Starting spellbook

wowy319

wowy319

Artisan
Hey there, everyone! My name's Zack, and I'm a little bit confused when it comes to spellbooks. I get the basic gist of it, but there's a few minor details that I'm hazy on. I'm starting as an Earth scholar with four 1st level spells and two 2nd level spells, and I don't know what spells I start out with in my spellbook. Also, my spellbook tag starts out with the spells I don't know crossed off, so what happens with that when I learn a new spell? Are the cross-outs erased? Are they written on a new tag? That's all I really have to ask about spellbooks; thanks so much for your time.
 
wowy319 said:
Hey there, everyone! My name's Zack, and I'm a little bit confused when it comes to spellbooks. I get the basic gist of it, but there's a few minor details that I'm hazy on. I'm starting as an Earth scholar with four 1st level spells and two 2nd level spells, and I don't know what spells I start out with in my spellbook.
Click to expand...

Your choice -- four 1st levels and any two 2nd levels.

wowy319 said:
Also, my spellbook tag starts out with the spells I don't know crossed off, so what happens with that when I learn a new spell? Are the cross-outs erased? Are they written on a new tag? That's all I really have to ask about spellbooks; thanks so much for your time.
Click to expand...

You get a new tag each time.
 
Thank you so much. Now I can get started on finding a phys rep!
 
Hmm, this is rather nit picky, but one other thing is that you actually can't build a spell pyramid like this.

2 2
1 1 1 1

The reason given that this pyramid is not legal is that it has 2 gaps of 2 spells. Once you are at the point you have three 1st level spells and two 2nd level spells you have to get your 3rd level spell. So the following two types of spell pyramids are legal.

3
2 2
1 1 1 1

or

2 2
1 1 1

Spell pyramids are kind of one of those tricky things early on, as are spells in general. But basically pretty much you want to build up a column of 4 spells at each level with a gap of 2 spells more only on one level at a time.

7
6 6 6
5 5 5 5
4 4 4 4
3 3 3 3
2 2 2 2
1 1 1 1

6
5 5
4 4 4 4
3 3 3 3
2 2 2 2
1 1 1 1

4 4
3 3 3
2 2 2 2
1 1 1 1

All of these work. You can also expand to have extra lower level spells before you finish a 4 column of spell slots eventually. But not many people would recommend it. I seriously liked and wanted to do it for almost a year until I started have 9th level spells myself. They are so fantastic it is not worth sacrificing them really... ;) This is what you'll probably want eventually...

9 9 9 9
8 8 8 8
7 7 7 7
6 6 6 6
5 5 5 5
4 4 4 4
3 3 3 3
2 2 2 2
1 1 1 1
 
Oh. Well, that's something I didn't know. Okay, so that means I have some erasing to do, since I decorated mine up. But then again, I'm NPC-ing on my first event, so I can just buy a 3rd-level spell with the BP I earn then.
 
yes, you could buy up a three level spell....as you start with 15 build to start, if you NPC for 1 event, you can Gobbie the weekend (Gobbies are points you get for helping out) which will give you another 10 build to start with...so you could come in on your 2nd event with a total 25 build...so if no weapon skill is to be had then r/w + Fa + Ha for 7 build with 4,4,3,2 for spells...

-Matt K.
 
and Zack you can have spells in your spell book that you can not cast yet. You don't start with them in your book but if you ever find or buy one its ok. I don't cast spells but I could still have a spell book tag.
 
Yea, don't worry about errasing your spellbook. Especially if you've put in the time to make it pretty. =) You'll get those spells copied down soon enough. And for the time being since its just the spellbook tag that really matters you can say you are hoping to get those spell incantations enchanted with the magical spell ink or whatever.

There is a whole interesting discusion about it, but if you have a little (or large) book and the spell book tag it doesn't actually matter what is written in the book.
 
Fearless Leader said:
jpariury said:
Is it intended that a 4/4/4/4/4/4/4/2 tree is illegal? If so, why?
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Looks legal to me. How else can you eventually get to a 4/4/4/4/4/4/4/4/3 pyramid?
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You have one more 4 in there than JP has, Mike. The tree he has in question only goes to 8, so there would have to be 1 ninth before you could have a fourth 7th. I'm sure this is a miscounting issue more than an error, since I had to cursor over it and count them twice to be sure myself :D !
 
Fearless Leader said:
jpariury said:
Is it intended that a 4/4/4/4/4/4/4/2 tree is illegal? If so, why?
Click to expand...

Looks legal to me. How else can you eventually get to a 4/4/4/4/4/4/4/4/3 pyramid?
Click to expand...

4/4/4/4/4/4/3/2
4/4/4/4/4/4/3/2/1
4/4/4/4/4/4/4/2/1
4/4/4/4/4/4/4/3/1
4/4/4/4/4/4/4/3/2
4/4/4/4/4/4/4/4/2
4/4/4/4/4/4/4/4/3


That seems like what the rulebook would suggest. Am I missing something?
 
No that looks right
 
I don't think my question was answered, though.

The rulebook explicitly states you can't have a 4/2/0 tree. When you get to 3/2/0, you must buy a 3rd lvl spell (pg 35, bottom of left column) for a 3/2/1. By extension, it would seem to imply you can never have a 4/4/2/0 (etc). I'm curious if that is intentional, and if so, why?

We allow someone with a 4/4/3/1 to go 5/4/3/1. We even allow someone to go 6/5/4/2/1 or some other extension of that idea. I can understand the support your pyramid thing, and I can even (somewhat) understand not letting players ignore buying higher-level spells (i.e. No 25/20/0 trees). What I don't understand is the singular exception of "no 4/2/0". Does the limitation reflect something specific to the worldview of the game authors? Does the limit prevent some peculiar loophole that I'm not seeing? If not, why not allow it?

(Kind of side note: the rule books states that a player with 4 weapon proficiencies can trade them in for a prof... I've always assumed that the player must trade them in before buying more crit attacks. Or is it intended that a character who is never taught Weapon Proficiency could continue to Critical Attack ad infinitum?)
 
It doesn't seem like a singular exception, but merely the border case. Would you advocate allowing an extra difference so that 4/2/0 or 4/3/0 would be allowed, but not 6/4/2/0 or 4/4/0 ? (that is, allowing two differences of 2 or one difference of 3.) I guess I'm not seeing where that's a singular exception.

This reminded me of that part of the rules, though. It says that once you're higher level you have more choices of where your spell slots go, but it seems to me like you only have one axis of choice. That is, how pyramidal you want your stack. You have approximately 2 choices usually for what level of spell slot to buy, one to make it more cylindrical, and one to make it more pyramidal. This choice doesn't come into play until you get to 4 at your base, because before that, it has to be a pyramid. I guess you could have more of a choice if you did something like 7/7/6/6/5/5/4/4/3/, giving 5 choices (1,3,5,7,9) for your next slot, but that's the absolute maximum, and a rare state. Still not a lot, and the absolute maximum is 5. Not a criticism or question, just an observation.
 
Well as I've thought about the Spell Slot choice issue I don't really mind the mostly confined choice in spell purchase. If you compare that to fighter skills (Profs) or rogue skills (Stabs) its actually quite a bit more free. Even if you consider their choice of whether or not to buy the side along skills (Dodges, Slays, Disarms exe exe)

As far as Spell slots go I believe the reason you can have 4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-2 on top is because 9th level is the highest level spell slot there is so that's sort of like hitting the edge of the invisible 4 column box on the top as opposed to hitting it on the sides.


With critical attacks I believe the pertinent line in the rulebook is halfway down in the 3rd paragraph explaining them:
"After a character has earned the fourth Critical Attack, the character can trade them in and buy a Weapon Proficiency. The character may then begin learning Critical Attacks again."

The second sentence here I think imply's you can't keep buying them after you have 4 without getting a weapon prof first. I believe the first sentence was worded the it is because it doesn't want to imply the next thing you have to get with your bp is a weapon prof. You could go off and learn lots of other useless things like First Aid and Healing Arts... exe exe :D before trading in those beautiful Critical Attacks for that nice shinny weapon prof. ^_^
 
With a column that has a base that is 4 spells wide you need to go WIDE before you go UP to a higher level spell.

Once you get your 5th spell at level one (and progressing wider) you must go UP before you go WIDE.

I don't know why the rule was made that way, but that is the rule. I guess there's jus a magical barrier between the 4th and 5th columns. LOL

elliotbay said:
I guess you could have more of a choice if you did something like 7/7/6/6/5/5/4/4/3/
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That is an illegal pyramid. However, you can have 7/7/7/6/5/4/4/4/3
 
Telokh_Amdo said:
elliotbay said:
I guess you could have more of a choice if you did something like 7/7/6/6/5/5/4/4/3
Click to expand...

That is an illegal pyramid. However, you can have 7/7/7/6/5/4/4/4/3
Click to expand...

Your pyramid would give you 4 choices (1,4,6,9) for your next slot, instead of 5. I'm not seeing why mine is illegal. The only relevant rules I see are "There must always be at least as many Spell Slots below that level in order to support the new amount," and "the level above must have only one less [sic] than the amount you are buying." Clearly, you can fudge the second one for a short time, as in figure 5, but you're then forced to rectify that soon. My pyramid violates neither of those rules. What property does it violate?
 
elliotbay said:
I guess you could have more of a choice if you did something like 7/7/6/6/5/5/4/4/3/
Click to expand...

Yea I can't see anything wrong with this pyramid either.
 
I thought about that after I posted. I was picturing the way the pyramid got to that point and missed that there were other ways to get there.
 
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