Spellbooks are
heavy.
Now that I'm carrying around all four Core starter books whenever I go gaming so that I can teach new players, if I want variety in my own mage choices, I'm often carrying 8 - 10 spellbooks with me. After I complained, a friend of mine told me to just put my books in a binder, using UltraPro card pages. Good idea, but I still need to take them out of the binder for a game: I realized a standard college report cover with a slider clip solves that problem. Hmm...but...then I realized: if I'm taking pages out to create spellbooks anyway, and all of my (for example) melee-oriented mages that use a Battle Forge tend to want the same cards...wow!
Welcome to the next level of Mage Wars! : )
Ultra-Pro sells double-sided pages that can hold 18 cards (
http://www.ultrapro.com/product_info.php?products_id=1313). Put them in a standard ring binder--a 1" size can hold up to thirty pages, surprisingly--and take them out as needed. Now I can use the same page in multiple spellbooks--my books are now modularized! The commonly-used cards, like Teleport/Dispel/Dissolve, that I always kept running out of, I now have spares for.
To use a good example, let's take two of my spellbooks, the Beastmaster Battleforge, and the Forcemaster Grizzlies:
Beastmaster Battleforge
--- Conjuration ---
1 Wall of Thorns
3 Tanglevine
1 Battle Forge
1 Hand of Bim-Shalla
--- Creature ---
2 Thunderift Falcon
2 Feral Bobcat
2 Timber Wolf
1 Cervere, The Forest Shadow
2 Steelclaw Grizzly
1 Kralathor, The Devourer
--- Enchantment ---
3 Bear Strength
3 Regrowth
3 Rhino Hide
2 Mongoose Agility
1 Agony
1 Poisoned Blood
1 Falcon Precision
2 Retaliate
2 Vampirism
1 Cheetah Speed
1 Eagle Wings
1 Enchantment Transfusion
1 Bull Endurance
1 Nullify
1 Healing Charm
1 Block
1 Akiro's Favor
--- Equipment ---
1 Enchanter's Ring
1 Ring of Beasts
1 Eagleclaw Boots
1 Dragonscale Hauberk
1 Elemental Cloak
1 Gauntlets of Strength
1 Veterans Belt
1 Vorpal Blade
1 Wand of Healing
1 Mage Staff
1 Bearskin
--- Incantation ---
2 Teleport
2 Force Push
1 Battle Fury
2 Dispel
2 Dissolve
2 Rouse the Beast | | Forcemaster Grizzlies
--- Attack ---
2 Force Hammer
--- Conjuration ---
1 Hand of Bim-Shalla
1 Wall of Thorns
1 Battle Forge
1 Suppression Orb
--- Creature ---
2 Steelclaw Grizzly
--- Enchantment ---
2 Bear Strength
2 Rhino Hide
3 Regrowth
2 Vampirism
1 Mongoose Agility
1 Cheetah Speed
2 Force Hold
2 Retaliate
1 Nullify
1 Block
1 Healing Charm
1 Akiro's Favor
--- Equipment ---
1 Veterans Belt
1 Dragonscale Hauberk
1 Galvitar, Force Blade
1 Force Ring
1 Enchanter's Ring
1 Dancing Scimitar
1 Eagleclaw Boots
1 Gauntlets of Strength
1 Elemental Cloak
1 Wand of Healing
--- Incantation ---
2 Dispel
2 Dissolve
2 Teleport
3 Force Push
1 Battle Fury |
These two spellbooks share a number of common cards. And many of those cards are ones I want in other spellbooks, and are hard to get in any quantity. Almost any Battleforge deck with a melee mage is going to want certain equipment cards, and *every* spellbook is going to want 2 each Dispel/Dissolve/ForcePush/Teleport. Just about any book with two Grizzlies is going to want to invest in enchantments to support those Big Nasties. So! Both of those books now use the same two pages, the Battleforge Melee Page, and the Grizzlies Page:
Battleforge Melee Page
--- Conjuration ---
1 Battle Forge
1 Hand of Bim-Shalla
--- Equipment ---
1 Enchanter's Ring
1 Eagleclaw Boots
1 Gauntlets of Strength
1 Dragonscale Hauberk
1 Veterans Belt
1 Elemental Cloak
1 Wand of Healing
--- Incantation ---
2 Dispel
2 Dissolve
2 Force Push
2 Teleport
--- Enchantment ---
1 Akiro's Favor | | Grizzlies Page
--- Creature ---
2 Steelclaw Grizzly
--- Enchantment ---
2 Bear Strength
2 Regrowth
2 Vampirism
1 Mongoose Agility
1 Falcon Precision
2 Rhino Hide
2 Retaliate
1 Nullify
1 Block
1 Healing Charm
--- Incantation ---
1 Battle Fury |
If I want to play my Beastmaster Battleforge book, I take out the two pages listed above, and then add the other two pages that are specific to the BM BF book. If I play the Forcemaster Grizzlies, I add that book's page instead of the two BM BF pages. My Druid Solo book also uses the Battleforge Melee Page. If I ever get around to creating a Johktari BM book, it would probably use the Grizzlies Page. I now have two Necromancer spellbooks: two pages are shared by both spellbooks, and then each book uses two more pages of their own: one book with a Zombies theme, and one with Skeletons.
Looking at these two spellbooks alone, with the modularized pages I'm now using two less each of Dispel, Dissolve, Force Push, Teleport, Steelclaw Grizzly, Bear Strength, Regrowth, Vampirism, Rhino Hide, and Retaliate. Those are all examples of cards I'm constantly running out of. I only have one copy of the Promo card Akiro's Favor; now I can include it in more than one spellbook. No more need for proxies!
The binder is much lighter; with four spellbooks of pages, it weighs about 1/3 to 1/4 what four actual spellbooks weigh. It takes less space in my backpack. It's easier to examine my spellbook during a game to figure out what spells to choose each turn, since I only have four double-sided pages to look through. It's easier to put the cards back after a game in their original order, since I can quickly remember what spells go where when there's only three to four pages per spellbook.
There are only a few minor down-sides I've discovered so far: it's a bit harder to design and modify spellbooks using this method for example; I use a spreadsheet to list each page per book, that also totals the spellbook point costs per page for that mage (since the page's book costs will change). It can also be a bit awkward in smaller play areas to handle a report-sized spellbook. The actual spellbooks do look much cooler than a simple report cover; I still use the game's spellbooks when teaching new players, for example. ; ) To me, the many benefits of my modular spellbooks far outweigh the few minor issues though.
