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The problem with any cute trick to make money is that Pathfinder is not an economic simulation game. The market is handwaved so that the players don't have to deal with realistic mechanics of a market. But if a player starts playing with economics, then I am willing to start houseruling the game to make the markets more realistic. The local market for those particular spells would quickly become flooded and no-one would buy the Blessed Books anymore. So the wizard would have to start shipping the books to foreign countries, etc. increasing the costs.
Inventing a money-making scheme for the sake of theorycrafting with the system without actually exploiting it is good, clean fun. However, I am curious about a few details. First, would the wizard and his simulacrum know enough spells to fill a 1000-page Blessed Book without repeating spells? Each spell takes up a number of pages equal to its level, so if the simulacrum uses 3rd-level spells for maximum profit, that would be 333 spells. Second, does the cost of the simulacrum matter? Creating a simulacrum costs 100 gp per hit point. For a 6th-level simulacrum with Con 10 would have around 24 hit points, so that is 2400 gp. Okay, that is minor compared to the cost to make a Blessed Book. Third, why bother with the simulacrum? The wizard could make and fill Blessed Books himself.
I would check out the downtime system. It's designed to handle this kind of thing. You could have your simulacrum run a magic shop while you're off adventuring and it will generate about 3gp per day, possibly more if you really optimize the business.
Even if you're using some method to create magic items at below 50% market value (so you're actually making money selling it at 50%). You still have purchase limits depending on what size town you're in. Once you hit a town's purchase limit you'll have to wait a week before that money becomes available again.
Out of curiosity I was trying to determine your math and I'm not sure where your numbers are coming from.
If I assume 10 normal spellbooks and assume that they contain nothing but 4th level spells. Each spellbook is worth 4,000gp. ((4^2)x10)x(100/4).
Following this same approach
10x level 4 only = 40,000gp
10x level 3 only = 30,000gp
10x level 2 only = 20,000gp
10x level 1 only = 10,000gp
However, we can only sell it for half this and a blessed book costs 6250 to create. So profits are as follows:
10x level 4 only = 20,000gp - 6,250 = 13,750
10x level 3 only = 15,000gp - 6,250 = 8,750
10x level 2 only = 10,000gp - 6,250 = 3,750
10x level 1 only = 5,000gp - 6,250 = -1,250
If you sell books that are a mix of 1st - 4th then each one will on average make a profit of 6,250.
If you sell books that are a mix of 2nd - 4th (since 1st makes you lose money) then each will on average make a profit of 8,750.
Since it takes you 7 days to create a blessed book. Then you will make 1,250gp per day.
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I would check out the downtime system. It's designed to handle this kind of thing. You could have your simulacrum run a magic shop while you're off adventuring and it will generate about 3gp per day, possibly more if you really optimize the business.
Even if you're using some method to create magic items at below 50% market value (so you're actually making money selling it at 50%). You still have purchase limits depending on what size town you're in. Once you hit a town's purchase limit you'll have to wait a week before that money becomes available again.
Something I laugh over:
The game mechanics reinforce this by only allowing you to sell items for half their normal price because it assumes selling them to an NPC shopkeeper, so even if you craft a bag of holding, you can’t sell it yourself for full price because you don’t have your own store to sell it in.
A character with a simulacrum of himself can own and operate a store full time.
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Something I laugh over:
The game mechanics reinforce this by only allowing you to sell items for half their normal price because it assumes selling them to an NPC shopkeeper, so even if you craft a bag of holding, you can’t sell it yourself for full price because you don’t have your own store to sell it in.A character with a simulacrum of himself can own and operate a store full time.
That would be a great consequence for an 8th-level party that robbed a magic mart. A familiar wizard appears before them.
WIZARD: You killed my shopkeeper and robbed my store!
PC #1: Wait, I recognize you. You are the shopkeeper. Someone resurrected you.
PC #2: We killed you once, we can kill you again.
WIZARD: That was my 8th-level simulacrum. Guess how powerful I am!
Something I laugh over:The game mechanics reinforce this by only allowing you to sell items for half their normal price because it assumes selling them to an NPC shopkeeper, so even if you craft a bag of holding, you can’t sell it yourself for full price because you don’t have your own store to sell it in.A character with a simulacrum of himself can own and operate a store full time.
True, but if you run a store full time, it falls under the down time rules.
A typical magic shop earns about 3 gp per day, or perhaps 4–5 gp per day if a skilled owner PC directly participates in running the business. Because magic items are very expensive (with the most common potions costing 50 gp or more, far higher than what most commoners can afford), this income represents many days where the business sells nothing, followed by selling one or two high-priced items, which averages out to a few gp of profit per day.
IRL it's the difference between wanting to sell an antique book for cash today vs. trying to sell it for it's full value. If you want cash today you can take it down to your local pawn shop and maybe get 50% of it's value (though probably more like 10%) but you get that money today without any extra hassle. Selling it for full price would mean opening your own store (or perhaps just renting space in an existing antique shop) and getting your asking price in a few months.
According to the rules, you can sell captured spellbooks, but there is nothing at all that says you can spell spellbooks you create, so you have to first give away your spellbooks to someone, and then capture them before you can sell them.
Also, any money making scheme that involves Simulacra is pretty much exactly as cheesy as any money making scheme that involves blood money. Only the ones that require both exceed this level of cheese.
Something I laugh over:The game mechanics reinforce this by only allowing you to sell items for half their normal price because it assumes selling them to an NPC shopkeeper, so even if you craft a bag of holding, you can’t sell it yourself for full price because you don’t have your own store to sell it in.A character with a simulacrum of himself can own and operate a store full time.True, but if you run a store full time, it falls under the down time rules.
A typical magic shop earns about 3 gp per day, or perhaps 4–5 gp per day if a skilled owner PC directly participates in running the business. Because magic items are very expensive (with the most common potions costing 50 gp or more, far higher than what most commoners can afford), this income represents many days where the business sells nothing, followed by selling one or two high-priced items, which averages out to a few gp of profit per day.IRL it's the difference between wanting to sell an antique book for cash today vs. trying to sell it for it's full value. If you want cash today you can take it down to your local pawn shop and maybe get 50% of it's value (though probably more like 10%) but you get that money today without any extra hassle. Selling it for full price would mean opening your own store (or perhaps just renting space in an existing antique shop) and getting your asking price in a few months.
That is one option, another is:
Alter Wealth By Level: Similar to using the item crafting rules to adjust wealth by level, this just applies a flat adjustment to your expected wealth. You don’t even have to account for what specific items were crafted using this method.
Example: Rob’s cleric has the Brew Potion feat and owns a magic shop. Jessica, the GM, allows him to exceed his wealth by level by 25%, and the extra doesn’t all have to be in the form of potions — Rob’s shop is selling potions, and he is using his profits to purchase other items for his character.
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According to the rules, you can sell captured spellbooks, but there is nothing at all that says you can spell spellbooks you create, so you have to first give away your spellbooks to someone, and then capture them before you can sell them.
Nothing in the rules says the DEAD condition stops a character from acting normally, but most players apply common sense.
Aside from semantics, there is no difference between a captured spellbook and a player-created book.
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The books probably wouldn't be completely filled, at least not to start, but you can recover the price of the books 100% even if they're blank, since they both cost and sell for 50% of their market value. Every spell you add means increasing the rate of money creation, and that means every gp you get should be funneled into buying more scrolls or renting other wizards' books, if possible.
I am assuming that the book is full because that's how you maximize profit on it. The problem is once you fill the book it is now no better or worse than just purchasing a normal spellbook. So you spend the money to create the book, fill the book and then sell it as a normal spellbook. The advantage of the blessed book is that it costs nothing to put spells in it and the cost to make it is less per page than the cost to put 2nd level and higher spells in a spellbook.
As for leaving it partially blank, there's no reason to do that. The blank pages result in zero profit, whereas even just putting a 2nd level spell results in profit.
Moreover, you're not producing a Book every week. It takes 2 weeks, since item creation takes time equal to market value divided by 1000. MV is 12500, not 6250.
sure, if you want to do things the slow way. But you can increase the DC of the spellcraft check by 5 to create the book in half the time. Unless you can't make the increased check by taking 10 there's no reason not to do this.
The DC to make a blessed book is CL+5
So, it is a DC: 13 spellcraft check. If I cut the time in half it becomes a DC:18.
At caster level 7, assuming I max out spellcraft I will have 7+3+1 or +11 to my check at minimum. if I take 10 then I will get a 21 which is more than enough to make the check.
Either way, what's wrong with producing a profit of 1k gp per day?
I never said anything was wrong with it, but 1k per day is quite different than 45gp/min. Which is what the OP stated this method would generate.
A blessed book is also better than a standard one.
PRD
A spellbook has 100 pages of parchment, and each spell takes up one page per spell level (one page each for 0-level spells).
Item .. Cost .. Weight
Spellbook, wizard's (blank) .. 15 gp .. 3 lbs.
Aura moderate transmutation; CL 7th
Slot none; Price 12,500 gp; Weight 1 lb.
Description
This well-made tome is always of small size, typically no more than 12 inches tall, 8 inches wide, and 1 inch thick. All such books are durable, waterproof, bound with iron overlaid with silver, and locked.
A wizard can fill the 1,000 pages of a blessed book with spells without paying the material cost. This book is never found as randomly generated treasure with spells already inscribed in it.
The blessed book holds 10 times as much, and weighs one third as much.
My favorite cheese is False Focus & Masterwork Transformation. Get up to 100 gp per 2nd level spell used.
Next most is the Lyre of Building: Get 300 man days of work for each 1/2 hour of playing. That is 4800 days of manufacture per week.
/cevah
The problem with all of this, beyond game intent, is no one is going to buy a Blessed Book with your spells in it. They can't use it.
No matter what the spell’s source, the wizard must first decipher the magical writing (see Arcane Magical Writings).
A wizard can use a borrowed spellbook to prepare a spell he already knows and has recorded in his own spellbook, but preparation success is not assured. First, the wizard must decipher the writing in the book (see Arcane Magical Writings, above). Once a spell from another spellcaster’s book is deciphered, the reader must make a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + spell’s level) to prepare the spell. If the check succeeds, the wizard can prepare the spell. He must repeat the check to prepare the spell again, no matter how many times he has prepared it before. If the check fails, he cannot try to prepare the spell from the same source again until the next day. However, as explained above, he does not need to repeat a check to decipher the writing.
Buying your spellbook as a Blessed Book, means needing to decipher all of your spells which would take any wizard hours per spell (each wizard has their own way they decipher magic, this is why Read Magic is a spell), at which point they can't guaranteed prep them unless they re-write them themselves. Any wizard would sooner just pay the write cost to copy the spell from your book, into theirs and a form they can prep from without issue. (Note: I'm not 100% sure how/if it applies to the preconstructed spellbooks from UM.)
If a wizard is going to buy a Blessed Book, it's going to be for their own spells (this is why treasure ones are always empty), and if they want your spells, they aren't going to purchase them all, they're going to get what they need. Viably, your profit is the same, you could leave the copy of yourself with a copy of your spellbook (and a Blessed Book, if your spells shop ever wanted to do trades or add new spells to it's stock. The recuced write cost would be good business) and sell spells for the copy cost. However, there isn't a lump-sum option because really no one is going to buy them lump sum. And the selling occassional single spells is represented by a profession check as someone described above.
I am vaguely reminded of the time my group had to bring down a monarch, so we settled on destroying the city's economy instead of traditional tactics. We flooded the markets with cheap luxury goods (which put artisans out of business), had simulacra and other cheap labor crafting 'junk' magic items everyone could afford (which put the wizards out of business), mass produced 'healing' and 'restorative' potions (which put clerics and doctors out of business), conjured and transmuted huge amounts of food we gave away for free (which gave farmers nowhere to sell their crops), and pumped so much gold into the system that inflation went sky high (which made it next to impossible to buy anything). Six months in the economy collapsed and the city fell. It was actually kind of brilliant.
So as far as all this being 'theorycraft' and 'good clean fun', I beg to differ. Really getting into the economics of a setting can have some interesting, unusual, terrifying, and strangely fun results.