[Spellbooks] Some questions that probably have an obvious answer

[cappadocius]

1. When the rules say that a spell takes up one page per level of the spell, does this mean it takes one LEAF (one sheet, front AND back) or one PAGE (one side of a leaf, front OR back)

2. Relatedly, the equipment has a standard spellbook containing 100 pages. Is this 100 sheets of paper, or 50 sheets of paper?

(I'm doing my best to not nitpick that neither one of these page counts are likely possible with medieval binding techniques.)

[JoelF847]

I've always read both to be one page (front or back), so that the spellbook on the equipment table has 50 sheets but 100 pages.

Since you've started a spellbook thread, I hope you don't mind me piggybacking on it though with some issues that hopefully can get addressed.

1) the cost of scribing spells is still quite high, and is effectively an extra cost for playing a wizard and using their normal class abilities. This cost eats in to their equipment budget and seems pretty excessive. I'm not saying that there should be no cost, but I am hoping for it to be cut in half, to 50 gp per spell level.

2) the value of captured spellbooks is incredibly high, and in many/most cases is an afterthought from the adventure writer or DM, so that killing a wizard grants their full gear for an NPC of their level, plus their spellbook. Reducing the costs of spellbooks (see #1) would mitigate this issue. Also, I've always ruled that cantrips don't add any value to the spellbook, because wizards already have all of them.

[Set]

JoelF847 wrote:

1) the cost of scribing spells is still quite high, and is effectively an extra cost for playing a wizard and using their normal class abilities. This cost eats in to their equipment budget and seems pretty excessive. I'm not saying that there should be no cost, but I am hoping for it to be cut in half, to 50 gp per spell level.

2) the value of captured spellbooks is incredibly high, and in many/most cases is an afterthought from the adventure writer or DM, so that killing a wizard grants their full gear for an NPC of their level, plus their spellbook. Reducing the costs of spellbooks (see #1) would mitigate this issue. Also, I've always ruled that cantrips don't add any value to the spellbook, because wizards already have all of them.

One option to retain the cost (which is, I think, an important part of being a Wizard, having to pay for the shiny new spells, and I consider it a flaw in Cleric/Druid design that they get their entire spell lists for 'free,' unlike Sorcerers and Bards, who get a tiny fraction of their spell-list, and Wizards, who have to pay for anything past a tiny fraction of their spell-list), but to have half the cost be scribing cost, and the other half be study / research cost to 'master' the spell(s) scribed.

So a PC Wizard getting a spellbook as loot from a slain foe would have a book of half the original core value, and any spell that he doesn't already know in that book, he'd have to shell out half the original core value to 'master.' Once it's mastered, he can read it and prepared it as normal. Depending on finances (or motivation), there may be times he's got books with spells in them he hasn't bothered to master, and therefore cannot prepare.

The spellbook-as-treasure is now not only half as expensive as it used to be, but also represents potential future expenditures, as the Wizard chooses which spells from that book to master and add to his own repertoire. (And if he wants to transfer them to another book, he only pays half the original core cost to do so, as scribing costs are halved.)

It radically changes the spellbook-as-treasure concept, obviously, and I wouldn't recommend it for everyone, *especially* not in a game where Clerics and Druids get every single spell on their spell list at no cost and with no restrictions.