[Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

I apologize if this has been answered before, but I cannot seem to find a definitive answer.

What, exactly, is a spellbook from the point of view of Dungeon Fantasy? Is it a weighty grimoire (or, more likely, a series of them) containing details on every spell that a mage knows?

My default assumption is that a spellbook is a grimoire containing a select number (no more than 2d, and probably only 1d) of spells. These spells may have been part of a theme (all fire magic, for example), or perhaps they were just the mage's personal favorites. A separate Thaumatology roll is required to identify each spell contained within.

It seems to be workable. Any ideas?

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

Since the gurps magic system doesn't really require a mage to have spellbooks other than for learning and possibly research purposes, I don't imagine them to carry around a single book containing all their spells. Instead I'd expect those with a home to have a number of grimoires on various subjects, each with a few key spells in them and a lot of text of varying levels of importance. (Besides spells, a lot of pages (and books!) will be taken up by groundwork and magical theory.)
I like to think of spells as being like complex mathematical proofs. They take up only a few pages (well, most of them, anyway), but even experts may want at least as much explanatory text to go along with it. And while the explanatory text appears to be written in normal language, it will contain enough jargon and specifically defined terms that a layperson will still be non the wiser for it.
I'd probably use thaumatology rolls to identify the spells, yes (or maybe just one roll per grimoire, to speed things up a bit). I'd allow condensed grimoires with spells only and little to no explanatory text, but at the cost of significant penalties to those rolls and making it much harder to learn the spells unassisted.

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

Harald B, the GURPS magic system is very compatible with spell books if you use Modular Abilities (Super memorizations/Grimore) Spells only -20%. main issue then is not so much the size of the books, but how to price the spells as that will be the main limit not cp then.

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

I see spellbooks simply as "what you need to learn new spells via self-teaching rather than external instruction." In the DF PDFs, my assumption is that wizards who find spellbooks can put points into new spells without having to return to town and pay the Wizards' Guild for instruction. As for size . . . I don't want to pin that down. I like the idea of some spellbooks being pixie-scratches that you need magnifiers to read, others being on supernaturally thin and light scrolls, yet others being hefty books with metal bindings, and a few being stone tablets you need a cart to move. Standardization is boring from a dungeon-gaming point of view.

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

I've always looked at a spellbook in GURPS being sort of "Casting Ignite Fire for Dummies". With each spell a separate skill the idea of needing a whole textbook to really self-teach yourself a single spell isn't quite so bizarre.

But I also like to weigh my players down with their lewts, and I love libraries :D

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

Now that's what I'm talkin' about!

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

Agreeing with these posts, I don't see really interesting the mage's book being not more than a rechargement tool for the next day spells.

But I like the idea of a wizard's "Lorebook" (I "borrowed" the idea from FFG Midnight Campaign Setting), a special and personal volume (or volumes, or sheets, or whatever with info inside) containing not only some already learned spells, but spells sketched in development, and useful tidbits of knowledge for supporting some knowledge skill.

I remember there are some interesting "rules" for "using books" in the game in High Tech.

Hey, a good & heavy book can even save your life if you block with it!

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

Thanks, Kromm...that is more or less what I was looking for. Gives me a couple of ideas for the wizard's library in my Rainbow Sheep adventure...

Oh yeah. Good analogy.

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

Of course there is another simple possibility for why spellbooks are so often depicted as large, leather and steel bound tomes, illuminated with gold-leaf, etc. This makes them very expensive items and thus powerful as power items. Perhaps the notes on how to cast spells, thaumatological musings, and the rest are simply window dressing for the "greater" purpose.

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

That's a very good point, given how expensive even simple paper is in the setting. Add, say, gold-chased dragon leather, a few jewels, gold-leaf illumination, the market value of good spell descriptions (since these in themselves are not magical, they count), you can get up to quite a high value.

You could also allow at least NPC enchanters to know a permanent version of the Scroll enchantment (x10 or x100 time to prepare for a 'scroll' that can be read aloud over and over?), and relax the rules for anybody else being able to use the stored energy in a power item, and make that fabled grimoire found in the dungeon *really* useful - at least until you discover that it's also an intelligent item that's going to try to corrupt you or control your actions, at least.

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

I suspect the content of a spellbook would vary widely depending on various factors.

For instance, in a world where magic is as predictable, well-understood, and widely-practiced as modern chemistry, basic spellbooks might consist mainly of theory, with advanced ones consisting primarily of formula; many spells could be crammed into a book not dedicated to explaining how they work, since each one would require perhaps only a few pages, and spellbooks would resemble college textbooks or even pocket references. (In a world where magic is so widely practiced as to become a commodity, there may even be "Magic for Dummies" books!)

In a world where magic is poorly understood (chemistry circa 1500?) or inherently unpredictable (perhaps all spellcasting requires a mage to "read" the local mana field and adapt his casting ritual to suit?), the text would be filled with red herrings: unnecessary bits of ritual, optimizations for specific circumstances.. or they may lack necessary information for casting the spells without those specific circumstances! (An evil GM could easily use this to justify forcing PCs to learn alternate versions on spells that take more time or energy to cast, require strange rituals or material components regardless of skill level, or only work in certain circumstances, such as "at night" or "near a large body of water". Slightly less evil GMs might let PCs buy off the penalties by spending more CP to learn the spell better, spending time in game researching the spell more completely, finding another book that explains the spell in a different way, or whatever.)

In a world where magic is rare or outlawed, spellbooks will be rare too. All of them will necessarily be written by criminals, frauds, mad hermits, and the demon-tainted. Any spellbook might also contain research notes (possibly on spells not actually described in that book!), personal journal entries, or just plain gibberish; mad hermits tend to think themselves philosophers or prophets. Or it may contain lies.. and nothing else, if the book was written by a fraud! Or it may be written in code. In such a world, even books such as these would be valuable to the aspiring mage, since he has no better way to learn the art, but each one might only be good for a limited number of points of self-study.. and the would-be student might need to make skill rolls or know other languages simply to understand the text and determine which parts of it are really valuable! Here, again, a GM might inflict "crippled" spells on PCs; mages who master one or more spells might become famous for their mastery, and their secrets highly sought after!

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

I'd think that even spell-books in rare-magic settings would tend to be well-written, since inventors and scientists still need to be able to read their own work, and any programmer can tell you that after a year, uncommented, poorly constructed code doesn't become any more readable just because you wrote it!

In settings where magic is approached with scientific rigor, in which spells are considered intellectual property, or both, spellbooks will probably follow modern guidelines for inventor's notebooks, which would give, IMO, a significant bonus to attempts at learning the material contained therein, since it will have been written specifically with the ability of people familiar with the material to understand it quickly and to the extent that they can reproduce it easily.

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

When recovering an ancient, valuable grimoire from the dungeon, a cute option is to provide that before his death, the wizard that penned the tome cast Soul Jar on it.

If you are really lucky, said wizard's soul is not totally insane and takes a liking to you, helping you interpret the chicken scratch, code, or any blanks in the spell descriptors. It could even count as an instructor, allowing you to learn faster than for self-study.

If you are really unlucky, said wizard's soul takes a liking to your or another party member's *body*, and knows Permanent Possession or Exchange Bodies at 20- or more.

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

I've found that even without Possession, etc., many PCs will assume that an item with a soul that talks to them is a "free Ally," however evil it is. In a world-hopping cross-genre game I ran once, one player had a Luger P08 that called itself "the General," reminisced about "the War," and trained its owner in Leadership, Strategy, Tactics, etc. It also told him about ice moons and valkyries and the Thule society. And the player really believed that his "Ally" had Intuition, so he assumed the answers it gave in tough moral situations had to do with the "right" choice. Heh.

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

Hmm, I like that idea...

"Yeah I'm carrying grandpappy's Fire Tome, no I don't read it, but man it packs the same fire punch old grandpappy used to."

When the book is a fire aspected power receptacle/powerstone with 14 FP, force recharge it as a manastone, or allow it to recharge as a normal powerstone.

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

Well, we don't have canon rules yet for recharging the energy in your own power items, but perhaps we'll see them in the Next Level. If not, it's not too hard to base a new Charge Power Item spell on Charge Powerstone.

Another cool power item - your whole darn wizard's tower! Actually, that's likely to go beyond the chart given; anyone know what the progression would be going up into the hundreds of thousands of $s?

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

That is great. I like this very much.

There are excellent contributions in this thread. Please go on!

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

There's always the idea of having something like a magical Tome being a required power focus.

You know, like:
Magery +1 (Accessibility: Magical Tome -30%) [7]

or maybe even
Magery +1 (Accessibility: Magical Tome -30%; Accessibility: Properly Constructed Wand -30%) [4]

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

Here's one, to expand on the idea of spellbooks from which you can read the spells before studying them.

Since this is a DF PC's first foray into enchantment anyway, and we don't really care too much how balanced the rules for NPCs are, first redefine the enchantment cost for Scroll to be equal to the energy that must usually be put into a given spell. The reader/caster must still expend the energy to actually cast the spell. However, the enchantment process can only be performed by a single enchanter working alone, and neither Powerstones nor Power Items may be used, restricting Q&D enchantment to energy costs of 20 or less. That's fine for most regular scrolls - a solitary enchanter can probably make a good living out of just churning a handful of these out a day. However, the cost for a permanent scroll is 100 times that, and still needs to be done by a single enchanter - no round-robin writing circles! - and therefore is always Slow&Sure. Most enchanters, even the types to sit in their towers all the time, aren't too likely to take the time, but when they do, they can end up with spellbooks that allow a relative novice to cast any spell in them so long as they can read from the right page, without the text erasing itself afterwards. You still haven't learned the spell till you put the study time in, though, although being able to actually practice the use of the spell from the beginning might help a learner in a similar manner to a teacher.

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

I would probably actually use Gadget limitations, in that it takes some effort to replace a book or a wand, and then put +1 to +5 Magery in the wand and perhaps a bit of Modular Abilities in the book. Of course, if doing this you might require characters to also buy Energy Reserve gadgets rather than be able to make Power Items out of mundanely valuable objects.

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

How would you write one up as an example?

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

No the Well written is not sure thing. Sure it might be well comment, for the person who wrote it has meaning but unless you have the same personality and skill quirks, it might not be helpfully to you

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

Apprentices Wand (DR 1, HP 6) - 4 points
Magery +1 (DR 1, -20%; SM -5, -10%; Stealable using a contest of ST, -30%)

The apprentices wand is fragile, a 1 foot long pointer made of light wood. Weighs 1/2 lbs.


Junior Spellbook (DR 5, HP 7) - 2 points
Super Memorization: 1 point spell slot (DR 5, -15%; SM -4*, -15%; Stealable using a contest of ST, -30%, Spells only, -20%)

This is a big, solid tome with a hardwood cover. Weighs 5 lbs. Once the apprentice FINDS a spell in the spell book, a quick read imprints it in his memory (at a VERY basic level). Because the book can only impart one character point worth of spells, the Junior Spellbook only contains spells with no prerequisites.

* Book is 12"x12"x4" CORRECTION 9 1/2" x 7 1/4" x 2". Blocky enough to be effectively SM -4.

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

Hey, I almost can see here an excellent forum resource of Fantasy / Dungeon Fantasy crunchy and ready to play goodies.

Another "It Came from the Forums!" collection, but regarding other crunchy bits (mostly equipment) different than Kmunoz's forum monsters compilation.

For instance, "Power Items Ransacked from the Forums".

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

Yaeh i single point is what 200 or 400 hours of self study - that could be reading a big book - or it could be reading a short cryptic page from book with dozens of spells and think about it a lot or it could be arduously repeating some excercises detailed in a fev pages, ("Every morning you should snap your fingers 20 time think of candles and and flintstones - if you have a candle and flintstone it helps to look at them when doing it - then jump up and down and yel UMUMUMUMUMUFHUUSH on top of your lungs" point at some flammable materials - after doing this for a week or so you may set the flammable material on fire - continue doing it and you might later be able to set the fire by just concentrating and snapping your fingers..")

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

While "big book, lots of study" is a valid and fun model, I like to mix that up with things like spells as koans or obscure poetry (haiku is like that for me), where you have to sit around and think about it for ages until you get this "a-ha!" moment and learn the spell.

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

The intellection moment ;)

Some fleshed out example about how do you actually make that work inside the game would be great stuff...


Actually I think the "a-ha" achievement of the koan and haiku approach could be the pinnacle of typical Dungeon esoteric obstacles as puzzles, enigmas and riddles, being something different than straightforward mathematical calculations (1).

Very interesting.


(1) "The way of the koan is to break down logical tought, not promote it, for something beyond logic is involved." (Zen Buddhism: Belief and Practices, Merv Fowler)

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

I think it sounds very boring.

What about College-specific Magery with some kind of Gadget Limitation, and some kind of Takes Extra Time Limitation? It would be possible to get a total Limitation value of -80%, assuming that One-College alone is -40% and "any 3 Colleges" is -30%.

The idea is that the Wizard has his normal innate Magery, anywhere from 2-5 levels, which he uses during crisis situatons, but some spells, from some Colleges, are most often cast outside of combat, so it isn't really crippling to consult a tome of magic for such spells, and spend several minutes in order to get a bonus to the spells, of perhaps +1 or +2 or +3.

Divination and Information-style spells, for instance.

Such magic tomes would also make great keeping treasure.

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

Another take on it would be to forget about the notion of spell books, and instead have the book give a bonus to useful wizard skills such as Thaumatology, Occultism, a particular Hidden Lore, or even Hazardous Materials Handling (Magical) or Theology.

There are some rules for libraries and consulting books in "GURPS High Tech", but it ends up being quite heavy, so I think some variant of the Lighten spell might be in order.

Also perhaps a rule about how a Fine-quality library weighs less (fewer books, or maybe just one thick book, instead of half a shelf) because the material is of very high quality and superbly cross-indezed. And Very Fine-quality librariers weighing even less, to the point where they can often be single tomes and still give a skill roll bonus.

Such rules, for Fine and Very Fine libraries, would cause problem in any setting where printing presses exist (or can be invented by PCs), but for a low-tech setting where all books are hand-copied, it might not unbalance things.

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

I suspect that in a campaign using GURPS Magic, it'll be better if no character is allowed to have the highest level of Magery without Limitations.

Assuming a world maximum of 4 levels of Magery, all characters could be limited to 2 levels of full Magery. The last 2 levels have to be Limited in some way, although it can be in the form of One-College or Song Magery, or a Gadget Limitation, or an Accessibility Limitation.

That way, you get much more flavour and variety.


The same would work for a Dungeon Fantasy campaign, I think, except that of course the recommended Magery maximum is higher. 6 IIRC. So you could set a max on full Magery at 4 levels (or 3 if feeling stingy), and require the last 2 (or 3) levels to have some Limitation.

Something similar might also be done for the DF version of Clerical Power Investiture, and whatever it is Druids get (I don't remember), but I'm not sure how well that would work.

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

Wouldnt such a book weigh much more than 5 lbs?

There seems to be no provision for a mass Limitation in the Gadget Limitations rules in "Characters", but given the stereotypical Wizard's low ST, I think it might make sense to add one, for really heavy Gadgets (12+ lbs, which AFAIK is typical of low-tech books).

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

That's because mass is directly tied to HP. Low mass is convenient, but easier to break. High mass is a nuisance, but makes for sturdier stuff.

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

If we're still talking Dungeon Fantasy, assume a maximum level of Magery 6 *without* limitations, given what's in the templates.

Now, if we're talking about Gadget spellbooks, I'd let the sky be the limit when it comes to further levels bought that way.... with all the reduced energy cost and other results of such heightened skill levels.

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

Hmm, just combine those two with a nice fetish and you can have a ready made mage after an adventure:

Channeler's Amulet (DR 2, HP 6) - 2 points
Magery 0 (DR 2, -20%; SM -6, -10%; Stealable on a DX contest, -30%)

The channeler's amulet is a 3.5" medallion usually with the mage's icon etched on it, though easily stolen the medallion is normally worn on a chain underneath clothes. Weighs 1/2 lbs.

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

You're right, sir! Looks like something like that should be 17-20 lbs.

Revise the dimensions to 9 1/2" x 7 1/4" x 2"

(I'll go edit the original)

Re: [Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks
 

That was my approach in this thread, too. However, your exposition is better detailed than mine, so: thanks.