I'm seriously considering changing the spellbook rules (such as they are) for BEMCI. More precisely, the size of the bloody things and how many spells they can hold. This is being brought about by the desire to have other sizes and forms of spell recording -- such as the scrolls and folios mentioned in recent spell postings of mine -- available to PCs, and because the extant rules drive me batty.
In the Red Box, we are told that "a spellbook is about 2 feet square, 2-6 inches thick, and weighs at least twenty pounds". This already hurts my head on sheer size alone when I try to contemplate the size of the parchments used to make the quires of pages -- medieval books were not generally so massive in dimensions, I swear -- but, in addition to this, there is apparently no limit to the number of spells that may be entered into the spellbook. (magic --!)
Neither the Red Box nor the RC give a price for a spellbook. An expanded equipment list from Dragon Magazine ("Different Totes For Different Folks", March 1993) gives the spellbook as 100gp, weighing 200cn / 20 lbs, with a measurement of 24x24x6", and capable of holding a grand total of twenty-four spells.
Ouch.
Over in the land of Labyrinth Lord, the OGL version of the spellbook is in use: 15 gp, weighing 1 lb., with 100 pages and spells taking up one page per spell level. No dimensions are given. This feels like it goes a wee bit too far over into the other extreme (price-wise, at least, and maybe weight also for a main spellbook), but I'm still debating.
Ideally, in the next day or so I'll cobble together a collection of standard sizes, with options to go smaller, perhaps -- yes, I quite like the idea of a girdle book as a small "travel-sized"spellbook, limited in space but containing spells the caster doesn't want to be without, and it's a major cause of my musings here -- and post them up for general consumption.
Similarly, the putting-spells-in-the-book system versus replacing-the-book system needs work. More to the point, being able to scribe new spells into a spellbook with no cost attached but being forced to shell out thousands of gold pieces to replace a lost book -- when it is much the same process in many ways -- strikes me as quite daft. This bit requires more mulling-over on my part but I do want to address it in some way that doesn't grow too complicated.
8 comments:
Oooo! Girdle books. I'd forgotten about those. Cool idea. :D
In my college game, adding a spell to your spellbook was an expensive and complicated process. However, once it was done, the spells in your spellbook could be cast from like scrolls. This meant that if you needed a spell you hadn't memorized, you could cast it out of the book. However, doing this destroyed those pages in the same way a casting from a scroll destroys the scroll. The spell was wiped utterly from the book. So it wasn't the sort of thing a spell-slinger wanted to do often, but in an emergency, it could be a real life saver.
@trollsmyth:
Yeh, girdle books are awesome and have good character flavour to them. I wouldn't want to be the poor MU with a 24X24" book hanging from my belt, though, so some tinkering is required *grins*
I've used (and still use) a similar casting-from-spellbook (expensive! or else risked nuking extra spells as well) in my 2e games. I haven't decided yet if I'll use a similar rule for D&D/LL, but it's something else to consider. I'll likely weigh my options once I start considering that pesky spell scribing conundrum ...
Didn't AD&D do something similar to this? You had your permanent spellbook at home, probably on a lectern, and your 'travelling spellbook' (a little chapbook thing) that went on adventures but only held a few spells. There was an essay about this in UA IIRC.
Good stuff Taichara. Noted for future *yoink* potential. ;)
Well, price wise the SRD says the empty spell book costs 15gp, but the materials to write cost 100gp per page, and you need a page per spell level, which adds a lot of bookkeeping (but I'm enjoying it as a 3E wizard player). Anyway, all that matters is that the empty book is cheap; once you've filled it with spells, it's very expensive.
I like the image of huge tomes used for spells. Maybe one way to reconcile those would be to require a surface of two by two feet, but it doesn't have to be bound in a book. Leather hides, big scrolls, copper plates, clay tablets, it all works, just as long as it's big.
I also like the idea of a travelling spellbook. That does explain the need for a trapped tower for high level wizards: How else are you going to protect your library while you're on the road...
@Chris:
Didn't AD&D do something similar to this? You had your permanent spellbook at home, probably on a lectern, and your 'travelling spellbook' (a little chapbook thing) that went on adventures but only held a few spells. There was an essay about this in UA IIRC.
It did indeed! I have the information in question squirreled away here somewhere, but I don't want to squint at it too closely for fear of cribbing too much from it. But something along those lines -- maybe a little more simple -- is what I'm thinking of doing.
Good stuff Taichara. Noted for future *yoink* potential. ;)
Hehe ;3 Hopefully I shall have something more concrete up in a day or so.
@Alex Schroeder said:
Well, price wise the SRD says the empty spell book costs 15gp, but the materials to write cost 100gp per page, and you need a page per spell level, which adds a lot of bookkeeping (but I'm enjoying it as a 3E wizard player). Anyway, all that matters is that the empty book is cheap; once you've filled it with spells, it's very expensive.
I am aware of this; I ran 3e for some years. The difference here is that as it stands the BEMCI rules give no price at all for scribing the spells but a good deal for re-scribing them, whereas the 3e rules have a little of Column A and a little of Column B, so to speak.
This is why I need to consider the scribing rules as well as spellbook dimensions (and, likely, price) ...
I like the image of huge tomes used for spells. Maybe one way to reconcile those would be to require a surface of two by two feet, but it doesn't have to be bound in a book. Leather hides, big scrolls, copper plates, clay tablets, it all works, just as long as it's big.
I handle some annoyingly large textbooks and have a passing familiarity (very passing; the historical period is late for me) with medieval books, and the 24x24 seems much too excessive for my tastes. And believe me, scrolls and tablets are even less viable at those dimensions ;3
On this point, I think our tastes are simply wildly divergent *grins* We'd all be boring if we liked the same details, though.
I also like the idea of a travelling spellbook. That does explain the need for a trapped tower for high level wizards: How else are you going to protect your library while you're on the road...
It does indeed.
For that matter, regardless of spellbook dimensions, once a MU has collected enough spells there is simply no way to bring them all along with you conveniently (unless you have that "endless spellbook" noted at the very beginning of my post *coughs*).
At that point, a smaller book containing more frequently-used spells becomes very much a bonus --
I can also remember (although the source is long forgotten) the suggestion that spellbooks be tailored to the culture. So one wizard may have a "traditional" spellbook, but another from elsewhere may have a large scroll (more like a Torah, than the traditional treasure item) and another a collection of tablets made of clay or bronze or such.
Although my players always used the traditional books, one of the best sources of new spells was as treasure items, often found in crypts and such. So the "ancients" used other things.
It was often entertaining, to have the party spell casters arguing over whether or not something found was an ancient form of spellbook or not. It also added some interesting logistical challenges to transporting and using the things.
I once also experimented with having elvish spellcasters use folio made from the barks of specific types of trees, humans use the traditional books, gnomes had something else. In this case, spells were not directly exchangeable, except between the same race. Notations, and somatic/verbal components varied too. But, it did reduce the research costs.
I've sidestepped most of the issue regarding spellbooks by allowing them to be left at home during adventures. Under my house rules memorized spells automatically recharged after resting. You only need to consult your book(s) to change your spell selection.
Not that I'm trying to discourage you from writing up some nifty spellbook rules!
@Derek:
Also true! And a goodly number of those variants are well worth using, also. But at the moment I want something of the mundane-ish sort for my MUs.
I don't know if I would go so far as to subdivide entirely by race; maybe in another campaign ...
@Jeff Rients:
That works too! *grins*
But I confess; I like tinkering with spellbooks, and so have many of my players --
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