Feature Suggestion: Enhanced Spellbook Functionality

[Silveras]

Spellbook extended functionality has been suggested from time to time here on the forums. The problem is that the use of spellbooks has diversified as the game has evolved, and not everyone agrees on what is necessary and what is "extra". With the release of the Arcane Anthology, a Player Companion based around specific spellbooks, and inspired by the really nice work done to support Polymorph options, I am posting this to try to suggest some enhanced spellbook functionality, and to define what is "basic", "advanced", and "extra".. for which I invite others to comment.

Unlike ShadowChemosh's gear items that calculates the number of books required to hold the character's current spells, each of these items should represente a separate physical book because the spellbooks can be loot gained from an enemy, or can be lost or stolen.

Base Functionality

• User Text: For the owner's name, and for identifying notes needed to know which book set came from what source, etc. The existing gear items do not meet this requirement, but such is an easy thing to create in the Editor.
• Carryable Item: Spellbooks can be lost or stolen, so they need to be a carryable item, capable of being stored in a container. The existing gear item meets this requirement. The Spellbook mechanism does not meet this requirement.
• Distinct from existing Spellbook: Players may choose for their characters to create multiple copies, some with different content, such as Traveling Spellbooks or Compact Spellbooks. They would also need to be transferable to another character for the case where enemy spellcaster's spellbooks are looted. The existing gear items meet this requirement. ShadowChemosh's spellbooks do not meet this requirement, as they auto-calculate from the character's Spellbook mechanism.
• Optional: Not all GMs will want to use this option for their games, so it should be separate from the existing Spellbook functionality for spellcasters. Also, although Witches are "Spellbook" casters, they do not have physical books and cannot make copies of their familiars, etc.
• Multiple Types: Alchemist Formulae books should have appropriate items.
• Automated Calculation: Based on the spellbook type (Standard, Traveling, or Compact; Spellbook or Formulae book as of this writing), the book should calculate the number of used/remaining pages, base value, and sale value of the book. ShadowChemosh's enhanced items calculate the number of books required to hold the spells in the existing Spellbook mechanism.
• Table of Spells: Because each book can have different contents, there should be a table to add spells (much like for Scrolls), which tabulates the cost of adding the spells. A "Buy for Free" is needed because the 2 new spells gained by Wizards at new levels do not have any cost to write into the spellbook. Spells whose required number of pages exceed the available remaining pages in the book should be flagged with a warning. The existing gear items, and ShadowChemosh's enhanced gear items, do not support this.

Advanced Functionality

• Tracking Readability: Mostly for captured or borrowed spellbooks, tracking which spells have been deciphered and understood by the caster would be useful.
• Support for Ultimate Magic format features: Support for a physical description of the spellbook's cover and pages, as well as Preparation Ritual.
• Support for Protections: Support for enhancements to saving throws against energy, etc., including Hardness and Hit Points of the book.
• Dossier for contents: A separate printing/PDF Dossier option to show the contents of these spellbooks, with the header for each spellbook giving the name, owner, physical description (if implemented), preparation ritual description (if implemented), and value before the list of spells.
• Support for variable page counts, scribing costs, and DCs for understanding: Based on the Cypher Script feat.

Bells and Whistles

• Support for non-spell contents: Support for trapped pages in between the spells.

 

[Aaron]

That's a good summary, Silveras.

 

[Silveras]

That's a good summary, Silveras.

Thanks.. I hope it leads to some useful discussion.

 

[Azhrei]

I particularly like the "Tracking Readability" idea. It would have to record the Spellcraft rank at which an attempt was last made to determine whether another can be made. Maybe with a check to say that it has?

 

[Silveras]

I particularly like the "Tracking Readability" idea. It would have to record the Spellcraft rank at which an attempt was last made to determine whether another can be made. Maybe with a check to say that it has?

I think it would make sense to treat the binary "success/fail" status of the understanding as an "Advanced" feature, and the last attempted DC as an "Extra".

 

[Bishop37]

It would also need options to change the values (cost, pages) for spells, as some feats and abilities (such as Cypher Script from Inner Sea World Guide) change them (this would probably be done on a per spell basis, rather than the entire spellbook).

 

[Silveras]

It would also need options to change the values (cost, pages) for spells, as some feats and abilities (such as Cypher Script from Inner Sea World Guide) change them (this would probably be done on a per spell basis, rather than the entire spellbook).

What "rank" would you consider that? "Base Functionality", "Advanced Functionality", or "Bells and Whistles" entry?

Part of my intent with this thread was not only to gather such things, but to try to work out which ones are most needed. Thanks for contributing!

 

[Bishop37]

Probably as "Base Functionality" if only because not allowing for it from the start would likely require rewriting the base code later, not simply adding additional functionality.

 

[Silveras]

Probably as "Base Functionality" if only because not allowing for it from the start would likely require rewriting the base code later, not simply adding additional functionality.

I have edited the root post to add this to "Advanced Functionality".

Reasoning: Having it in the post at all serves as a "heads-up" to plan for addition later. The functionality itself is limited to characters who take the Feat mentioned (at this time, anyway), so it is not something I would consider "Base" (expected to be usable in all campaigns, including home-brew).

 

[Aaron]

Alright, I'm taking this on as a non-paid side project. Because I have other, paid demands on my time, progress might be slow.

Right now I am thinking the form will be divided into 3 sections.

The Header section will have information like current/max number of pages (max pages will default to some number based on the item, but be an incrementer which can increase or decrease that page count), cost of all spells in spellbook, a section for notes/description, and an incrementer for the number of tables in the last section (min 1, max 3).

The Mid section will have a static table for any preparation rituals (or any other abilities the spellbook grants), and a user added table for the spells in the book. All spells in the table will have two checkboxes, for "Understood" and "Free Scribe". Probably for conveniece there will be an "Understand All" and "Free Scribe All" button above this table.

The Association section will be a number of tables, each with a selector that chooses a spellbook casting class (other than witches I guess) that the spells in that table belong to. Users can click and drag spells from the table in Mid to any of these tables to associate them as spells known with the selected class. If a user tries to move a spell which is not understood from the pool table to an association table, either a notify window will pop up saying "No!" (if I can do that), or I will add a validation error after the fact (if the notify is not possible). If the spell is one of their free scribes, it will add 1 to the "free spells scribed" field of that class (which I will have to add, including logic to calculate how many free scribes are available for that class, default 2/level). I suppose I will have to add the Free Scribe checkbox to existing spellbook mechanisms as well. If a user knows the same spell for two different classes, add two copies to the pool, and move each to a different association pool (this might throw off value/page calculations for the book? Need a "duplicate" checkbox maybe? Ugh, hate multiple checkboxes, I'll think on it).

Background Mechanics
I'm going to need to create a gizmo and several helper objects for this gizmo, one for the pool table (for the candidate expression), and one for each association table (for the selector of the class to associate with, and also to verify that all spells moved into that table are indeed valid selections for the class in question, and to add the proper Spellbook tag to the spells in the table).

 

[frumple]

Sounds awesome Aaron!

 

[Silveras]

If a user knows the same spell for two different classes, add two copies to the pool, and move each to a different association pool (this might throw off value/page calculations for the book? Need a "duplicate" checkbox maybe? Ugh, hate multiple checkboxes, I'll think on it).

I don't know that you'd have to worry about that, except in order to accommodate house rules.

As I understand it, if a character has two spellcasting classes, the spell slots and what spells are known are handled separately (except for abilities like some Sorcerer bloodline abilities that modify spells when cast). As such, a Magus/Wizard would have separate spellbooks for each class, anyway (and so there would be no need to have a section that allowed mixing, either), and would have to scribe the spell separately in each.

The intention behind the request was to match the core functionality, for cases such as when a Wizard makes multiple copies of the spellbooks for safety, and when spellbooks are captured.

While a Magus or Alchemist can learn a spell from a Wizard's spellbook, I don't recall anything supporting (or prohibiting) mixed spellbooks. I think the default is that a Magus/Wizard or Alchemist/Wizard would need to carry multiple "sets" of spellbooks in that case (again, barring support for houserules)... which should simplify things a bit.

As for Witches, I was reviewing the class recently. They can't have an "extra" familiar "backup copy" like other spellbook-using classes can. Their "free scribes" are 2 per level + patron spells (+ a small number based on Int modifier at 1st level to start). If they lose their familiar and need to replace it, the new familiar starts with the 2-per-level + patron spells only.

Use Case Example
Fergus is a Wizard 1 with Int bonus of +3

His Wizard spellbook contains all cantrips (something like 20, so 20 pages there) + 6 1st-level spells of his choice for 26 pages of 100 used, cost 0 gp.

Being a little cautious, he purchases a traveling spellbook (50 page capacity), and scribes second copies of most of his spells into it (leaving out Read Magic, which all Wizards can prepare from memory without a book).. for 25 spells, 25 pages used, 155 gp cost (6x10 gp + 19x5 gp)

When Fergus reaches 2nd level, he decides to become a Wizard 1/Alchemist 1. He gains a Formula Book (100 page capacity) with 5 1st-level Extracts in it (2 base +3 for Int), for 5 pages of the 100 used. He tries not to overlap his formulae selections with his Wizard spells, because he wants to spend time learning his Wizard spells as formulae to increase his adaptability.

Fergus spends time learning his Wizard spells as Formulae, adding 10 of them to his Formula book as 1st level extracts (10 pages and 100 gp cost to scribe). Unfortunately, Wizards can't learn spells from Formulae, so be can't reverse that to learn the 1st level extracts as spells.

At this point, Fergus has 3 "spellbooks"

• 1 standard spellbook with 26 of 100 pages used holding 20 cantrips + 6 1st-level spells; sell value 80 gp (1/2 the cost to scribe the spells)
• 1 traveling spellbook with 25 out of 50 pages used holding 19 cantrips + 6 1st-level spells (a not quite complete copy of the contents of his standard spellbook); sell value 77.5 gp
• 1 Formula book with 15 out of 100 pages used holding 15 1st-level formulae; sell value 37.5 gp

Does that help?

EDIT:
It just occurred to me in looking at the sell prices I added; captured spellbooks should probably count against Wealth-by-Level, but the Wizard's own (and copies of them?) should not.

 

[Aaron]

I was hoping to provide you all with some screenshots, but alas, the UI gods are fickle and I've got to re-arrange a bunch of stuff. Just a progress report though, I have most of the UI framework built, and the underlying mechanics (purchasing spells, recording what spells are understood, free from advancement, complaining if you understand a spell in a spellbook associated with a class, but that class doesn't have the spell on their spell list, etc) is 95% as well.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

I was hoping to provide you all with some screenshots, but alas, the UI gods are fickle and I've got to re-arrange a bunch of stuff.

I give you props for this Aaron. I spent well over 6 hours trying to get a Deity selection added to d20 yesterday. One simple selection. With all the features you are mentioning its insane.

Great job. Can't wait to see this...

 

[Aaron]

I give you props for this Aaron. I spent well over 6 hours trying to get a Deity selection added to d20 yesterday. One simple selection. With all the features you are mentioning its insane.

Great job. Can't wait to see this...

At least you're not having to set things up twice, once for the desktop and differently for the Ipad app. Thanks for the kind words, helps keep me motivated.

 

[Enforcer84]

Somebody get this man more kind words!

No really, Aaron you've been a huge help on all the custom stuff I've done, between Shadow, Mathias, Yourself and a few others I'm proud to say I've done some stuff and crying in the fetal position has been at a minimum.

 

[Silveras]

That's fantastic progress, Aaron. I'm really looking forward to seeing what you've come up with.

 

[Cards77]

I wanted to voice my support for this and thank Aaron and the others for their hard work on what's currently being proposed. I think this adds a very nice dimension for spellbooks, something that is usually overlooked or glossed over in a game.

I have to admit though I clicked on the title hoping that this thread was more directed at how HL handles spells and spell books in general.

Not all of us can or would use HL at the table, so a way to print every spell known in a table with all it's pertinent information is absolutely ESSENTIAL to our use of this software.

I'm frustrated that I paid for this software (which is incredible don't get me wrong), and this critical core component is missing, and I have to use a clunky old Excel sheet from a project that was abandoned over a year ago to get a sheet with all my spells known, and the pertinent spell information so that I can choose what to memorize throughout the session.

I LOVE many things about HL but the assumption that everyone is using it on a screen at the gaming table is starting to be a real issue for me.

I can think of a quick fix really: A button that says "ADD ALL SPELLS TO SPELLBOOK" so we don't have to manually click every spell when a divine spellcaster has access to everything more or less. Then it would be much easier to just remove prohibited domains and/or schools, rather than add every spell allowed for a given PC.

 

[thedarkelf007]

This sounds awesome, just what I need for dealing with divine casters having a limited spell list. Getting every spell in the game, which grows with a new supplement has caused some games to grind to a halt with spell selection. I ended up giving prepared divine casters 6+Wis spells at first level and 4 spells per level after that free and that has worked out well.

I also like the idea of spellbooks as items with set spells so players can have a treasure item instead of having to read through a printout of what was in the book.

Extra items on the spells included, as mentioned, also sounds great, wish I could help

 

[Enforcer84]

Well done, Aaron wanted to find the old thread and thank you personally.