HOW many spells?

[andreww]

So, in the recent Arcanist preview thread we had a bit of a digression into discussing how many spells a prepared arcane caster might reasonably expect to have access to using the rules in the CRB for spell access. Jason asked us not to continue that discussion in that thread so I am shifting it to here.

Peter Stewart has some views on the issue which eh sets out in this thread. I replicate his numbers below:

Quote:

Laying aside completely whether or not you should be able to find someone to sell you every single spell in the game wherever you happen to be...

There are ~111 1st level wiard / sorcerer spells. It would cost approximately 1,500gp for an arcanist to scribe them into his spellbook (assuming he could get access to all of them). That is 150% of his 1st level WBL, 50% of his 2nd level wealth by level, and 25% of his 3rd level wealth by level.

There are ~147 2nd level wizard / sorcerer spells. It would cost approximately 8,400gp for an arcanist to scribe them into his spellbook (assuming he could get access to them all). That combined with the 1,500gp from before is 9,900gp. 9,900gp is 165% of his 4th level wealth by level. It is 94% of his 5th level wealth by level and 61% of his 6th level wealth by level.

There are ~127 3rd level wizard / sorcerer spells. It would cost a minimum of 11,430gp to scribe all of these spells into the arcanist's spellbook. that combined with the 9,900gp from before is 21,330gp. 21,330gp is 133% of a 6th level arcanists wealth by level. It is 90% of his 7th level wealth by level. It is 64% of his 8th level wealth by level.

And so forth. At some point you're probably going to start swapping to blessed books, but if you are buying every spell you can from level 1 you likely won't have the money to do so until ~10th level, at which point you still still spend 11,750gp to buy access to the ~94 5th level spells from another arcanist or wizard. These 94 spells will fill up approximately half of your blessed book.

This number for bought access continues to go up each level, even if you offset the scribing cost. I would eyeball the cost of all wizard and sorcerer spells in your spellbook at somewhere on the order of 200,000-300,000gp between the costs of purchasing spells from other wizards (which assumes you have another wizard to sell you every spell at cost), paying scribing costs at lower levels, and buying new blessed books at higher levels.

That is hardly not expensive.

I ran through the numbers in the Arcanist thread for access to every CRB spell which I set out below:

Quote:

As far as Peters arguments about spellook costs go it doesn't take much of a review of the spell list to realise that actually you don't need all of the spells ever printed. Lets assume you just want all of the CRB spells. The scribing costs for those, assuming 11 free level 1, 4 free 2-8 and 6 free 9th for an arcanist (Wizards get 8 but 9-10 level 1) are:

Level 1: 31 spells @ 10gp/spell for a cost of 310gp
Level 2: 47 spells @ 40gp/spell for a cost of 1880gp
Level 3: 42 spells @ 90gp/spell for a cost of 3780gp
Level 4: 38 spells @ 160gp/spell for a cost of 6080gp
Level 5: 43 spells @ 250gp/spell for a cost of 10750gp
Level 6: 43 spells @ 360gp/spell for a cost of 15480gp
Level 7: 36 spells @ 490gp/spell for a cost of 17640gp
Level 8: 33 spells @ 640gp/spell for a cost of 21120gp
Level 9: 18 spells @ 810gp/spell for a cost of 14580gp

So, lets break that down into total cost at each new spell level break point:

Level 4: 2190gp
Level 6: 5970gp
Level 8: 12050gp
Level 10: 22800gp
Level 12: 38280gp
Level 14: 55920gp
Level 16: 77500gp
Level 18: 92080gp

This assumes you do all of your own scribing without investing in Blessed Books. Now lets up all of the numbers by 50% to account for buying access and compare it to WBL at those levels:

Level 4: 3285gp.....6000gp
Level 6: 8955gp.....16000gp
Level 8: 18075gp....33000gp
Level 10: 34600gp...62000gp
Level 12: 57240gp...108000gp
Level 14: 83880gp...185000gp
Level 16: 116250gp..315000gp
Level 18: 138120gp..530000gp

Now these numbers look quite high so maybe Peter has a point. Except then we remember that you don't actually need to know every spell of every level. You probably barely need half of every level to have a solution of some form or other to any problem you might come across. That brings the overall cost to somewhere between 10 and 25% of your WBL.

Of course it also ignores the impact of the Blessed book. If you know every CRB spell then you have about 1700 levels of spells so you need all of two Blessed Books. That costs you 12.5k to make them yourself and you don't need you second until about level 14. Picking up the first by about level 8 is not unreasonable so even if you buy every level 1-3 spell (which you don't need to do) you have spent 8955gp on access and scribing, 6500gp on a book and you still have the better part of 20k to buy other stuff. After that point it just gets easier and easier as you no longer pay scribing costs. This makes your total costs for every CRB spell from level 8 onwards as follows:

Level 8: 11975gp....33000gp
Level 10: 17350gp....62000gp
Level 12: 25090gp....108000gp
Level 14: 33910gp....185000gp
Level 16: 44470gp....315000gp
Level 18: 51760gp....530000gp

So to conclude. Without a Blessed Book it costs you a decent amount of your WBL to have every CRB spell, generally around 50%. With the Blessed Book it takes about a third initially with that value gradually dropping as you level and gain more spells.

If you only want half of every CRB spell in the game then you are paying about 20% at level 8, dropping to about 5% by level 18. So in short no it is very easy for arcane casters to have access to an enormous range of spells throughout their career.

That would suggest that having access to a very large number of spells known is actually not all that expensive. My questions then are these:

1. How many spells of each level would you normally expect a PC wizard in your campaign to have access to?

2. What sort of spellbooks do you give enemy Wizards and do PC's generally gain access to them?

3. How many spells of each level would you consider a Wizard or Arcanist needed in order to have a likely to solution to most situations they are likely to encounter on an adventure?

[wraithstrike]

When you look at having magic items it is expensive. Then you have to take into account the time needed to get the spells. That is why it happens on the boards, but hardly ever in a game, unless it is a high level game.

1. I don't have a set number. It will vary.

2. Normal spellbooks, and if they kill the caster they get the spellbook. Some spells are new to PC's, while others are not.

3. Since some spells at different levels have similar affects it can't be done by number. You just need different types of spells. As an example if I have fog could I won't be so quick to pick up another cloud spell. I might however pick up black tentacles, or even a summon spell since they control the battlefield in a different way.

[Diego Rossi]

You are forgetting the time needed comprehend and then scribe them in the books.

CRB
Level 1: 31 spells = 31 hours to comprehend plus 31 hours to scribe
Level 2: 47 spells = 47+94
Level 3: 42 spells= 42+146
Level 4: 38 spells = 38+152
Level 5: 43 spells = 43+ 215
Level 6: 43 spells = 43+258
Level 7: 36 spells = 36+252
Level 8: 33 spells = 33+264
Level 9: 18 spells = 18+162

So, assuming 8 hours of work every day, learning and scribing the spell require
1st level 62 hours = 7 days and 6 hours
2nd level 141 hours = 17 days and 5 hours
3rd level 188 hours = 23 days and 4 hours
4th level 190 hours = 22 days and 4 hours
5th level 258 hours = 32 days and 2 hours
6th level 301 hours = 37 days and 5 hours
7th level 288 hours = 36 days
8th level 297 hours = 37 days and 1 hour
9th level 180 hours = 22 days and 4 hours

Grand total 236 days and 7 hours doing nothing but scribing spells.

You can do that in Kingmaker or an old style campaign, but most AP? You can't even get close to that.

Actually it is a bit less as you get the 2 automatic spell for increasing in level and a good number of spells at first level, I have posted the values for a wizard with 20 intelligence some time ago, but I am unable to find the post now, I am a bit logorrhoic and make a lot of posts. If I recall exactly it is more in the range of 210 days.

And then you hjave forgot the cost of all the spellbooks. 100 page in each one, do they don't keem so many high level spells-

[andreww]

I am not seeing a time listed for deciphering the spell in the magic chapter. It is 1 hour per spell level to scribe but that would seem to cut your estimate in half. A Ring of Sustenance gives you a 22 hour work day which divides it by three near enough so you are looking at about one sixth of your time.

That is more than doable and that is to have every spell in the CRB which you obviously do not need. As far as spellbooks go a normal blank one costs 15gp. You need about 18 of them to fit every CRB spell in so that is 270gp. I don't think that is going to break the bank.

[Diego Rossi]

andreww wrote:

I am not seeing a time listed for deciphering the spell in the magic chapter. It is 1 hour per spell level to scribe but that would seem to cut your estimate in half. A Ring of Sustenance gives you a 22 hour work day which divides it by three near enough so you are looking at about one sixth of your time.

That is more than doable and that is to have every spell in the CRB which you obviously do not need. As far as spellbooks go a normal blank one costs 15gp. You need about 18 of them to fit every CRB spell in so that is 270gp. I don't think that is going to break the bank.

PRD - Adding Spells to a Wizard's Spellbook wrote:

Spells Copied from Another's Spellbook or a Scroll: A wizard can also add a spell to his book whenever he encounters one on a magic scroll or in another wizard's spellbook. No matter what the spell's source, the wizard must first decipher the magical writing (see Arcane Magical Writings). Next, he must spend 1 hour studying the spell. At the end of the hour, he must make a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + spell's level). A wizard who has specialized in a school of spells gains a +2 bonus on the Spellcraft check if the new spell is from his specialty school. If the check succeeds, the wizard understands the spell and can copy it into his spellbook (see Writing a New Spell into a Spellbook). The process leaves a spellbook that was copied from unharmed, but a spell successfully copied from a magic scroll disappears from the parchment.

A ring of sustenance don't allow you to work more than 8 hours.

It do exactly what it say it do:

PRD wrote:

This ring continually provides its wearer with life-sustaining nourishment. The ring also refreshes the body and mind, so that its wearer needs only sleep 2 hours per day to gain the benefit of 8 hours of sleep. This allows a spellcaster that requires rest to prepare spells to do so after only 2 hours, but this does not allow a spellcaster to prepare spells more than once per day. The ring must be worn for a full week before it begins to work. If it is removed, the owner must wear it for another week to reattune it to himself.

1) You get life sustaining nourishment

2) you only need 2 hours of sleep.

Working more than 8 hours in a day is till tiring and not something that you can do for extended periods.