Spellbooks

[Gulnyr]

I was wondering earlier today if the new Layonara would have both trained mages (like D&D Wizards) and natural mages (like D&D Sorcerers), and if the new system would include differences (mechanical or otherwise) that would make such a differentiation matter.

That led me to consider spellbooks. Technically, every D&D Wizard has one, but not every Wizard is RP'd as using one to memorize spells. To me, the spellbook of a mage is the equivalent of the weapon and armor of a warrior. It's their livelihood, their main attack and defense. It's something to be cared for so it's there when they really need it.

It's easy to imagine that the new Layonara will include a better economy with money sinks like repair and maintenance costs, plus a more elaborate combat system that allows sundering and disarming skills that can cause weapons and armor to be damaged or lost. Maybe there will even be rust monster-style creatures. If warriors have to be concerned that their weapons and armor can be damaged or lost, should the same not be true of mages and their spellbooks? The same question could be asked for priests and their holy symbols, thieves and their lock picks, bards and their instruments, or [professionals] and their [primary tools]. So, yeah, basically I was just thinking it would be pretty cool if spellbook-needing mages needed to have an actual spellbook to take care of instead of just a virtual, indestructible one.

[LightlyFrosted]

To be fair, if it's possible to take away a wizard's spellbook, it should also be possible for them to back it up. After all, while a spellbook is the essential tool to the wizard's livelihood, it also probably represents much of their life's work. Having someone say 'Hey, I'm just going to take this book from you and destroy it' is a lot different from 'Hey, I just broke your sword, guess you have to go and buy a new one.' Clerics can buy another holy symbol, thieves can buy more tools, and bards can buy new instruments, but a wizard's spellbook could well be considerably more expensive than any of these, if, say, it's filled with ninth level spell-equivilents.

Just my two cents.

[Gulnyr]

I agree that a spellbook is often a greater loss than other equipment. The main gist was more that the primary tools of any profession should be vulnerable in dangerous situations than that every tool should be treated equally.

The backup actually seems like the default to me. Would an adventuring mage take her one and only spellbook with her? Why not leave the full book at home, safe, and take a smaller traveling spellbook on adventures? Maybe she can't scribe as many spells in it, but it means the loss isn't as great should it be lost, plus it's lighter and smaller. That would create a similar 'going to buy a new one' situation that other professions would deal with.

[LFFF]

it could be the reasoning for memorised spells actually. Your big spellbook could be the livelihood, the bases of all you learned, but in the process of memorising spells, you could actually just be copying what spells you wish to bring with you onto a smaller spellbook, when you cast the spell reading from the smaller book, the page could dissapear or something, and when its all done, you will once again have to go into your big spellbook, whether you carry it with you or leave it somewhere you deem safe and copy what you wish to memorise into another smaller book.

[lonnarin]

I think that while books should be utlilized in learning and conveying magical spells to one another, they should not rule whether or not one can cast or not on a daily basis. Spells/day and spell memorization in D&D's system is incredibly frustrating, and realistically, why couldn't a wizard who memorized 3 fireballs and 4 lightnings in his head not just go "oh well, treants, scrap the 4 lightnings and cast 7 fireballs"? I mean, he knows and studied both formulas, so why the static cap on how many he could cast of either one?

I'd say once you learn a spell, you know the spell for good. It's not like an aerospace engineer's going to forget how to do his daily job if he misplaces his college textbooks. Mages start off smart as can be and old for a reason, and with intelligence scores such as theirs with the number of times they solved the same equation, they had better be able to retain that knowledge. Now if they were teaching somebody else, then certainly you need to write them a diagram, show them some pages in a book and he needs to study. The book should be for study and learning, not a RAMchip.

Also, I'd like to see skillbooks being made use of similar to Oblivion's easter egg system. The amount of technical engineering of lockpicking or intense study of lore is every bit as academic as spellcraft. Of course, books shouldn't be teaching hand-ey coordination skills unless they were specifically magic. You can read an encyclopedia on juggling or bikeridings or martial arts, but you can't get better at any of that stuff without dedicated practice.

[LightlyFrosted]

Well, the common explanation for why mages can only cast a spell a certain number of times per day is that they cast all but the trigger ahead of time. Their 'casting' a spell is actually the completion of the formula instead of the entirety of it - the same reason why they can cast from scrolls; the spell is almost finished in its written form, but requires a few verbal or somatic components to complete.

It could well be that to cast a fireball, a wizard has to take ten or fifteen minutes and go through a number of gestures and words. As the wizard improves, he may be able to pare down this preparation, or make it quicker, but it's not a matter of actually casting the spells so much as completing them.

This is actually supported pretty well by Layo's item creation set-up. Infusing is just impressing the 'all but done' onto a gem geometrically carved to accept it. Scribing is writing down everything that you did, and magically impressing the significance of that on the page. Even if, theoretically, a wizard could cast the entirety of a fireball spell from memory, it would require his target to stand still for ten or fifteen minutes.

As well, unlike 2nd edition AD&D, casting time is pretty much uniformly 'one round', even the spells which are probably more complex. The way that spell memorization works in rests is that the simpler spells get prepared first, followed by more complex spells, until by the end of the rest, all spells are prepared - or at least, that's how it's worked in NWN.

Now, that's not to say that a wizard shouldn't be able to improvise, but patching together a ritual or something would be an applied dose of spellcraft - to wit, crafting the spell. It definitely wouldn't be a 'cast on the spot' thing, and it would probably take quite some time to craft, unless there was some form of more basic spell to work from.

*Shrugs* Not discounting what you said, but it's another possible take.

[Gulnyr]

Originally Posted by lonnarin

It's not like an aerospace engineer's going to forget how to do his daily job if he misplaces his college textbooks.

College textbooks are not the engineer's main tools. The main tools of engineers are calculators and CAD programs or T-squares and triangles, and without them he would not be able to do his job properly. An engineer may be able to do simple equations accurately and give rough estimates for moderate equations without a calculator, but would never rely on that for an actual project.

Spellbooks, traditionally, are the main tools of trained mages, just like swords and armor are the main tools of warriors and lock picks are a main tool of thieves. While trained mages may be able to produce light sources or a few sparks without thinking too hard, they probably wouldn't do any real magic without the proper preparation and tools.

Layonara doesn't have to follow the traditional fantasy setup, of course, but spellbooks are a nice way to differentiate between trained and natural mages anyway, so they shouldn't be tossed away lightly.

[Serissa]

See http://forums.layonara.com/poetic-li...rior-made.html for a CDQ in which a wizard had to give up his spellbook until he repaid his mentor for his reckless use of magic.