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View Full Version : Can you sunder a spellbook ?



Grifthin
2010-07-07, 04:34 AM
A 15th level Wizards Spellbook, by some fluke gets hit by a attack from a Warrior. Can you sunder a spellbook ? If so how difficult is it ?

AvatarZero
2010-07-07, 04:41 AM
If it were hit by a level 15 warrior, particularly a Barbarian with all their options for high damage attacks, then yeah, pretty much even if it were bound in adamantine with adamantine pages. This does assume that the Wizard in question brought the spellbook into combat and didn't use his 8th level spells to either protect the spellbook or utterly destroy the warrior for thinking about attacking him.

edit: I can do better than that.

You also asked how hard it would be. Assuming you've actually gotten into melee, blah blah wizards can be really powerful, here are the rules for sundering carried objects and for damaging common objects.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialAttacks.htm#sunder
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/exploration.htm#smashinganObject

Make an attack roll against AC 10 + object size mod + wizard's DEX mod, deal some damage (4 if it's a leatherbound book with paper pages, 60 if it's an adamantine bound book with adamantine pages), and it's broken. If it's inside something else, such as a Handy Haversack, then you'd need to sunder that, then sunder the book.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#handyHaversack

Since a spellbook isn't necessarily a magical item (just an ordinary book with really expensive ink), it could be re-assembled with a single casting of Make Whole, a second level Cleric spell. If it were a Blessed Book, it might be unrecoverable with any spell short of Limited Wish. Repairing destroyed magical items is really hard.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/makeWhole.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#blessedBook
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/limitedwish.htm

Coidzor
2010-07-07, 04:42 AM
Hmm, 100 pages of parchment, a spine, and some sort of covering.

paper/cloth has hardness 0 and 2 hp per inch of thickness. So, I'd say...4-6 hit points for the paper as a unit. If it has a wood cover, penetrating that's going to be overcoming hardness 5.

If it's all going to count as leather/hide, well, that's hardness 2 and 5 hp per inch of thickness, so I'd go with 20 hp.

Sliver
2010-07-07, 04:46 AM
Why does the wizard keep his spellbook in an open space in combat? You need line of effect to strike something. By RAW, you don't have a chance to break glass if you smash w/e it's stored in.

FelixG
2010-07-07, 04:50 AM
If the wizard for some reason has his spell book in his hands during combat, then yes it can be sundered, just like a fighters sword can be sundered.

Why the wizard would have his spell book out on the other hand is another question entirely

Grifthin
2010-07-07, 05:11 AM
Thanks for the answer.

Grumman
2010-07-07, 05:20 AM
I'd suggest you'd really need fire or acid to make this worthwhile. A sword or axe will certainly destroy the book, but will not make the pages unreadable.

AvatarZero
2010-07-07, 08:07 AM
I'd suggest you'd really need fire or acid to make this worthwhile. A sword or axe will certainly destroy the book, but will not make the pages unreadable.

Now that's an interesting issue. What if you sunder a Blessed Book using a sword? (For argument's sake, lets imagine it's not a flaming sword or similar.)It should be readable, as you say, but it's still a destroyed magic item under the rules. Puzzling...

Kylarra
2010-07-07, 08:19 AM
Keep in mind that sundering a spellbook is a trick that only works once and starts up the paranoia game of spellbook defenses to where fiat is the only way you'll get it again.

Aroka
2010-07-07, 08:27 AM
Complete Arcane (or is it Complete Mage?) has a bunch of stats for spellbooks of different materials. Hit points, hardness, etc.

If the spellbook is visible and reachable, it can surely be sundered like any other item. Or disarmed, probably.

Fouredged Sword
2010-07-07, 08:43 AM
That happend in one of my games. The DM made the mistake of telling the party rouge that the evil necromancer had a book on his belt. The party rouge/monk who used a lot of trip/disarm tricks ganked it and ran. We laughed as that spellbook was worth quite a bit and the wizard had to go all the way back to his lair to get his spare.

He failed to prepare teleport.

EDIT: any wizard who doesn't carry at least 3 spellbooks is not redundant enough. I have known a wizard / rouge who carried individual pages of spellbook folded and hidden about his person so if his spellbook was ever stolen he would at least have his most important spells.

John Campbell
2010-07-07, 08:45 AM
Now that's an interesting issue. What if you sunder a Blessed Book using a sword? (For argument's sake, lets imagine it's not a flaming sword or similar.)It should be readable, as you say, but it's still a destroyed magic item under the rules. Puzzling...

Blessed books hold many more pages of information than their physical dimensions should be able to contain... they're lighter than a mundane spellbook with a tenth as many pages. I see no reason to assume that those pages remain accessible if the book is damaged to the point that its magic stops working.


EDIT: any wizard who doesn't carry at least 3 spellbooks is not redundant enough. I have known a wizard / rouge who carried individual pages of spellbook folded and hidden about his person so if his spellbook was ever stolen he would at least have his most important spells.
My runesmith kept spells engraved on his +5 dwarvencraft adamantine full plate. Yeah, sunder that. It was also called, and I'd talked the DM into letting me pay extra (I was doing the crafting myself anyway) so that the called was attuned specifically and irrevocably to me, not to whoever'd worn the armor last. If it was stolen, they'd have to get it off the plane or under dimension lock or something to prevent me from having it back one action later.

Optimystik
2010-07-07, 08:51 AM
Keep in mind that sundering a spellbook is a trick that only works once and starts up the paranoia game of spellbook defenses to where fiat is the only way you'll get it again.

That, or an upsurge in rolling Psions.

AvatarZero
2010-07-07, 10:49 AM
Blessed books hold many more pages of information than their physical dimensions should be able to contain... they're lighter than a mundane spellbook with a tenth as many pages. I see no reason to assume that those pages remain accessible if the book is damaged to the point that its magic stops working.

So it's like sundering a bag of holding. Personally, I don't think it should be like losing access to a pocket dimension. Personally, I think it should be like using the item duping trick in Oblivion. Sunder and BOOM, knee-deep in arcane confetti!

Or melons. For some reason the videos for the duping trick like using melons. Of course, given the way they use them, it's probably for the best that we can't weaponize Bags of Holding.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmszTpK54Mk

Coplantor
2010-07-07, 10:59 AM
If the wizard has his spellbook with him during a fight, then it deserves to be sundered

John Campbell
2010-07-07, 11:28 AM
So it's like sundering a bag of holding. Personally, I don't think it should be like losing access to a pocket dimension. Personally, I think it should be like using the item duping trick in Oblivion. Sunder and BOOM, knee-deep in arcane confetti!
Blessed books require secret page, which is a transmutation that alters the writing on pages, rather than Leomund's secret chest, which is a conjuration (summoning) that stashes stuff on the Astral, like bags of holding and Heward's handy haversacks and so on do. I don't think they're storing actual extra pages extradimensionally; I think they work more like a magical e-book, using secret page to display many virtual pages of information on a more limited number of physical pages.

Sundering them and disrupting their magic would not only destroy the display system, but also the magical Flash RAM, causing all the data stored within to be lost.

jiriku
2010-07-07, 11:37 AM
If the wizard has his spellbook with him during a fight, then it deserves to be sundered

Yeah, I'm thinking, WTF is a wizard doing referring to his spellbook during a fight? I mean, if you didn't prepare your spells already, then buddy, IT'S A LITTLE LATE FOR THAT NOW!

Coplantor
2010-07-07, 11:46 AM
Yeah, I'm thinking, WTF is a wizard doing referring to his spellbook during a fight? I mean, if you didn't prepare your spells already, then buddy, IT'S A LITTLE LATE FOR THAT NOW!

Well, perhaps he just needed something to read while at the bathroom :smallwink:

Kylarra
2010-07-07, 12:07 PM
That, or an upsurge in rolling Psions.Fair enough. I can't deny that psions are awesome.