[RPG] Creating a Wizard at high levels: How many Spells should he know

character-creationdnd-3.5espellswizard

I have looked all over this site & Google but I can't seem to get a good answer to this.

When creating a Wizard over level 1, how many spells should he have in his spellbook? I'm speaking in addition to his starting spells and his 2 free spells per level. Since Wizards can learn spells from scrolls, or even other spellbooks they relieve of dead wizards or borrow/rent from friends/libraries/guilds etc. Effectively this means he could have dozens of each level of spell which I think is a bit much. Has anyone found a good means to determine the amount of spells to give them when starting at higher levels?

Specifically I'm trying to accommodate a new lvl 15 wizard but this could apply to any upper level wizard.

Best Answer

"Pay a price based on spell level"

Note: I use the term "Pay" repeatedly. In this post this simply means to deduct from their starting cash according the published Wealth By Level (WBL) chart.

The chart at the bottom of this answer is the base amount of spells a wizard gets for free. The only answers for "how many additional spells a wizard has learned at upper levels" I've found so far are to charge 150 gp for each spell. Supposedly this is to cover the 100 gp price of the page plus the sell price of the spell in a wizard's spellbook.

This is flawed on its face since it costs 100 gp per page, but each spell takes 1 page per level of the book. So a level 2 spell would cost 200 gp to add to a book. Using the intended logic this would cost 250 gp. So this is the only answer I could come up with.

However, the biggest drawback to this system is that by upper levels the WBL table has them starting with so much coin they could effectively have nearly any spell. (level 15 starts with 200,000 GP) They would have to have additional spellbooks to hold over the 100 page limit but big deal at this point.

The other drawback is that it is ridiculous to assume that anyone has killed this many wizards or convinced that many wizards to share their books. The rulebooks make this sound like a rarity due to how wizards safeguard their research..and the normal charge is 50 gp × spell level (+the cost of writting the spell into their own spellbook). A way around this is to have them pay full price for scrolls. While this solves the "found too many wizard books" problem, it may make the price go too far in the other direction.

Ways to overcome the drawbacks:

  1. Set an arbitrary number of how many additional spells they could have. I don't like this b/c how do you fairly pick an arbitrary number?
  2. Set a limit of how many spells they get at the "found spellspook" price (100gp per spell level +50gp) and then allow them to get how many ever scrolls they want. (100gp per spell level + retail price of scroll)
    • This still has the problem of how to pick a fair arbitrary number?
  3. Give them a set amount they can use on learning new spells. Still an arbitrary number, but atleast one that is more feasible. ie, you can set a max of 30% of wealth be spent on a single item, so the same principal or even cap could be set on learning spells.

Base Wizard Spells per Level

  1. 3+Int
  2. +2 (1st lvl)
  3. +2 (any combo of 1st or 2nd lvl)
  4. +2 (any combo of 1st or 2nd lvl)
  5. +2 (any combo of 1st 2nd or 3rd lvl)
  6. +2 (any combo of 1st 2nd or 3rd lvl)
  7. +2 (any combo of 1st 2nd 3rd or 4th lvl)
  8. +2 (any combo of 1st 2nd 3rd or 4th lvl)
  9. +2 (any combo of 1st 2nd 3rd 4th or 5th lvl)
  10. +2 (any combo of 1st 2nd 3rd 4th or 5th lvl)
  11. +2 (any combo of 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th or 6th lvl)
  12. +2 (any combo of 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th or 6th lvl)
  13. +2 (any combo of 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th or 7th lvl)
  14. +2 (any combo of 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th or 7th lvl)
  15. +2 (any combo of 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th or 8th lvl)
  16. +2 (any combo of 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th or 8th lvl)