Casting from Spellbooks

[Deleted]

Playing DD with my son and grandsons I wondered has casting from spellbooks been left intentionally ambiguous. i.e. Are there any limits to how many spells you can cast from yours spellbook per day (as this requires no memorization) ? 

My grandsons were asking the same questions I asked last century : )

' Can I write down Colour Spray more than once ?'

'Once you cast them and they're erased, how do you get them back if you haven't memorized them' ?

[mgtremaine]

I don;t think there is a specified limit.. But it costs money in the form of ink and whatnot.

it costs 250 gp per spell level per spell to replace.

As far as getting them back, you need a scroll or another Spellbook that has the spell.

-Mike

[machpants]

Probably left blank to run as you wish. Personally I would let him scribe more than one copy of the spell in the spell book... but it would cost the same as scribing a scroll. And if you use your last spell book copy and don;t have it memorised, well you get that spell back the same way you get new spells in your campaign... you'd have to find them or purchase them or get them at levelling. Casting your spell book copy is better than dying... but not much!

[waysoftheearth]

I'm pretty sure (going from memory here) that DD allows magic-users to cast spells from books exactly as per scrolls. The ability to create spell scrolls immediately (from level 1) was left intentionally ambiguous.

Note that it's cheaper to create scrolls (100 gp per level and 1 week) than it is to replace spellbooks (250 gp per level and 1 week), due in part to scrolls being physically vulnerable, one-shot items, while spellbooks are relatively robust and intended for repeated readings (memorising of spells each day).

Thinking about it some more... I'm not sure that spells should be "consumed" from spellbooks, even if the referee allows them to be cast from books (as, I think, DD suggests they could be).

It's plausible to think that a single spell occupies a full chapter of text in a book or scroll meaning it could take as much as 10 minutes (or even 10 minutes per spell level!) to cast a spell from its written form.

Thus, there would be a cost to sitting down to repeatedly read a spell from a book -- wandering monster checks, torches burning down, time running out, and so on. Not to mention the fact that spellbooks should be very heavy to carry around, or that the magic-user may not want to risk bringing his prize possession (his spellbook) into a hazardous dungeon at all.

Scrolls are intended to be the disposable, one shot items (crumbling to dust after use) that a magic-user would reasonably risk bringing into the dungeon, while spellbooks are intended to be fat, heavy tomes best left safely in the magic-user's library or safehouse.

It's also worth noting that a 1st level m-u can read a spell scroll of any spell level, if he can get one

[Koren n'Rhys]

A couple of thoughts. And I'll be tootling over to Dragonsfoot to add my two cents in a thread about this there.

First - I think of a spellbook as a textbook or instruction guide - an MUs collected notes from the research and work that went into learning a given spell. It's not an empowered item like a scroll is. Therefore, it won't be consumed in the process of casting it. That said, as ways notes above, you're looking at a chapter of notes, so the casting will be more like a ritual - time consuming. One turn per spell level is not out of line at all. But if you have the time, there no limit to how many times you can cast that detect magic spell by reading it out of the book.

Point the Second - If a spellbook is lost or destroyed, the time and cost of recreating it is not insignificant, but I disagree with mgtremaine about the source. You already learned it once, so you just need to recommit it to paper. No need to find a new scroll or spellbook that contains those lost spells.

Obviously this is all "in my campaign" since it's left vague in the rulebooks.

[mgtremaine]

Well I'm only 1 bad encounter away from finding out how Waysoftheearth is going to run it , let's hope I survive long enough to have the problem of re-scribing the spellbook.

-Mike

[talysman]

I'm pretty sure that DD does treat spells in spell books as spells in scrolls, disappearing when cast, at least in the version I received. I wrote a blog post or two complaining about it. I'm glad wote is having second thoughts...

I haven't tested these rules, but I've come up with something similar to what Koren and wote say above:
- Emergency spell preparation, if you have an empty spell slot, takes 1d6 turns per spell
- Casting while prepping takes twice as long
- Casting without an empty spell slot has a risk of failure, fizzle or backfire

[Deleted]

Sept 16, 2013 21:47:18 GMT -6 talysman said:

I'm pretty sure that DD does treat spells in spell books as spells in scrolls, disappearing when cast, at least in the version I received. I wrote a blog post or two complaining about it. I'm glad wote is having second thoughts...

I haven't tested these rules, but I've come up with something similar to what Koren and wote say above:
- Emergency spell preparation, if you have an empty spell slot, takes 1d6 turns per spell
- Casting while prepping takes twice as long
- Casting without an empty spell slot has a risk of failure, fizzle or backfire

Splendid blog you have there !

I may use Chainmail's Spell Complexity table for casting from the spellbook during adventuring so there's a chance of delay/failure