I have a sorcerer who's gimmick is that he is presenting himself as a wizard. To that end, is there any rule prohibiting him from maintaining a spellbook as if I were a wizard? I understand this would not add to my spells known or allow me to cast spells from my spellbook. This is primarily for flavor and to potentially fool other players and their characters.
I plan to pay the gold to write all of his spells in the spellbook and make spellcraft checks. Provided I make the appropriate payments and succeed my checks:
Would another wizard be allowed to copy spells from my spellbook?
Would I be able to copy the spells from another wizard spellbook?
Would I be able to purchase new spells that I do not know between scenarios?
POTENTIAL ABUSE: Because of the Ring of Spell Knowledge allows you to teach it a spell you encounter in written form, maintaining a spellbook in this fashion would allow me as a sorcerer to reference a spellbook as a standard action to "learn" a spell.
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RAW, you need to understand a spell to write it into a spellbook and, again RAW, only people with the spellbook (or formula book for alchemists) class feature can do that. Even witches are forced to feed scrolls to their familiars instead of having them learn from a spellbook.
[Rant]It is pretty absurd, as, RAW, an expert with Master Craftsman, Craft Wondrous Items, and ranks in Profession Scribe but no ranks in spellcraft and Knowledge Arcana can create pages of spell knowledge.[/Rant]
You can buy an already written spellbook. PCs often sell those found as loot after coping the spells that interest them.
Non-RAW I would allow it.
"Potential abuse": Mnemonic Vestment works better, you can access higher-level spells. On the other hand, you can cast only one spell each day.
well reading a spell book can be done with read magic. even sorcerers can get that spell (and use it for other things like magic scrolls).
as for writing in a spellbook that is a bit more complicated as each wizard develop his own 'language' as part of his studies and sorcerers don't do that. but I guess if he took the 'scribe scroll' spell nothing will prevent him from maintaining a spell book, it will most likely be in a plain language so others could understand it without read magic, but beside that it should work (might take more pages per spell to explain things that plain language have problems explaining)
What exactly is the difference between a spell written in a scroll and a spell written in a spellbook?
I know mechanically the scroll is consumed when cast or when copied into a spellbook.
But just the fact that a scroll can be copied into a spellbook tells me the actual arcane writings in a scroll and a spellbook are the same.
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The way I've always understood it, sorcerers are natural magic users. They don't study and learn spells and spell formulae. They just wave their hands, say a few words that make sense to them and the spell happens. Wizards learn to write magic onto paper and study that paper to memorize the spell.
A sorcerer never learned the proper formula for a spell, so he can't write a formula down. As for a spells scroll, a sorcerer writes down some magic-looking gibberish and imbues that mess with a spell. Casting detect magic or read magic to identify the spell is more of the caster identifying the magic in the scroll than the writing on the paper.
My suggestion would be to keep his bluff skill high and write down magic-looking jargon in a book and prepare to study it. If a wizard gets ahold of the book and tries to learn the spells, casting read magic would be a dead giveaway that something's not right. Without casting read magic, maybe a knowledge arcana or spellcraft check against the character's bluff check (used when writing the "spell") would be needed to realize the hoax.
A wizard definitely couldn't learn a spell out of the spellbook because it's not a real spellbook. It's a con.
Again, that's just my take on how it would work based on how I've always understood it.
a scroll (and wand and staf etc) are actual medium with a spell cast half way with only the last touches left to finish (targets, range, final activation etc).
a spell book contain the information of how to cast the spell, what you need to do\think\act the way you move and mold the magic etc.
it's like the difference between a microwave oven dinner and a book with recipes in it (written in a secret cypher).
if you are talented enough (spellcraft check) you can learn the recipe from the ready made dinner, but it's mostly used to heat and serve. but the fact the scroll has enough info to teach a wizard how to write the spell into his spellbook, mean that if a sorcerer take the scribe scroll feat he too should be able to write such instructions. as I mentioned since he lack the technic to do so in the magic cypher (which read magic decipher) he would probably have to explain in more detail which would lead to extra pages used per spell level.
I accept that to do what I want legally, I need to do one level into magus, arcanist, or wizard.
Rant: The arcane writing system allows for every single thing short of a non-wizard writing spells in a spell book. A sorcerer could craft a scroll of Vanish. A rogue with spellcraft could tell you Vanish is written in a spellbook. An expert with Master Craftsman, Craft Wondrous Items, and ranks in Profession Scribe but no ranks in spellcraft and Knowledge Arcana can create a page of spell knowledge for Vanish.
But a sorcerer with spellcraft can't look at a spellbook and copy the writing into another spellbook.
In my opinion a spellbook is individual to the wizard. It’s written in the way that’s easiest for him to understand but another wizard would write it in very different ways that made the most sense to them. I would say that with linguistics you could make a forgery of a spellbook that would look “real” but would be missing key details the forger didn’t realize were important to the way the spell works. Maybe with a spellcraft check against the forgery you could detect that it was fake.
SpellBook is listed as a class feature for both wizard and magus. Under the Arcane Magical Writings section of the core rule book, it does not specify that the character deciphering a spell has to be a wizard. It does not even say the character has to be a caster. But it does specifically call out wizard when it talks about adding or copying a new spell into a book as well as copying spell books. That section also specifies that bards and sorcerers cast arcane spells, but do not use spell books.
To me that means that RAW sorcerers cannot create, copy or add spells to a spellbook. They can use spellcraft or read magic to decipher a spell, but other than knowing what the spell is they usually gain no benefit from doing so. The only circumstances it will benefit them is if they have something like Mnemonic Vestments, or they want to sell the book. Knowing what spells are in the book will probably be useful when selling it.
One thing to consider is that for the most part other classes are not going to know the difference. Spellbooks do not radiate magic and are normally incomprehensible even to spell casters that have not tried to decipher the spells in the book. So, unless a character with spellcraft attempts to decipher the spells in the “spellbook” there is no way to tell if the book is actually a spellbook, or if is a fake.
I would have no problem allowing a sorcerer (or any caster) with spellcraft to create a fake spellbook. A character without spellcraft or read magic would have no way of telling that the spellbook is not real. I would also require a character with spellcraft to actually make the roll to decipher the “spells” in the book in order to determine it is a fake. The character trying to write the spell in the book would be required to spend gold equal to what the spell would normally cost of the character using spellcraft would have a much easier time in detecting it is fake.