Author Topic: Cheesing your spellbook  (Read 8459 times)

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PhaedrusXY

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Cheesing your spellbook
« on: September 07, 2010, 12:03:19 PM »
I'm about to start a game with a kobold wizard with the Uncanny Forethought feat. Hence, it is very beneficial to me to have as many spells in my spellbook as possible. However, the normal cost of buying scrolls and scribing them is prohibitive for a 6th level character (where we're starting at). So I'm looking to compile ways to reduce and/or eliminate this cost. I'd prefer things that I can retrain later, and which don't alter my class levels. Right now I'm thinking the following:

1) Take and then retrain the feats:
 a) Mercantile Background (this will cheese all of his wealth, freeing up more for scroll costs)
 b) Collegiate Wizard (doubles "free" spells learned at every level)

2) Join a mage's guild (I forget the exact benefits of this, or where it was from).

3) Instead of buying scrolls, pay spellcasters to access their spellbook to copy them. (I remember seeing this somewhere, and think it might have been related to joining a guild).

4) Craft as much of his gear as possible himself, then retrain any crafting feats used (he has enough XP to put him halfway to the next level starting out).

I see no penalty for retraining those first two feats, if it is allowed. Once you've gotten the extra spells in your book, you're not going to suddenly lose them are you?


I'd like help with this, and if we can get a decent list of stuff, I can move it to an organized thread in the Handbooks section.

If such a handbook already exists, I'd love to just be pointed at it, though. ;)
« Last Edit: September 07, 2010, 12:05:05 PM by PhaedrusXY »
[spoiler]
A couple of water benders, a dike, a flaming arrow, and a few barrels of blasting jelly?

Sounds like the makings of a gay porn film.
...thanks
[/spoiler]

Agita

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Re: Cheesing your spellbook
« Reply #1 on: September 07, 2010, 12:11:21 PM »
If ECS is available, craft yourself an Aureon's Spellshard. It works like a Blessed Book, except half as expensive and with half the capacity.

As for looking at others' spellbooks directly, look here.
Quote
If you use Charm or Suggestion, you might get another Wizard to show you his pokemans spells for free. :P

Alternatively, you could buy a full ownerless spellbook:
Quote
Captured spellbooks can be sold for a gp amount equal to one-half the cost of purchasing and inscribing the spells within (that is, one-half of 100 gp per page of spells). A spellbook entirely filled with spells (that is, with one hundred pages of spells inscribed in it) is worth 5,000 gp.
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Felix Underwood

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Re: Cheesing your spellbook
« Reply #2 on: September 07, 2010, 12:31:16 PM »
I think the mage's guild thing was in Silver Marches?... I'll double check later.  I think it was a 10% discount??

Charm can backfire.. especially against others with good Will saves.  I'd suggest Diplomacy, and lots of one-for-one swaps.  Other wizards are probably just as keen as you are at accessing more spells.

BeholderSlayer

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Re: Cheesing your spellbook
« Reply #3 on: September 07, 2010, 01:22:24 PM »
Getting a Boccob's Blessed Book should be on the list, but I'm sure you know that. Taking Craft Wonderous Item to get it on the cheap would probably be a good investment.
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JaronK

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Re: Cheesing your spellbook
« Reply #4 on: September 07, 2010, 01:46:52 PM »
Ancestral Relic would be a fun way to do it.  Just make the item be your spell book.

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Re: Cheesing your spellbook
« Reply #5 on: September 07, 2010, 01:51:11 PM »
I thought there was a "magical location" that allowed you to add spells to your book as well, but I think it only works like 1x/year? Can't remember if this is true or not, just had a hunch.
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Agita

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Re: Cheesing your spellbook
« Reply #6 on: September 07, 2010, 01:56:12 PM »
I thought there was a "magical location" that allowed you to add spells to your book as well, but I think it only works like 1x/year? Can't remember if this is true or not, just had a hunch.
Boccob's Reading Room, Complete Mage. A single Reading Room works only once per year for the same wizard, but you can use any number of different ones in a year. However, its ability value is equal to the cost of scribing the spell into your book, so there's no financial advantage except that of getting your hands on the spell for free.
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BeholderSlayer

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Re: Cheesing your spellbook
« Reply #7 on: September 07, 2010, 01:59:06 PM »
I thought there was a "magical location" that allowed you to add spells to your book as well, but I think it only works like 1x/year? Can't remember if this is true or not, just had a hunch.
Boccob's Reading Room, Complete Mage. A single Reading Room works only once per year for the same wizard, but you can use any number of different ones in a year. However, its ability value is equal to the cost of scribing the spell into your book, so there's no financial advantage except that of getting your hands on the spell for free.
Should combine well with BBB then.
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The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: Cheesing your spellbook
« Reply #8 on: September 07, 2010, 02:58:39 PM »
Well, arguuuuuuuuuuuuuably you can pick off-list spells with it.

Which would be the only thing that made it non-pointless.
« Last Edit: September 07, 2010, 03:01:36 PM by The_Mad_Linguist »
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PhaedrusXY

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Re: Cheesing your spellbook
« Reply #9 on: September 07, 2010, 03:19:47 PM »
If ECS is available, craft yourself an Aureon's Spellshard. It works like a Blessed Book, except half as expensive and with half the capacity.

As for looking at others' spellbooks directly, look here.
Quote
If you use Charm or Suggestion, you might get another Wizard to show you his pokemans spells for free. :P

Alternatively, you could buy a full ownerless spellbook:
Quote
Captured spellbooks can be sold for a gp amount equal to one-half the cost of purchasing and inscribing the spells within (that is, one-half of 100 gp per page of spells). A spellbook entirely filled with spells (that is, with one hundred pages of spells inscribed in it) is worth 5,000 gp.
Thanks. This is exactly the kind of stuff I'm looking for. I'd heard of all of those things, but I'm getting forgetful in my old age. :P

Edit: Hmm... it says can be sold for half the value of purchasing and scribing... which sounds like to me that it's the same as all the other "screw the PCs" economic conventions in D&D: namely, you're selling looted goods for half their listed value. If you bought it from an NPC, the RAI would be that it would cost the full price I think.

Paying to copy from another mage's spellbook is still a good one, though. It's a lot cheaper for everything above 1st level spells.

Hmm... with another willing mage and both knowing Secret Page, you should be able to basically copy each others' spellbooks for free, assuming you can get the DM to go along with it, right? Even with a semi-strict interpretation (the original page has to also be a spell), it could still halve your scribing costs.

I might spring for one of the spellshards, also, if I can craft it myself. I don't think you could use Secret Page shenanigans with it, though.
« Last Edit: September 07, 2010, 03:30:59 PM by PhaedrusXY »
[spoiler]
A couple of water benders, a dike, a flaming arrow, and a few barrels of blasting jelly?

Sounds like the makings of a gay porn film.
...thanks
[/spoiler]

Maat_Mons

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Re: Cheesing your spellbook
« Reply #10 on: September 07, 2010, 04:04:45 PM »
Geometer reduces the cost to add spells to your spellbook by making all spells take up only one page.  That's not available until 8th level though. 

Fun fact, all the wizard spells in the Player's Handbook and Spell Compendium can fit in a single Boccob's Blessed Book if written by a geometer.  Additional fun fact, any wizard can prepare spells from such a spellbook with only +5 to the spellcraft DC. 

Felix Underwood

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Re: Cheesing your spellbook
« Reply #11 on: September 07, 2010, 04:10:06 PM »
I think the mage's guild thing was in Silver Marches?... I'll double check later.  I think it was a 10% discount??
Got it:

Silver Marches, page 62

The Lady's College

Tuition 500gp plus 500gp per wizard level (max 4,000gp per year at 7th level).

Wizards 8th level or more are not accepted as students, but may join as "fellows" for 5,000gp per year.

(half cost if 5th level or higher, and spend half your time in the militia)

College Benefits:
  • +2 spellcraft to learn new spells
  • May add one spell of your choice per level to your spellbook for free.  Must spend 4 hours per day/30 days per quarter attending classes and studying.
  • May copy spells from the college's spellbooks at any time, special fee equal to half the market price of a scroll of that spell.
  • May use the labs and libraries for creating magic items (Even if you do NOT have the feat), but you must pay a special fee of 10% of the market value.

PhaedrusXY

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Re: Cheesing your spellbook
« Reply #12 on: September 07, 2010, 05:28:43 PM »
Thanks for looking it up, but it looks like to me that that downright sucks compared to the spellshard and copying from another mage's spellbook(s). Since the copying from another guy's book is core, I'm wondering WTF the author's of that were thinking. Being in a mage guild should at least be as good as that... Otherwise it's downright useless... I'm guessing they didn't even know about that...
[spoiler]
A couple of water benders, a dike, a flaming arrow, and a few barrels of blasting jelly?

Sounds like the makings of a gay porn film.
...thanks
[/spoiler]

awaken DM golem

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Re: Cheesing your spellbook
« Reply #13 on: September 07, 2010, 07:35:11 PM »
Chameleon Crafting feat from Dr#349 lets a PsyRef be put on a Scrpll.
You got 10 minutes and some exp cost reducers?
(couple of prereqs that are in there, but I'm not iirc-ing at the moment)

That's all I got, but this is very interesting.

KellKheraptis

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Re: Cheesing your spellbook
« Reply #14 on: September 07, 2010, 07:44:14 PM »
1)Planar Touchstone, scribing the domain's spells into your book before changing domains

2)Tome of Ancient Lore, put the Archivist to shame

3)As 2), only make them all Transmutation to match your Focused Specialty to cheese CL as well!
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PhaedrusXY

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Re: Cheesing your spellbook
« Reply #15 on: September 07, 2010, 07:47:51 PM »
Hmm... I'm not sure what PsyRef is going to gain me. Retraining is explicitly allowed, and I think that will be enough for my needs. PsyRef would just cost more gold to do the same thing.

The Geometer stuff looks interesting, though... Although at this point I'm not going to be even close to running out of room in my spellshard, and paying a Geometer to scribe my spellbookshard would probably just cost me yet more money with no immediate payoff. It is an interesting option for the future, though.

I was also thinking of picking up a couple levels of Mage of the Arcane Order, and using one of the ways to scribe spells from the spellpool into your spellbook (IIRC, Rary's Mnemonic Enhancer and similar things worked). I'd have to pick that over my Unseen Seer level, though, and I'm not sure it's worth it... especially since I'm not sure I could actually use any of those tricks to learn stuff at this level...

1)Planar Touchstone, scribing the domain's spells into your book before changing domains

2)Tome of Ancient Lore, put the Archivist to shame

3)As 2), only make them all Transmutation to match your Focused Specialty to cheese CL as well!
Thanks Kell. I'll check that stuff out. I remember seeing you mention those before. I'm not looking for over-the-top uber cheese here. Just ways to get a bunch of spells in my book cheaply. I think going with a Focused Transmuter, and then learning a bunch of good spells from other schools as Transmutation is crossing the line. :P

Edit: Wow... that Planar Touchstone feat looks crazy good... Only 250 gp and 10 XP up-front cost to access all of them? I'm going to have to look into this more...
« Last Edit: September 07, 2010, 07:50:54 PM by PhaedrusXY »
[spoiler]
A couple of water benders, a dike, a flaming arrow, and a few barrels of blasting jelly?

Sounds like the makings of a gay porn film.
...thanks
[/spoiler]

KellKheraptis

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Re: Cheesing your spellbook
« Reply #16 on: September 07, 2010, 07:52:17 PM »
In that case, go with option one, as IIRC reattuning touchstones doesn't even require retraining the feat.  Take a week to poach 9-10 domain spells, swap domains, repeat ad nauseum until you have every domain spell, ever.  As a DK Kobold, this means you will have the bad assery that is Giant Size without trickery (to speak of) from the Hero domain, and chances are you'll be Persistent capable if you're going the versatility route (can't be casting buffs all day long...persistextend ftw!).
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PhaedrusXY

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Re: Cheesing your spellbook
« Reply #17 on: September 07, 2010, 08:04:50 PM »
In that case, go with option one, as IIRC reattuning touchstones doesn't even require retraining the feat.  Take a week to poach 9-10 domain spells, swap domains, repeat ad nauseum until you have every domain spell, ever.  As a DK Kobold, this means you will have the bad assery that is Giant Size without trickery (to speak of) from the Hero domain, and chances are you'll be Persistent capable if you're going the versatility route (can't be casting buffs all day long...persistextend ftw!).
Yeah... basically by taking that feat, I can have any domain spell ever in my spellbook for the cost of scribing it in there... which is nuts! It's going to be a big hassle going through and figuring out which ones are where, though... God making wizards is a bookkeeping nightmare. It almost makes me wish I'd went ahead and made another sorcerer. :P
[spoiler]
A couple of water benders, a dike, a flaming arrow, and a few barrels of blasting jelly?

Sounds like the makings of a gay porn film.
...thanks
[/spoiler]

Endarire

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Re: Cheesing your spellbook
« Reply #18 on: September 07, 2010, 08:19:04 PM »
What about Master Specialist, Wyrm Wizard, and other classes that grant you spells in your spellbook?
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PhaedrusXY

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Re: Cheesing your spellbook
« Reply #19 on: September 07, 2010, 08:22:16 PM »
What about Master Specialist, Wyrm Wizard, and other classes that grant you spells in your spellbook?
I should look at Master Specialist, but I'm a Focused Diviner who is not particularly interested in casting Divinations.  :lmao The DM is letting me use those extra specialist slots to sacrifice for Uncanny Forethought. Wyrm Wizard is something to consider later, but mostly I'm interested in low level options that I can use right now.

I think Planar Touchstone + the spellshard is enough for me for the moment. I might go ahead and take (and keep) the Mercantile feat, also.
« Last Edit: September 07, 2010, 08:28:21 PM by PhaedrusXY »
[spoiler]
A couple of water benders, a dike, a flaming arrow, and a few barrels of blasting jelly?

Sounds like the makings of a gay porn film.
...thanks
[/spoiler]