Questions about an item - Boccob's Blessed Book

[Greenfield]

A Boccob's Book just showed up in a treasure, and mine is the only Wiz in the party.

Picking that looks like a no-brainer.

But then I read the 3.5 description of the item.

Boccob’s Blessed Book: This well-made tome is always of small size, typically no more than 12 inches tall, 8 inches wide, and 1 inch thick. All such books are durable, waterproof, bound with iron overlaid with silver, and locked. A wizard can fill the 1,000 pages of a Boccob’s blessed book with spells without paying the 25 gp per page material cost. This book is never found as randomly generated treasure with spells already inscribed in it.
Moderate transmutation; CL 7th; Craft Wondrous Item, secret page; Price 12,500 gp;Weight 1 lb.

Other than being compact and durable, this doesn't seem to do anything.

It says that a Wiz can copy spells in without paying the 25 gp per page material cost.

The last time I looked pages in a standard spell book cost 15 cp each (1.5 silver), and copying a spell into one cost 100 gp per page. (Player's handbook page 179).

So where does this 25 gp per page come in?

Am I reading something wrong? is there an errata or FAQ entry on this that I don't know about?

(Also note, buying empty spell books and breaking them apart is another economy-break. Parchment normally costs 2 sp per sheet, but if you buy the book for 15 gold you get 100 sheets, or 20 gold worth of parchment.)

So, back to the book: Any thoughts on what this actually means?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Adding spells to your book (and thus adding to the list of known spells you can prepare) costs 25gp per 'page.' It's in the description of the Wizard class. So, yeah, the BBB is plenty awesome.

(As far as the sheets of parchment in a book thing: a stich-bound book has 1/4 as many sheets of parchment as it has pages, since the sheet is folded in half, and there's a page on each side of each leaf.)

 

[Greenfield]

Hmm.

I looked in the PHB on page 179.

Writing a New Spell into a Spellbook
Once a wizard understands a new spell, she can record it into her spellbook.
Time: The process takes 24 hours, regardless of the spell’s level.
Space in the Spellbook: A spell takes up one page of the spellbook per spell level, so a 2nd-level spell takes two pages, a 5th-level
spell takes five pages, and so forth. Even a 0-level spell (cantrip) takes one page. A spellbook has one hundred pages.
Materials and Costs: Materials for writing the spell (special quills, inks, and other supplies) cost 100 gp per page.
Note that a wizard does not have to pay these costs in time or gold for the spells she gains for free at each new level. She simply adds
these to her spellbook as part of her ongoing research.

I looked in the class description for Wizards, and in the part about adding new spells it refers to the section I quoted above.

Spellbooks: A wizard must study her spellbook each day to prepare her spells (see Preparing Wizard Spells, page 177). She cannot prepare any spell not recorded in her spellbook, except for read magic, which all wizards can prepare from memory. A wizard begins play with a spellbook containing all 0-level wizard spells (except those from her prohibited school or schools, if any; see School Specialization, page 57) plus three 1st-level spells of your choice. For each point of Intelligence bonus the wizard has (see Table 1–1: Ability Modifiers and Bonus Spells, page 8), the spellbook holds one additional 1st-level spell of your choice. At each new wizard level, she gains two new spells of any spell level or levels that she can cast (based on her new wizard level) for her spellbook. For example, when a wizard attains 5th level, she can cast 3rd-level spells. At this point, she can add two new 3rd-level spells to her spellbook, or one 2nd-level spell and one 3rd-level spell, or any combination of two spells between 1st and 3rd level. At any time, a wizard can also add spells found in other wizards’ spellbooks to her own (see Adding Spells to a Wizard’s Spellbook, page 178).

Maybe I'm going blind in my old age, but I can't find anyplace, other than the Blessed Book reference, that says anything about a 25 gp per page cost.

Regarding parchment: Nothing in the books say anything about the size of a piece of parchment, or that they're larger or smaller, folded or flat when they're bound into a book. Or if there is, I missed it.

So, again, what am I missing?

 

[Dandu]

The SRD's description of the Blessed Book has a 100 gp per page material cost as well, so this is likely a typo that was rectified later on.

 

[Grogg of the North]

The big thing about the Blessed Book is that you can scribe spells into for "free". Wizards are massive gold sinks.

 

[Greenfield]

That's the way we've always played it, though the wording in 3.0 was less than clear, and the 3.5 version had a typo that, as noted, raised a question or three.

Sadly, my character can't get the book.

There's a story there, if anyone cares:

In our campaign we try to stay within shouting distance of the "Wealth by level" guidelines in the DMG.

Our group is 6th and 7th levels. That means we should be close to 19k, tops, for total character wealth.

The book is 12,5 by itself. Further, the way we divide loot is by figuring the resale value of the whole pile, then divvying it up evenly between characters. With that "virtual money" that makes up our share we can buy things from the pile at resale value.

The loot pile was so huge that individual shares were 19,360 each, which means that the full value of a share 38,720 gold, over twice what our total wealth should be. And that was on top of several individual character gifts.

We determined to effectively cut the treasure pile in half. Each could claim 10k in immediate share value. The rest was part of a Letter of Credit issued by the Admiralty when they bought all of this neat stuff. They are at war, after all, and magic arms and armor are in high demand.

Since the whole pile was more wealth than any city smaller than a major metropolis could have available, it was a reasonable excuse.

So I had to choose which was more valuable to my character, a Ring of Protection (3), a Ring of Wizardry (I), or the book.

I really needed the AC. I also managed to scrape together enough other coin to get the Ring of Wizardry. My PC is now effectively broke, cash wise, but otherwise finally competent to stand on the field without bleeding all over it.


The book would have been a long term bargain, but the PC needed to be able to survive for that long term.

 

[Grogg of the North]

FWIW, in the last game I played in, the DM wanted to do a quick check to see if we were close to WBL. If I did not include my spellbook's value my wizard was under wealthed. If I did I was over wealthed.

Yes, the blessed book is a great boon to your wizard but it also lets you BE a wizard. I'd just point out that the book will let you be able to better support the party and it's not likely to lead to a jump in your power. Wizards need lots of downtime and gold.

 

[Greenfield]

Well, my PC owns two meta-magic rods (about 3k each), a magic dagger (1k), a Handy Haversack (2k) and two first level wands (about 1,000 value total ). He had a few hundred worth of alchemical stuff and a 3rd level scroll (1,125 gold) and another PC owed him 1,000.

He also had a used spell book (3,850) and about 5,600 in cash.

Not counting his own spell book that's about 21k, and he had other odd stuff so he was on the high side of right before his own spell book.

Now add 20k of Ring of Wizardry and another 18k of Ring of Deflection. Drop the cash and the IOU.

So now he's over 50k, plus or minus, and his spell book.

Hard to complain about missing out on 12k worth of Boccob's Book.

Yeah, it would save my character money, but over all he's not exactly hurting.