Value of a spell book (gp wise)

[Ancalagon]

Say heroes find a spellbook, and decide they want to sell it. They are in a large metropolis with lots of students of magic, wizards, scholars and the like (ie there is demand, but there is also supply).

How much is a spellbook worth in 5e? I mean I know it depends on how many spell and what level they are, but are there guidelines?

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

The book has rules about how much it costs to put a spell in to a spell book. That would be the base cost+25gp for the actual book (PHB).

Then you have to add value for the rarity of certain spells and the value for spells that are more valuable (like Wish).

So, if most of the wizard in your campaign world top out at 5th level spells, anything higher than 5th is going to be super-valuable.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

There are no rules, except the rules for how much it costs to copy spells into the book.

I played around with some math and ideas on it. I looked at some 3e numbers on things that 5e doesn't have advice for (like how much it might cost to get permission to copy spells from another wizard's spellbook) and compared them to any prices that 3e had that 5e also had, to see what sorts of general cost conversions would make the most sense. I ran some scenarios and analyzed them for information such as when it would be more profitable for a spell merchant to sell you a book, vs sell you the right to copy from one he had, vs sell you a scroll, and what sorts of magical writing economic exchanges would make sense in general, assuming a world where this is a thing, yet wizards are pretty rare (ie, not Eberron).

The basic conclusion I came up with is to say that a spellbook's sales price is anywhere between about 25gp/spell level to 50gp/spell level (plus the cost of the physical book), depending on the subjective value of the spells in the book. If you are selling it to a merchant, you are likely to be getting the lower end of that scale, since they'll want to make a profit on reselling it, and they probably already have most of the spells in the book. If you are buying a book, you're probably also buying several spells you already know, unless you want to commission a custom spell collection, which is naturally going to be extra pricey.

 

[Li Shenron]

Let's give it a try...

1) Ignore all economic rules of supply and demand for the time being, so that we try to extrapolate a baseline price from the RAW only. We try to defer adding economic variables after setting a baseline price, if we can, or at least as late as possible because they introduce a huge variance and randomness.

2) The price for copying spells would be relevant if the spellbook was sold by the creator, because she had to pay that cost. Unfortunately, to a prospective buyer this cost is irrelevant because the buyer CANNOT prepare spells from a spellbook that isn't her own: she still has to pay the full cost of copying all the spells into her own spellbook before she can prepare/cast them.

This is the first problem that makes it hard to avoid economical considerations of supply and demand: with a seller who also created the book we may want (as a starting reference point only) to set the price to the cost it took to create it, but with a seller that has not paid anything for it, we might better look directly at what value the buyer sees in it, for example by comparing it with how much does it cost to buy scrolls with exactly the same spells, since you can also copy spells from scrolls.

Let's try to follow this approach of "buyer-based price" to continue.

3) We don't have fixed scroll prices in 5e, but only ranges. Maybe the most reasonable thing is to use the simple averages, from 37.5 gp for a 1st level spell to 13750 gp for an 8th level spell. The range price for a 9th level spell is unlimited, let's be generous and pick the lower bound i.e. 25000gp. Calculate the total for the list of spells in your specific spellbook and you have a baseline price. This of course requires that you have specified WHICH spells are in the spellbook.

Reality check: this baseline is A LOT more than the price you get if you use the copying costs instead! It's impossible at this point to avoid economical considerations: if the buyer has the possibility to find a Wizard who would scribe a new spellbook and sell it to her, it would be a lot cheaper than to acquire scrolls for all the wanted spells, and our baseline price would be off market.

4) Eventually, the buyer will see value only in spells she doesn't already know. She has no use for the rest. So when calculating the previous baseline price, you might want to take a hard approach and only count the spells the buyer doesn't already know (I would also include spells of levels she can't cast yet but can learn later), but this requires the DM to specify WHO exactly is the buyer! You probably just want to figure out how many gp to give to your PCs... should we default to HALVING the baseline price for simplicity?

5) Halve the baseline price again, because the PCs are the sellers rather than the buyers.

6) Notice that scrolls costs a lot because they have a very important second use beyond being copyble: you can cast the spell directly from it, beyond your own daily spellcasting capabilities. So we should cut the price further because the spellbook does not offer this function, but how much? Half the price again? This is not obvious.

7) Optionally: ballbark some generic modifier for market conditions. For high demand + high supply I wouldn't apply any modifier, not a big one at least. Maybe I would round down the final price to multiples of 100gp (if it costs less than 2000gp) or multiples of 1000gp for higher prices.

---

If we stick to this plan, we basically have to at least decide what kind of spells the spellbook contains (i.e. their LEVELS), calculate the baseline price, and divide by 8 i.e. divide 3 times by 2. With some approximations (rounding to multiples of 5gp), we could say that this could be the new price per spell:

- 5gp for each 1st level spell
- 20gp for each 2nd/3rd level spell
- 170gp for each 4th/5th level spell
- 1720gp for each 6th/7th/8th level spell
- 3125gp for each 9th level spell

Since we don't care which spells exactly but only their levels, we could build a map between Wizard level -> learned spells -> spellbook price. We assume a Wizard always learns new spells of the maximum possible level when levelling up (very reasonable), but also that no additional spells were added to the spellbook from scrolls and other books (which is likely not to be the case, but it's pretty impossible to guess how many they would be since it's VERY campaign-dependents).

Wizard   Spells         Spellbook 
Level    Known          SELLING Price

1        6                30
2        8                40
3        8/2              80
4        8/4              120
5        8/4/2            160
6        8/4/4            200
7        8/4/4/2          540
8        8/4/4/4          880
9        8/4/4/4/2        1220
10       8/4/4/4/4        1560
11       8/4/4/4/4/2      5000
12       8/4/4/4/4/4      8440
13       8/4/4/4/4/4/2    11880
14       8/4/4/4/4/4/4    15320
15       8/4/4/4/4/4/4/2  18760
16       8/4/4/4/4/4/4/4  21200
17       8/4/4/4/4/4/4/4/2  27450
18       8/4/4/4/4/4/4/4/4  33700
19       8/4/4/4/4/4/4/4/6  39950
20       8/4/4/4/4/4/4/4/8  46200

With this table, you can figure out when you defeat a Wizard of a certain level, how much you can sell his spellbook for. If you use NPC wizards from the MM instead of classed Wizards, I would assume the NPC wizard is equivalent to a classed Wizard of the minimum level required to cast its highest-level spells (for example, Archmage = Wizard 17, because it can cast 9th-level spells). NPC spellcasters in the MM only mention their prepared spells, not what they have in their spellbooks.

Keep in mind these are selling prices, which means 50% of possible buying prices.

 

[5ekyu]

Because the purchaser saves nothing but time in purchasing a spellbook, it's an opportunity thing, nothing more. A wizard can choose any spell, two, free when they level and still has to pay to scribe any spell in the spellbook you sell them.

So, unless it's got some spell they cannot get free later or that they really need now, it's just convenience purchase.

So its value is gonna be more like a collectable item, very subjective, unless some organizing body chooses to try and set a baseline price - by themselves purchasing spellbooks based on that cost structure.

Such might be done by a mage guild in a high fantasy high civilized campaign. I would likely base it on the expected wealth chart per level of character - maybe 10%.

But then, for individual spells and wizards, maybe a rental plan is better - price by the hour. Maybe at banquet meal prices?

But the mechanics in 5e fo not match the notion of "rare and expensive" for typical wizard spellbooks **because** the automatic spells are free and the spellbook ones cost.

If the automatic ones cost ABC and the spellbook copied ones cost say half as much, then you would have a setup that says "spellbooks have value."

But for RAW, outside of opportunity sales to specific needs "I want this spell now even more than I want the gold to scribe it" other folks' spellbooks are less valuable than a blank spellbook.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

No, I think spells are still valuable. Just because you get two for free (I imagine these are formula that you figured out yourself), you'd have a very underwhelming collection of spells.

In 3e, wizards got spells every level too, if I remember correctly, but PC wizards were constantly looking for specific spells to round out their spell books. Some were very valuable and some levels have more spells than you have room for with the minimum you get each level. And wizards can't trade out known spells like sorcerers can.

But it depends on the campaign. In my games, you can't pick Wish for free. You have to find it or, if you are a sorcerer, find a Place of Power to 'unlock' its secrets. So Wish would be priceless. You wouldn't be able to buy it. If someone had it, they might share it for a favour or a trade or a quest. Or take it from their cold, dead hands.

 

[Li Shenron]

No, I think spells are still valuable.

I don't understand what are you referring to. Do you mean in general my guideline prices are too low? Sure, that's a legitimate criticism.

Otherwise if you refer to my line "the buyer will see value only in spells she doesn't already know", why do you think this is not the case?

But it depends on the campaign. In my games, you can't pick Wish for free. You have to find it or, if you are a sorcerer, find a Place of Power to 'unlock' its secrets. So Wish would be priceless. You wouldn't be able to buy it. If someone had it, they might share it for a favour or a trade or a quest. Or take it from their cold, dead hands.

Heh, the OP is asking for guidelines... as much as I tried to stick to what is written in the books, to make up some guidelines I had to accept quite a few assumptions. There are way too many variables otherwise.

 

[WaterRabbit]

IIRC, in the Undermountain book just released they had prices for spellbooks. They were priced at the highest level spell available in the book and thus were very cheap. Something like 350gp for a spellbook that could have 50 spells, but the highest was 3rd level.

The price seemed a bit low to me.

 

[jgsugden]

Let's say you find a spellbook with 3 3rd level spells, 5 second level spells and 10 first level spells. You take it to a large city and put it up for auction with a fine auction house with connections in the wizard community.

High level wizards (11+) look at it and see a lot of spells they know, and if they do not know it, it is likely just a curiosity. They may make a minimal bid, but ... come on. Why break the bank for a few additional spells that were not important enough to learn by this point? Maybe if there is an interesting and unique spell it might be worth an investment, but perhaps they can share it with a few of their friends and split a bid...

Medium level wizards (7 to 10) also likely have some some of these spells, so those are meaningless to them. There may be a few spells new to them... but if they want to use those spells, they need to copy them from this spellbook into their spellbook. So, beyone buying the book, they have some pretty high costs. And that competes with their goals of acquiring magic items, building a tower, etc....

Lower level wizards (1 to 6) may find a good number of spells in such a book that would help them develop an array of spells that is impressive for their level... but how much can they afford to spend on it if they also have to pay to copy it into their books?

The most likely to purchase such a book would be a wizard in that mod category - just powerful enough to cast all the spells int he book, likely to need some, and with enough resources to spend some coin on it.

My current enchanter has discovered 4 spellbooks. He ended up copying a few spells from each into his spellbook. There are dozens of spells in these books that he does not know, that he will not bother to copy into his spellbook, and that he would never prepare. To be honest, the spellbooks did not really add to his abilities. If he never found a single spell to add to his spelbook, his prepared spells and rituals would be about the same as they are now. At level 17 you have 38 spells from leveling/advancing. You can generally prepare 22. That allows you 16 spells for rituals and 'conditional' spells to sub in for certain conditions (or spells you have 'outgrown'). That is fine.

All in all - Spellbooks actually provide little value to another spellcaster. The value would be highly conditional based upon who is in the customer base, and there are conflicting forces that drive down the price (the more resources you have to spend, the less you need it).

 

[DND_Reborn]

Say heroes find a spellbook, and decide they want to sell it. They are in a large metropolis with lots of students of magic, wizards, scholars and the like (ie there is demand, but there is also supply).

How much is a spellbook worth in 5e? I mean I know it depends on how many spell and what level they are, but are there guidelines?

Nope. As others have said no guidelines. A simple rule we use is this for each spell contained in the book: Level * Level * 100 gp. So, a single first level spell is 100 gp while a 5th level spell would be 2500 gp, and a 9th level spell at least 8100 gp.

You can easily see why large, spell books can be worth thousands and thousands of gold. It works for our game anyway.