First, a simple question: Arcane Evolution states you add all your Repetoire spells to the spellbook for free, but since you can swap your Repertoire at level-up (or via downtime retraining) would the spellbook retain your OLD Repertoire spells which were added for free AND gain the new Repertoire spells for free?
Secondly, a more complex question is how the Arcane Evolution Spellbook interacts with the BASE Signature Spell ability:
Arcane Evo allows daily prep choice of either adding additional (scribed) spellbook spell to your Repertoire OR designating existing Repetoire spell as additional Signature Spell (which will mean 2 Signature Spells of given level, since by default you already have 1 per spell level.
What's not clear IMHO, is if you have designated an additional (scribed) spellbook spell as bonus Repertoire spell when you become eligible for swapping your BASE Signature Spells (either at level-up or with downtime retraining), whether you can designate that bonus Repetoire spell from your spellbook as your BASE 1/level Signature Spell?
There is misalignment in base Signature Spell being relatively static (choice at level-up or downtime retraining) VS Arcane Evo Spellbook Prep being daily choice, but I'm not sure if RAW actually precludes this. Certainly there would be trade-off in using the abilities like this, since continuing to keep Daily Prep choice aligned with the base Signature Spell designation (for more effective Repertoire variants) means losing the strategic flexibility of free Daily Prep with Spellbook.
Although if that does work, there might be other question whether or not the daily Arcane Evo Spellbook Prep choice qualifies for base Signature Spell's trigger of "if you swap out a signature spell" which enables instantly freely choosing a new Signature Spell. If allowed, that would obviously remove the trade-off in daily strategic flexibilty VS increased Signature Spell repertoire. Although if Spellbook Prep doesn't count as "swap", I wonder if that means you have one less Signature Spell until you can next swap them normally... OR if the Signature Spell designation remains even though you can't access it without it being Repertoire spell, but if you re-Prep back into that spell then you can continue using it as Signature Spell...?
I don't see why spells would disappear from the spellbook.
Regarding your second point, you could, but
Although if that does work, there might be other question whether or not the daily Arcane Evo Spellbook Prep choice qualifies for base Signature Spell's trigger of "if you swap out a signature spell" which enables instantly freely choosing a new Signature Spell. If allowed, that would obviously remove the trade-off in daily strategic flexibilty VS increased Signature Spell repertoire.
This wouldn't happen. Swapping spells is a specific mechanic defined under the spell repertoire class feature.
If, for whatever reason, you can't cast a signature spell... that's it. You can't cast it. You either need to regain access to the spell or retrain your signature spell.
OK, thanks... These usages just occured to me and I wanted to confirm my readings of them.
Since it's not adding additional Signature Spell, just designating it to one Spellbook spell at level-up/retraining, it mostly seems a minor expansion/work-around of the regular limit of one spell being swapped. If the consensus is "Swap" (reasonably) wouldn't apply to Evo Spellbook prep, it seems like this doesn't really get far out of line from "obvious" usage (without Spellbook spells).
The free scribing of all old spells & new spells in spellbook probably isn't that big of a deal (1/level Swap), I just didn't see it at first, and further downtime retraining both comes at opportunity cost vs other activities, and is somewhat GM controlled anyways.
I'm withholding an opinion on swapping spells during level-up for the time being, but keeping spells that you lost access to due to downtime retraining seems wrong and really not working as intended.
If you applied the same logic to wizards, who can retrain their school (and repeatedly so), they'd get a whole lot of spells in their spell book for free.
I don't think it's a huge issue as the entire if and how of retraining is gated behind GM-approval anyway, but still I'd probably rule that if you trained out of something you'd lose everything you had previously gained from that, including spells in your book.
If you applied the same logic to wizards, who can retrain their school (and repeatedly so), they'd get a whole lot of spells in their spell book for free.
1 1st level spell per retraining?
When you retrain out of something, you lose the gains you had from that and replace them with the gains from whatever you trained into.
That is true for all classes, why should wizards be the exception and get to keep something?
When you retrain out of something, you lose the gains you had from that and replace them with the gains from whatever you trained into.
So if I took magical crafting and then a year later retrained out of it, would you retroactively make every magical item I crafted stop working?
No, nor would I undo the effect of every spell cast, nor raise from the dead all monsters slain, nor reset every trap triggered.
And I wouldn't make you delete the spells from your book that you paid for. Just the ones you got for free for those school specializations or whatever other feats and abilities that you no longer have.
If you need an in-game reason, the school headmaster personally comes over and rips the pages out of your book for your betrayal of leaving the school.
NB: I think the CRB is not entirely clear of whether focus spells should be in your spell book or not. I personally don't think they should be, but if they are, the same applies to those, too, btw. After retraining, you only have access to those focus spells from yout current specialization.
That said, if you were a fighter who temporarily dabbles in wizard archetype specialization feats (gaining a spell book and 2 spells in it per caster level obtained, depending on feats taken), before retraining out of it again, I'd take the entire book away, of course.
Your concern seems premised on "getting something for nothing", but there /is/ an opportunity cost for down-time retraining:
You are missing out on opportunity to earn money, or other valuable activities like crafting, joining organization etc.
Given the retraining description suggests possibility of cost for learning (from teacher or adequate library etc),
I would suppose re-training to new arcane school would require a specialist of your newly desired school to teach you,
requiring payment for services by default, or enough 'social capital' to count as payment in lieu of gold.
If you're so concerned by the free 1st level spell, it seems reasonable to say that re-training school specialiation
will require /at minimum/ the same amount of time you would need to earn money with Arcane skill enough to scribe that spell.
(I would say it would need significantly more time, and scale with level, but I am trying to address your specific concern)
Yes, of course there is an opportunity cost. But it's generally the same for all classes. Except those classes without a spell book don't get to keep any remnant freebies of their former pasts.
So, my concern is really the unequal treatment here. I see no reason why spellbook users should get preferential treatment over the other classes here.
If I were to allow retraining in my campaigns (I expect, I'd only allow it under very limited circumstances), if any wizard or arcane evolution sorcerer wanted to keep any freebie spells in his book, yes, he'd definitely have to pay for that.
It does seem like rules don't give any guidelines to determine length of retraining for different features. Reasonably, some would take longer than others, even aside from the case of retraining into something with "free value" (scribed spell). Maybe GMG will cover this sort of thing?
It might. But right now, I feel it's pretty much covered by "Your GM determines whether you can get proper training or whether something can be retrained at all. In some cases, you’ll have to pay your instructor."
Essentially, it's "your GM decides what's appropriate to your campaign". I like that. But guidelines or suggestions in the GMG can't hurt, of course.