Spell book

[AxeMental]

This thing is supposed to be huge (pre UA anyway). So, a first level guy (spell light) must be carrying around alot of other info. in his spell book, but what? DId Gary or anyone else ever address this question; I always assumed some trivial stuff (making pentagrams etc. etc.) but perhaps I missed something interesting.

[Lord Cias]

The DD actually described the miscellaneous "magic info" that might be in a magic-user's spell book quite well over at DF. I'll let him post it here, or you can search for it over at DF.

A large part of a 1st level magic-user's book should be blank pages so that he can write in new spells as he finds them.

[AxeMental]

I'm still banned from DF at this IP so perhaps he'll post it here. Otherwise, I'll need to jump to another computer. Of course, I can't stand looking at the 3tard avitars infesting DF long enough to search for anything, so....

[TheDungeonDelver]

axemental said:

I'm still banned from DF at this IP so perhaps he'll post it here. Otherwise, I'll need to jump to another computer. Of course, I can't stand looking at the 3tard avitars infesting DF long enough to search for anything, so....

Perhaps I will, young padawan. Behold!

I use traveling spell books and "study" spell books. It became an issue in my G-D-Q campaign when the magic-user was showered with burning coals (destroyed his traveling spell book, he had to resort to studying the big one - the party was pretty scared at that point).

Spells researched must first go in to the big spell-book for reasons Handy mentioned. There has to be room to "show your work" for the initial research of the spell. It isn't as though the character says "Hm, I think I'll 'learn' fire ball or meteor swarm," and then presto, they have it. It's more like "Hm, I'd like to have a fire ball spell. Now how do I unlock those energies? Time to start working on some formulas..."

A "regular" spell book is, IMC, a huge thing full of marginal notes, "spoiled" pages, doodles, maybe a few loose sheafs stuck in here and there or pasted together to give the spellcaster more room to note formulas and diagrams and so forth for the spell-casting. The "traveling" spell book is a careful annotation, a "pocket version" of all of that organized neatly. No "work" needs to be shown, just the base incantations, gestures and ingredients and how to memorize them.

I prefer this as it gives more texture to the magic-user, I feel.

...and I stands by it.