I've got a 8th-level Wizard who just came into a big pile of money. After filling up my spellbook and expanding my scroll collection into a library, I have 23,000 gp left over to spend; I'm not sure on what, though. Right now all I have is the following:
-Handy Haversack
-INT Headband +2
-4 Lv1 Pearls
-1 Lv2 Pearl
Other than upgrading the headband to a +4, I'm not sure what else to get. Any ideas?
A Blessed Book (12,500 gp) as a backup spellbook?
Hmm... Blessed Book seems useful, and I really like the Jaunt Boots. The Persistent Rod also sounds lovely.
I've already got plenty of scrolls; that's where most of my money went previously(and why I have so few items).
Staff of Fire would be neat, but lacks diversity. I don't exactly want to blow most of my budget on a couple extra fireballs each day.
I would spend 12k on upgrading the headband, then prob 8k on a ring of prot +2, 1k on a cloak of resistance +1.. 2k w/e.. Or i suppose a rod of lesser extend and forget the cloak..
32K for a lesser rod of Quicken. I'm 12th level and I'm still saving up.
^ I agree. If you start most encounters by casting haste, you can do that and still cast another spell in the first round. Action economy rules all.
I've got a 8th-level Wizard who just came into a big pile of money. After filling up my spellbook and expanding my scroll collection into a library, I have 23,000 gp left over to spend; I'm not sure on what, though. Right now all I have is the following...
Hmm... Blessed Book seems useful, and I really like the Jaunt Boots. The Persistent Rod also sounds lovely.
If you decide to go with a blessed book, hopefully you can go back and purchase things in a better order. Clearly, scribing spells into your spellbook just before you obtain a blesses book is wasting gold unnecessarily since its free to scribe them in after you get the book. ;-)
As long as all the spellbook/scroll scribing (and blessed book purchasing/crafting) was done between sessions, getting the book first could actually save you quite a bit of gold (not to mention a metric ton of gold in the long term).
Otherwise, there are good suggestions for other uses in the thread. I'd personally go for the +4 Int headband first, then the blessed book.
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Does the math of the blessed book stack up? You need to scribe around 5 additional spells of every level (level 1-9) into it - above the four you get for free - for it to add up.
Does anyone have that many pages of spells? I have an 11th level PFS wizard and haven't filled two spell books yet.
Even as a back up spell book, I would 5-6K worse off with a blessed book than just paying the scribe costs into a normal book. (And casting Book Ward every week if spell book protection is required.)
And of course you are wasting money by scribing your cantrips, first level and free spells into a blessed book.
The payback period seems way too long for sensible use of cash now. You probably wont get payback until well into your teen levels.
Maybe if you have craft wondrous item to halve the cost of the book and need a backup spell book.
Honestly, you should pay for a construction of a mage's tower. Your own little keep and slice of home where you can carry out your own experiments and such.
You also get this tidbit: All such books are durable, waterproof, bound with iron overlaid with silver, and locked. I personally love not have to keep up but with 1 spellbook on my magi.. Not sure if its worth it before 10thish level though...
Huh. So, I just realized that an Echoing MM Rod could be a potentially interesting purchase as well; for 14,000 gp, I get the ability to recast any 1st, 2nd or 3rd level spell 3/day. Not very practical on 1st level spells, but on 2nd and 3rd level spells this is strictly cheaper than Pearls of Power for a very similar effect(downside is you need the rod in hand when you cast them, upside is you don't need a standard action to retrieve it).
Cloak of resistance +2. Seriously, saves will save you.
Lesser rod of extend.
Then start looking for other stuff.
Cloak of resistance +2 is a must. Belt of Con +2 might help. The headband upgrade is always a plus.
Does the math of the blessed book stack up? You need to scribe around 5 additional spells of every level (level 1-9) into it - above the four you get for free - for it to add up.
Does anyone have that many pages of spells? I have an 11th level PFS wizard and haven't filled two spell books yet.
Even as a back up spell book, I would 5-6K worse off with a blessed book than just paying the scribe costs into a normal book. (And casting Book Ward every week if spell book protection is required.)
And of course you are wasting money by scribing your cantrips, first level and free spells into a blessed book.
The payback period seems way too long for sensible use of cash now. You probably wont get payback until well into your teen levels.
Maybe if you have craft wondrous item to halve the cost of the book and need a backup spell book.
Its not going to pay for itself right away, no. But if you're planning on buying one at all, the earlier the better. The sooner you buy it, the more gold you save long term. In the short term though, since the OP said they'd JUST purchased/scribed a bunch of spells into their normal spellbook, that seems to me a very good time to go ahead and buy the blessed book to be able to scribe all those spells for free, and get a head start on reaching the break even point.
As for whether you need one at all, that depends entirely on playstyle. If, as in your case, you're an 11th level wizard yet to start a 3rd spellbook, the value will be marginal. From an optimization perspective unrelated to role-play, I'd argue you probably should have just played a sorcerer if you didn't want tons of spells available, but to each their own. For perspective, I've got a 6th level wizard in one of my campaigns that is WELL into his 2nd spellbook already.
I love having options, and lower level spells are cheap enough that I like to have most of them available. Getting a Blessed Book, makes higher level spells affordable enough to load up on as well. The higher the level spell you put into the thing, the bigger the savings. IMO, once you start getting 4th level spells, its a good time to start thinking about getting a Blessed Book.
Having lots and lots of spells available is really nice for any wizard, especially if you leave a few slots open to memorize utility spells as the situation calls for it. This is even more true if you have a bonded item and have access to ANY spell in your spellbook(s). The blessed book makes this possible without continuing to funnel huge chunks of your wealth into the spellbook.
I know it's usually mentioned and you may not have much use for it, but perhaps the Ring of Sustenance?
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As for whether you need one at all, that depends entirely on playstyle. If, as in your case, you're an 11th level wizard yet to start a 3rd spellbook, the value will be marginal. From an optimization perspective unrelated to role-play, I'd argue you probably should have just played a sorcerer if you didn't want tons of spells available, but to each their own.
You have hit on a problem that PFS wizards had until very recently. They had 3 ways of getting spells:
1) Find a scroll in a scenario and then the cost is scribing cost only. Cheap, but not many useful scrolls in scenarios. Uncommon.
2) If you happen to do a scenario with another wizard PC then copy each others spell book. Again scribing cost is the only cost, but other PFS wizards are rare, so sitting down with another wizard happens perhaps once every couple of levels and half the time they are of course lower level than you. Rare.
3) Buy a scroll and scribe it. Cost is cost of scroll plus cost of scribing which is of course very expensive. Generally this was the only sure way of getting a spell you actually want. Conmmon.
There is another issue that GMs don't get access to options 1 and 2 when applying GM credit for scenarios to their PCs, and I GM a lot - perhaps half my Wizards chronicles.
4) Last month there was a rules change and PFS wizards gained the option of buying spells off other NPC wizards when in any large town, for half scribing cost, making it much cheaper.
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32K for a lesser rod of Quicken. I'm 12th level and I'm still saving up.^ I agree. If you start most encounters by casting haste, you can do that and still cast another spell in the first round. Action economy rules all.
Problem is getting items over 16,000 gp (Metropolis size city) isn't trivial unless you can make them, and then it is rather time consuming. Then again if your GM is nice enough to ignore RAW I guess that isn't an issue.
One member of our party has been to 3 cities so far trying to buy a magic item (+3 armour, 9,000 gp) but has managed to roll each time over 75% - meaning the item wasn't available in that city.
S.
3) Buy a scroll and scribe it. Cost is cost of scroll plus cost of scribing which is of course very expensive. Generally this was the only sure way of getting a spell you actually want.4) Last month there was a rules change and PFS wizards gained the option of buying spells off other NPC wizards when in any large town, for half scribing cost, making it much cheaper.
Interesting. I've not been exposed to much PFS play at all, so I wasn't aware of that issue. That's unfortunate that they played it like that for so long.
I'd always assumed the rules (RAW and RAI) were most like (4).
Obviously needing to decide what types of spells would be available in a given settlement and the part where they have to agree to let you access their spells involves a small degree of GM fiat, which I suppose is why PFS stayed away from it, but that was in poor judgement IMO.
Access to a large catalog of spells is what being a wizard is all about after all, and all they were doing was arbitrarily nerfing the main thing that makes wizards different from sorcerers (and sorcerers have bloodlines to make up for lost versatility). A non-versatile wizard is pretty sad.
Glad to hear they came to their senses and started running it more reasonably.