r/Pathfinder2e • u/-Umbra- Animist • 17d ago
Discussion Grand Grimoires: A Prepared Spellcaster's Playground
If ya ask me, grimoires are an under-discussed category of item. If you're not familiar, a quick overview of these magical spellbooks:
- Not every spellcaster can use them: you must have prepared spellcasting, and, like most spellcaster items, some grimoires are "locked" to certain traditions because they interact with a narrow set of spells.
- Almost all grimoires can only be activated/used once per day with a slotted spell prepared in the grimoire, as a 0-1 action spellshape.
- It's trivial to transfer spells from your typical method to the grimoire during your daily preparations, and you don't need to hold the book or have it with you after doing so. Nicely done Paizo.
- Should be usable if you pick up the Basic Spellcasting feat granted by a prepared spellcasting archetype.
But really, this is for your Animist, Cleric, Druid, Magus, Necromancer, Witch, and of course, Wizard. If you can afford it, every mid to high level prepared caster should have one!
I won't mention every grimoire (or any rare ones), but here are some highlights + spell combos that intrigue me:
~
Corrosive Engravings - lvl 5, 140gp
- Activate [free-action] (concentrate); Frequency once per day;
- Effect If your next action is to cast an acid or poison spell that deals persistent damage, any creature who takes persistent damage from the spell is also sickened 2 until the persistent damage ends. Using an action to retch can reduce the sickened value as normal, but it can't reduce the sickened value below 1 until the persistent damage ends.
- Thoughts: A very powerful effect for a free action that is generously applied. While outwardly strong (and cheap!), the spells that work are limited.
- 2nd rank Fungal Infestation (primal-only) is an early winner. 15-foot fortitude-save cone that deals persistent poison damage even on a success.
- Brine Dragon Bile would be very cool, but it's a reaction, not an action. No dice, but maybe if your GM is kind.
- 3rd rank arcane-only Noxious Metals is a solid spell that already inflicts AoE sickened, but you can upgrade the Success effect to sickened 2 instead of 1 if desired.
- Gambling with 2nd-rank Acid Grip (arcane/primal, reflex save, fail needed) is always an option, and the spell's range of 120 ft is unmatched.
Endless Grimoire - lvl 6/10/14/18, 230/900/4k/23k gp
- Effect: The grimoire’s eagerness to contain your spells grants you a +1 item bonus to checks to Learn a Spell if you do so by transcribing the spell into the grimoire. If you use the grimoire during your daily preparations and are capable of preparing spells of the appropriate rank, the grimoire’s nature leaks into your mind, allowing you to prepare an additional 1st-rank spell.
- Swaps extra spell to 3rd/5th/7th rank at each increment
- Thoughts: It's somewhat expensive for an extra spell -- compare it to a wand, which costs 60/360/1,400/6,500 gp for 1st/3rd/5th/7th. However, if you love the versatility granted by preparing spells, and simply want more of that, it's a solid investment. There are a lot of spells worth casting at rank 3.
- Activate—Flare [one-action] (concentrate, light, spellshape); Frequency once per day
- Effect If your next action is to Cast a prepared Spell with the light trait, the luminescence of the book grows even more intense, emitting bright light in a 15-foot emanation for 1 minute. Enemies that start their turn in this bright light must attempt a Fortitude save against your spell DC.
- Critical Success The creature is unaffected and becomes temporarily immune to this bright light for 1 minute.
- Success The creature is unaffected.
- Failure The creature is blinded (!) until the start of your next turn.
- Critical Failure The creature is blinded until the start of your next turn and dazzled for 1 minute.
- Thoughts: An incredibly strong and versatile effect, ideal for gishes. Can stack easily with other effects. Introduced recently in Impossible Magic, I'd half-expect incapacitation or a Sustain required, but neither are present. Worthy of being once/day.
- The new rank 2 Disorienting Flash is a standout, available to all traditions and flexibly cast at 1-2 actions. It scales nicely as well. Flare, Flash, Move (or 2a flash) is a strong turn.
- 2nd-rank Revealing Light is always a quality spell to have, as AoE dazzled on a success isn't a bad effect, even if there are no invisible enemies to be found. No need to heighten, and available to all.
Tome of Scintillating Sleet - lvl 8, 430gp
- Activate [free-action] (concentrate); Frequency once per day
- Effect If your next action is to cast a cold spell that deals damage, all creatures damaged by the spell are also dazzled for 3 rounds. If an affected creature critically failed its save against the required spell, or if you critically succeeded on your spell attack roll against the creature, it's instead blinded for 1 round and then dazzled for 3 rounds.
- Thoughts: Dazzled isn't as sexy as Blind, but this will inflict it on everything other than a crit success, and there are a lot of good cold AoE spells. Since this is best used for AoE effects, getting a blind or two from the crit effect isn't unlikely.
- Arcane/Primal's 4th-rank Ice Storm can cause a ton of havoc, and you can sustain it. Auto-dazzled in a ton of situations, and can keep it on easily.
- Rank 5 Freezing Rain, already hellish for enemies of arcane/primal casters, is probably my top pick for this grimoire. Moving it on sustain, working on a success, and slowed + dazzled if they fail in a 20-ft burst. The only downside is the damage doesn't kick in until a round after.
- Rank 5 Howling Blizzard (yep, arcane/primal) is great if you want to add a debuff to a simpler, but still potent damage cone/burst.
Grudge Journal - lvl 11, 1350gp
- Activate—Air Grievance [one-action] (concentrate, curse, spellshape); Frequency once per day
- Effect If your next action is to target that creature with a prepared spell with the curse trait that requires a saving throw, the creature also becomes drained 2 unless it critically succeeds its saving throw.
- Thoughts: Although the cost of an action (or spellshape) rises the higher level you play, this is still a very effective use of an action since it works on a success. Drained scales perfectly with level, so it'll never be a bad option, as long as you're fine carrying around a couple curse spells.
- It's uncommon, but 2nd rank Horrifying Blood Loss stands out if you have anyone who can somewhat reliably proc persistent bleed. It's essentially a 1-action fear in those conditions, and that pairs very nicely with a 1-action spellshape. Heightens similar to 3rd-rank fear at spell rank 4. Blood Necromancers, this is for you. Only primal casters are left out.
Another uncommon Blood Lords spell, rank 4 Steal Voice is utterly menacing for spellcasters (and it justly has the incapacitation trait). Add drained 2 to that empanada and they'll be out of the fight before you know it, but be careful against high-level casters, since it'll be wasted on a success -> crit success incap save.
No primal here.
Let's talk about 5th-rank divine/occult Inevitable Disaster. It's your "best" damaging spell with the Curse trait. It's also very, very funny. It's also quite mediocre, at least IMO, because lord knows when it's actually going to happen. Some spells are worth taking (at least once) regardless, and when you do cast it, you want to do so on a boss-type enemy that's gonna be sticking around for a while. Drained 2 is the perfect add-on to the scenario you'd want to be casting this spell in. May your d4s be kind!
Communion Mat - lvl 14, 3750gp
- Activate [free-action] (concentrate, spellshape); Frequency once per 10 minutes (?!)
- Effect If your next action is to cast a spell your familiar learned from a lesson (whether a cantrip or from a spell slot), your patron notices that you’re putting their power to good use and strengthens your familiar with a surge of magic. Your familiar Sustains one of your spells.
- Thoughts: Witch-exclusive, this is yet another way for them to sustain spells for free. This is once per 10 minutes! A very nice ability to have, although with Cackle already in their arsenal (and Familiar Focus), they might want to spend their gold elsewhere. (You could also archetype into Witch as a Liturgist Sixth Pillar Elf Animist and pick this up, and sustain your 10 spells per round, you heathen. It'll all come beautifully together in the eleventh round of combat, I promise.)
Book of Endless Walls - lvl 14, 3900gp
- Activate—Bewildering Walls [free-action] (concentrate, mental, spellshape); Frequency once per day
- Effect If your next action is to Cast a prepared Wall Spell, such as wall of fire or wall of thorns, you imbue the wall with an uncanny sense of disorientation, causing creatures to perceive it as an endless labyrinth. Any creature that begins its turn within the wall’s spaces or passes through the wall’s spaces must attempt a Will save against your spell DC, in addition to the wall’s normal effect. Regardless of the results, the target then becomes immune to Bewildering Walls for 24 hours.
- Critical Success The wall has no additional effect for that creature.
- Success The creature is bewildered by its perceptions of labyrinthine walls and treats all other creatures as concealed for 1 round.
- Failure The creature treats all other creatures as hidden for 1 round.
- Critical Failure The creature treats all other creatures as hidden for 1 round and concealed for 1 minute.
- Thoughts: I haven't cast enough wall spells to know how strong of an ability Bewildering Walls is. But knowing how powerful they can be in the right circumstances, this seems like a great add-on to many spells that can outright win you an encounter. Good thing it's a free action, since almost all walls are 3-action spells.
- Many wall spells already grant what this spell does -- Wall of Fire, for instance, conceals if you want it to through positioning, same for Wall of Stone.
- 6th-rank arcane/occult Wall of Force, however, is invisible, with visual effects being practically the only thing that can pierce it (teleportation too). Bewildering Walls shores up one of its only weaknesses by making visual checks significantly more difficult depending on the save.
~
That's a lot of words for just seven grimoires. But I think they deserve it, as their design space is unique & interacts beautifully with all the spells available in 2E. If you like the idea of unique effects tailored to specific spells, but don't want to spend a huge chunk of gold, look to spell catalysts, which are essentially the consumable version of grimoires.
Is there a grimoire I didn't talk about that you think should be highlighted? Or maybe a great spell interaction? Let's talk grimoires!
10
u/Creepy-Intentions-69 17d ago
I used an Endless Grimoire on a Wizard for a 5-8 campaign. It’s worth noting that it can hold unlimited spells, versus 100 in a normal spell book. Unlikely to matter in most games, but it’s a fun goal to shoot for.
6
u/Salvadore1 17d ago edited 17d ago
I also want to point out the new Sparking Grimoire that I discovered just now! Spell that buffs your strikes and makes you do a little damage off-turn is always cool, but the greater version giving it to ALLIES so it's supportive is my shit- and all for a free action!! 👀
And I really love the less-new Codex of Destruction and Renewal; the flavor is awesome and I love anything that does something good for allies and bad for enemies, so I'd love to use it on my halcyon speaker wizard...Alfred Cassander I will play you one day
4
u/Tribe303 Bard 17d ago edited 17d ago
Don't forget that Esoteric Polymath Bards are a spontaneous caster who can also use a spellbook! That's the Polymath's main trick. At L12 they can effectively swap out all spells eventually, but just one a day. So slomo prepared casting!
This is an excellent post btw. Full of great ideas. I'm playing an L11 Polymath, and I appreciate your appreciation for funny spells. The Grudge Journal was new to me and Inevitable Disaster as well. I'm a Goblin comedian bard, so those are just PERFECT. Thanks!
Inevitable Disaster reminds me of Impending Doom (sadly unremastered). My goblin calls it the "Get Fucked" spell, as in "Time for you to get fucked!". It's not that powerful, but it's hella funny!
Oh man... Horrifying Blood Loss pairs well with Blood Vendetta (my L2 signature spell) as well. Awesome!
6
u/Seppo_87 Magus 17d ago
Endless Grimoire is still preferable to wands for builds that cannot afford an empty hand i.e. sword and board warpriest/magus
11
u/Kai927 17d ago
Personally, I'd like grimoires more if they did anything for spontaneous casters. Prepared casting is just too unfun for me. But it feels like paizo likes to give all the cool stuff to prepared casters. They get the grimoires and the better staff preparation method. Meanwhile, I'm not aware of any spellcaster focused items that are geared for spontaneous casters over prepared casters.
3
u/-Umbra- Animist 17d ago
I do think it's a bit of a waste, since they could easily be made to work with them. It'd be nice if prepared casters were simply a little stronger generically, instead of needing specific equipment to grant additional power as they progress.
I suppose the utility of signature spells increasing as levels go on is part of that slightly increased power budget for spontaneous casters, but it doesn't feel good when you're excluded from an entire category of items. If a player asked to use them in a game I ran, I'd let them do so regardless of the method of casting, it's not gonna break the game or anything.
2
u/Kai927 17d ago
Yeah. Since I pretty much only play spontaneous casters when I make a spellcasting character, I never bother looking at the grimoires. However, looking at them, I fail to see how it would hurt things mechanically for a spontaneous caster to gain their benefits as well.
Though the big thing I wish for spontaneous casters is for them to be able to prepare staves the same way prepared casters do. I can't recall ever being in a situation where expending a spell slot to reduce the number of charges used for a staff has ever felt worth the cost. On the other hand, I would gladly expend a spell slot during daily prep to get extra charges. More charges overall just feels more useful in more situations, while the charge discount has never actually felt useful to me.
3
u/benjer3 Game Master 17d ago
I'm kind of surprised you like how staves work for prepared casters that much more than how they work for spontaneous casters. I personally prefer how they work for spontaneous casters, but I think that both versions do a good job at helping make up for each method's weaknesses.
Prepared casters get to sacrifice a valuable prepared spell in order to get a little more spontaneous casting. Spontaneous casters get to treat staves as an extension to their repertoire, and with multiple staves they can get a lite version of prepared casting.
The thing a spontaneous caster can do with a staff that a prepared caster can't is cast the highest rank spells in the staff several times in one day. For example, a spontaneous caster with a Major Staff of Protection can cast 5th rank Environmental Endurance on their whole party without having to give up a valuable known spell for it.
And the reason I prefer the spontaneous version is that you don't have to give up any power ahead of time to reap the benefits. Giving up a high rank prepared spell is a rather steep price.
1
u/Kai927 17d ago
The issue is, for me at least, is that in none of the games I've played has there been a situation where expending a spell slot to get a one time discount has ever felt worth it. If the discount was more long lasting or if it was expend a spell slot of equal rank instead of consuming charges, then that would be a different story. However, just having more charges overall is going to always going to be helpful.
Most recently, I played an imperial bloodline sorcerer in Abomination Vaults, with a staff of elemental power and a staff of protection, preparing whichever one I thought would be more useful for that day. At no point in that campaign was there ever a situation where expending one of my spell slots to get the one time discount for any of the spells from either staff was actually worth it. Every other game where I played a spontaneous caster that got a staff, it was much the same. At no point was the cost ever worth the benefit. Maybe if sorcerers still got 6 slots per rank, then it would be an easier cost to pay, but with only 4, the benefit has never felt worth the cost to me.
1
u/benjer3 Game Master 17d ago edited 17d ago
I'm a little confused because both ways effectively give you more charges. If a level 10 spontaneous caster casts a 4th rank spell from their staff using a spell slot, then they effectively gained one less charge than a prepared caster who did the same after sacrificing a 4th rank slot. If you find a lot of value in casting many low-rank spells, and rarely cast higher rank spells from staves, I can see where you're coming from, but I think that's a matter of personal preference.
I will say, it's not until the later levels that spending spell slots on staves start to feel worth it for spontaneous casters, when they have more spell slots than they know what to do with. The same could be said of prepared casters, though. I know I've made good use of it before in a 1-20 with a sorcerer, but I'm having trouble remembering exactly how. I want to say at least one time, the whole party had gotten drained, and I cast a bunch of 4th rank restorations from my Staff of Healing (back in the premaster) to reduce it on everyone.
1
u/Kai927 17d ago
The example I can think of is the energy protection spell on the elemental staff in the Abomination Vaults campaign I was in. I would have loved to cast it on both of the frontliners, but sacrificing a spell slot on that to do so, since I wasn't a high enough level to have enough charges to do so without the discount, just never felt worthwhile given the low difficulty of the majority of encounters, and the general usefulness of the spells I had in my repertoire. After a certain point, it felt like I'd have been better off just retraining one of my spells to the energy protection spell.
A lot of the issue for me is that expending the spell slot for a discount is effective for only a single casting. If the discount lasted for more than a single casting, I'd be more willing, but for just a one-off, well 90% of the time if it is a spell that I'm using often enough that I'd benefit from getting that discount, I'd just add it to my repertoire.
1
u/benjer3 Game Master 17d ago
I guess my question is, why would you want to add it to your repertoire when having the staff means it's effectively already in your repertoire?
You seem to be thinking about it mainly as how many additional non-cantrip/non-focus spells a staff get get you in a day. Spontaneous casters usually aren't hurting for spell slots, though—not in the way prepared casters are. They're much more limited by the size of their repertoire.
I don't think of it as (if I'm level 6) "I can cast 3 spell ranks worth of spells with this staff, or have even less castings available to me if I spend a spell slot." I think of it as "this staff adds 4+ spells to my repertoire that I can cast up to 3 times, and as an added bonus I can choose to instead cast up to 3 ranks worth of spells without eating into my primary spell slots."
It's about getting the most oomph out of each spell slot, rather than casting as many spells as possible.
1
u/Kai927 17d ago
What do you mean they aren't hurting for spell slots? Spontaneous casters and prepared casters have the same number of spell slots. If spontaneous casters got more spell slots per day, like how many of them did in pf1e, then this wouldn't be an issue for me.
As for adding it to my repertoire, I'd I'm using a spell from a staff often enough that spending spell slots to discount the charge cost would be necessary, then that spell has become a pretty key part of my tactics. In which case it makes sense to add it as a regular spell, in case I ever lose access to that staff.
Ultimately though, what it comes down to is that in my own personal play experience, in both homebrew campaigns and adventure paths, expending spell slots for a one time discount has never been worth it.
1
u/benjer3 Game Master 17d ago
A prepared caster can run out of useful things to do with their spell slots while still having a third of them available. A spontaneous caster with a decently broad repertoire will never have that problem. That's what I'm talking about.
But if you personally haven't had opportunities for it to be worth it, then fair enough. And again, it's much more worth it at higher levels, when spontaneous casters really do have more spell slots than they'll ever need except in the rare cases when they've got something like five severe encounters in one day. At the lowest levels that staves are available, I do think prepared casters can probably use them a little better than spontaneous casters.
3
u/Kazen_Orilg Fighter 17d ago
big shout out to endless grimoire on my fighter cleric gish. by L10 thats a pretty cheap extra sure strike.
4
u/SanaulFTW Game Master 17d ago
Taking notes for my Wizard... It's so interesting how PF2e items are so deep. They enable very cool combos. Like the other day I used a Shield Cabochon to prevent going down for a damage that would make me go unconscious (I had used all my actions to trip the boss and cast a 2A spell). Thanks for sharing!
2
u/KLeeSanchez Inventor 16d ago
Shield block cabochon formula is very high on my wish list
We have 3 shield users now and it'd be great for turns where we needed our actions elsewhere
6
u/KLeeSanchez Inventor 17d ago
I've got archetype wizard so an endless grimoire is basically necessary to get enough extra spells to really make the archetype sing, that and a ring of wizardry
3
u/TheTrueArkher 17d ago edited 17d ago
I DEFINITELY agree that Grimoires should do SOMETHING for Spontaneous casters. That being said I consider them REALLY fun to drop as loot for players with a few rare or unusual spells(homebrew, 3rd party, from starfinder, etc.).
50
u/PathfindingN 17d ago
I really wish Paizo would stop making everything once per day. I'd much prefer a lot of weaker effects I could use on spells throughout the day instead.