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If we find a spell book with the a set number of spells, how do you price selling it?
3rd - hold person, vampiric touch, animate dead (lesser), gentle repose, halt undead, ray of exhaustion
2nd - acid arrow, darkvision, false life, ghoul touch, see invisibility, blindness/deafness, spectral hand,
1st - cause fear, charm person, feather fall, mage armor, unseen servant, restore corpse, decompose corpse
0th - acid splash, detect magic, light, read magic, touch of fatigue, bleed, disrupt undead, arcane mark, prestidigitation
Selling a Spellbook
Captured spellbooks can be sold for an amount equal to half the cost of purchasing and inscribing the spells within.
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...and the cost of inscribing the spells within can be found in the table at the end of this section of text.
For the example, you have seven 2nd level spells (40gp to scribe), seven 2st level spells (10gp to scribe), and nine 0th-level spells (5gp to scribe).
Scribing cost = 7*40 + 7*10 + 9*5 = 395gp.
Sell for half that, or 197.5 gp.
Ok I get most of this, but why would it sell for half of the scribe cost? That's the actually cost to make. Why not compare to magic items? You can only sell for creation cost, not market value. Shouldn't this be the same?
For each spell it's the cost of writing the spell into your book + the cost of copying a spell from another wizard's spell book (half the price of writing the spell).
So once you combine the two you get:
0 level = 7.5 per
1st = 15 per
2nd = 60 per
3rd = 135 per
4th = 240 per
5th = 375 per
6th = 540 per
7th = 735 per
8th = 960 per
9th = 1215 per
Add it up to get the value and then divide by 2 to get the sell price.
Also, you can argue that 0 level spells should have negligible value (as all Wizards start with a spell book that contains all 0 level spells anyway), so I personally house rule ignore them when figuring out the price of a spell book.
I agree on the 0-level spells, worthless. But I don't think you should have to sell copy's of spells at a loss. Unless you can find relevant text to support that I'm going to go with the "at cost" spell price just like magical items.
Jeraa quoted it upthread and Weirdo linked to it: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/magic.html
Selling a Spellbook
Captured spellbooks can be sold for an amount equal to half the cost of purchasing and inscribing the spells within.
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There are two lines of thought, and neither one has been officially confirmed (in the FAQ/Errata) to be the correct way:
Option A:
According to SKR, the sale value of a captured spellbook is based upon the actual cost of the book (15 gp) plus the cost to inscribe the spells contained (from page 219 of the CRB) and then divided in half.
Option B:
As described above by Ninja in the Rye.
While Option A is likely the correct way, the current language in the CRB is awkward and poorly worded.
EDIT: The wording in my Option A was clunky...It's supposed to be (book price + spell inscription costs) / 2 = cash in PC's pocket.
EDIT2: Phew. Finally found the SKR quote. You wouldn't believe how many different threads there are on this topic.
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Ah, you're right, it does say purchasing and inscribing.
Slacker2010, I expect that spellbooks have a lower resale value because they are generally individualized tools. Each spellcaster will have an assortment of spells in their spellbook, and any sold spellbook may have spells in it that are not useful to the buyer, or spells the buyer already has. Also, using another wizard's spellbook requires first deciphering and studying the magical writing, which takes at least an hour and a Spellcraft check, so it's not like you can pick up a spellbook and instantly use the spells within.
Sorry Jeraa, didn't even notice the quote. Not sure how I missed it. Thanks Ninja, looks like I'm gonna have to sell it even lower. I had priced it just over 4k but will be more like 3k.
Thanks everyone for the help
I knew I shouldn't have let you know my handle :(
Just remember that the cost of purchasing a spell isn't the cost of a scroll - it's the cost of copying the spell from another caster.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/magic.html
In most cases, wizards charge a fee for the privilege of copying spells from their spellbooks. This fee is usually equal to half the cost to write the spell into a spellbook (see Writing a New Spell into a Spellbook). Rare and unique spells might cost significantly more.
so using the table referenced on the same page:
0 5 gp
1 10 gp
2 40 gp
3 90 gp
4 160 gp
5 250 gp
6 360 gp
7 490 gp
8 640 gp
9 810 gp
You get:
0 x 2.5
1 x 5
2 x 20
3 x 45
etc..
There are two lines of thought, and neither one has been officially confirmed (in the FAQ/Errata) to be the correct way:
Option A:
According to SKR, the sale value of a captured spellbook is based upon the actual cost of the book (15 gp) plus the cost to inscribe the spells contained (from page 219 of the CRB) and then divided in half.
Option B:
As described above by Ninja in the Rye.
While Option A is likely the correct way, the current language in the CRB is awkward and poorly worded.
EDIT: The wording in my Option A was clunky...It's supposed to be (book price + spell inscription costs) / 2 = cash in PC's pocket.
EDIT2: Phew. Finally found the SKR quote. You wouldn't believe how many different threads there are on this topic.
Interesting, thanks for posting that. I'll have to start using that now, since it requires less mathing.
My PCs are going to love this, they're looking to sell a found spellbook and have now gone from thinking it was Price of Scroll + Price to inscribe - to - Prices I listed above - to - SKR's version that you just posted. At this point they're going to feel like they're giving the thing away.