Am I overreading the implications of the fact that spellbooks are nonmagical items? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Am I overreading the implications of the fact that spellbooks are nonmagical items? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
JulesCARV
04-30-07, 04:31 AM A spellbook with spells in it is a nonmagical item. It is worth 50 gp per page of scribed spells. A full spell book with 100 pages of scribes spells is worth 5,000 gp, etc.

Let's say you're a level 11 wizard. You can cast Extended Major Creation. You use it to create a spellbook with a spell you want in it. The spellbook is best described as being made of vegetable matter (wood pulp) (2 hours per level), is extended (x2), and you're level 11. The spellbook lasts 44 hours, more than long enough for you to copy the spell from the created spellbook to your permanent one.

Since the spellbook is nonmagical vegetable matter regardless of what spell is in it, it seems that there's no restriction on what spell appears in the book, regardless of whether it's only known to a sect of insane wizards who live in a secluded demiplane or not. (of course, if a DM rules that a spell simply doesn't exist in his world, and isn't merely difficult to access, then that's another matter)

Or, if you find that too dubious, you can wish for a full spellbook (nonmagical item worth 5000 gp, well below the 25,000 gp limit), with 100 pages worth of any spells you want: 11 9th level and 1 1st level, 20 5th level, or whatever. True creation also works, although thanks to the odd fact that true creation only converts at 1 xp --> 1 gp, rather than the standard 1 xp --> 5 gp, it's no more efficient.

Am I overreading the implications of the fact that spellbooks are mundane, nonmagical objects?
Thiez
04-30-07, 06:22 AM No, you are reading the spells wrong. To make a complex item, you need to make a skill check -> you need to know how to create the item -> you must know all the spells that are to appear in the spellbook -> you cannot create a spellbook filled with spells you do not know.

It could work with Wish, though.
Nadaka
04-30-07, 06:23 AM Creating a complex item requires a "apropriate" skill check to create the item.

The following is an interpretation:
This means that to create the spellbook you would have to pass the craft check and all the spellcraft checks required to scribe those spells. And unfortunately you would be unable to make those spellcraft checks without a scroll or spellbook to copy from. You could make a major creation copy of a spellbook, but only if you had all the spells within at your disposal. It would be useful to keep your real spellbook safely hidden at your home base while using a the created spellbook on adventures.
robitusinz
04-30-07, 11:27 AM Or simply use Major Creation to make a copy of your own spellbook and sell it for 5,000 gp.

:P
TheGogmagog
04-30-07, 11:54 AM Since a relevent skill check is required, you would need craft (book) for starters. The appropriate skill check to create the spell, would be the same to perform independant research of existing spells. I don't see the DC in the SRD, I think it's in the DMG. So far it seems you could bypass the time and money investment in researching new spells.

The time and money however represent gaining the required knowlege to re-create the spell (ie, without it you don't have the requisite skills to create the spell). I'd fully expect a DM to disallow your use with major creation.

The use of wish however, would be able to skip those prerequistes. Then you would only be limited by the GP value of the spells, and the created book would be permanent. You would only then need to learn the spell (a mundane task for the caster level where you could cast wish).
tarkin
04-30-07, 12:12 PM Hm. Everything people said is correct (you need the knoweldge already to make things).

But it also allows for the following:

1. Say your spell book was destroyed (Or you want a nother copy.)

2. You already know all the spells in it.

3. Assuming you have Craft (Book binding)

4. To save cash and time, cast Polymorph Any Object on a 5gp book turning it into a spellbook containing all your spells, permanently.

5. At lower levels, you can instead supply the paper and ink, and cast Fabricate instead.

Hm. This looks like a very good idea.
ArcTan
04-30-07, 02:17 PM Hm. Everything people said is correct (you need the knoweldge already to make things).

But it also allows for the following:

1. Say your spell book was destroyed (Or you want a nother copy.)

2. You already know all the spells in it.

3. Assuming you have Craft (Book binding)

4. To save cash and time, cast Polymorph Any Object on a 5gp book turning it into a spellbook containing all your spells, permanently.

5. At lower levels, you can instead supply the paper and ink, and cast Fabricate instead.

Hm. This looks like a very good idea.

Fabricate requires that you make "appropriate skill checks" in the same way the Creation spells do. I would rule the necessity of Spellcraft checks to write down spells you know in such situations.

I would also rule that things like this are a reason banning PAO is a very good idea.

I don't think using Wish to get more spells is really that overpowered, though -- you're already casting 9th-level spells at that point and all.
Yusari
04-30-07, 02:43 PM Hm. Everything people said is correct (you need the knoweldge already to make things).

But it also allows for the following:

1. Say your spell book was destroyed (Or you want a nother copy.)

2. You already know all the spells in it.

3. Assuming you have Craft (Book binding)

4. To save cash and time, cast Polymorph Any Object on a 5gp book turning it into a spellbook containing all your spells, permanently.

5. At lower levels, you can instead supply the paper and ink, and cast Fabricate instead.

Hm. This looks like a very good idea.
Well, an important thing to remember is that if your spell book was destroyed, you don't actually know all the spells in it... that is why you have a spell book as a wizard. So, if the spell book was destroyed, you could only make a spell book containing read magic (which all wizards can prepare from memory), and (if you have a nice DM), those spells you have prepared for the day already (similar in the method to which you would be able to scribe a scroll. All else fails, you could scribe a scroll of them, then copy the scroll into the book), and possibly those spells which you have the spell mastery feat for.

As far as duplicating your own spell book... I suppose you could. But remember a few things about doing that, as a PC wizard:

1) Any other wizard who sees your spellbook will be able to copy spells out of it. Thus, they'll pay happily for it, or for rogues to steal it. Not a big deal if you only have one that never leaves your sight, but if you leave another lying around, someone might find it.

2) Any other wizard who sees your spell book will know at least a part (if not all) of your abilities as a wizard. If there is any circumstance where they might be wanting to fight you, or contest with you in any way, they can prepare better for that match.

Between those two reasons, it seems like a strange thing for a wizard to go around making copies of his spell book out of magic. Much better to just have one book and protect that one as best you can, instead of giving away your secrets.
Thiez
04-30-07, 03:20 PM If I remember correctly a wizard without his spellbook can scribe a spell from memory, but only if he has that spell prepared. I would allow a wizard to put all spells he has currently prepared in a book created with one of the spells mentioned above, but not unprepared spells, wether he knows them or not.
Yusari
04-30-07, 03:23 PM *nods* yeah, a valid point. after all, you can make a scroll of them without having your spell book handy, and you can put them in your book from a scroll, so you ought to be able to put them directly into a spellbook.
tarkin
04-30-07, 03:33 PM Well, an important thing to remember is that if your spell book was destroyed, you don't actually know all the spells in it... that is why you have a spell book as a wizard.

Wrong. You know all the spells in your spellbook. You keep a record in it to help you PREPARE the spells, but when you learn a spell, you have learned the spell.

Spells Copied from Another’s Spellbook or a Scroll
A wizard can also add a spell to her book whenever she encounters one on a magic scroll or in another wizard’s spellbook. No matter what the spell’s source, the wizard must first decipher the magical writing (see Arcane Magical Writings, above). Next, she must spend a day studying the spell. At the end of the day, she must make a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + spell’s level). A wizard who has specialized in a school of spells gains a +2 bonus on the Spellcraft check if the new spell is from her specialty school. She cannot, however, learn any spells from her prohibited schools. If the check succeeds, the wizard understands the spell and can copy it into her spellbook (see Writing a New Spell into a Spellbook, below). The process leaves a spellbook that was copied from unharmed, but a spell successfully copied from a magic scroll disappears from the parchment.

If the check fails, the wizard cannot understand or copy the spell. She cannot attempt to learn or copy that spell again until she gains another rank in Spellcraft. A spell that was being copied from a scroll does not vanish from the scroll.

In most cases, wizards charge a fee for the privilege of copying spells from their spellbooks. This fee is usually equal to the spell’s level × 50 gp.

Wizards learn the spells before they add them to their spellbook. They then use the spell books, which are things they wrote, as aids to help them prepare the spell.

If I write something into your spell book, that does not mean you 'know' the spell. You can not prepare it no matter what, untill you have suceeded in the spellcraft check. The check means you have learned the spell.

Between those two reasons, it seems like a strange thing for a wizard to go around making copies of his spell book out of magic. Much better to just have one book and protect that one as best you can, instead of giving away your secrets.

You have GOT to be kidding me. You think wizards don't want copies of their spellbooks? Moreover you think wizards carry ALL their spells with them at all times? Do you know how many spells an 18th level wizard has? You think they carry 10 spellbooks around all the time?

And you don't think they make copies so that they carry these precious things around with them into dungeons? Yeah right. Any wizard that is not a beginner should have multiple copies of his spell books around. Spell books are more valuable to you then to other people, mainly because it is harder for other people to read them.

They are valued, and guarded. If you have a home, they are in it. If note, you might put a copy in Leomund's Secret Chest. But they are no where near valuable enough that some moronic rogue would break into a wizard's home to steal them. He might do it on his way out after stealing everything else you own, but it would be about 99 on his list of things to steal, out of 100, if you are at all succesfull.

As for figuring out what spells you have, it would make far more sense to use gather information and magical scrying to do that, then waste time trying to look at your spellbook.

Now, if you had a special spell that you yourself wrote, that one might only exist in your main spell book. But the vast majority of spells you have are relatively low value to everyone else, high value to you, so you definitely keep extra copies of them, to protect yourself against loss.

You'd have to be a pretty foolish high level caster to have only copy of your spell book around. What happens if you get killed/eaten and your buddies have to ressurect you? What happens when you get captured, stripped and you have to teleport home naked? What happens when a rogue steals your backpack?

All of those things are far more likely to happen then having someone break into a Wizards home to steal a silly book that is worth far more to the wizard than to anyone else.
JulesCARV
04-30-07, 03:44 PM If you want a secret spellbook, with an Eternal Wand of Secret Page, a wizard could just continually put two secret pages of spells every day into something no one wants to investigate too closely. Within a year, you can have 730 secret pages, so you keep a "backup spellbook" unobtrusively hidden in what looks like post-structuralist literary criticism, furry porn, old restaurant receipts that you never threw away, or something else that no one in their right mind would want to look at.
Yusari
04-30-07, 05:01 PM Tarkin > The section you quoted from the rules says it precisely as I am saying it. You understand a spell and can copy it into your spellbook, once you have studied it (and made the check). The very fact that you can not prepare that spell without your spellbook (unless you have spell mastery for it), makes the point that you do not truely know the spell. You need to study your spellbook to refresh your memory every time you go to ready that spell for the day. Perhaps you could attempt to recreate the spell without a copy of it to look at as you re-write it into your book, but there is no way of being sure you got it right... you don't know the spell that well (if you did, you would have spell mastery for it). And of course, can you imagine what would happen if you mixed up two similar spells in your head when trying to do the whole thing by memory?

More to the point however, the rules section you quoted makes the point of saying a Wizard can add a spell to her book whenever she encounters one in a magic scroll, or in another Wizard's spellbook, and then COPY it into her own spell book. The very act of copying requires that there be something to make a duplicate of, and thus, we see that you need a written out spell formula to duplicate for your spellbook.

Also, if you look on page 179 of the Player's Handbook, under Replacing and Copying Spellbooks it reads:
A wizard can use the procedure for learing a spell to reconstruct a lost spellbook. If she already ahs a particular spell prepared, she can write it directly into a new book at a cost of 100 gp per page (as noted in Writing a New Spell into a Spellbook, above). The process wipes the prepared spell from her mind, just as casting it would. If she does not have the spell prepared, she can prepare it from a borrowed spellbook and then write it into a new book. Explicit confirmation of what I said earlier... a wizard needs a spell either prepared or written out to put it within her spellbook.

As far as the carrying of spellbooks: No, I don't think all wizards carry around every spell they know at all times (my apologies if I gave that impression). Quite simply, what would be the point? Certain spells belong in your library... and if you're a high level wizard, then you probably do have a library in your home (that you protect against others getting into, I imagine), where you keep those spells you aren't carrying with you all the time. The travelling spellbooks from AD&D were sensible solutions to such a thing, and while nothing officially the same as them exists in 3.5, it is not too difficult to make one (particularly given the section on spellbook construction that is present in Complete Arcane). Also, something that people often forget, is that books are not limited to 50 pages in length (again, mentioned in Complete Arcane), and the difference in volume between a 50 and a 100 page book is far less than the difference between two 50 page books. As such, yes, I agree that most wizards at higher levels are going to possess certain spellbooks they carry with them when they travel, and a complete collection at home.

That however, remains fairly safe, as far as having a copy of your books made. After all, a wizard who does not protect his home using all the means at his disposal (magical and mundane) would be a rather strange thing to wander across. Consider further that many wizards go through the extra trouble of actually trapping their spellbook (with sepia snake sigils, explosive runes, etc). While I do believe most wizards are paranoid (or at least, ought to be), there's another reason for this: Not all spells are commonly avaible to everyone. Just because wizards can learn any spell on their list, doesn't mean they will learn them all. How many 8th or 9th level spells does the average PC wizard ever record into his spellbooks? Most likely just those 4 he got at the levels when they were the highest he could cast, and 3 to 5 others that he managed to pick up from scrolls and the spell books of his enemies.

So, while a wizard having a copy of his spellbooks in his house is likely, him having a 5 or 6 copies scattered around the world is something most would consider too much of a risk. Easier, if you're worried about losing the one you carry on you and the one stored in your house, to simply have spell mastery for Wish or Limited Wish, and wish one of them back into your hands.

Another reason why a spellbook duplicate probably wouldn't be made using fabricate or polymorph would be the fact that any magical defenses or hidden pages involved in your spellbook wouldn't be re-made. Perhaps it's just the games I've played in and the way I play a wizard, but I've never run into a spellbook for any wizard (PC or NPC) that could arrange for defenses and hidden pages who hadn't done so.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
JulesCARV 04-30-07, 04:31 AM	A spellbook with spells in it is a nonmagical item. It is worth 50 gp per page of scribed spells. A full spell book with 100 pages of scribes spells is worth 5,000 gp, etc. Let's say you're a level 11 wizard. You can cast Extended Major Creation. You use it to create a spellbook with a spell you want in it. The spellbook is best described as being made of vegetable matter (wood pulp) (2 hours per level), is extended (x2), and you're level 11. The spellbook lasts 44 hours, more than long enough for you to copy the spell from the created spellbook to your permanent one. Since the spellbook is nonmagical vegetable matter regardless of what spell is in it, it seems that there's no restriction on what spell appears in the book, regardless of whether it's only known to a sect of insane wizards who live in a secluded demiplane or not. (of course, if a DM rules that a spell simply doesn't exist in his world, and isn't merely difficult to access, then that's another matter) Or, if you find that too dubious, you can wish for a full spellbook (nonmagical item worth 5000 gp, well below the 25,000 gp limit), with 100 pages worth of any spells you want: 11 9th level and 1 1st level, 20 5th level, or whatever. True creation also works, although thanks to the odd fact that true creation only converts at 1 xp --> 1 gp, rather than the standard 1 xp --> 5 gp, it's no more efficient. Am I overreading the implications of the fact that spellbooks are mundane, nonmagical objects?
Thiez 04-30-07, 06:22 AM	No, you are reading the spells wrong. To make a complex item, you need to make a skill check -> you need to know how to create the item -> you must know all the spells that are to appear in the spellbook -> you cannot create a spellbook filled with spells you do not know. It could work with Wish, though.
Nadaka 04-30-07, 06:23 AM	Creating a complex item requires a "apropriate" skill check to create the item. The following is an interpretation: This means that to create the spellbook you would have to pass the craft check and all the spellcraft checks required to scribe those spells. And unfortunately you would be unable to make those spellcraft checks without a scroll or spellbook to copy from. You could make a major creation copy of a spellbook, but only if you had all the spells within at your disposal. It would be useful to keep your real spellbook safely hidden at your home base while using a the created spellbook on adventures.
robitusinz 04-30-07, 11:27 AM	Or simply use Major Creation to make a copy of your own spellbook and sell it for 5,000 gp. :P
TheGogmagog 04-30-07, 11:54 AM	Since a relevent skill check is required, you would need craft (book) for starters. The appropriate skill check to create the spell, would be the same to perform independant research of existing spells. I don't see the DC in the SRD, I think it's in the DMG. So far it seems you could bypass the time and money investment in researching new spells. The time and money however represent gaining the required knowlege to re-create the spell (ie, without it you don't have the requisite skills to create the spell). I'd fully expect a DM to disallow your use with major creation. The use of wish however, would be able to skip those prerequistes. Then you would only be limited by the GP value of the spells, and the created book would be permanent. You would only then need to learn the spell (a mundane task for the caster level where you could cast wish).
tarkin 04-30-07, 12:12 PM	Hm. Everything people said is correct (you need the knoweldge already to make things). But it also allows for the following: 1. Say your spell book was destroyed (Or you want a nother copy.) 2. You already know all the spells in it. 3. Assuming you have Craft (Book binding) 4. To save cash and time, cast Polymorph Any Object on a 5gp book turning it into a spellbook containing all your spells, permanently. 5. At lower levels, you can instead supply the paper and ink, and cast Fabricate instead. Hm. This looks like a very good idea.
ArcTan 04-30-07, 02:17 PM	Hm. Everything people said is correct (you need the knoweldge already to make things). But it also allows for the following: 1. Say your spell book was destroyed (Or you want a nother copy.) 2. You already know all the spells in it. 3. Assuming you have Craft (Book binding) 4. To save cash and time, cast Polymorph Any Object on a 5gp book turning it into a spellbook containing all your spells, permanently. 5. At lower levels, you can instead supply the paper and ink, and cast Fabricate instead. Hm. This looks like a very good idea. Fabricate requires that you make "appropriate skill checks" in the same way the Creation spells do. I would rule the necessity of Spellcraft checks to write down spells you know in such situations. I would also rule that things like this are a reason banning PAO is a very good idea. I don't think using Wish to get more spells is really that overpowered, though -- you're already casting 9th-level spells at that point and all.
Yusari 04-30-07, 02:43 PM	Hm. Everything people said is correct (you need the knoweldge already to make things). But it also allows for the following: 1. Say your spell book was destroyed (Or you want a nother copy.) 2. You already know all the spells in it. 3. Assuming you have Craft (Book binding) 4. To save cash and time, cast Polymorph Any Object on a 5gp book turning it into a spellbook containing all your spells, permanently. 5. At lower levels, you can instead supply the paper and ink, and cast Fabricate instead. Hm. This looks like a very good idea. Well, an important thing to remember is that if your spell book was destroyed, you don't actually know all the spells in it... that is why you have a spell book as a wizard. So, if the spell book was destroyed, you could only make a spell book containing read magic (which all wizards can prepare from memory), and (if you have a nice DM), those spells you have prepared for the day already (similar in the method to which you would be able to scribe a scroll. All else fails, you could scribe a scroll of them, then copy the scroll into the book), and possibly those spells which you have the spell mastery feat for. As far as duplicating your own spell book... I suppose you could. But remember a few things about doing that, as a PC wizard: 1) Any other wizard who sees your spellbook will be able to copy spells out of it. Thus, they'll pay happily for it, or for rogues to steal it. Not a big deal if you only have one that never leaves your sight, but if you leave another lying around, someone might find it. 2) Any other wizard who sees your spell book will know at least a part (if not all) of your abilities as a wizard. If there is any circumstance where they might be wanting to fight you, or contest with you in any way, they can prepare better for that match. Between those two reasons, it seems like a strange thing for a wizard to go around making copies of his spell book out of magic. Much better to just have one book and protect that one as best you can, instead of giving away your secrets.
Thiez 04-30-07, 03:20 PM	If I remember correctly a wizard without his spellbook can scribe a spell from memory, but only if he has that spell prepared. I would allow a wizard to put all spells he has currently prepared in a book created with one of the spells mentioned above, but not unprepared spells, wether he knows them or not.
Yusari 04-30-07, 03:23 PM	nods yeah, a valid point. after all, you can make a scroll of them without having your spell book handy, and you can put them in your book from a scroll, so you ought to be able to put them directly into a spellbook.
tarkin 04-30-07, 03:33 PM	Well, an important thing to remember is that if your spell book was destroyed, you don't actually know all the spells in it... that is why you have a spell book as a wizard. Wrong. You know all the spells in your spellbook. You keep a record in it to help you PREPARE the spells, but when you learn a spell, you have learned the spell. Spells Copied from Another’s Spellbook or a Scroll A wizard can also add a spell to her book whenever she encounters one on a magic scroll or in another wizard’s spellbook. No matter what the spell’s source, the wizard must first decipher the magical writing (see Arcane Magical Writings, above). Next, she must spend a day studying the spell. At the end of the day, she must make a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + spell’s level). A wizard who has specialized in a school of spells gains a +2 bonus on the Spellcraft check if the new spell is from her specialty school. She cannot, however, learn any spells from her prohibited schools. If the check succeeds, the wizard understands the spell and can copy it into her spellbook (see Writing a New Spell into a Spellbook, below). The process leaves a spellbook that was copied from unharmed, but a spell successfully copied from a magic scroll disappears from the parchment. If the check fails, the wizard cannot understand or copy the spell. She cannot attempt to learn or copy that spell again until she gains another rank in Spellcraft. A spell that was being copied from a scroll does not vanish from the scroll. In most cases, wizards charge a fee for the privilege of copying spells from their spellbooks. This fee is usually equal to the spell’s level × 50 gp. Wizards learn the spells before they add them to their spellbook. They then use the spell books, which are things they wrote, as aids to help them prepare the spell. If I write something into your spell book, that does not mean you 'know' the spell. You can not prepare it no matter what, untill you have suceeded in the spellcraft check. The check means you have learned the spell. Between those two reasons, it seems like a strange thing for a wizard to go around making copies of his spell book out of magic. Much better to just have one book and protect that one as best you can, instead of giving away your secrets. You have GOT to be kidding me. You think wizards don't want copies of their spellbooks? Moreover you think wizards carry ALL their spells with them at all times? Do you know how many spells an 18th level wizard has? You think they carry 10 spellbooks around all the time? And you don't think they make copies so that they carry these precious things around with them into dungeons? Yeah right. Any wizard that is not a beginner should have multiple copies of his spell books around. Spell books are more valuable to you then to other people, mainly because it is harder for other people to read them. They are valued, and guarded. If you have a home, they are in it. If note, you might put a copy in Leomund's Secret Chest. But they are no where near valuable enough that some moronic rogue would break into a wizard's home to steal them. He might do it on his way out after stealing everything else you own, but it would be about 99 on his list of things to steal, out of 100, if you are at all succesfull. As for figuring out what spells you have, it would make far more sense to use gather information and magical scrying to do that, then waste time trying to look at your spellbook. Now, if you had a special spell that you yourself wrote, that one might only exist in your main spell book. But the vast majority of spells you have are relatively low value to everyone else, high value to you, so you definitely keep extra copies of them, to protect yourself against loss. You'd have to be a pretty foolish high level caster to have only copy of your spell book around. What happens if you get killed/eaten and your buddies have to ressurect you? What happens when you get captured, stripped and you have to teleport home naked? What happens when a rogue steals your backpack? All of those things are far more likely to happen then having someone break into a Wizards home to steal a silly book that is worth far more to the wizard than to anyone else.
JulesCARV 04-30-07, 03:44 PM	If you want a secret spellbook, with an Eternal Wand of Secret Page, a wizard could just continually put two secret pages of spells every day into something no one wants to investigate too closely. Within a year, you can have 730 secret pages, so you keep a "backup spellbook" unobtrusively hidden in what looks like post-structuralist literary criticism, furry porn, old restaurant receipts that you never threw away, or something else that no one in their right mind would want to look at.
Yusari 04-30-07, 05:01 PM	Tarkin > The section you quoted from the rules says it precisely as I am saying it. You understand a spell and can copy it into your spellbook, once you have studied it (and made the check). The very fact that you can not prepare that spell without your spellbook (unless you have spell mastery for it), makes the point that you do not truely know the spell. You need to study your spellbook to refresh your memory every time you go to ready that spell for the day. Perhaps you could attempt to recreate the spell without a copy of it to look at as you re-write it into your book, but there is no way of being sure you got it right... you don't know the spell that well (if you did, you would have spell mastery for it). And of course, can you imagine what would happen if you mixed up two similar spells in your head when trying to do the whole thing by memory? More to the point however, the rules section you quoted makes the point of saying a Wizard can add a spell to her book whenever she encounters one in a magic scroll, or in another Wizard's spellbook, and then COPY it into her own spell book. The very act of copying requires that there be something to make a duplicate of, and thus, we see that you need a written out spell formula to duplicate for your spellbook. Also, if you look on page 179 of the Player's Handbook, under Replacing and Copying Spellbooks it reads: A wizard can use the procedure for learing a spell to reconstruct a lost spellbook. If she already ahs a particular spell prepared, she can write it directly into a new book at a cost of 100 gp per page (as noted in Writing a New Spell into a Spellbook, above). The process wipes the prepared spell from her mind, just as casting it would. If she does not have the spell prepared, she can prepare it from a borrowed spellbook and then write it into a new book. Explicit confirmation of what I said earlier... a wizard needs a spell either prepared or written out to put it within her spellbook. As far as the carrying of spellbooks: No, I don't think all wizards carry around every spell they know at all times (my apologies if I gave that impression). Quite simply, what would be the point? Certain spells belong in your library... and if you're a high level wizard, then you probably do have a library in your home (that you protect against others getting into, I imagine), where you keep those spells you aren't carrying with you all the time. The travelling spellbooks from AD&D were sensible solutions to such a thing, and while nothing officially the same as them exists in 3.5, it is not too difficult to make one (particularly given the section on spellbook construction that is present in Complete Arcane). Also, something that people often forget, is that books are not limited to 50 pages in length (again, mentioned in Complete Arcane), and the difference in volume between a 50 and a 100 page book is far less than the difference between two 50 page books. As such, yes, I agree that most wizards at higher levels are going to possess certain spellbooks they carry with them when they travel, and a complete collection at home. That however, remains fairly safe, as far as having a copy of your books made. After all, a wizard who does not protect his home using all the means at his disposal (magical and mundane) would be a rather strange thing to wander across. Consider further that many wizards go through the extra trouble of actually trapping their spellbook (with sepia snake sigils, explosive runes, etc). While I do believe most wizards are paranoid (or at least, ought to be), there's another reason for this: Not all spells are commonly avaible to everyone. Just because wizards can learn any spell on their list, doesn't mean they will learn them all. How many 8th or 9th level spells does the average PC wizard ever record into his spellbooks? Most likely just those 4 he got at the levels when they were the highest he could cast, and 3 to 5 others that he managed to pick up from scrolls and the spell books of his enemies. So, while a wizard having a copy of his spellbooks in his house is likely, him having a 5 or 6 copies scattered around the world is something most would consider too much of a risk. Easier, if you're worried about losing the one you carry on you and the one stored in your house, to simply have spell mastery for Wish or Limited Wish, and wish one of them back into your hands. Another reason why a spellbook duplicate probably wouldn't be made using fabricate or polymorph would be the fact that any magical defenses or hidden pages involved in your spellbook wouldn't be re-made. Perhaps it's just the games I've played in and the way I play a wizard, but I've never run into a spellbook for any wizard (PC or NPC) that could arrange for defenses and hidden pages who hadn't done so.