Crowdsourcing arcane spell collections

[Patrick Harris @ SD]

This isn't a rule question so much as a standard practices question: Since it's been established in the FAQ that ...

Quote:

If a wizard, witch, magus, or alchemist PC is adventuring with another PC who could teach them a spell, those PCs may exchange spells on their own terms as long as they make the proper skill checks and their trading of arcane secrets does not interfere with the flow of the game, at the GM's discretion.

... why don't I see arcane casters trading spells at every session? It seems like you'd be crazy not to want to browse each other's spellbooks, even if you wind up not finding anything you like. It even makes a certain kind of sense in character--since we aren't attacking each other, and aren't going to be attacking each other (after all, we're all Pathfinders), we've got a great resource for new spells, which allows the society to grow in power. Mind you, we might be tempted to keep a little something back now and then, because we're all paranoid adventurer types, but still.

In the interest of putting my money where my mouth is, I've decided to make this my standard policy with my freshly created wizard. So we'll see how people respond. But I figured I'd post and see what people thought--maybe it's already happening, and I just didn't notice?

[Mike Mistele]

Patrick Harris @ SD wrote:

... why don't I see arcane casters trading spells at every session?

I've never seen it, myself...but I think the issue is primarily that I've rarely seen more than one such character at a table. If there's no one with whom you can swap spells, you don't swap spells. :-)

[Fromper]

Yeah, I can't remember ever seeing two wizards or two witches at the same table. But my local group doesn't have a lot of arcane casters, anyway. At least, not until I recently started playing sorcerers (two of them, once I finish creating the second).

[Harley Quinn X]

I have swapped spells with people before. While it's been rare at tables I've run or played at, there are several reasons:

1) People tend to avoid overlap on things if possible. Most sessions start with a "Well, I've got a X." "Well, then I'll bring my Y, so we don't overlap." Most times that leads to few arcane casters with spell books playing with each other.

2) PFS's format limits need for some spells. Because of the format of PFS scenarios, the breadth of spells used in PFS play is more than likely much less than in a home campaign. For example, how many people take some of the more "flavorful" utility spells, like Alarm? Very few, and if they do, it's because it just presented itself conveniently on a scroll or spellbook, etc.

3) Some casters don't care. Some arcane casters are built around certain spells, and don't care too much of things outside of that. Be it due to effectiveness or for "I summon things. What do I care about Touch of Gracelessness? I plan to be in the back making minions to take things out, not debuff things."

4) Lack of overlap on some "fringe" caster lists, and teaching methods. Because of some of the arcane caster lists having so little overlap, it's hard for people to exchange spells. Some of the spells that are on many of the Arcane caster lists, are shared on all lists. And due to issues with learning, sometimes spell exchange can only go in one direction. Because of other issues, like issue (1) above, it's also hard to align people who can teach each other. For example, a Witch can only learn from a scroll (which destroys the scroll) or from another Witch. Since people avoid overlap, Witches will more than likely just wind up learning from scrolls. Also, Wizards and Magi can teach Alchemists, but an alchemist can't teach a Wizard.

5) Time constraints. Be it in-scenario or via real-life, time plays a big part of whether people exchange spells or not. Remember copying a spell into a book takes an hour per spell. Copying spells isn't like copying homework in the hallway during lunch. You can't just crouch down in a corner and scribble it quickly. If your scenario is one of the "Go now or someone will die!" scenarios, it's highly frowned upon to take a break to copy that spell from each other. Also, if there is too much of a time crunch, it may cut into scenario time if people are flipping through each others' lists of spells. Remember that the FAQ also says that it's allowed if "their trading of arcane secrets does not interfere with the flow of the game, at the GM's discretion." I don't think I've ever had to tell people no to something like that, but it admittedly does get somewhat confusing to have to listen to the main story and browse spells at the same time.

6) The money! Of course money comes into play. Given that there is less reason to take some of the more flavorful spells, there is an aversion to paying the ink costs to copy some spells that aren't "necessary" into books.

[Jiggy]

I have yet to play my fighter/wizard at the same table as another spellbook-user. :/

[Gornil]

I've actually played with other wizards who have asked to share spellbooks, but I play my wizard as one who hoards his spells and doesn't like to share with non-dwarves. He's been fairly useful to the party when I've played him, 8th level and hasn't died yet (knocks on wood). The other players with wizards haven't seemed to get too upset about this either.

[Matthew Morris]

I usually play spont casters (bard, sorcerer) so it never comes up.

[Thamius]

My wizard only had the opportunity to swap spellbooks a few times in his entire adventuring career before retirement. I think that the addition of the magus to Pathfinder has greatly increased the opportunities to swap spells between wizards and magi, but it's still pretty infrequent.

[WalterGM]

Whenever our scant few arcane spellcasters sit at the same table, they spend a good 10-15 minutes at the end making rolls and spell trading. So re the OP: it does happen here, for what it's worth. I don't really have a problem with it. It's not like these players plan it to where one gets grease and the other gets sleep, and then they trade. They have the same "core spells" and then pick up a few spells they'll rarely prepare every now and then.

[Sarta]

I may or may not be guilty of selecting a couple tables at a con due to another wizard already being signed up on Warhorn. ;-)

[Marack]

My wizard is obesessive about collecting as much magical knowledge as possible so I am always looking for this situation. Every scroll he encounters on a chronicle sheet gets scribed, even if it has to be bought. Sitting down with another wizard doesn't happen often but it happened at Origins this year after the interactive. We handed each other our spellbook sheets, copied down the spells we could learn and started making spellcraft checks while the GM was filling out chronicle sheets. I walked away with 9 new spells and he got 4. (It would have been more if not for his banned school) This is one of the great parts about playing a wizard. It pays to know the rules for scribing and be efficient so you do not cause your GM a lot of grief.

So it does happen, and when it does it's great. Make sure to pick up the occational scroll with situational spells on it to scribe so you always have something weird to trade.

[Jiggy]

Marack wrote:

It pays to know the rules for scribing and be efficient so you do not cause your GM a lot of grief.

At the bottom of my fighter/wizard's character sheet, I made a chart of scribing costs/DCs for easy reference.

Also, I would point out that if you're an INT caster keeping Spellcraft maxed out, you'll be able to scribe spells higher than you can cast. So don't forget to ask about your buddy's higher-level spells even if you're too low of a level to cast them. I've already managed to scribe fireball, haste and lightning bolt and I can't cast 3rd level spells until next level.