Spell Books

[Steve Plambeck]

And in case anyone was wondering, a complete encyclopedia of all the spells that were extant (as of the time of Advanced Wizard), and based on the rules for spell book length and weights given in Advanced Wizard, would be:

2,635 pages weighing 92.05 kg

These could be organized in 13 volumes, each corresponding to one of the IQ levels of 8 through 20. Volume I was the shortest, containing the 13 spells of IQ 8 (104 pages at 4.12 kg.) Largest was Volume VII, the 21 spells of IQ 14 (294 pages at 9.82 kg.)

But wait, there's more! If you order before midnight, we'll also include the 13 volume set of corresponding enchantment spells you'll need for creating the magic items based on these spells. That's 5,720 pages weighing 184.1 kg to hold all the canonical magic that was in TFT prior to the Legacy Edition. Now of course it would be a little bigger because there are some additional spells.

And in my group's world, besides those two books of 13 volumes each, we had another 13 volume book devoted to the gods and religious magic, including a volume on creation and a volume on the scientific theory of magic named "Mana: A Unified Field Theory."

Thus our grand totals were 39 volumes, 9,025 pages, and a whopping 296.6 kg.

We needed to work out the actual weight of our Encyclopedia because it was missing, lost to history, and there were PCs who'd need to get it home if they ever completed the quest to find it - LOL! But alas, they did not.

Our rule was, until these books were found, our wizards were all locked out of knowing any spells other than the IQ 8 to 16 spells that appeared in original Wizard.

[Keysh]

Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck

And in case anyone was wondering, a complete encyclopedia of all the spells that were extant (as of the time of Advanced Wizard), and based on the rules for spell book length and weights given in Advanced Wizard, would be:

2,635 pages weighing 92.05 kg

These could be organized in 13 volumes, each corresponding to one of the IQ levels of 8 through 20. Volume I was the shortest, containing the 13 spells of IQ 8 (104 pages at 4.12 kg.) Largest was Volume VII, the 21 spells of IQ 14 (294 pages at 9.82 kg.)

The Codex Gigas, a 13th Century Bohemian bible, clocks in at 75 kg for 310 pages, so you could easily do worse... (Granted, its pages are almost a meter tall.)

[Senturian]

When we had encyclopedias, each volume was made to be the about the same size.
I worked it out years ago, so only the spells from the '80s. (Go back into my stuff one more time).
13 volumes, 7 castable volumes 8-14 and 6 reference volumes 15-20.
As I didn't break the spells into more than one volume, each is slightly different. Between 6 to 15 spells, weighing 9.9 to 11.1 pounds, having 117 - 135 pages and valued between 2,340 and 2,700.
Total: 125 pages, 137.5 pounds and valued at 33,000.

[Skarg]

What about the chemical and alchemical potion recipes?

[Anomylous]

My experience with spell books in RAW is that starting characters don't even bother, because they never have the budget for a wizard's chest. Problem is, if you give your characters that much money to play with, fighters start buying magic items...

As far as changes, I'm definitely guilty of making the system even more D&D-like, in some house rules I've been tinkering with since way before Legacy Edition. (This version is fully compatible with Legacy Edition though, and leaves all the core rules in place, with one exception.) It's meant to encourage more diverse magic-using builds; I was tired of having the party wizard always be essentially the same character.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...KkBZM9Hts/edit

Due to life reasons, this system hasn't been properly playtested yet. But one of the possible builds is Grimoire Wizard, who has very few spells actually memorized. Instead he just carries around his book(s) and wizard's chest, and works up spells as needed. The Bound Spell ability lets him actually use those spells in combat, provided he plans ahead adequately. And finding new spells to add to his library might be a major quest motivator. Whereas I wouldn't be at all strict about "but where do you plan to learn that spell?" with a Magecraft-based build, because the idea is that Magecraft gives you a good understanding of underlying principles, so it's just a matter of figuring out details of execution.

I actually haven't made a ruling in that system on whether spells of IQ 15+ can be cast from a grimoire. Right now I'm leaning towards "no," because a) those are exceptional and potentially unbalancing capabilities, seems fair to make wizards spend XP or IQ slots for them, and b) RAW is usually fairly balanced, so I'm disinclined to mess with it any more than necessary (and yes, I'm aware of the hypocrisy there).

(edit for clarity. Also, TL;DR: Grimoire builds are basically D&D wizards / Harry Dresden, while Magecraft builds are more akin to D&D sorcerors / Jedi / A:TLA benders / Aes Sedai)

[Axly Suregrip]

Originally Posted by Anomylous

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...KkBZM9Hts/edit

Due to life reasons, this system hasn't been properly playtested yet. But one of the possible builds is Grimoire Wizard, who has very few spells actually memorized. Instead he just carries around his book(s) and wizard's chest, and works up spells as needed.

Nicely done. This looks to be good fun.

[Senturian]

Originally Posted by Skarg

What about the chemical and alchemical potion recipes?

Thanks, if I had wanted to do this, I would have years ago.
Still, I thought you might seriously want the information so...

I separated Chemistry into 2 volumes:
14 Potions 120 pages, 10.3 pounds valued at 2,800.
15 Poisons 105 pages, 8.04 pounds with a value of 2,100.

Alchemy
16 Abilities 245 pages, 17.3 pounds and a value of 4,900.
should probably be 2 books
17 Uses 345 pages, 23.9 pounds, valued at 6,900.
3 books?

3 volumes of New Spells, totaling another 351 pages weighing about 26 pounds and a value of 7,020

there's also a small 25 page pamphlet valued at 500 for the new Alchemy Potion of Imprisonment. It only weighs 2.75 pounds.

I weighed my wedding album at 8 pounds. so all of these are large books.

[Senturian]

I also made a mistake in my first post -
they should total 1650 pages.

[Skarg]

Super! Thanks!

[Steve Plambeck]

Originally Posted by Anomylous

Problem is, if you give your characters that much money to play with, fighters start buying magic items...

That all depends on where and when you let PCs buy them. In my world, there never were magic shops or any items for sale.

Originally Posted by Anomylous

As far as changes, I'm definitely guilty of making the system even more D&D-like, in some house rules I've been tinkering with since way before Legacy Edition. (This version is fully compatible with Legacy Edition though, and leaves all the core rules in place, with one exception.) It's meant to encourage more diverse magic-using builds; I was tired of having the party wizard always be essentially the same character.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...KkBZM9Hts/edit

Due to life reasons, this system hasn't been properly playtested yet.

Oh, quite intriguing stuff! Well done!

It's my favorite area to tamper with too. Worked on a separate FRPG of my own off and on for decades (also without a chance for playtesting - haha) but it stays pretty TFT compatible. Starting from an original "Wizardry talent" I wrote about elsewhere, I've got five levels of magical training/skills now, each adding it's own little twists and turns and unlocking different levels of spells.

In the magic system I've worked out, wizard builds of identical numerical attributes can turn out extremely different from each other, which seems to be one of our common goals.