[RPG] Can the sorcerer use a spellbook only to collect spells and scribe scrolls, not cast

dnd-5eequipmentmagic-itemssorcererspells

I have been playing a sorcerer that went to wizard school as part of his backstory and often refers to himself as a terrible wizard. So he has a spellbook that I’ve spent time and gold on. He is not a multi class and so he can’t directly cast from said spellbook. But the rules are slightly loose so it seems you can scribe scrolls into the book and then scribe scrolls from your book. All this seems fair and legit because it can take substantial amounts of gold and time for it to be worthwhile but for limited spell pools (like my sorcerer) it can be a way around that. Ultimately my DM is allowing this but I would like to know what the community thinks of this idea. Again I have good backstory behind it and I have spent gold equal to a minor magic item on it.

A little more info we are level 4 right now I spent 100 gp on the book itself and 50 gp per level 1 spell (I have 8 level 1 spells in it) and my DM gave me 2 spells scribed in it to begin with because he liked the backstory. That means the out of pocket cost has been 400gp so far. I forget which book it is but scribing scrolls of level 1 costs 25 gp of which I have scribed a couple. So it is an expensive endeavor therefor I feel it is balanced.

The whole idea was to have a spellbook that I would put spells into and scribe scrolls from that book. I am not preparing spells from that book just to have a larger amount of spells known. It was meant as a compilation of my characters knowledge having studied as a wizard his whole life but not quite being able to do it the same as everyone else in his wizard school (as per being a sorcerer). Yes I could just multi class or outright buy the spell scrolls but I wanted it to be more immersive from a role playing stand point. Knowledge is the driving factor but the way a lot of sorcerers are depicted or conceived they don’t have to care about that.

Questions are

  • Since I am a sorcerer can I only use scrolls from my class list or are scrolls more universal? (Anyone can use?)

  • Am I understanding spellbooks correctly? Or are they truly just meant for a wizard and I am manipulating the system in a way that wasn’t intended?

Best Answer

By RAW, only Wizards can use spellbooks

See the following post: Can a multiclass Wizard copy any Wizard spell they find into their spellbook?

There have been recent errata to the PHB, which can be found at D&D Beyond:

Copying a Spell into the Book When you find a wizard spell of 1st level or higher, you can add it to your spellbook if it is of a spell level you can prepare and if you can spare the time to decipher and copy it.

(emphasis mine)

Since your wizard level is 0, you cannot prepare wizard spells.

You can only use scrolls from your class list

As @Flumph mentions, this is discussed here: Who can use magic scrolls?