Casting from Spellbook, 2nd Edition AD&D.
Shadow Kee
You know what angers me about the wizard class in the
2nd edition of AD&D. You can't cast spells from your spellbook. How stupid can
that be! Everyone knows from stories about crazed wizards, they are always
casting spells from their spellbooks. I follow the Unearthed Arcana, regardless
of the 2nd edition rule that mages can't cast spells into their spellbooks. You
ask any child or grown up do they remember reading or watching on TV a wizard
casting a spell, and they will most positively say yes. My thoughts, you don't
have to concur.
Peter DePalma
one, any mage casting a spell from his book anywhere near a fight is looking to get
his spell book damaged or destroyed. It should also take a longer time (handle the
book and its pages, the somatic components, material components, etc.)
I must admit, I don't take umbrage at the 2nd edition rules.... especially because
of movies and TV show depicting mages casting spells from their books. That's not
enough to get my ire up.
Be seeing you,
Peter DePalma
Schuler
Shadow Kee wrote in message
<199808211621...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
>Hello AD&D fans,
>
> You know what angers me about the wizard class in
the
>2nd edition of AD&D. You can't cast spells from your spellbook. How stupid
can
>that be! Everyone knows from stories about crazed wizards, they are always
>casting spells from their spellbooks. I follow the Unearthed Arcana,
regardless
>of the 2nd edition rule that mages can't cast spells into their spellbooks.
You
>ask any child or grown up do they remember reading or watching on TV a
wizard
>casting a spell, and they will most positively say yes. My thoughts, you
don't
>have to concur.
>
>Shad...@aol.com
The best way to think of a spell book is as a college text-book. I mean,
you don't see doctors doing surgury wiith a scalple in one hand and a book
in another. So don't get upset over this, it's not that big of a deal.
Hey, if you want to, go ahead with it, just do something like doubling the
casting time+1, to deal with the wizard leafing through his book and giving
the spell the once-over. Best to give a chance of spell failure too.
Samryn
Shadow Kee wrote in message
<199808211621...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
>Hello AD&D fans,
>
> You know what angers me about the wizard class in
the
>2nd edition of AD&D. You can't cast spells from your spellbook. How stupid
can
>that be! Everyone knows from stories about crazed wizards, they are always
>casting spells from their spellbooks. I follow the Unearthed Arcana,
regardless
>of the 2nd edition rule that mages can't cast spells into their spellbooks.
You
>ask any child or grown up do they remember reading or watching on TV a
wizard
>casting a spell, and they will most positively say yes. My thoughts, you
don't
>have to concur.
>
No need for material components because the spell page itself is magical and
is destroyed in the casting, as if it were a scroll.
SAMRYN
The old gray donkey, Eeyore stood by himself in a thistly corner of the
Forest, his front feet well apart, his head on one side, and thought about
things. Sometimes he thought sadly to himself, "Why?" and sometimes he
thought, "Wherefore?" and sometimes he thought, "Inasmuch as which?" and
sometimes he didn't quite know what he was thinking about.
Willie Williams
> You know what angers me about the wizard
>class in the 2nd edition of AD&D. You can't cast spells from your
>spellbook. How stupid can that be! Everyone knows from stories
>about crazed wizards, they are always casting spells from their
>spellbooks. I follow the Unearthed Arcana, regardless of the 2nd
>edition rule that mages can't cast spells into their spellbooks. You
>ask any child or grown up do they remember reading or watching on TV
>a wizard casting a spell, and they will most positively say yes. My
>thoughts, you don't have to concur.
You know, as far back as I can remember casting spells from a spell
book was treated as if it were a scroll. A wizard *could* cast the
spell, but it would disappear which was generally not a good thing.
It wasn't until I just went to look this up that I realized that it
must have been a houserule I grew up with and just melded into my D&D
knowledge.
--
Willie Williams
airb...@wizvax.net
http://www.wizvax.net/airborne/roadrunner/complaint.html
Daegmorgan
> You know what angers me about the wizard class in the
>2nd edition of AD&D. You can't cast spells from your spellbook. How stupid can
>that be! Everyone knows from stories about crazed wizards, they are always
>casting spells from their spellbooks. I follow the Unearthed Arcana, regardless
>of the 2nd edition rule that mages can't cast spells into their spellbooks. You
>ask any child or grown up do they remember reading or watching on TV a wizard
>casting a spell, and they will most positively say yes. My thoughts, you don't
>have to concur.
AD&D is not written to reflect the movies or TV cartoon shows...hence the
answer to the statement "how stupid can that be" is "not very".
If YOU as a DM want your wizards to cast spells from their spellbooks, go
ahead and make up rules on it; there's nothing that says you can't.
It's as useless to rant about something like this as it is for me to rant that
AD&D wizards don't act like real-life occultists, drawing circles
to cast spells in, using elaborate rituals and chants, and taking around
fifteen minutes for simple spellwork, after all, any real magician knows that
you have to do these things for magic and you can't cast fireballs anyways...
But it's AD&D!! It's not TV, the movies, real-life, or Mage: the
Ascension...wherein spells are not lost from memory when cast (something else
that AD&D has that doesn't occur to crazed wizards in the movies).
-The GreyOrm
http://www.northernnet.com/sleipnir/rpgs
Barry B Wood
On Fri, 21 Aug 1998, Peter DePalma wrote:
> I agree, mages should be able to cast spells from their books... at a price.
> For one, any mage casting a spell from his book anywhere near a fight is
> looking to get his spell book damaged or destroyed.
I allow mages to cast from spellbooks. The price? The pages the spells
are written on are consumed, just like a scroll. This doesn't change the
"number of spells known" to the mage (via Intelligence). It still takes
up a slot, he simply must recopy the spell into his book from another
source.
> It should also take a longer time (handle the book and its pages, the
> somatic components, material components, etc.)
I rule that the casting time is the same.
Cheers,
Barry
Alvin Stuckenborg
the
>2nd edition of AD&D. You can't cast spells from your spellbook.
In my campaign, casting from a spell book is possible, but takes 15 minutes
per spell level (the same time frame needed for memorization). Furthermore,
the spell is completely wiped clean from the spell book in the process.
Quite a price to pay to cast a spell.
I don't even let characters cast spells from a captured spellbook. The
notation someone else's spellbooks is foreign enough to barely allow
translation (at 1 day per spell level) with a successful CLS roll.
Certainly spellcasting is not an option.
Alvin
Shadow Kee
book. It's like taking an open book exam!
Daegmorgan
>I say casting time, should be reduced. The material is write there from the
>book. It's like taking an open book exam!
What's quicker, having an answer memorized, or flipping through a book to find
it? (Even if you know where it's located)
During an exam, a person who is not familiar with the material and is allowed
the use of a book will always take longer to complete it than the person who
is familar with the material.
This can be conclusively proven via tests and general classroom experience,
hence I must disagree with your statement that casting times should be reduced
for the unprepared wizard.
-The GreyOrm
http://www.northernnet.com/sleipnir/rpgs
Pinochet
Shadow Kee wrote in message
>I say casting time, should be reduced. The material is write there >from
the book. It's like taking an open book exam!
If you want to say things work that way, fine with me.
But I can say memorizing spells is about preparing the magical
energies for casting them, and the actual act of casting is merely
releasing or directing those energies, so when casting from your book, well,
it takes longer as you have to do both at once.
Tommy the Terrorist
airb...@wizvax.net writes:
>You know, as far back as I can remember casting spells from a spell
>book was treated as if it were a scroll. A wizard *could* cast the
>spell, but it would disappear which was generally not a good thing.
Well, the obvious problem is that if you have fancy rules about making
scrolls being a difficult endeavor for high-level mages, then why not
make extra "spell books" to use as scrolls?
In any case, that's not the "real" explanation. See my posting from a
month or two ago, "Magic 101: what's in a spellbook anyway?". Basically,
the spell book contains a bunch of simple magic runes (written in as few
as five dimensions) and instructions for the wizard to assemble them into
more complex magical objects within his mind ("memorization"). The
wizard works through these instructions in order to assemble the
fundamental subunits of the spell in his mind (these are much more
complex, and might be 17 or 666 dimensions). These subunits might also
be found diagrammed in runic symbols on a spell scroll, or in similar
symbols magically encoded into a wand, and used in the same way to cast
the spell.
Don't think of a spellbook merely as a list of instructions. It's not
just another kind of book. It's a TOOL KIT in ink, a work bench full of
"simple" magical runes that require a great deal of assembly. It's still
magic (try drawing a five dimensional figure with an ordinary pencil),
but it's not magic enough to use as a scroll. If it were, it would be
useless for the mage when he wants to gain his spell.
I *would* encourage allowing mages to abstain from "memorizing" a spell
or two, and allowing them to cast it "out of their books" by memorizing
it at the time needed. It might also be fun to allow mages to try
casting spells they can't cast normally yet, by trying to go through the
steps one by one from the book without assembling the whole spell in
their heads. Needless to say, this should not be a safe or predictable
process!
Pinochet
Shadow Kee
myself. Doesn't that not establish that I am familiar with my own spellbook?!
I should know exactly where I wrote my fireball spell, magic missile and etc...
As a college student, after a good number of weeks, students who keep up with
the reading are familar to where important information is located in the
textbook. This I know and you probably know from first hand experience. What
do you think about that?
Hartshorne
>>>I say casting time, should be reduced. The material is write
>>>there from the book. It's like taking an open book exam!
>GreyOrm then replied:
>>What's quicker, having an answer memorized, or flipping through
>>a book to find it? (Even if you know where it's located)
>>
>>During an exam, a person who is not familiar with the material
>>and is allowed the use of a book will always take longer to
>>complete it than the person who is familar with the material.
>>This can be conclusively proven via tests and general classroom >>experience, hence I must disagree with your statement that
>>casting times should be reduced for the unprepared wizard.
Read GreyOrm's reply to your post again. He didn't say it'd take ten to
fifteen minutes to cast the spell, he said it'd simply take *longer.*
I'll hand you a math book with a multiplication table in there. We'll
even say you know it's on page 56. Then someone asks both of us what the
product of 6 and 8 is. I have no doubt that you'll be able to find the
information in scant seconds, but it'll still be after I've already given
the answer (having had it memorized).
A wizard who has information memorized can just "spout" the spell off the
top of his head. It will take time to open the book and turn to the right
page of his book even if he knows *exactly* where to look.
BTW, has anyone considered how the book is supported if the spell requires
both hands to cast? Spell books can be heavy (though traveling books,
less so).
Cheers,
John.
The Wraith
>So, I say to you, what if it's my own spellbook. I wrote the spells in there
>myself. Doesn't that not establish that I am familiar with my own spellbook?!
>I should know exactly where I wrote my fireball spell, magic missile and etc...
>As a college student, after a good number of weeks, students who keep up with
>the reading are familar to where important information is located in the
>textbook. This I know and you probably know from first hand experience. What
>do you think about that?
I think you are forgetting that the wizard must spend ten minutes per
level of the spell to prepare it for casting, when he "memorizes" it
at the start of the day. Since that preparation has not been done, in
the case you describe, he's got an awful lot more work ahead of him
than just casting the spell. Most casting times pale into
insignificance.
(Besides, we all know that there is more to spell memorization than
just memorization as we know it in our world. There is the "impressing
of magical patterns of energy" on the mind, and such. It isn't just a
case of knowing it. There seems to be something more.)
--
Now, by popular demand, a new .sig!
I still can't think of anything witty to say, though.
The Wraith
Pirate_of_Penzance
bunch of scrolls the night before a quest and use them
Daegmorgan
>So, I say to you, what if it's my own spellbook. I wrote the spells in there
>myself. Doesn't that not establish that I am familiar with my own spellbook?!
>I should know exactly where I wrote my fireball spell, magic missile and etc...
>As a college student, after a good number of weeks, students who keep up with
>the reading are familar to where important information is located in the
>textbook. This I know and you probably know from first hand experience. What
>do you think about that?
See my previous reply...AD&D magic isn't merely "I wave my hands and say some
stuff and something happens", AD&D magic requires memorization of complex
formula, and the building of spell-energies/patterns using the techniques
described in the book.
Merely flipping to the page in the spellbook and reading it aloud should no
more make magic than a flipping to a page in his cookbook and reading it aloud
will make a cake appear.
Regardless, the point is that even if it IS your own spellbook, AD&D magic
doesn't work "logically"...you FORGET your spells after memorizing them; so
though you might know where to look in said spellbook, you won't know a damn
thing about the spell proper...
To go back to the college example, yes, students who read enough and become
familiar with what's in their books can quickly find the info they need;
however, someone who is MORE familar with the material (to the point that
whatever is in the book is completely memorized) will not have to spend the
time looking, nor the time reading, nor the time following any
instructions...they can just DO, because they already know.
As stated in my last post, it can be proven that someone taking an open book
test that requires the book to answer the questions WILL work more slowly than
someone who already has the answers memorized.
Someone who isn't allowed use of the book and only has some of the material
memorized will do more poorly, but this situation would be more akin to making
up spells on the fly than casting memorized spells or from-the-book spells.
-The GreyOrm
http://www.northernnet.com/sleipnir/rpgs
Aristotle@Threshold
> You know what angers me about the wizard class in the
>that be! Everyone knows from stories about crazed wizards, they are always
>casting spells from their spellbooks. I follow the Unearthed Arcana, regardless
>of the 2nd edition rule that mages can't cast spells into their spellbooks. You
>ask any child or grown up do they remember reading or watching on TV a wizard
>casting a spell, and they will most positively say yes. My thoughts, you don't
>have to concur.
I agree. But of course, thats one of the great things about AD&D- if you dont
like a rule, scrap it or change it.
-Aristotle@Threshold
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Dan Thacker
book at a fast rate than casting from memory the players will not cast from
memory but from the book. There has to be a cost to cast from the book.
The house rule I found works best for my players and me is this.
1) If a spell is cast from a spell book it takes 2x the segments to cast.
2) The spell is lost from the spell book (i.e. casting as a scroll). This
way if the mage must cast a spell from his spell book. It's going to cost,
but it can be done.
I do think, - you should never make it easier or faster for the mage to
cast a spell from his book. It will tilt the power level of game way out of
balance.
Just my thought's
Dan Thacker
Pinochet wrote in message <6rluio$8b2$4...@fir.prod.itd.earthlink.net>...
>
>Shadow Kee wrote in message
><199808220126...@ladder03.news.aol.com>...
>>I say casting time, should be reduced. The material is write there >from
>the book. It's like taking an open book exam!
>
Jeremy Belton
>The house rule I found works best for my players and me is this.
>1) If a spell is cast from a spell book it takes 2x the segments to cast.
>2) The spell is lost from the spell book (i.e. casting as a scroll). This
>way if the mage must cast a spell from his spell book. It's going to cost,
>but it can be done.
>I do think, - you should never make it easier or faster for the mage to
>cast a spell from his book. It will tilt the power level of game way out of
>balance.
>Just my thought's
>Dan Thacker
Ok, this is my problem with the "spell disappears from book when cast from
it" rule.
I'm a level 5 mage. I have only one fireball I can memorize per day. No
problem, I'll take my trusty Copy spell and copy the fireball spell out of
my book a few dozen times and all of a sudden, the only limit to any of my
spell casting is how much paper I can get my hands on.
See the problem? Thats 4 fireball scrolls per day. Give the character a week
of downtime and hes got the power to level a small villiage.
"So," you say, "No problem, I'll just eliminate that spell and make it as
hard to put a spell in a book as it is to write a scroll."
Ok, you can do this. I wouldn't, because that means that your mage will have
to take forever to add a new spell to his travelling book. I don't like
that. If I give the mage a spell, he should be able to use it without having
to either carry around some other guy's library or hunt down a phoenix to
get a quill. Just going by the books, you can't do it because it gives
specific rules for writing spellbooks and scrolls, and they aren't the same.
But of course you aren't required to go by the books at all.
So, theres nothing wrong with doing it this way, but it makes things hard on
the poor mage who was probably in a tight spot to begin with. Some other
rule would make sense.
I use a spellpoint system in my games, and a good, simple rule is you can
cast from the book and it'll take half the normal spell points but have its
casting time in turns instead of segments (you really don't want to do this
in combat). The logic is you channel the energy more easily when using the
book, but still you have to fuel it with some of your own inner strength.
Perhaps it could also increase other aspects of the spell, duration,
effectiveness, range, whatever. The point is to give an advantage that makes
sense while providing a massive disadvantage in the time constraint, but
without depriving a mage with one of his vital spells. That would be like
taking the warrior's sword away from him, and I just don't like it.
Jeremy
RStephen Winter
created a table to roll on for the penalties. Normally you would just loose
the spell from the book and have to recopy it, with a bad roll, you can
loose your whole spell book.....
If anyone wants a copy, email me.
RStephen Winter
ghw...@accessone.com
http://www.accessone.com/~ghwerig
Shadow Kee wrote in message
<199808211621...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
>Hello AD&D fans,
>
> You know what angers me about the wizard class in
the
>2nd edition of AD&D. You can't cast spells from your spellbook. How stupid
can
>that be! Everyone knows from stories about crazed wizards, they are always
>casting spells from their spellbooks. I follow the Unearthed Arcana,
regardless
>of the 2nd edition rule that mages can't cast spells into their spellbooks.
You
>ask any child or grown up do they remember reading or watching on TV a
wizard
>casting a spell, and they will most positively say yes. My thoughts, you
don't
>have to concur.
>
Hartshorne
>I have always allowed [casting of spells from books].
>I have left the casting time the same, but I
>created a table to roll on for the penalties. Normally you would just loose
>the spell from the book and have to recopy it, with a bad roll, you can
>loose your whole spell book.....
Out of curiosity, how do you have your wizards write their spells into
their books? How does this compare to the creation of scrolls? As was
stated before (in this or a similar thread), casting directly out of
spellbooks with few or no penalties gives mages a near unlimited access to
scrolls and, therefore, spells.
If I were a rules lawyer mage in your campaign (note that this is
necessary because what I propose goes *against* official rules), I'd write
a bunch of spells into "spellbooks". Each of these spellbooks would
contain but a single spell. Lost the spell when casting? Who cares!?
I've got a million copies left! Look ma, I can cast thirty fireballs a
day!
Now in order to make this rule of yours a playable rule, I'm willing to
bet that you've put *some* other restriction on this. Let me know what it
is.
Cheers,
John.