This is a Homebrew project of mine and just looking for a little feedback on this to help balance this out.
Tome Master – Unlike other wizards a Tome Master sees his spell book as more than just another book filled with spells. To the Tome Master it is alive, fueled with the magic of each spell written within. This belief is so strong that reality brings it into being.
Level 1
Magic Tome – Each Tome Master has one Tome of his/her design crafted in any way the wish. Each Tome must have a unique material that it is crafted from. Once decided any further Tomes the wizards wishes to obtain to replace this Tome must be made using the same material. Any else is just a book to the wizard. In appearance a Tome is a much larger version off a spell book, weighing 25% more than normal. The aspect of the Tome being alive comes with its own qualities. All Tomes have their own personalities and can understand anything the wizard says even if he/she is mumbling the meaning will always get across. Tomes are considered an animated object this effect cannot be undone by any means thou their abilities can be affected by anti-magic effects. Tomes have their own alignment which only part of it must match the wizards. An evil wizard can have a good book as long as both are lawful or a chaotic book can be owned by natural wizard as long as both are good. All Tomes start off with the basic ability to float. This ability is a magical effect and is affected by anti-magic effects. Magic Tomes can only move up to a distance of the wizard’s intelligence bonus in spaces/5 feet away from the location of the wizard. If by outside means the Tome is move outside of the range it losses all its abilities accept the ability to open and close itself, treat any contested action to open or close the Tome as having a strength equal to the wizards intelligence. If at any time the Wizard becomes unwillingly unconscious the Tome will be treated as being out of range. If the Wizard dies the Tome itself follows the same fate and becoming it as just another spell book. If the off chance the Wizards returns from the dead the book will return to life too. – This replaces Arcane Bond –
The Magic Tome has HP equal to number of spells within its pages (this includes pages lost from the effect blank pages). Hardness equal the 1 1/2 the CL of the Wizard. The Tomb is unable to hold any spell within its pages from the wizard's opposition schools (see arcane school) and only one copy of any spell can be placed inside the book.
Tome Abilities - At 2st level the Magic Tome gains a special ability and then gains another one at 4th level and 8th and 16th.
• Battle Tome – The Tome has become harden in combat and now can act as a combatant. During combat the Tome can make a single attack using their Wizards BAB. Its damage is base the level of the mage. At 2nd level the Tome does 2d8 + (Wizards Intelligence bonus). Add an additional 1d8 at 4th, 8th and 16th level. This damage is bludgeoning and has a reach of an equal to the range it can be from the wizard.
• Educated Tome – This ability grants the Tome a voice and the ability to retain other information outside of spells. When gaining this ability the Tome gains an Intelligence equal to its master and all ranks of knowledge which his/her master knows as well as the ability to speak any language which the wizard knows. Further advancement can only be achieved when the Tome has access to a written form of education. The Tome can open and read any written book and retain the information within as long as the book has not been seal, locked, or restrained. Increasing the Tomes intelligence requires (Wonder), and knowledge’s require books which have higher ranks of knowledge’s, and languages can be learned in the same manner as knowledge’s. This process takes one day of time which the Tome must read the material. This ability will allow the Tome to aid and make its own skill checks when dealing with knowledge’s and languages. Tomes are unable to consume other spell books in this manner to gain spell with in their pages.
• Casting Tome – At this level the Tome can now unleash a spell from its pages. This spell is treated like any other spell cast by the wizard, including casting time, duration, and other effects dependent on the wizard's level but originate from the Tome instead. This spell cannot be modified by metameric feats or other abilities. The spell is treated as spate action and does not count against the wizard actions for the turn or spells per day. Spells casted in this fashion cannot be those which the Wizard has prepared for the day. Once a spell has been casted in this way the spell fades from it pages and does not return until the next day. These blank pages do not affect the HP of the Tome but do prevent the wizard from attempting to prepare those spells until the next day.
• Defending Tome – The Tome now can take action to defend its master from any attack by acting as a barrier. The Tome now grants his/her master a shield bonus equal to its highest level spell known. This bonus will not stack with any other shield bonus. Also as a free action the Tome can extend its pages can create a level of cover for the Wizard. This cover can be of any type the Wizard commands and only activated or changed on the Wizards turn as his/her move action. Any damage dealt to the book will blank a single page per point of damage. These blank pages do prevent the wizard from attempting to prepare those spells until the next day. The Tome will recover its lost health in the form of Natural healing: With a full night's rest (8 hours of sleep or more), the Tome recover 1 hit point per character level of the Wizard. Any significant interruption during this rest prevents the Tome from healing that night. If the Tome undergoes complete bed rest for an entire day and night, it recovers twice the Wizards character level in hit points.
• Healing Tome – Tomes are alive and such it can now transfer its own health to its master temporarily. This Ability allows the Tome to take one spell and transfer it into temporary health for his/her master. The temporary health gained in this fashion is equal to the level of the spell and takes one standard action to apply. The Tome can apply any number of non-prepared spells as long as all spells applied are of the same level. The temporary health will last until a full night’s rest which then the effect will end. During the timeframe of the effect those spells used in this fashion become blank pages. These blank pages do prevent the wizard from attempting to prepare those spells until after the effect ends.
Hunger for knowledge – The Wizard no longer needs to inscribe spells from scroll by hand. By placing a scroll between the pages of the Tome it absorbs into it and becomes a spell. The time it takes for the Tome to consume the scroll is a number of turns equal to the level of the spell. If the scroll is one that the Tome already knows it will convert the magic of the scroll into health for itself and recover a blank page or a number of blank pages which sum is less than or equal to the level of the spell. But if the scroll is of from the wizard's opposition schools it will damage the book and blank out one page. The highest spell will be blanked first. – This replaces Scribe Scroll –
Level 10/20
Book Collection – Like any book owner at a point in the wizard’s life another book will be needed. This ability allows the Master to bring forth another book to his current collection. Unlike replacing a lost Tome this Tome can be made from another special martial of the Wizards choosing. This additional book will gain the same amount of abilities as it companion. This new book will not have any spells once collected. The Wizard must feed the new Tome scrolls before it can be used. Until that point the Tome will lay dormant and any damage done to it will give it the broken quality. This grants him the ability to control both books at the same time. This can be done once more at level 20. – This replaces Level 10 Bonus Feat and level 20 Bonus Feat –
This is a pretty cool idea, but you made it way more complicated than it needs to be. You could honestly make the book just be like a bladebound magus's blackblade except it's not a weapon and doesn't have an arcane pool.
There's also big problems with the abilities on the book types.
What are the problems you see?
So looking over it I have toned down the number abilities a tome has from the four to only two which are granted at 5th and 15th level and also put in that only prepared spell can be cast from the tome under the Casting Tome ability. Now does that tone it down and create a more balanced archetype?
It's hard to list them all, especially when the description is a giant wall of unformatted text. Put the content in a google doc or something!
But a good example are the casting and education tomes. The casting tome basically lets the wizard cast two spells per round. It doesn't matter if it's a once-per-day ability, that's insanely powerful to give at 1st level. Normal wizards can't do that until 9th level and it still costs a high level spell slot and a swift action to do. Even something as simple as letting the education tome read any writing they want is overpowered because that's giving the wizard an at-will comprehend languages.
Format this for easier reading please.
I agree that using this to swap out arcane bond is a good idea, but perhaps go a step further and have the tome follow most of the same rules for familiars. Dump the HP = spells thing too. Dump the movement speed formula. Give it a base speed, and limited flight that has a maximum height. Write up a monster entry for a living spell book (or whatever you want to call it). The familiar rules can use this as a base and improve from there.
BATTLE TOME
Does this do anything aside from make attacks? It probably should. At 2nd level, 2d8 + Int is fairly significant. I would have it deal damage as a club or maybe a mace.
EDUCATED TOME
The ability seems cool, but there must be a simpler way to accomplish the general idea.
CASTING TOME
If I understand the ability correctly, this is extremely powerful and would allow a wizard to effectively cast two spells per turn. Additionally, the tome is not limited by a number of spells per day, only by the number of spells written within it.
DEFENDING TOME
Again, too complicated. A wizard would be foolish to volunteer his spell book to be damaged. It wouldn't take long for it to reach zero. Perhaps the wizard could maneuver the tome around and it provides cover.
HEALING TOME
I'n not a fan of any of these that use the number of spells in the tome as a renewable resource. If you want the wizard to be able to heal himself, then make it a limited pool size/HP amount based on his level.
HUNGER FOR KNOWLEDGE
The point of a wizard inscribing the spell himself is so that he can write in his own personalized way. Eating scrolls to heal is cool though. I might use that as a "familiar" ability instead of replacing scribe scroll though.