, he can easily smash the rock with the Greatsword and fix the Greatsword if it ever breaks from that (which it actually never does if we go by the rules). He wouldn't be trapped for 700 years. He wouldn't even be trapped for a day.

Yeah, the 1200 gp deal is incredibly bad. If it's just a +1 weapon, then to make it in any way fair, it should cost less than 1000. 'cause here's what you could do instead:

• sell the found weapon for 1000 gp
  
• enchant your family weapon for 2000 gp

Nixitur wrote:

Doomed Hero wrote:

He can scratch on the walls and turn the whole cavern into a spellbook.

Not if he doesn't have the spells prepared. You can't just write spells down because you had them written down somewhere before.

Wizards don't need to have a spell prepared in order to scribe it into a book. You're thinking of scrolls. All they need to do is put in the time to research the spell (or copy it if they already know it). Wizards make copies of their spellbooks all the time, just in case one of them gets destroyed. They don't need to memorize every spell in their book to make a new one. (this wizard is learning that the hard way)

Mostly, copying spells, or researching spells, is about time and money.

Wait, so you're saying that a wizard who loses his spellbook can still remember his spells, write them down somewhere and then prepare them? I've never heard about that.

• spells gained at level-up
  
• spells found in scrolls
  
• spells found in other spellbooks
  
• spells you have prepared

If he already has a particular spell prepared, he can write it directly into a new book at the same cost required to write a spell into a spellbook. The process wipes the prepared spell from his mind, just as casting it would. If he does not have the spell prepared, he can prepare it from a borrowed spellbook and then write it into a new book.

Nowhere does it say that you can write down spells into your spellbook that you have neither prepared nor in front of you. Copying spellbooks is a completely different case because you actually have the original spellbook.