Standard - cover is usually heavy leather - dragon hide for example, inlaid with metal to provide durability and a means to close and secure the book. Vellum pages are sewn together and secured to a fin, supple leather spine backing. Pages are secured additionally by fine leather front and back pieces. It is usual for such a tome to have vellum stubs at intervals for insertion of additional pages.
Cost: 1,000 gp for book (devoid of pages), 50 gp/page (covers paper, inks, quills and preserving spices and chemicals)
Size: 16" x 12" x 6" Weight: 15 lbs. Encumbrance: 45 (almost fills the main pocket of a standard backpack) Max. Pages: 100
Saves as Leather, gets a +2 vs. Acid, Disintegration, Fire, Magical Fire and Lightning.
Traveling - the cover is made from a supple leather, such as snakeskin. The hand sewn leaves of parchment are carefully secured to a fine leather backing and glued to a spine. The whole is further secured by front and back pieces of vellum. A small latch or leather ties are typically used to secure the book closed. The pages are very thin and fragile, so great care must be taken to protect the book when it is in use.
Cost: 500 gp for book (devoid of pages), 100 gp/page (covers paper, inks, quills and preserving spices and chemicals)
Size: 12" x 6" x 1" Weight: 3 lbs. Encumbrance: 6 (7 books fill the main pocket of a standard backpack) Max. Pages: 50
Saves as Leather, no adjustments
Regardless of which type of spellbook, it takes Xd2 days to inscribe a spell, where X=spell level. This assumes 8 hours/day with no other major activity each day of inscribing. The mage may only take one day off while in the middle of inscribing a spell without ruining the work done. Prior to inscribing, it also takes Xd2 days to try to learn the spell.
In times of dire need, a spell may be cast directly out of a spellbook. The wizard does not need to have any spell slots available, but does still need to know the spell and have all of the material components. The pages the spell is inscribed upon are automatically ruined. There is a 1% chance/spell level of the spell cast that the spells before and after the spell cast are also destroyed. Also, there is a 1% flat chance that the entire book is ruined.
If you try to learn a spell directly out of some one else´s spellbook, and fail the learn spells attempt, there is a 100% chance of destroying those pages, -5%/level of the mage. (Never less than 10%)