My characters just defeated an NPC archmage and it was ruled they got his spell book. What would be a good way to calculate the gp value of such a book, assuming it contains all the spells listed for an NPC archmage?
Somewhere between 810 GP and 173,400 GP. It depends on how the magic economy & culture work in the world. It takes an archmage 76 hours and 810 GP (760 GP ink and 50 GP for the book) to make a copy of their book on the low end (cost of production with free labor). Why do mages want spellbooks? To learn new spells. The other option to get new spells is from spell scrolls. A pile of spell scrolls matching those in the book would be worth 173,400 GP as priced consumable magic items in Xanathar's (cost of substitute goods). The book has the disadvantage that you can't use it to cast the spells but the advantage of not having a chance of failure to learn the spell and being able to sell it afterwards to recoup your investment.
Is there a collegiate sharing environment where spell books are easy to borrow and making a copy is no big deal or is magic knowledge hoarded and wizards keep secret libraries of all the spell books they can get their hand on away from each other?
Maybe the best RAI interpretation, in the Dungeon of the Mad Mage there is an NPC buying spellbooks with this formula "She prices a spellbook based on the highest-level spell contained in it: 5 pp for 1st level, 25 pp for 2nd or 3rd level, 100 pp for 4th or 5th level, 250 pp for 6th or 7th level, and 500 pp for 8th or 9th level."
I don't like that version because a full spellbook is obviously worth more than the single high level spell in it. I've used the formula above for each spell in the book which would make the archmage spell book worth 22,700 GP if you could find a buyer. That's about the "value" of a consumable very rare spell scroll (6th, 7th, or 8th level).
Not every spell in the book is going to be useful to a buyer, though. I mean, there's not many mages who don't already know magic missile or whatever, so they're not going to be willing to pay the cost of that. I would worry less about a means of calculating the value than with keeping its value in line with what treasure a CR 12 monster should drop.
I'd make a new NPC, like his apprentice, come to reclaim the book, and destroy the book, but on his person, he has a bunch of platinum, and some other items with intrinsic value, and transfer the wealth in that roundabout money laundering-esque way of things to something thats easier to put a price on. Will the PCs, really waste time trying to do conversions to see if it equals out?
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My characters just defeated an NPC archmage and it was ruled they got his spell book. What would be a good way to calculate the gp value of such a book, assuming it contains all the spells listed for an NPC archmage?
I'd calculate the cost of copying each spell. Then sum all these costs.
I'd calculate the cost of buying spell scrolls for all of the spells and cut that cost in half.
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I'd just say 5,000 gp and call it a day.
Somewhere between 810 GP and 173,400 GP. It depends on how the magic economy & culture work in the world. It takes an archmage 76 hours and 810 GP (760 GP ink and 50 GP for the book) to make a copy of their book on the low end (cost of production with free labor). Why do mages want spellbooks? To learn new spells. The other option to get new spells is from spell scrolls. A pile of spell scrolls matching those in the book would be worth 173,400 GP as priced consumable magic items in Xanathar's (cost of substitute goods). The book has the disadvantage that you can't use it to cast the spells but the advantage of not having a chance of failure to learn the spell and being able to sell it afterwards to recoup your investment.
Is there a collegiate sharing environment where spell books are easy to borrow and making a copy is no big deal or is magic knowledge hoarded and wizards keep secret libraries of all the spell books they can get their hand on away from each other?
Maybe the best RAI interpretation, in the Dungeon of the Mad Mage there is an NPC buying spellbooks with this formula "She prices a spellbook based on the highest-level spell contained in it: 5 pp for 1st level, 25 pp for 2nd or 3rd level, 100 pp for 4th or 5th level, 250 pp for 6th or 7th level, and 500 pp for 8th or 9th level."
I don't like that version because a full spellbook is obviously worth more than the single high level spell in it. I've used the formula above for each spell in the book which would make the archmage spell book worth 22,700 GP if you could find a buyer. That's about the "value" of a consumable very rare spell scroll (6th, 7th, or 8th level).
Not every spell in the book is going to be useful to a buyer, though. I mean, there's not many mages who don't already know magic missile or whatever, so they're not going to be willing to pay the cost of that. I would worry less about a means of calculating the value than with keeping its value in line with what treasure a CR 12 monster should drop.
I'd make a new NPC, like his apprentice, come to reclaim the book, and destroy the book, but on his person, he has a bunch of platinum, and some other items with intrinsic value, and transfer the wealth in that roundabout money laundering-esque way of things to something thats easier to put a price on. Will the PCs, really waste time trying to do conversions to see if it equals out?
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