Tricks that completely overcomes the wizard's spellbook weakness?

[RoboEmperor]

Not looking for Sandshaper or Shadowcraft Mage type stuff that adds a bunch of spells to the wizard for free. Looking for ways to be able to cast ANY spell you want without a spellbook, not a predetermined restrictive list.

I'm looking for methods that are completely impossible to stop. So creating a giant palace whose architecture is a spell and studied via a divination spell does not qualify because someone can just blow up the architecture.

Unearthed Arcana Spell Point System
+Makes the wizard superior to the sorcerer in every way possible
-No DM in their right mind will allow it
-Some DMs might interpret that you still need a spellbook to reprepare spells you've used the previous day.

Eidetic Spellcaster
+Completely and totally removes the spellbook weakness
-Requires dragon magazine content

Uncanny Forethought
+All spells you've scribed once into your spellbook are spells that you know, so with this feat you can cast INT MOD amount of spells per day even when your spellbook is destroyed.
-Only Int Mod amount of spells per day

Create a Simulacrum of a construct with spells engraved in its hull
+Even if that construct gets destroyed you can still create simulacra of it with Conjure Component
-Costs 1,000gp and 1,000xp
Can be made 100% free by planar binding Mirror Mephits. But this is ultra cheese tier.

Wish
+Creates a Spellbook
-Costs a **** ton of XP
Can be made 100% free with free wishes. But this is ultra cheese tier.

Rary's Arcane Conversion
+Cast on Heightened Read Magics to prepare any spell you know.
-6th level spell so it's gonna eat up a lot of your high level spell slots to cast repeatedly.
-Need to Spell Mastery this spell

Alacritous Cogitation
+Cast any spell you know that has 1 round or less casting time
-Only once per day

2 level Chameleon Dip
+Access to every single wizard spell in the game for free (upto -1 of highest spell level you can cast). For those of you who don't know the trick it's using the Chameleon's floating feat for Extra Spell everyday to add different spells to your spellbook daily.
-Two spellcasting levels lost.

Retraining Rules on Spell Mastery
+By retraining Spell Mastery every level for another Spell Mastery you can continually change the spells you've mastered every level, and increase the number of spells mastered when you get a higher INT mod.
-Requires using retraining rules for power instead of to fix a mistake.
-Only a few spells
The Magelord Prestige Class adds more mastered spells

Dweomerkeeper
+Mantle of Spells lets you cast up to 5 spells without a spellbook
-Is one of the most brokenly OP classes in the game
-Only 5 spells

Archmage
+Can turn a spell into a SLA
-Sacrifice a spell slot
-Only one spell per archmage level

Cerebremancer
+Psychic Reformation for Spell Mastery and Extra Spell
-Three spellcasting levels lost (though there might be some early entry cheese)
-Costs XP

Lucid Dreaming (Manual of the Planes)
+A person in the material plane planeshifting to the dream plane, creating a spellbook (or an epic item like rod of excellent magic) with the lucid dreaming skill, and then bringing that spellbook back to the material plane makes it real.
-Unplayably broken

Dark Chaos Shuffle on Alertness
+Familiars give an infinite amount of Alertness Feat.
-Unplayable broken

---

Rejected stuff

Tattooed summonable creature
Uses a VARIANT rule and also stopped by assassinating the summonable creature.

Tattooed spellbook
Not only can it be damaged in combat (healing magic won't restore it since tattoo ink isn't your body), but an erase spell also removes it.

Secret Chest
Focus can be stolen, Chest can be looted by ethereal creatures, disuse results in the loss of the chest.

[ColorBlindNinja]

I think your best bet is Eidetic Spellcaster.

For learning spells, I'd go with abusing either WBL or Wish to get the scrolls you want.

Take Uncanny Forethought and you basically are a spontaneous caster.

You can combo with the Absorption spell for infinite spells per day.

[Gusmo]

Would you consider unremovable no-XP wish casting ability as acceptable? Then you could just make a blessed book with 1,000 spells, and wish for it back if destroyed. Dweomerkeeper learning wish via spell mastery could do it, or a runesmith that took wish as an SLA. If you want more than 1,000 spells, you could just use multiple blessed books and call them volume 1, 2, 3, etc.

[RoboEmperor]

For learning spells, I'd go with abusing either WBL or Wish to get the scrolls you want.

Forgot about Wish, added to the list.

Would you consider unremovable no-XP wish casting ability as acceptable? Then you could just make a blessed book with 1,000 spells, and wish for it back if destroyed. Dweomerkeeper learning wish via spell mastery could do it, or a runesmith that took wish as an SLA. If you want more than 1,000 spells, you could just use multiple blessed books and call them volume 1, 2, 3, etc.

Forgot to add the free tidbit being cheese like free simulacrum. Added to the list.

To answer your question, normal Wish qualifies so of course no-xp wish also qualifies. I'm not only looking for free ways to overcome the wizard's spellbook weakness. Expensive ways count to. It just gotta be impossible to stop. Secret Chest for example, can not only be looted by some ethereal creature but also extended disuse or the loss of the focus results in its destruction as well so it doesn't qualify.

[Falontani]

Boccob's Spellshard?

[ColorBlindNinja]

Boccob's Spellshard?

Out of curiosity, what does it do and where is it from?

[Falontani]

Out of curiosity, what does it do and where is it from?

It doesn't exist by RAW, however Boccob's Spellbook from the MiC combined with Eberron's Spellshards (a dragonshard that can be used as a spellbook without pages). If your DM is fine with allowing you to enchant the Spellshard with the enchantment from the spellbook

[ColorBlindNinja]

It doesn't exist by RAW, however Boccob's Spellbook from the MiC combined with Eberron's Spellshards (a dragonshard that can be used as a spellbook without pages). If your DM is fine with allowing you to enchant the Spellshard with the enchantment from the spellbook

I see, thank you for clarifying.

[Maat Mons]

Boccob's Spellshard?

Out of curiosity, what does it do and where is it from?

It doesn't exist by RAW, however Boccob's Spellbook from the MiC combined with Eberron's Spellshards (a dragonshard that can be used as a spellbook without pages). If your DM is fine with allowing you to enchant the Spellshard with the enchantment from the spellbook

I think he actually meant Aureon's Spellshard.

[Jay R]

Why? Wizards are already tier one; why are you trying to make them more powerful?

[Particle_Man]

You could use pathfinder to go the other way. Play their human sorcerer and get a favoured class bonus of more spells known plus there is a repeatable feat to get more spells known.

[Falontani]

I think he actually meant Aureon's Spellshard.

That would be more thematic, yes, or perhaps the Shadow's Spellshard. Make it from a Khyber Dragonshard.

[RoboEmperor]

Why? Wizards are already tier one; why are you trying to make them more powerful?

I don't mind trading power to remove the weakness.

You could use pathfinder to go the other way. Play their human sorcerer and get a favoured class bonus of more spells known plus there is a repeatable feat to get more spells known.

Sorry 3rd edition only.

[Yogibear41]

You can buy sturdier spellbooks and/or enchant them with magic, if you read the fine print even a standard wizard spellbook is pretty resilient. Taking Spell Mastery even once at a decent level should give you enough spells to always have an answer for a situation, it might not be a good answer, but still being able to do something is better than nothing. People tend to underrate spells like fireball IMO.

[RoboEmperor]

You can buy sturdier spellbooks and/or enchant them with magic, if you read the fine print even a standard wizard spellbook is pretty resilient.

Not what I'm looking for.

Taking Spell Mastery even once at a decent level should give you enough spells to always have an answer for a situation, it might not be a good answer, but still being able to do something is better than nothing. People tend to underrate spells like fireball IMO.

Spell Mastery is already covered in the first post.

[Crake]

If you play with pathfinder material, the 1st level spell secluded grimoire makes your spellbook practically a non-issue, as it's basically secret chest for your spellbook, but without any need for a focus. Make a command word item for it (I fluffed mine as a nameplate) which would only cost 450gp to craft if you have craft wondrous item, and you can pretty much make your spellbook appear and disappear at will.

[noob]

Use dark chaos shuffle to get tons of spell mastery thanks to your infinite source of alertness that is your familiar.

[Mordaedil]

At a hefty cost, one of my players pointed out to me that his selection of one of the alternative class abilities for his illusionist wizard was that he could sacrifice his bonus spell slot per day for an extra 2 illusion spells every level and they'd be automatically covered by the spell mastery feat. This means his assortment of illusion spells will at least work if he loses his spellbook.

[Particle_Man]

Since you are willing to trade power you could play a beguiller or warmage. You never lose access to your spell list.

[Psyren]

Not technically a wizard, but an epic StP Erudite gets their whole list. There are a number of ways to bypass the UPPD restriction, most notably Soul Crystal from MoI, which has the added benefit of turning everyone else in your party into wizards too.

If epic is out of the equation, you can still get up to 8th level spells.

[Uncle Pine]

Lucid Dreaming (Manual of the Planes) could arguably be used to prepare spells without a spellbook by creating arcane architectures of the spells you need within your dream and then studying them.
Price: a handful of skill points and/or skill boosters to reliably hit the DC 15 to change one aspect of your personal dream.

[ezekielraiden]

Combining Aureon's spellshard with Geometer 2 sounds like it would be useful. Geometer 2 makes it so your spells never take more than a single page to scribe, and a single mage knowing even 500 spells strikes me as....unlikely (that would be 50 per spell level, counting cantrips, and I'm pretty sure at least a couple spell levels don't even have 50 Sor/Wiz spells to scribe.) If you could persuade your DM to let you like...implant the spellshard inside your body but still benefit from its effects, that would pretty much solve the problems of losing or damaging your spellbook.

You could also have multiple spellshards all with the same contents. Keep one in a secret chest that you refresh every 59 days, or whenever you need to update it with your new spells (though this will typically mean investing a few days to copy spells to each shard.) The secret chest is essentially unfindable without the miniature replica used to cast the spell, as even a wish cannot locate it and the effort of starting a planar expedition just to find one measly chest is far too great for the vast majority of opponents. That way, all you have to do is keep the miniature chest, which could be concealed in a hidden pocket or the like (it is miniature, after all), or perhaps incorporated into an earring or an ankle-bracelet that can't be removed. That way, even if you are stripped bare, you still have the miniature chest, and thus can summon it to you and retrieve your backup spellshard. (And maybe a change of clothes, if you're worried about being stripped naked...)

But frankly, at this point, you're looking more at being severely weakened by your loss of magic items than by the loss of your spellbook.

Edit: The Archmage PrC can turn slots into twice-daily SLAs (more if spending slots of higher level), so that might be useful too, as it's foolproof.

I can't really think of any way you can outdo Eidetic spellacaster though. It's exactly what you want, and I know of no other feature that perfectly replicates its generality, accessiblity, and totally foolproof nature.

Edit 2:

Lucid Dreaming (Manual of the Planes) could arguably be used to prepare spells without a spellbook by creating arcane architectures of the spells you need within your dream and then studying them.
Price: a handful of skill points and/or skill boosters to reliably hit the DC 15 to change one aspect of your personal dream.

Well, if Dragon mag content is already suspicious, I suspect 3.0 content will be even worse.

[ColorBlindNinja]

most notably Soul Crystal from MoI, which has the added benefit of turning everyone else in your party into wizards too.

Soul Crystal is so awesome, I'm surprised more people don't talk about it.

Probably because it's from an obscure splatbook.

If epic is out of the equation, you can still get up to 8th level spells.

Well, you can get them before then if you're willing to be cheesy.

[Malphegor]

you may have already covered these in this thread, but here’s what I have from memory-

Geometer 2- book of geometry. You can now scribe your spells as patterns and drawings, meaning they each take up one page no matter the spell. I recall a thread once that worked out the surface area of a human given an A4 page as the spellbook page size, and I think it was around 50 pages worth. Tattoo half your spells on your body.

Alacritous Cogitation- prepare one spell (no longer than a full round action) without a spellbook, spontaneously, cast as a full round action


Uncanny Forethought- basically your INT modifier numbers worth of Alacritous Cogitation. I only mention AC as it doesn’t need a feat prerequisite.

Dweomerkeeper 3 or 4 you have a mantle of spells that you can convert any spell into, so long as they are equal or lower to it, spell slot wise. A wizard can prepare read magic without a spellbook anyway, and you can prepare lower level spells in higher level slots. Prepare all your spells with the read magic spell from now on (without a spellbook) and just use your mantle spells from then on.


Looking up soul crystal now, my DM is keen on MoI and keeps trying to get us to use it but I found it confusing on my first ever session playing D&D, lol.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Uncanny Forethought- basically your INT modifier numbers worth of Alacritous Cogitation. I only mention AC as it doesn’t need a feat prerequisite.

I mentioned Uncanny Forethought already, but it bears worth repeating, it's awesome.

Looking up soul crystal now, my DM is keen on MoI and keeps trying to get us to use it but I found it confusing on my first ever session playing D&D, lol.

It's a shame too, because it's such an interesting subsystem, but so poorly laid out.

[Psyren]

Looking up soul crystal now, my DM is keen on MoI and keeps trying to get us to use it but I found it confusing on my first ever session playing D&D, lol.

Well to be clear, Soul Crystal is in MoI but it actually has nothing to do with Incarnum mechanically. The connection is more in the fluff of the ability and the "proto-souls" Incarnum uses. So even a group that wants nothing to do with Incarnum as a system should be able to use that power.

[RoboEmperor]

Use dark chaos shuffle to get tons of spell mastery thanks to your infinite source of alertness that is your familiar.

This is unplayable. But hey, it's still a trick, so I'll add to the list.

Since you are willing to trade power you could play a beguiller or warmage. You never lose access to your spell list.

Doesn't have the spells I want to use. I'd rather go sorcerer, but since wizards get spells 1 level earlier than sorcerers, I'm just brainstorming if I can get rid of the things that bother me on the wizard.

Not technically a wizard, but an epic StP Erudite gets their whole list. There are a number of ways to bypass the UPPD restriction, most notably Soul Crystal from MoI, which has the added benefit of turning everyone else in your party into wizards too.

If epic is out of the equation, you can still get up to 8th level spells.

If only StP wasn't webcontent I'd jump on it in a heartbeat. In any case yeah it's not a wizard so doesn't qualify. However it does remind me of the brokenly OP spell point system, so I'll add that to the list.

Lucid Dreaming (Manual of the Planes) could arguably be used to prepare spells without a spellbook by creating arcane architectures of the spells you need within your dream and then studying them.
Price: a handful of skill points and/or skill boosters to reliably hit the DC 15 to change one aspect of your personal dream.

You need "special materials" and "reagents' and the like to scribe spells into spellbooks and alternate spellbooks so arguably the spellbook is some kind of mandatory magical tool that uses its special property to imprint spells into your mind. So arguably just a picture of the spell doesn't work.

Combining Aureon's spellshard with Geometer 2 sounds like it would be useful. Geometer 2 makes it so your spells never take more than a single page to scribe, and a single mage knowing even 500 spells strikes me as....unlikely (that would be 50 per spell level, counting cantrips, and I'm pretty sure at least a couple spell levels don't even have 50 Sor/Wiz spells to scribe.) If you could persuade your DM to let you like...implant the spellshard inside your body but still benefit from its effects, that would pretty much solve the problems of losing or damaging your spellbook.

Indeed. But in another thread, I think Jack_Simth (or however you spell his name), proved that even if you embed an item into yourself and then turn yourself into a ghost for that ghostly equipment thing, it can still be taken from you so...

You could also have multiple spellshards all with the same contents. Keep one in a secret chest that you refresh every 59 days, or whenever you need to update it with your new spells (though this will typically mean investing a few days to copy spells to each shard.) The secret chest is essentially unfindable without the miniature replica used to cast the spell, as even a wish cannot locate it and the effort of starting a planar expedition just to find one measly chest is far too great for the vast majority of opponents. That way, all you have to do is keep the miniature chest, which could be concealed in a hidden pocket or the like (it is miniature, after all), or perhaps incorporated into an earring or an ankle-bracelet that can't be removed. That way, even if you are stripped bare, you still have the miniature chest, and thus can summon it to you and retrieve your backup spellshard. (And maybe a change of clothes, if you're worried about being stripped naked...)

Secret Chest can fail because not only can an ethereal being randomly loot your chest, but disuse results in its destruction and the focus component renders the entire spell IMO pointless.

But frankly, at this point, you're looking more at being severely weakened by your loss of magic items than by the loss of your spellbook.

Wizards don't need magic items. I often play my spellcasters 100% naked and give my entire WBL to my party because I don't need magic items XD

Edit: The Archmage PrC can turn slots into twice-daily SLAs (more if spending slots of higher level), so that might be useful too, as it's foolproof.

I will add to the list.

Well, if Dragon mag content is already suspicious, I suspect 3.0 content will be even worse.

It's actually the opposite. By RAW all 3.0 material is 3.5. But Dragon Magazine is 2nd party, highly inaccessible, and not play tested which is why a lot of DMs don't allow it. I have yet to meet a DM that did allow it.

Alacritous Cogitation- prepare one spell (no longer than a full round action) without a spellbook, spontaneously, cast as a full round action

Interesting. I'll add to the list.

Dweomerkeeper 3 or 4 you have a mantle of spells that you can convert any spell into, so long as they are equal or lower to it, spell slot wise. A wizard can prepare read magic without a spellbook anyway, and you can prepare lower level spells in higher level slots. Prepare all your spells with the read magic spell from now on (without a spellbook) and just use your mantle spells from then on.

I'll add to the list.

I mentioned Uncanny Forethought already, but it bears worth repeating, it's awesome.

It's a good thing that you did. I forgot that any spell you scribe into a spellbook once is a spell that you know. So yeah, if you have Uncanny Forethought you can cast Int Mod amount of spellls if your spellbook gets destroyed which is enough for a minionmancy spell. Thanks, I think we have a winner here!

[ColorBlindNinja]

I have yet to meet a DM that did allow it.

*Raises hand*

I allow Dragon Magazine content in my games.

[Crichton]

*Raises hand*

I allow Dragon Magazine content in my games.

Me too! With oversight, of course.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Me too! With oversight, of course.

That makes two of us!

I actually haven't found that much truly broken content in Dragon Magazine, IMO.