[Dungeon Fantasy] Spellbooks

[Xplo]

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!

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Harald B

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.

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.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

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", (...)

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

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Ed the Coastie

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?

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.