When a wizard obtains the spellbook of another wizard, they can copy the spells into their own spellbook. Someone in our group suggested that the spellbook counted as a permanent magic item, but that it could be traded. This didn't make sense to me, since (a) I've never seen any reference to spellbooks counting towards magic item totals, (b) without a cert, you can't trade it, and (c) if there are two wizards who copy the spells into their own books, it only counts towards ONE of their magic item totals?
Thoughts? Clarifications?
Greg Marks weighed in on this, and it is supposed to be clarified in a future update of the ALPG:
Skerrit wrote:
Spell books are not magical.
So if I've got a DM who wants to count that towards the wizard's permanent magic item total, then they are misunderstanding the AL rules?
The DM's ruling at the table is final, so if she rules that a captured spellbook counts as a permanent magic item, it does for that session. Another DM is free to rule differently.
My understanding is that the intent is that captured spellbooks do not count as permanent magic items in Adventurers League, though.
--
Pauper
I have been in threads with Skerrit where this has come up. Also, I am fairly certain Jeremy Crawford has weighed in on this issue himself.
Spellbooks are nonmagical recipe books
They contain formula's, diagrams, and notations that allow a mage to cast spells from their own spellbook. Some spellbooks may have magical enchantments placed upon them, but your basic spellbook is a nonmagical recipe book.
Avross wrote:
Coredump00 wrote:
NamelessHero wrote:
Coredump00 wrote:
Pauper wrote:
While yes, a Dm's call will likely stand at a table, spellbooks not being magical has been reiterated repeatedly and officially. A DM making such a call effectively denies players access to potential adventure rewards. If at all possible DM's should be advised not to do such a thing.
Pauper wrote:
The Fabricate thread actually has a lot of good discussion in it.
Skerrit said there was no issue with fabricating a spellbook. He also said they intended to clarify wizards could use DT to scribe spells, in case they couldnt find time in the adventure.
Some folks seemed uncomfortable with the idea of making things quickly. So there was all sorts of interpretations meant to make it as hard as possible to fabricate something. Like requiring 3+ proficiencies to make stuff, or using rigid definitions of raw materials, or deciding it only accomplishes 1 day worth of crafting per casting, etc...hopefully it will be made more clear in the Errata.
But it has been firmly established that spellbooks are not magic items. They are right there in the PHB listed as a mundane item.
If they were magic items you could never buy one in AL or make copies of it. Since making magic items is not allowed in AL.
For the record - I had no issue with how quickly someone could fabricate a spellbook. My suggestions were only that - suggestions for people who were uncomfortable. I have no problem with helping people come up with ideas/rulings that are more in taste with their preferences.
Myself - i would simply reward the player for creative thinking.
Much like how I rewarded my player tonight when they crushed a dragon with a simple 1st level spell - Command: Grovel brought a young black dragon to its knees, some 6d6 damage worse for wear.
Best use of a 1st level spell slot I can think of, and there was nothing I could do about it as the dragon bombed its wisdom save (rolled an 8 after modifiers). The dragon's turn ended with it grounded, suffering and at the mercy of the party's next round of whack-a-mole.
Ravix wrote:
Avross wrote:
Lets look at this from the other side of the coin and for the moment, assume a wizard's spellbook is magical. By extension, we should also consider the warlocks book of ancient secrets and a ritual caster's ritual book in the same category.
That means, all wizard characters, characters with the ritual caster feat, and Warlocks with the BoAS invocation begin play with 1 permanent magic item......
- thereby excluding them from gaining new "contested" magic items until the entire party has 1 item. If they capture a spellbook, it too is considered magical, and as such - they must wait until the entire party has 2 items before they can contest again.
Do you consider this ruling fair? I certainly don't.
Pauper wrote:
On the topic of spellbooks: if I capture an enemy's spellbook, can I use it to prepare spells right from the spellbook?
No. You can only prepare spells from your own spellbook unless the item says otherwise. No such item exists yet however.
U can only copy the spells into your own book.
QwertyAzerty wrote:
Rule #1: DMs are empowered to make rulings, except when those rulings conflict with the rules in the ALPG, Player's Handbook, or another official rules source.
Rule #2: DMs are not empowered to make house rules, to alter/change/add/remove encounters, or treasure awards. They are empowered to add/subtract monsters of the same type from an encounter if doing so will maintain the difficulty at an expected level. They cannot substitute different monsters however.
Rule #3: A DMs ruling is final for that session, and only that session. DMs cannot make permanent changes to a character. Semi-permanent changes such as death, or disease can be inflicted however.
Pauper wrote:
Essentially that, just repay the group the paltry 25gp they would have got for selling it...
This was discussed at length with campaign admins and it was very unanimously stated that spellbooks are not magic items. (And thus cannot be traded)
If you inform your DM of this fact and they continue to rule against it, notify your organizer for corrective action. DMs are not empowered to make arbitrary house rules, nor are organizers.
Pauper wrote:
Kalani wrote:
I think Kalani raises a good point. There is a difference between making a ruling, and breaking a rule.
Pauper wrote:
Problem is super compounded because of the way AL craps on wizards.
A big chunk of their power is due to their versatility. But they are almost denied any such power because they very few opportunities to find new spells to add to their spellbooks.
Also, the time constraints in organized play furthur restrict their versatility because you can't say 'just wait till tomorrow' toprepare the fly spell so you can bypass the chasm of doom or whatever. Whereas in a home game, that seems pretty reasonable. In AL you either took it as one of your 8 prepared spells or too bad.
Moral of the story, just play a sorc cuz the wizard will hardly have any more spells than you.
Byakugan01 wrote:
PC wizards can copy spells from captured spellbooks. They just list the spellbook on their log. It is not a magic item and does not count against their item limit. They are also not consumables (which also don't count against your limit). Scrolls can also be used to copy from. PC Wizards can copy spells in game if there is time, such as a sea voyage. They can also spend downtime per the PHB rules (8 hrs/downtime day for DnDAL). There are many spellbooks in the Expeditions adventures and more to come.
Greg Marks
DnDAL Associate Resource Manager
RulesJD wrote:
Pauper wrote:
Byakugan01 wrote:
While 100% correct, in all fairness sorcerers tend to be able to cast more high level spells/day than the wizard, allowing them to covert lower level spell slots into higher level slots for example. It's not efficient, but it does allow them to have several more 5th level slots than a wizard and at a time when lower level slots are less useful.
Also and quite importantly, sorcs get to change out spells known getting rid of useless spells(like sleep) when they grow out of them.
Rituals are great...but if you are an AL wizard, you have to give up one of your "2 per level" spells to get one. If you took detect magic and find familiar that is 2 out of your 8 total 1st level spells. Meaning you have 6 spells to realistically prepare. Since you probably also took Shield and Mage Armor that leaves you with 4. Plus 1 spell slot is used every mornin for mage armor.
Sorc gets free mage armor, so that is 1 less spell known and daily spell slot tax. But they probably still want shield because it never stops being good.
Sorc also get con save proficiency which gives them considerably better odds on their concentration spells.
I agree that wizards are more versatile, but are not so much more so. Now the spellbooks may not be a huge problem in the near future because there seems to be a crap ton of spell casters in EE.
Realistically, any sort of min/max player will take at least 2 levels of Warlock to complement their Sorc levels. If they take 3 Warlock, they get ritual casting that is superior to Wizard ritual casting and 2 short rest rechargable slots for the best damaging spell in the game (assuming Hex + Red/Brass Draconic Sorc) or 4 free sorc points per short rest to recharge spell slots. Wizards have no natural synchronicity for multiclass, albeit I doubt that was factored into character class balance.
*Synergy. The word you are looking for is synergy....
Synchronocity means:
1 : the quality or fact of being synchronous
Kalani wrote:
Byakugan01 wrote:
To avoid having my spell slots sucked up by casting Mage Armor, I took the Magic Initiate feat with my human and made Mage Armor my spell. He casts it before he puts his pants on in the morning. Obviously, that doesn't work with anything but a human variant, though.
Though I do need to go back and figure out how many levels of spells he's copied from other sources (other wizards, scrolls, and spellbooks) to work out how many DT days he's spent. I'm not sure why that's needed for treasure spellbooks - no one else needs to spend DT to get new armor or a weapon that they found during an adventure, nor for any of their other class features.
But whatev's.
You only need to spend DT to scribe spells if doing so outside of the adventure. If you scribe a scroll into your spellbook during the adventure (such as while traveling on a boat), no DT is required.
Some adventures are very short on opportunities to scribe scrolls, being extremely time sensitive - while others provide many such opportunities. Any spell you do not scribe during the adventure however, must be scribed using DT
Kalani wrote:
The admins have clarified to state that you can use DT to scribe scrolls (this was added to the AL FAQ a week ago). I disagree that the ruling is unfair however, because Wizards, characters with the ritual caster feat, and Warlocks with the book of ancient secrets can use this method to learn spells outside their story origin (also clarified in the same FAQ update).
No other class can learn spells/abilities outside their story origin.
Requiring them to spend DT to learn spells they were unable to scribe during the adventure is a fair compromise for gaining this privilege.
Somewhat in the same vein, would Rank 3 Zhent Wizards in Mulmaster under the ToD story origin be able to eventually (in theory) learn all the new lvl 1 spells or could they only request scrolls with spells from the PHB?
Or, for that matter, can other caster classes get scrolls that are on the class spell list and cast them, even if they aren't EE characters?
You can cast spells from scrolls regardless of story origin. You can also copy spells from scrolls regardless of story origin.
Regarding the Rank 3 Zhents however, that is an interesting question and one I unfortunately cannot think of an answer for, as the only information we have to go on is the sidebar and the rule regarding story origin.
Were I to hazard a guess, I would simply read the text literally.... Choose one first level spell of your choice (regardless of story origin). This ruling is also supported by the scribe spells ruling which allows ToD characters to scribe EE spells into their spell/ritual book.
Either way, I will ask the admins.
Reasonable. I'd figured on a 50% chance of reasonable answer, so that's good.
Too bad my wizard is LA, not Zhent.
Hrm. Could you pay a Zhent to get something for you, I wonder? That'd be logical for reality, but, hrm, probably against the whole spirit of AL's stuff.
Like "I'll cover the cost of your lifestyle expenses, the cost of the goods if needed, the cost of buying you out of your jail time if needed, plus 10% if you can get me a scroll of X using your downtime activity."
You're not technically giving another player treasure. You're purchasing a service.
Ainulindalion wrote:
Not entirely true. Robert has said two pc wizards can spend equal downtime to copy spells from their spellbooks. This is the only collaborative DT expense I am aware of
Kalani wrote:
Avross wrote:
If a Zhentarim character uses the DT to get a scroll and copy it into their own spellbook, during or after the next session/episode/etc, that character could let another wizard character study and learn the same spell, per normal rules. It adds an extra step, but it should guarantee that even picky DMs would be alright with it.
Kalani wrote:
Food for thought (but not rules-determinitive for anything at all):
Several of the high-level NPCs in v3.5 have a statement to the effect of "This individual's main spellbook contains every spell from the Players Handbook plus every spell which refers to his name in its title."
I would like to see a character that retires from AL at L20 be able to say something like "This individual's main spellbook contains every spell for his class released in a valid AL sourcebook for Seasons 1 - 5."
Undrhil wrote:
Coredump00 wrote:
Kalani wrote:
I would say no to paying a Zhent to get you something.