Are there any spellbooks or rules larger than 100 pages (not counting blessed book)?

Question

I am building a arcanist character. As a prepared caster I require a spellbook. After searching there are only 4 spellbooks listed, and I am likely buying (no crafting).

1. Spellbook - 100 pages for 15 gold
2. Compact Spellbook - 70 pages 50 gold
3. Travel Spellbook - 50 pages 10 gold
4. Blessed Book - 1000 pages 12,500 gold

As a low level character with no crafting there is no way I can afford a blessed book. 100 pages is the most pages any of the others list and that will fill up fairly quickly. Im looking to have a single book which can be used with the spell Secluded Grimoire, which only works on a single spellbook and you cant have others under the spell. To use the spell to protect my spellbook means I will need one that is larger than the standard size.

Are there sources for a larger (more pages) spellbook then what I have found? Are there rules I dont know about which show the construction of a larger spellbook?

Answer 1

You might be out of luck…

Other than the aforementioned blessed book, I could find but one spellbook with more than 100 pages: the Mastery of Word and Thought, a specific spellbook that's "the size of four normal spellbooks" that holds over 300 pages of spells and was the possession of a level 20 enchanter. No explanation of how this spellbook came to be so immense is provided.

…But you really should ask the GM

I think Ultimate Magic could be alluding to the possibility of monumental spellbooks like the Mastery by prefacing the section in which it's introduced with this:

Descriptions, protections, preparation rituals, and spell content can be mixed and matched as desired from different [spell]books [presented in this section, including the Mastery]. Higher-level books can easily serve for lower-level casters—just drop the spell levels that aren't applicable and remove lower-level spells as desired. Similarly, if you desire longer books, combine two [of these spellbooks in this section] together or add spells or formulae of your choice to the desired levels. These books also work as spellbooks and formula books for new characters. Just copy the list, hand it to the player, and go.

(Emphasis mine.) However, despite the boldfaced statement, Mastery remains the lone spellbook presented that exceeds 100 pages. (Other spellbooks exceeding 100 pages described in that section are, instead, actually sets of spellbooks.) So no guidelines are provided for, like, repeatedly gluing the back cover of a spellbook to the front cover of another spellbook to make an increasingly bigger individual tome.

But, while the typical spellbook "has 100 pages of parchment," the specific spellbook Arctic Call has not parchment but vellum, and the specific spellbooks the Mysteries of Shadow and the Manual of Binding have, instead, paper. Further, the sample specific spellbooks are bound in materials ranging from wood and leather to sharkskin and human skin. So, apparently, there's nothing particularly special about the average spellbook sold in the local Tomb of Horrors Gift Shop and Resurrection Emporium—one hundred parchment pages is merely the spellbook standard.

Taken together, this leads this GM to believe that nothing should stop a wizard (if he lacks the time or skill to craft it himself) from commissioning a craftsman to make for him a custom spellbook from similar wacky materials—and, y'know, Mr. Bookbinder, while you're making it, could you add, maybe, like, a couple hundred extra pages? Alternatively, this DM would consider the possibility that a wizards' guild may've sensed the demand for jumbo spellbooks and make them available at absurdly steep prices, especially if that demand were voiced by ambitious, overeager adventuring wizards with too much money to spend.

In other words, there seems to be no mechanical reason to forever limit all typical spellbooks to exactly 100 pages, but ask the GM. All worlds are different.

Answer 2

You can use Secret Page upon each of your book's pages to effectively double the space for free. You might be able to get additional pages by recasting Secret Page on pages already subjected to it, but that will depend upon whether or not your DM lets the spell stack. There really isn't much else you can do, though, if your DM won't let you craft spellbooks of unusual sizes besides the two printed examples.

You should be aware that this makes your book exceedingly vulnerable to Greater Dispel Magic, however, (the regular one is no more dangerous than Erase) which can now erase approximately half of your spellbook with a single casting.

Answer 3

Remember size. Parchment, vellum and even paper were much thicker in the past. A 100 page book is probably 1.5 to 2 inches thick. That means that a 400 page book would be 6 to 8 inches thick. And it would be heavy.

Its size and weight may push it beyond the capacity of the spell Secluded Grimoire. The spell defines the target as one spell book and a spell book as having 100 pages.

As a GM, I'd let you have a bigger book made but it would be costly special order and that Secluded Grimoire would not work on it so you would have to find another way of carrying it around.

At second level, you don't have to worry that much about it. Just use a standard book until you can find/afford something better.

Though that spell gives me some ideas. Like a version of Secluded Grimoire for Witches. Imagine the language that critter would use after being trapped on the ethereal plane for a day or two....