Spell books and Formulae books, Why can't you copy from one to the other?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

Silver Crusade

I have a design question. I understand that an alchemist, provided the spell is on his spell list, can add a spell to his formulae book from a wizards spell book. I assume the same applies for a scroll.

Provided the spell is on the wizard’s spell list, why cant a wizard take an Alchemist formulae from an Alchemist’s formulae book and put it in his spell book? Why was it designed this way?

thanks

Contributor

I can't speak to the "design" aspect authoritatively but I suspect it's a matter of balance issues with the wizards having too much extra access to spells this way.

From a story and metaphysics perspective, alchemists deal with natural magic whereas wizards not only deal with natural magic but also celestial magic and ceremonial magic--these concepts not something I'm just making up, but the cornerstones of the medieval European understanding of magic as set forth by Henry Cornelius Agrippa Von Nettesheim (commonly known as Agrippa) in his Three Books of Occult Philosophy (commonly known as The Agrippa).

As I see it, the spells in a wizards spellbook make liberal use of all three philosophies whereas an alchemist only makes use of the first. Ergo, an alchemist can derive the formula needed to make an alchemical extract after studying a wizard's spell of the same name, but a wizard, on encountering an alchemist's formulary, has at most one third of the data he needs for the relevant spell.

Of course, if the DM wants to be kind to wizard players who take out alchemist villains, those alchemists have probably previously taken out wizards and would still have their captured spellbooks as part of a back-up library in case of destruction of their main formulary.

This brings up an interesting question of whether alchemists can copy wizard scrolls into their formularies and whether this copying destroys the original scroll. Game balance says that it should, but there's a question of whether the data is all gone or just the list of ingredients the alchemist needs, leaving the destroyed scroll looking like a Mad Lib with all the ritual words and somatic diagrams intact but missing the list of necessary material components for the spell.

I actually kind of like that flavor.

Silver Crusade

Kevin Andrew Murphey, Thank you for taking the time to answer my post and suggesting the difference between natural magic, ceremonial magic and celestial magic.

From my perspective it doesn’t make any sense in terms of fluff that an alchemist can copy from a wizards spell book but a wizard cant copy from an alchemist’s spell book, erm formulae book. See the problem? After all, the materiel components for a fire ball spell are a ball of bat guano and sulphur. From my perspective it is a game balance issue. There is a trade off…The classes which have to prepare their spells before hand, have a much wider selection of spells, and have the capacity to add spells to their repetoire as they come across them. To balance this the spontaneous casters have a limited number of spells known.

Well I think I will house rule that wizards can copy spells from an alchemist’s formulae book, with the caviat, that a wizard can only copy spells out of an alchemist’s formulae book, to his spell book ( which are formulae as well) that are on his spell list.

I would further expand this to include the witch as well. IF the alchemist, witch, and wizard can swap magical spells, provided those spells are on their spell lists, I don’t see that there is a balance issue. It allows a player, who is an alchemist for example to ask a wizard, if he can copy some spells, and be able to offer something in return. The same goes for a witch. The simple solution for this is a house rule, which I shall implement.

Thank you for taking the time to answer.


ElyasRavenwood wrote:

Kevin Andrew Murphey, Thank you for taking the time to answer my post and suggesting the difference between natural magic, ceremonial magic and celestial magic.

From my perspective it doesn’t make any sense in terms of fluff that an alchemist can copy from a wizards spell book but a wizard cant copy from an alchemist’s spell book, erm formulae book. See the problem? After all, the materiel components for a fire ball spell are a ball of bat guano and sulphur. From my perspective it is a game balance issue. There is a trade off…The classes which have to prepare their spells before hand, have a much wider selection of spells, and have the capacity to add spells to their repetoire as they come across them. To balance this the spontaneous casters have a limited number of spells known.

Well I think I will house rule that wizards can copy spells from an alchemist’s formulae book, with the caviat, that a wizard can only copy spells out of an alchemist’s formulae book, to his spell book ( which are formulae as well) that are on his spell list.

I would further expand this to include the witch as well. IF the alchemist, witch, and wizard can swap magical spells, provided those spells are on their spell lists, I don’t see that there is a balance issue. It allows a player, who is an alchemist for example to ask a wizard, if he can copy some spells, and be able to offer something in return. The same goes for a witch. The simple solution for this is a house rule, which I shall implement.

Thank you for taking the time to answer.

I agree with you about the wizard and the alchemist but how do you get the spell out of the goat?

Contributor

PoorWanderingOne wrote:
I agree with you about the wizard and the alchemist but how do you get the spell out of the goat?

I think it requires ink, a printing press, and a very unhappy goat.

Liberty's Edge

I'm away from my books now, but IIRC, it takes a successful Spellcraft check to copy a spell from a scroll or book.

As a GM, I'd be inclined to just add +2 or +5 to the DC in order to copy from a class that uses magic differently from you. With the caveat, of course, that you can only copy over spells that are on your spell list.


Well, I think that wizard's spellbook contains all manner of diagrams, complex gestures, spell components and meditational practices to put the spell in wizardš mind, whereas Alchemist's formulae are probably more like cook's recipes. The alchemyst can probably guess what does he have to mix with what to achieve the desired result, but for the wizard the formulae don't contain enough information.


PoorWanderingOne wrote:
I agree with you about the wizard and the alchemist but how do you get the spell out of the goat?

Well, the witch won't be happy, but then again once you have eaten the goat's innards in a magic ritual, her options for revenge are much more limited. :D

From a fluff standpoint, I'd say the reason why is this: the wizard is NOT innately magical, as the sorcerer, alchemist, or witch familiar are. Consequently, much of a wizard's spell contains rituals that build up the charge, if you will. Consider: a 9th level spell takes up 9 pages in a spellbook, but the same spell as a scroll is only 1 page. Why the 8-page difference? Because the scroll has only the material needed to actually cast the spell; it already contains the magic needed. So, when a witch or alchemist look at a wizard spell, they are getting redundant information they don't need - they can skip to the last page, because their pump is primed, so to speak. The wizard can't go in the other direction, however, because the alchemist's formula leaves out all the steps he needs to get to the casting point.

Now, I think I would allow a wizard to get a bonus when trying to develop a spell on his own if he has an alchemist formula to work with. Or some way to pull the spell out of the familiar. (Scatology, perhaps?)

Edit: Ninja'd by Zmar.

Liberty's Edge

Derek Vande Brake wrote:
From a fluff standpoint, I'd say the reason why is this: the wizard is NOT innately magical, as the sorcerer, alchemist, or witch familiar are. Consequently, much of a wizard's spell contains rituals that build up the charge, if you will. Consider: a 9th level spell takes up 9 pages in a spellbook, but the same spell as a scroll is only 1 page. Why the 8-page difference? Because the scroll has only the material needed to actually cast the spell; it already contains the magic needed. So, when a witch or alchemist look at a wizard spell, they are getting redundant information they don't need - they can skip to the last page, because their pump is primed, so to speak. The wizard can't go in the other direction, however, because the alchemist's formula leaves out all the steps he needs to get to the casting point.

I like this.

Silver Crusade

How do you get the spell out of a goat?
Well I can think of two ways. Not those two ways. The first would be if the wizard could use concentration, or spell craft to “commune “ with the goat. Another possibility could be if the goat “coughs” up a “scroll’ which would allow a wizard to scribe a spell in his spell book.

Well I suppose in my opinion, it wouldn’t upset any “game balance” issues to allow the Alchemist, wizard and witch to trade spells with each other provided said spells are on their respective spell lists. In other words a wizard is not getting his hands on the “bomber’s eye” spell, nor is he getting Beguiling Gift.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Derek Vande Brake wrote:
PoorWanderingOne wrote:
I agree with you about the wizard and the alchemist but how do you get the spell out of the goat?

Well, the witch won't be happy, but then again once you have eaten the goat's innards in a magic ritual, her options for revenge are much more limited. :D

Limited only by either the prepared spells she's still carrying...the Hexes she might throw your way, (or the best reason that no one should be an island) the friends or blackmailed victims she can toss at you.


If the OP was going to "house rule" the problem the way he wanted to, why did he bother to ask for opinions?

Don't get me wrong - the game is yours. Play it as silly or serious as you like. So long as you're having fun, you're doing it right.

But, the conversation was:

OP: Why does this work like this and not like that?

Post1: For several very good reasons, and here they are.

OP: Excellent points. I'm gonna do it my way.

Silver Crusade

Well I asked for opinions because, other people may see a pitfall i had not seen, or they may think of something I hadn't thought of.

Contributor

The main reason not to do it that way is flavor and the mechanics tied to that flavor:

So you've got a dead wizard and a dead alchemist. They have each left books, one a spellbook, one a formulary. One has one spell in it. The other has one formula in it. They are for the same "spell" as recorded in the big real world game book, but the fact of the world is that the wizard views his spell as a spell whereas the alchemist views it as a formula.

If there is no mechanical difference in how the to operate for purposes of putting spells in a spellbook, then they are the same in the game world as well, and there is no way to tell the difference between a page of arcane scribblings by a wizard and a page of arcane scribblings by an alchemist. This is bad for believability and immersion.

Wizards require verbal and somatic components for their spells. Their spellbooks should reasonably be filled with arcane words, with pronunciation guides, and lists of sacred mudhras which is another way of saying magical gang signs. They'd also have a list of ingredients.

Alchemists? They have a list of ingredients. They don't dance around the cauldron swinging a censer while flagellating the cat when they make a potion. They play with their chemistry set and that's it.

Now, figuring out what words to say and what gang signs to flash might be possible with a heavy duty Spellcraft check, but when a wizard looks at an alchemist's formula, he should be reading "You put the lime in the coconut" and then flipping it over and wondering where the rest of the spell is.

Liberty's Edge

Firstbourne wrote:

If the OP was going to "house rule" the problem the way he wanted to, why did he bother to ask for opinions?

Because it's an interesting discussion to have?

Because if someone came up with a really good argument he hadnt thought of, he wouldn't have houseruled it?
Because he wanted different interpretations of fluff for his games?
Because there's the possibility that the rule has been errataed or the reason it exists doesn't apply in the OP's game?


Kevin Andrew Murphy wrote:

They don't dance around the cauldron swinging a censer while flagellating the cat when they make a potion.

...
Now, figuring out what words to say and what gang signs to flash might be possible with a heavy duty Spellcraft check, but when a wizard looks at an alchemist's formula, he should be reading "You put the lime in the coconut" and then flipping it over and wondering where the rest of the spell is.

You, sir, made me laugh hard. Thanks. Also, a recipe is an excellent way to think of it - though rather than lime and coconut, my mind jumps to soup.

The wizards spell is "Dice two carrots and a potato. Put in a pot with half a cup of peas. Add a pound of diced sirloin. Combine with two cups of water. Heat to boiling, then simmer until internal temperature reaches X. Season to taste."

The alchemist formula is "Empty contents of can into pot. Heat on high until internal temperature reaches X. Season to taste."

The wizard's going to be having to make some major spellcraft checks to figure out what was in the can!


Which could be nigh impossible, because the can becomes soiled water (or whatever) after it leaves alchemist's hands.

Contributor

Zmar wrote:
Which could be nigh impossible, because the can becomes soiled water (or whatever) after it leaves alchemist's hands.

It's more a case of when it leaves the alchemist's hands, it's a can of spinach, but in the alchemist's hands, it's Popeye's spinach.

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