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Cybris75
2014-02-26, 12:23 PM
Hello playground,

recently I designed an adventure involving a dangerous tome of magic spells in the hands of curious children, and found no rules to satisfy my need. I decided to create my own rules and present them here for others to use. I very much welcome feedback on this text.


Grimoires
Grimoires are a special kind of book. A grimoire can contain spells from a variety of spell lists, and the contained spells can be of arcane or divine nature. For a found grimoire, determine the nature and level of the contained spells the same way as determining the nature and level of spells found on a scroll.

Spells In A Grimoire
Spells in a grimoire are written in a very simple recipe form, usually in a language suitable for the spells it contains. Arcane spells are usually written in Draconic, Elven or Gnome, while divine spells are usually in Abyssal, Celestial, Infernal, or even Common. The written representation of the spells in a grimoire is a set of usually simple instructions that show the spell-casting process step by step, but lack the necessary background information for understanding the spell. In other words, a grimoire tells the reader how to cast a spell, but not how and why it works. Grimoires usually do not contain spells of more than third level, but exceptions exist.

Casting A Spell From A Grimoire
A grimoire enables everyone who can read to cast the spells it contains in ritual form. Deciphering the spell with read magic is not necessary. The caster must supply the necessary components for the spell, unless the components are built into the grimoire or metamagic which makes these components unnecessary was used in the creation of the grimoire. The caster must be able to read the language the spells are written in, and be able to follow the instructions, including being able to speak necessary verbal components the spell description provides.

Casting a spell from a grimoire takes a minimum of one minute per spell level and provokes attacks of opportunity. If the reader is interrupted while casting the spell, he must pass the usual concentration check, or the spell fails. For rules regarding caster level, DCs, caster and target, see the rules for potions in the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide. (A grimoire is essentially a multiple-use potion that must be read instead of quaffed.)

Casting a spell from a grimoire always requires a sacrifice as a source for the spell's power. A spellcaster can sacrifice an unused spell slot of at least the level of the spell being cast. This spellslot becomes available again as normal. A character that has a turn or rebuke ability can sacrifice one use of this ability per spell level instead, which also becomes available again as normal. If no spell slots or turn attempts are sacrificed, the reader gains a negative level and becomes fatigued. The lost level is automatically regained after 8 hours of rest, and then the character is no longer fatigued.

Grimoires, Metamagic, And Casting Without Components
Many writers of grimoires use metamagic to make the spellcasting process easier. It is common to find spells modified with the Still Spell or Eschew Materials feats applied. If a spell in a grimoire has those feats applied to them (or the spell didn't have somatic or material components in the first place), the spell can be cast by the reader even without understanding the language, as long as he is able to read the alphabet the spell is written in and reads the spell description aloud. If the Silent Spell feat was also used in the creation of the grimoire, the spell can accidentally be cast just by reading it, but this is highly dangerous and creating a grimoire in this way is frowned upon.

Learning A Spell From A Grimoire
A grimoire is not a normal spellbook, and spells from a grimoire are not as easily copied into spellbooks as spells from normal spellbooks. Essentially, the student must reverse-engineer the spell from the grimoire in a process similar to researching a new spell. Copying a spell from a grimoire takes one week and uses double the amount of inks and other materials as copying a spell from a spellbook, but takes the same number of pages in a spellbook as normal for the spell. If the student is interrupted for more than a day during this time, he must start over and the partial work and materials are wasted.

Creating A Grimoire
TODO

Mehangel
2014-02-26, 06:07 PM
I have played with similar magical items in my campaigns. They are awesome. I also had specific rules for warlocks and the use of grimoires (because they dont use spell slots and they have spells at-will). Regardless, I find that they are never overpowered, and because our grimoires had only one or maybe two spells (at higher levels) in each they were horded and rarely used. Also in our campaign, you could not transfer the spell into a spellbook without destroying the tome. So nobody wanted to actually destroy it. I mean why would you? You can choose not to memorize the spell, and keep the book at your side and "spontaneous" cast like a sorcerer. We also had Grimoires that only had metamagic feats in them like sudden extend 1/day. To make things even more interesting, we also included the feat Craft Tome, which made these wondrous items. Of course the crafting cost for making such items was kind of retarded, but even still.. They were alot of fun.

drew2u
2014-02-27, 10:25 AM
if you like 3rd party material, I found this book (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/95097/Legacy-of-Maela-Catacombs) to have an interesting writeup of grimoires and how to create one. There's also a couple of sample grimoires with spells and cost for creating it.

Buufreak
2014-02-27, 10:50 AM
Sounds alot like an eternal wand without the need for UMD to me. Nothing wrong with that, though. Infact, I kinda like it. Mind if I swipe?

Slyder81
2019-09-10, 05:57 PM
I have played with similar magical items in my campaigns. They are awesome. I also had specific rules for warlocks and the use of grimoires (because they dont use spell slots and they have spells at-will). Regardless, I find that they are never overpowered, and because our grimoires had only one or maybe two spells (at higher levels) in each they were horded and rarely used. Also in our campaign, you could not transfer the spell into a spellbook without destroying the tome. So nobody wanted to actually destroy it. I mean why would you? You can choose not to memorize the spell, and keep the book at your side and "spontaneous" cast like a sorcerer. We also had Grimoires that only had metamagic feats in them like sudden extend 1/day. To make things even more interesting, we also included the feat Craft Tome, which made these wondrous items. Of course the crafting cost for making such items was kind of retarded, but even still.. They were alot of fun.

I was actually thinking of making a Grimoire system for my homebrew campaign. I'm thinking of having Wizards not having to memorize spells - so long as they have the spell in their book, they can cast a spell as long as they read it from the spell book. In order to limit the number of spells they can cast, I'd have them only be able to access spells by copying them from a scroll or another spell book. So when they level up, they can't just "pick a spell from the spell list and memorize it!"...they'll have to find a magic store that has the scroll for the spell they want and copy it to their spell book.

How does this sound?

Evil DM Mark3
2019-09-11, 03:24 AM
Oooh, I like. There are a number of possible uses I can see, from giving a certain location or foe a spell like desecrate or anti-magic field that otherwise they could not have due to lacking the caster to something like this (assuming 3.5 as that's what I play, although the base rules seem to work anywhere):

Pescribian's Grimoire of The Healer.
A rare example of a Grimoire that was attempted to be mass produced, this Grimoire was originally penned by Pescribian Nailus, a Cleric of Pelor. While still somewhat expensive it is very popular among adventurers and mercenaries without access to a divine spell caster. The Grimoire contains the following spells, written in Common:
Purify Food and Drink
Lesser Restoration
Remove Blindness/Deafness
Delay Poison
Remove Disease
The book also contains extensive notes on First Aid and other matters, granting the user a +4 competence bonus to heal checks if it is available to consult.

One idea, what if versions of this exist that aren't actual movable objects, perhaps for higher level spells you need (or might just choose to) paint the instructios on a wall, so a temple with access to the Raise Dead spell actually just has a massive mosaic showing all of the intricate steps?