Looking For Advice - NPC Formula Books & Spellbooks

[J Scot Shady]

One big change I am seeing in the published material is for NPC spellcasters, specifically those that seem to have a basis in the Wizard and Alchemist classes. These NPC's do not show any kind of spellbook or formula book in their Gear section. My question is, how do you explain this to the PCs when they want to gain access to those items? I know in a few instances that the treasure section of an encounter shows these items, but no where near every time. Often there are characters that would clearly need access to these items, but they are not available for the PCs to recover (and therefore gain access to the spells and formulas within.

So, what do other GM's do in these cases?

Thanks.

[Ascalaphus]

I've become kinda lazy with that sort of thing, but my players are happy with it. I just say "it's got a bunch of spells that you already have, but it's also got [stuff that they've seen him use in the fight] and [some stuff that I feel like giving the players]. If you wanna sell it after copying those spells it's worth [amount that I intend to give them as monetary treasure].

Trying to painstakingly construct a realistic spellbook seems like a waste of time to me. I just give the players the info they really care about.

[Aratorin]

If the enemy was a prepared caster/alchemist, I just have their spellbook/formula book be on them with whatever spells/formulas the NPC is listed as having prepared.

[Quandary]

Ascalaphus has most useful take for when you want them to have spellbook/formula IMHO, although in bigger picture that need not always be the case, i.e. they don't need to have spellbook/formulas on their person if they keep it stored somewhere else safe... which may not be on PC's route, or may be more trouble tracking down than it's worth if it's well defended etc. Then there is generic NPC statblocks, which might assume you likely may customize their spell load out to begin with, so no point spelling out exactly every entry in spellbook etc (even if they are giving example prepared spells to be ready to use for combat).