Secondary reservoir? I never said anything about a secondary reservoir. I'm talking about a primary reservoir, which is generally assumed to be a part of a quill.
I wonder how much of this circular weirdness stems from people not knowing what a quill is or how it actually works? Pretty sure I did cover it already, but since it's kind of important to know what a quill is here, here goes again:
One of the reasons why feathers were used for quills is that the shaft of the feather (the actual "quill" part) is both bone-like (albeit very thin) and hollow, so it's already quite strong, and when treated and cut, you're able to dip the tip of the quill into an ink pot and this causes ink to be drawn up inside the hollow part of the feather, which acts as a reservoir. IIRC it's the surface tension of the ink that then holds it inside, and because you cut a slit into the sharpened writing tip, this breaks the surface tension and allows the ink to flow out again (producing ink from the tip and onto the page).
Granted, even a large feather doesn't hold a huge amount of ink (you'd still need to dip it again every five or six words, I think there's a limit to how far up the ink will go before weight overcomes surface tension) but that was still better than some of the more basic "dip pens" that came later, which were basically just wood with a metal nib, and were only a moderate improvement over scraping ink onto a page with a sharpened bit of wood (really the metal nib just made it a bit more consistent).
Manufacturing them with a hollow reservoir, or later a detachable one (basically an ink pot attached to the pen) was more complicated so didn't become common until later. It took quite a while to evolve into the fountain pen, and even those remained pretty rare; they didn't appear in many schools for example (except maybe for teachers), where it was more common for students to use cheap dip pens and ink pots, and then later pencils.
Part of the confusion may also stem from the fact that as metal nibs became common, people started making dip pens using feathers for the handle; but these weren't truly quills, and most wouldn't have used the hollow in the quill to store any useful amount of ink, because the nibs wouldn't have been made to fit properly, you'd just cut the end off and crimp the metal nib on and call it a day. It was more for the style, and proper quills would have become more of a luxury item made by specialists.
Pretty sure I already covered this, but I'm not convinced everyone fully understands what a quill is, which isn't much use in a discussion about a Wizardly Quill. But the only really important bit is that all (proper) quills produce ink, if they didn't you could just as easily use a wooden stick.
Quills do not produce ink. You have to dip them into ink to load their reservoir of ink. So you have to buy/steal/otherwise procure ink for quills.
The magic quill DOES NOT need to do this as whenever you write with it it automatically produces its own ink.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Secondary reservoir? I never said anything about a secondary reservoir. I'm talking about a primary reservoir, which is generally assumed to be a part of a quill.
I wonder how much of this circular weirdness stems from people not knowing what a quill is or how it actually works? Pretty sure I did cover it already, but since it's kind of important to know what a quill is here, here goes again:
One of the reasons why feathers were used for quills is that the shaft of the feather (the actual "quill" part) is both bone-like (albeit very thin) and hollow, so it's already quite strong, and when treated and cut, you're able to dip the tip of the quill into an ink pot and this causes ink to be drawn up inside the hollow part of the feather, which acts as a reservoir. IIRC it's the surface tension of the ink that then holds it inside, and because you cut a slit into the sharpened writing tip, this breaks the surface tension and allows the ink to flow out again (producing ink from the tip and onto the page).
Granted, even a large feather doesn't hold a huge amount of ink (you'd still need to dip it again every five or six words, I think there's a limit to how far up the ink will go before weight overcomes surface tension) but that was still better than some of the more basic "dip pens" that came later, which were basically just wood with a metal nib, and were only a moderate improvement over scraping ink onto a page with a sharpened bit of wood (really the metal nib just made it a bit more consistent).
Manufacturing them with a hollow reservoir, or later a detachable one (basically an ink pot attached to the pen) was more complicated so didn't become common until later. It took quite a while to evolve into the fountain pen, and even those remained pretty rare; they didn't appear in many schools for example (except maybe for teachers), where it was more common for students to use cheap dip pens and ink pots, and then later pencils.
Part of the confusion may also stem from the fact that as metal nibs became common, people started making dip pens using feathers for the handle; but these weren't truly quills, and most wouldn't have used the hollow in the quill to store any useful amount of ink, because the nibs wouldn't have been made to fit properly, you'd just cut the end off and crimp the metal nib on and call it a day. It was more for the style, and proper quills would have become more of a luxury item made by specialists.
Pretty sure I already covered this, but I'm not convinced everyone fully understands what a quill is, which isn't much use in a discussion about a Wizardly Quill. But the only really important bit is that all (proper) quills produce ink, if they didn't you could just as easily use a wooden stick.
Quills do not produce ink. You have to dip them into ink to load their reservoir of ink. So you have to buy/steal/otherwise procure ink for quills.
The magic quill DOES NOT need to do this as whenever you write with it it automatically produces its own ink.
So long as John produces paper from his pocket, quills produce ink from their reservoirs. If you think John can't produce paper from his pocket, take it up with Oxford, not me.
I agree that the magic quill does not need to have ink in its reservoir, as I agree that, whenever you write with it, it produces ink, whether or not it has ink in a physical reservoir.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Secondary reservoir? I never said anything about a secondary reservoir. I'm talking about a primary reservoir, which is generally assumed to be a part of a quill.
I wonder how much of this circular weirdness stems from people not knowing what a quill is or how it actually works? Pretty sure I did cover it already, but since it's kind of important to know what a quill is here, here goes again:
One of the reasons why feathers were used for quills is that the shaft of the feather (the actual "quill" part) is both bone-like (albeit very thin) and hollow, so it's already quite strong, and when treated and cut, you're able to dip the tip of the quill into an ink pot and this causes ink to be drawn up inside the hollow part of the feather, which acts as a reservoir. IIRC it's the surface tension of the ink that then holds it inside, and because you cut a slit into the sharpened writing tip, this breaks the surface tension and allows the ink to flow out again (producing ink from the tip and onto the page).
Granted, even a large feather doesn't hold a huge amount of ink (you'd still need to dip it again every five or six words, I think there's a limit to how far up the ink will go before weight overcomes surface tension) but that was still better than some of the more basic "dip pens" that came later, which were basically just wood with a metal nib, and were only a moderate improvement over scraping ink onto a page with a sharpened bit of wood (really the metal nib just made it a bit more consistent).
Manufacturing them with a hollow reservoir, or later a detachable one (basically an ink pot attached to the pen) was more complicated so didn't become common until later. It took quite a while to evolve into the fountain pen, and even those remained pretty rare; they didn't appear in many schools for example (except maybe for teachers), where it was more common for students to use cheap dip pens and ink pots, and then later pencils.
Part of the confusion may also stem from the fact that as metal nibs became common, people started making dip pens using feathers for the handle; but these weren't truly quills, and most wouldn't have used the hollow in the quill to store any useful amount of ink, because the nibs wouldn't have been made to fit properly, you'd just cut the end off and crimp the metal nib on and call it a day. It was more for the style, and proper quills would have become more of a luxury item made by specialists.
Pretty sure I already covered this, but I'm not convinced everyone fully understands what a quill is, which isn't much use in a discussion about a Wizardly Quill. But the only really important bit is that all (proper) quills produce ink, if they didn't you could just as easily use a wooden stick.
Quills do not produce ink. You have to dip them into ink to load their reservoir of ink. So you have to buy/steal/otherwise procure ink for quills.
The magic quill DOES NOT need to do this as whenever you write with it it automatically produces its own ink.
So long as John produces paper from his pocket, quills produce ink from their reservoirs. If you think John can't produce paper from his pocket, take it up with Oxford, not me.
I agree that the magic quill does not need to have ink in its reservoir, as I agree that, whenever you write with it, it produces ink, whether or not it has ink in a physical reservoir.
I'm sorry but quills need ink provided for them. You can't possibly disagree with this?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Secondary reservoir? I never said anything about a secondary reservoir. I'm talking about a primary reservoir, which is generally assumed to be a part of a quill.
I wonder how much of this circular weirdness stems from people not knowing what a quill is or how it actually works? Pretty sure I did cover it already, but since it's kind of important to know what a quill is here, here goes again:
One of the reasons why feathers were used for quills is that the shaft of the feather (the actual "quill" part) is both bone-like (albeit very thin) and hollow, so it's already quite strong, and when treated and cut, you're able to dip the tip of the quill into an ink pot and this causes ink to be drawn up inside the hollow part of the feather, which acts as a reservoir. IIRC it's the surface tension of the ink that then holds it inside, and because you cut a slit into the sharpened writing tip, this breaks the surface tension and allows the ink to flow out again (producing ink from the tip and onto the page).
Granted, even a large feather doesn't hold a huge amount of ink (you'd still need to dip it again every five or six words, I think there's a limit to how far up the ink will go before weight overcomes surface tension) but that was still better than some of the more basic "dip pens" that came later, which were basically just wood with a metal nib, and were only a moderate improvement over scraping ink onto a page with a sharpened bit of wood (really the metal nib just made it a bit more consistent).
Manufacturing them with a hollow reservoir, or later a detachable one (basically an ink pot attached to the pen) was more complicated so didn't become common until later. It took quite a while to evolve into the fountain pen, and even those remained pretty rare; they didn't appear in many schools for example (except maybe for teachers), where it was more common for students to use cheap dip pens and ink pots, and then later pencils.
Part of the confusion may also stem from the fact that as metal nibs became common, people started making dip pens using feathers for the handle; but these weren't truly quills, and most wouldn't have used the hollow in the quill to store any useful amount of ink, because the nibs wouldn't have been made to fit properly, you'd just cut the end off and crimp the metal nib on and call it a day. It was more for the style, and proper quills would have become more of a luxury item made by specialists.
Pretty sure I already covered this, but I'm not convinced everyone fully understands what a quill is, which isn't much use in a discussion about a Wizardly Quill. But the only really important bit is that all (proper) quills produce ink, if they didn't you could just as easily use a wooden stick.
Quills do not produce ink. You have to dip them into ink to load their reservoir of ink. So you have to buy/steal/otherwise procure ink for quills.
The magic quill DOES NOT need to do this as whenever you write with it it automatically produces its own ink.
So long as John produces paper from his pocket, quills produce ink from their reservoirs. If you think John can't produce paper from his pocket, take it up with Oxford, not me.
I agree that the magic quill does not need to have ink in its reservoir, as I agree that, whenever you write with it, it produces ink, whether or not it has ink in a physical reservoir.
I'm sorry but quills need ink provided for them. You can't possibly disagree with this?
I don't. The thing is, John also needs paper provided for him. Doesn't change the fact that he's producing paper from his pocket.
Take it up with Oxford.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Secondary reservoir? I never said anything about a secondary reservoir. I'm talking about a primary reservoir, which is generally assumed to be a part of a quill.
I wonder how much of this circular weirdness stems from people not knowing what a quill is or how it actually works? Pretty sure I did cover it already, but since it's kind of important to know what a quill is here, here goes again:
One of the reasons why feathers were used for quills is that the shaft of the feather (the actual "quill" part) is both bone-like (albeit very thin) and hollow, so it's already quite strong, and when treated and cut, you're able to dip the tip of the quill into an ink pot and this causes ink to be drawn up inside the hollow part of the feather, which acts as a reservoir. IIRC it's the surface tension of the ink that then holds it inside, and because you cut a slit into the sharpened writing tip, this breaks the surface tension and allows the ink to flow out again (producing ink from the tip and onto the page).
Granted, even a large feather doesn't hold a huge amount of ink (you'd still need to dip it again every five or six words, I think there's a limit to how far up the ink will go before weight overcomes surface tension) but that was still better than some of the more basic "dip pens" that came later, which were basically just wood with a metal nib, and were only a moderate improvement over scraping ink onto a page with a sharpened bit of wood (really the metal nib just made it a bit more consistent).
Manufacturing them with a hollow reservoir, or later a detachable one (basically an ink pot attached to the pen) was more complicated so didn't become common until later. It took quite a while to evolve into the fountain pen, and even those remained pretty rare; they didn't appear in many schools for example (except maybe for teachers), where it was more common for students to use cheap dip pens and ink pots, and then later pencils.
Part of the confusion may also stem from the fact that as metal nibs became common, people started making dip pens using feathers for the handle; but these weren't truly quills, and most wouldn't have used the hollow in the quill to store any useful amount of ink, because the nibs wouldn't have been made to fit properly, you'd just cut the end off and crimp the metal nib on and call it a day. It was more for the style, and proper quills would have become more of a luxury item made by specialists.
Pretty sure I already covered this, but I'm not convinced everyone fully understands what a quill is, which isn't much use in a discussion about a Wizardly Quill. But the only really important bit is that all (proper) quills produce ink, if they didn't you could just as easily use a wooden stick.
Quills do not produce ink. You have to dip them into ink to load their reservoir of ink. So you have to buy/steal/otherwise procure ink for quills.
The magic quill DOES NOT need to do this as whenever you write with it it automatically produces its own ink.
So long as John produces paper from his pocket, quills produce ink from their reservoirs. If you think John can't produce paper from his pocket, take it up with Oxford, not me.
I agree that the magic quill does not need to have ink in its reservoir, as I agree that, whenever you write with it, it produces ink, whether or not it has ink in a physical reservoir.
I'm sorry but quills need ink provided for them. You can't possibly disagree with this?
I don't. The thing is, John also needs paper provided for him. Doesn't change the fact that he's producing paper from his pocket.
Take it up with Oxford.
Intentionally using the wrong usage of a word doesn't make a very compelling arguement. It is also extremely transparent.
Look, the magic quill doesn't need ink. It produces its own. We know this because the ability says this very directly.
As in actually manifests it from nothingness. That type of produce. Creates.
A regular quill does no such thing. You agree yes?
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I'll just play a Scribes wizard and use my normal quill to transcribe spells. Sure it takes 2 hours and 50gp per spell level, but there is a far better use for my Wizardly Quill.
I'll just tie some string to my Wizardly Quill and thread it through the tip. Then I will suspend this over an open Bag of Holding.
Since a Wizardly Quill can produce an ounce of ink every two minutes this set up will make 7,200gp of ink every 24 hours. So long as I empty the bag of Holding every 7 days I will be well within the space and weight limits of the Bag of Holding.
There is nothing wrong with this and it is obviously RAW and RAI.
I'll just play a Scribes wizard and use my normal quill to transcribe spells. Sure it takes 2 hours and 50gp per spell level, but there is a far better use for my Wizardly Quill.
I'll just tie some string to my Wizardly Quill and thread it through the tip. Then I will suspend this over an open Bag of Holding.
Since a Wizardly Quill can produce an ounce of ink every two minutes this set up will make 7,200gp of ink every 24 hours. So long as I empty the bag of Holding every 7 days I will be well within the dosage and weight limits of the Bag of Holding.
There is nothing wrong with this and it is obviously RAW and RAI.
Abilities only do what they say they do. The magic quill cannot be manipukated in that way. It isn't some regular purchased or found item. It is a subclass ability.
Also, the quill only produces ink when you write with it. And only on the writing surface. As is found in the description of the ability.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Intentionally using the wrong usage of a word doesn't make a very compelling arguement. It is also extremely transparent.
I'm not willfully choosing any definition of the word. I'm leaving the definition of the word open to the situation that the word is in. That's how words work.
If I say to a dog, "give me some barks," and the dog silently goes out to a forest and collects a variety of tough protective outer sheaths of trees, then it followed the rules that I set, and it's under no obligation to make any noise. If that dog instead yips a few times, then it also followed the rules that I set, and it's under no obligation to go out to the forest. In neither case can I legitimately claim "no no no, I saidthe other definition of bark, give me the other definition of bark," because by saying "bark" I included both definitions, and thus either form of bark would satisfy the rules I set, and this clarification would be changing the rules (which Tasha's Cauldron of Everything isn't capable of doing).
It's a crude example, because it's fairly obvious which definition of "bark" I meant based on the context, but it's significantly less obvious in the case of the quill, since it makes sense both for a magical quill to manufacture ink and for it to procure ink. Sorry, I couldn't come up with a better example.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Rest assured that the folks who have made it this far into this discussion all have a basic understanding of how a mundane quill functions.
And yet part of your argument hinges on quills either not being able to contain ink, or not being able to produce ink, both of which they do.
Except that THIS particular quill explicitly states that it does not require ink -- it produces ink when you write with it. In addition, it does NOT say anything else about how it might function.
-----------------
The quill literally accelerates time by either doing exactly that for you, or enabling you to do some or part of the process "virtually" through the Awakened Spellbook (which is also a required part of the process btw).
Experimentation only takes 2 minutes, the rest is all writing (118 minutes normally, 58 minutes if a specialist). This is entirely possible because there exist spells with casting times longer than the time it would take to both experiment with and copy them, therefore the experimentation time must be shorter than the time it takes to actually cast a spell. Plus the majority of spells are actions, bonus actions and reactions, which take place in six seconds or less.
The Awakened Spellbook does all of the actual work, and consumes the material components as part of doing so, with the quill writing out the result. Remember, copying a spell is actually a feature of the spellbook, the quill is just an implement you can use to do it with, so the Awakened Spellbook is also a required part of the process.
----------------
These first two bullet points are total non-starters.
The Feature doesn't say anything about altering time so it doesn't do that.
Your second bullet is just gibberish -- I have no idea where you are getting those numbers from or why you think this experimentation is in any way related to casting times. The experimentation in the rule that we are discussing is related to testing whether or not you've correctly deciphered portions of the source code for the spell. Spells are encrypted into a code that is specific to the Wizard who wrote it. Part of this process that we are discussing is simply code breaking and running some experiments to make sure that we are correctly understanding what we are reading. By default, this process takes 1 hour and the actual writing into our own code takes 1 (other) hour. This is all in the actual rule. None of what you've written in that bullet applies to anything that we are discussing.
I actually like your third bullet point. That's an interesting idea. But no, the Awakened Spellbook is not at all a required part of the process and is not mentioned at all within the Wizardly Quill Feature. You probably would decide to copy the spells into the Awakened Spellbook, but it doesn't participate beyond that.
Remember that with the Wizardly Quill feature, the quill is only participating in the transcription part of the process, and yet the entire process now takes 2 minutes and the experimentation portion used to take 1 hour. The most logical conclusion is that the Quill is able to transcribe the spell without it being deciphered. Yes, there are other possible interpretations, but this is the best one.
And this still really doesn't take us away from the simple fact that if the quill made copying free, then it should say so, because all you've really succeeded in showing is that if, in the unlikely event it were the intention for copying to be free, that the rules for that are not nearly accessible or obvious enough for that to be the case without the feature explicitly saying so.
Well, it DOES say so. But I do agree with you that it should have been more clear.
All you have to do is look at the rule which says that the process has a certain cost which represents the purchase of two things. If we write a feature that says that one of those things is provided and the other is no longer necessary then that's all it really has to say. The fact that that translates into no cost is implied and it would be redundant to explicitly state this. Still, for clarity, they should have just said so.
Whatever the UA version of the Feature may or may not have said is irrelevant.
It's entirely relevant because what your conclusion requires is text that doesn't exist; actually worse, it did exist and now very specifically does not. This gives us clarity on Rules As Intended, because if they wanted a reduction in cost to be a feature in the final sub-class, then they would not have removed that part of the text.
The fact that they did remove it gives far more weight to the case that full cost is the intended behaviour over zero cost being the intended behaviour.
Why doesn't it occur to you that this is probably proof in the other direction?
If the default cost and timeframes are:
experimentation = 1 hour and 40 gp, and
transcription = 1 hour and 10 gp,
and then the UA version came along and said that when you use this quill we now have Total Costs = 1 hour and 25 gp. This could be broken down like this:
Experimentation = 37.5 minutes and 25 gp, and
Transcription = 22.5 minutes and 0 gp (the ink is provided).
The idea is that the quill is helping by some marginal nebulous amount in the deciphering process allowing for slightly less time spent deciphering and slightly less experimentation required to confirm the findings. At the same time, the quill magically writes a bit faster.
Seeing this break down is pretty messy however and it also doesn't yield the end result that they really wanted -- which was for this subclass to be able to perform this entire procedure very quickly on the fly while dungeon crawling. So, it was changed.
Now, the Quill does 100% of the deciphering (implied by the total time requirement), eliminating the time and cost involved in that portion of the process, and the writing process is greatly sped up. This yields a much more interesting Feature which fits the flavor and the overall mission of the subclass. As it turns out, these changes yield 0 monetary cost (as opposed to full cost, which would make no sense) -- so that portion of the UA was simply erased since it no longer needed to be spelled out.
It is certainly refreshing when the position that allows a level three Wizard to copy every single Wizard spell for free, regardless of spell level, without needing copies of the spells, over less than 6 working days isn't the least reasonable position being debated.
A Wizardly Quill doesn't require ink because it produce some by itself, reading anything else from it is a stretch.
All quills produce ink, Wizardly or mundane, that's what happens when you press the tip to a page when a quill contains ink
Again, i don't think this is the definition of produce being used here. Its produce in the sense of creating, a Wizardly Quill creates ink, whereas mundane quill do not.
It is certainly refreshing when the position that allows a level three Wizard to copy every single Wizard spell for free, regardless of spell level, without needing copies of the spells, over less than 6 working days isn't the least reasonable position being debated.
Wait, who said this? I may have missed it while I was reading through the entire thread.
In any case, that's not the rule. The rule says this:
You might find other spells during your adventures. You could discover a spell recorded on a scroll in an evil wizard’s chest, for example, or in a dusty tome in an ancient library.
When you find a wizard spell of 1st level or higher, you can add it to your spellbook if it is of a spell level you can prepare and if you can spare the time to decipher and copy it.
So, in fact, you need to be working off of a copy of the spell. Also, the spell must be of a spell level you can prepare.
Which positions being debated do you feel are unreasonable and why?
It is certainly refreshing when the position that allows a level three Wizard to copy every single Wizard spell for free, regardless of spell level, without needing copies of the spells, over less than 6 working days isn't the least reasonable position being debated.
Wait, who said this? I may have missed it while I was reading through the entire thread.
This position was first argued in post #9 when it was argued that the Wizardly Quill feature is incompatible with the rules for Wizard Spellbook and wholly replaces it. This was built upon further in posts like #18, #22, #30, #32 and others. Most of the issues with this position that I highlight here were pointed out in post #43. At this point the debate switched to revolving around whether or not a Wizardly Quill can use external ink or not and these issues were never contested.
I'm having fun imagining a situation where the wizardly quill is incapable of using the ink required to transcribe a scroll. It can copy a scroll into your spell book much faster, but also, it cannot do it at all.
Ah, ok, I see now what you were referring to Fangeye.
Yeah, the specific vs general concept doesn't work the way those posts implied. Only when the text of two rules conflict with each other does the specific rule take priority over the general rule. Otherwise, both rules coexist. So, in this case, only the 2 hour timeframe from the general rule is replaced by the 2 minute timeframe of the new specific rule presented in the Feature. The rest of the general rule still applies as is.
At that point, as always, it is up to the DM to evaluate the situation that is occurring in the game and then apply the rules to that situation. When a character takes advantage of this class Feature, it creates a situation in the game. If the DM reads that Feature and determines that the costs referenced by the rule do not apply to this situation then the most correct ruling is to declare that there is no cost in this situation. If instead the DM can read that Feature and still determines that the costs referenced by the rule do still apply to this situation for some reason then the DM should declare that there is a cost involved in this situation.
It is certainly refreshing when the position that allows a level three Wizard to copy every single Wizard spell for free, regardless of spell level, without needing copies of the spells, over less than 6 working days isn't the least reasonable position being debated.
Wait, who said this? I may have missed it while I was reading through the entire thread.
This position was first argued in post #9 when it was argued that the Wizardly Quill feature is incompatible with the rules for Wizard Spellbook and wholly replaces it. This was built upon further in posts like #18, #22, #30, #32 and others. Most of the issues with this position that I highlight here were pointed out in post #43. At this point the debate switched to revolving around whether or not a Wizardly Quill can use external ink or not and these issues were never contested.
You've misunderstood. If those are the conclusions you've drawn from my posts... You've not understood what those posts were about.
The part of the copying rules about what is required to copy is incompatible. Specifically the part about what is needed for copying. Maybe when I refered to that sections as incompatible you mistook it for the entirety of the whole section? But I guess I assumed we are all familiar with how general vs specific works. And that everyone could easily follow along. Maybe an assumption I shouldn't have made.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
A Wizardly Quill doesn't require ink because it produce some by itself, reading anything else from it is a stretch.
All quills produce ink, Wizardly or mundane, that's what happens when you press the tip to a page when a quill contains ink
Again, i don't think this is the definition of produce being used here. Its produce in the sense of creating, a Wizardly Quill creates ink, whereas mundane quill do not.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
A Wizardly Quill doesn't require ink because it produce some by itself, reading anything else from it is a stretch.
All quills produce ink, Wizardly or mundane, that's what happens when you press the tip to a page when a quill contains ink
Again, i don't think this is the definition of produce being used here. Its produce in the sense of creating, a Wizardly Quill creates ink, whereas mundane quill do not.
Different thing here in noun vs verb, which produce is. If you ask your dog to bark, it would not refer to tree outer sheath.
If all quills would produce ink, it would be redundant to specify a Wizardly Quill doesn’t require ink. When you write with it, it produces ink since they would all do by that definition. But if it instead refer to creating, then it only make sense.
A Wizardly Quill doesn't require ink because it produce some by itself, reading anything else from it is a stretch.
All quills produce ink, Wizardly or mundane, that's what happens when you press the tip to a page when a quill contains ink
Again, i don't think this is the definition of produce being used here. Its produce in the sense of creating, a Wizardly Quill creates ink, whereas mundane quill do not.
Different thing here in noun vs verb, which produce is. If you ask your dog to bark, it would not refer to tree outer sheath.
Is it a different thing, though? If I asked my dog to bark, it would indeed not refer to a tree's outer sheath, because the grammar necessitates that it's a verb, which a tree's outer sheath isn't. Normally, you can tell based on the grammar whether a word is a verb or a noun. However, in the case of produce, both definitions in question are verbs, so that wasn't ever a problem.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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Again, i don't think this is the definition of produce being used here. Its produce in the sense of creating, a Wizardly Quill creates ink, whereas mundane quill do not.
The word produce doesn't really have multiple meanings in the sense of a quill though; when you talk about producing ink you're using produce in the sense of "to bring forth", which is the most common, general purpose meaning of the word. For example, a production line doesn't create something from nothing, it assembles, casts, cure, treats etc. one or more thing(s) into something new. A person who is a producer doesn't usually create what they "produce" – they bring together and manage those who do etc., but all of these are "to bring forth".
If you want to use a much more specific definition of "produce" to mean "to create" then the onus is on you to prove that this is the intended meaning, and the obvious question to ask in that case is "why not use the much less ambiguous word 'create' if that's what they meant?" Spells and features that create things use that word, or something like "conjure", though even that's a vague one (it really means "cause to appear"). Unless a word is used in a context whereby it can only mean one thing, you have to use its more common and more general definition, and this is definitely not a context where it can only mean one thing as the more general definition is never ruled out.
When a rule describes something that happens "on a hit", you wouldn't interpret this to mean only when a Bard releases a catchy new song, because that would be a less common and more specific meaning of the word "hit".
it produces ink when you write with it. In addition, it does NOT say anything else about how it might function.
Exactly, so it must therefore function as an ordinary quill by default because the Wizardly Quill doesn't override that capability.
The Feature doesn't say anything about altering time so it doesn't do that.
Actually it does, it says the copying takes 2 minutes instead of the usual 2 hours, so it's expressly altering time for the task somehow. What it doesn't say is that it alters the cost, yet you seem determined to claim that it does.
Your second bullet is just gibberish -- I have no idea where you are getting those numbers from or why you think this experimentation is in any way related to casting times.
It's not gibberish in the slightest, and the numbers are all present within the quotes you keep trying to use – it normally takes 2 hours (120 minutes) per level to copy a spell, but we're never told how much of that is spent on experimentation vs. writing.
I mention casting times because there exist both spells that to cast them even once would take longer than 2 hours per level, as well as spells that take only a few seconds to cast, which means that if we're following the logic you're trying to apply to your argument, then experimentation can't be the bulk of that 2 hours per level.
In fact logically it follows that the bulk of the two hours (or one hour, i.e- 60 minutes, if you're a specialist in the appropriate school of magic) is mostly occupied by writing out the spell in whatever laborious, precise glyphs or whatever is required, and that it must be this that the Wizardly Quill somehow accelerates. We are given no reason to assume that the 2 minutes for the Wizardly Quill excludes any experimentation, because it doesn't say so.
The experimentation in the rule that we are discussing is related to testing whether or not you've correctly deciphered portions of the source code for the spell.
It literally says "you must practice the spell". 🤦♂️
But this is all besides the point; your claim was that it's only possible for the quill to reduce the time by eliminating the cost, but this is not the case, and I'm not the one advocating that something must happen that the feature doesn't tell you to do. Mechanically the feature is very clear; the time (and only the time) is reduced, because that's the only part it tells you to reduce.
I actually like your third bullet point. That's an interesting idea. But no, the Awakened Spellbook is not at all a required part of the process and is not mentioned at all within the Wizardly Quill Feature. You probably would decide to copy the spells into the Awakened Spellbook, but it doesn't participate beyond that.
An Order of the Scribes Wizard's spellbook is always an Awakened Spellbook. When you copy spells from a scroll you always copy into your spellbook. Ergo an Awakened Spellbook is always part of the process, this is not optional.
Order of Scribes Wizards don't require backup spellbooks, in fact the Awakened Spellbook arguably replaces the entire "Replacing the Book" section because it can be recovered in its entirety over the course of a short rest, requiring only your Wizardly Quill (which you can summon on demand) and a spare spellbook, which can be entirely blank. Order of Scribes wizards do not require backup spellbooks, only spare blank ones.
All you have to do is look at the rule which says that the process has a certain cost which represents the purchase of two things.
Neither of which the Wizardly Quill feature tells you to ignore. Again, the Wizardly Quill feature doesn't tell you that copying is now free of charge – if it was intended to be so, then all it had to do was say so. It literally required only 2-3 extra words changing "2 minutes" to "2 minutes and 0 gp".
Instead the bullet point literally only mentions time, yet you're trying to argue that it must have meant to say something extra even though it says literally nothing to that effect.
Why doesn't it occur to you that this is probably proof in the other direction?
Because that would be illogical in the extreme; you'd be arguing that by removing text they're saying something without saying it, but their not saying something is literally the entire problem with your argument to begin with, because you're having to make big assumptions and logical leaps to justify an additional capability you're never told that the Wizardly Quill has.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
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Quills do not produce ink. You have to dip them into ink to load their reservoir of ink. So you have to buy/steal/otherwise procure ink for quills.
The magic quill DOES NOT need to do this as whenever you write with it it automatically produces its own ink.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
So long as John produces paper from his pocket, quills produce ink from their reservoirs. If you think John can't produce paper from his pocket, take it up with Oxford, not me.
I agree that the magic quill does not need to have ink in its reservoir, as I agree that, whenever you write with it, it produces ink, whether or not it has ink in a physical reservoir.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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I'm sorry but quills need ink provided for them. You can't possibly disagree with this?
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I don't. The thing is, John also needs paper provided for him. Doesn't change the fact that he's producing paper from his pocket.
Take it up with Oxford.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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Intentionally using the wrong usage of a word doesn't make a very compelling arguement. It is also extremely transparent.
Look, the magic quill doesn't need ink. It produces its own. We know this because the ability says this very directly.
As in actually manifests it from nothingness. That type of produce. Creates.
A regular quill does no such thing. You agree yes?
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I don't see what all the fuss is about.
I'll just play a Scribes wizard and use my normal quill to transcribe spells. Sure it takes 2 hours and 50gp per spell level, but there is a far better use for my Wizardly Quill.
I'll just tie some string to my Wizardly Quill and thread it through the tip. Then I will suspend this over an open Bag of Holding.
Since a Wizardly Quill can produce an ounce of ink every two minutes this set up will make 7,200gp of ink every 24 hours. So long as I empty the bag of Holding every 7 days I will be well within the space and weight limits of the Bag of Holding.
There is nothing wrong with this and it is obviously RAW and RAI.
Abilities only do what they say they do. The magic quill cannot be manipukated in that way. It isn't some regular purchased or found item. It is a subclass ability.
Also, the quill only produces ink when you write with it. And only on the writing surface. As is found in the description of the ability.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I'm not willfully choosing any definition of the word. I'm leaving the definition of the word open to the situation that the word is in. That's how words work.
If I say to a dog, "give me some barks," and the dog silently goes out to a forest and collects a variety of tough protective outer sheaths of trees, then it followed the rules that I set, and it's under no obligation to make any noise. If that dog instead yips a few times, then it also followed the rules that I set, and it's under no obligation to go out to the forest. In neither case can I legitimately claim "no no no, I said the other definition of bark, give me the other definition of bark," because by saying "bark" I included both definitions, and thus either form of bark would satisfy the rules I set, and this clarification would be changing the rules (which Tasha's Cauldron of Everything isn't capable of doing).
It's a crude example, because it's fairly obvious which definition of "bark" I meant based on the context, but it's significantly less obvious in the case of the quill, since it makes sense both for a magical quill to manufacture ink and for it to procure ink. Sorry, I couldn't come up with a better example.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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Except that THIS particular quill explicitly states that it does not require ink -- it produces ink when you write with it. In addition, it does NOT say anything else about how it might function.
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These first two bullet points are total non-starters.
The Feature doesn't say anything about altering time so it doesn't do that.
Your second bullet is just gibberish -- I have no idea where you are getting those numbers from or why you think this experimentation is in any way related to casting times. The experimentation in the rule that we are discussing is related to testing whether or not you've correctly deciphered portions of the source code for the spell. Spells are encrypted into a code that is specific to the Wizard who wrote it. Part of this process that we are discussing is simply code breaking and running some experiments to make sure that we are correctly understanding what we are reading. By default, this process takes 1 hour and the actual writing into our own code takes 1 (other) hour. This is all in the actual rule. None of what you've written in that bullet applies to anything that we are discussing.
I actually like your third bullet point. That's an interesting idea. But no, the Awakened Spellbook is not at all a required part of the process and is not mentioned at all within the Wizardly Quill Feature. You probably would decide to copy the spells into the Awakened Spellbook, but it doesn't participate beyond that.
Remember that with the Wizardly Quill feature, the quill is only participating in the transcription part of the process, and yet the entire process now takes 2 minutes and the experimentation portion used to take 1 hour. The most logical conclusion is that the Quill is able to transcribe the spell without it being deciphered. Yes, there are other possible interpretations, but this is the best one.
Well, it DOES say so. But I do agree with you that it should have been more clear.
All you have to do is look at the rule which says that the process has a certain cost which represents the purchase of two things. If we write a feature that says that one of those things is provided and the other is no longer necessary then that's all it really has to say. The fact that that translates into no cost is implied and it would be redundant to explicitly state this. Still, for clarity, they should have just said so.
Why doesn't it occur to you that this is probably proof in the other direction?
If the default cost and timeframes are:
experimentation = 1 hour and 40 gp, and
transcription = 1 hour and 10 gp,
and then the UA version came along and said that when you use this quill we now have Total Costs = 1 hour and 25 gp. This could be broken down like this:
Experimentation = 37.5 minutes and 25 gp, and
Transcription = 22.5 minutes and 0 gp (the ink is provided).
The idea is that the quill is helping by some marginal nebulous amount in the deciphering process allowing for slightly less time spent deciphering and slightly less experimentation required to confirm the findings. At the same time, the quill magically writes a bit faster.
Seeing this break down is pretty messy however and it also doesn't yield the end result that they really wanted -- which was for this subclass to be able to perform this entire procedure very quickly on the fly while dungeon crawling. So, it was changed.
Now, the Quill does 100% of the deciphering (implied by the total time requirement), eliminating the time and cost involved in that portion of the process, and the writing process is greatly sped up. This yields a much more interesting Feature which fits the flavor and the overall mission of the subclass. As it turns out, these changes yield 0 monetary cost (as opposed to full cost, which would make no sense) -- so that portion of the UA was simply erased since it no longer needed to be spelled out.
It is certainly refreshing when the position that allows a level three Wizard to copy every single Wizard spell for free, regardless of spell level, without needing copies of the spells, over less than 6 working days isn't the least reasonable position being debated.
Again, i don't think this is the definition of produce being used here. Its produce in the sense of creating, a Wizardly Quill creates ink, whereas mundane quill do not.
Wait, who said this? I may have missed it while I was reading through the entire thread.
In any case, that's not the rule. The rule says this:
So, in fact, you need to be working off of a copy of the spell. Also, the spell must be of a spell level you can prepare.
Which positions being debated do you feel are unreasonable and why?
This position was first argued in post #9 when it was argued that the Wizardly Quill feature is incompatible with the rules for Wizard Spellbook and wholly replaces it. This was built upon further in posts like #18, #22, #30, #32 and others. Most of the issues with this position that I highlight here were pointed out in post #43. At this point the debate switched to revolving around whether or not a Wizardly Quill can use external ink or not and these issues were never contested.
I'm having fun imagining a situation where the wizardly quill is incapable of using the ink required to transcribe a scroll. It can copy a scroll into your spell book much faster, but also, it cannot do it at all.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Ah, ok, I see now what you were referring to Fangeye.
Yeah, the specific vs general concept doesn't work the way those posts implied. Only when the text of two rules conflict with each other does the specific rule take priority over the general rule. Otherwise, both rules coexist. So, in this case, only the 2 hour timeframe from the general rule is replaced by the 2 minute timeframe of the new specific rule presented in the Feature. The rest of the general rule still applies as is.
At that point, as always, it is up to the DM to evaluate the situation that is occurring in the game and then apply the rules to that situation. When a character takes advantage of this class Feature, it creates a situation in the game. If the DM reads that Feature and determines that the costs referenced by the rule do not apply to this situation then the most correct ruling is to declare that there is no cost in this situation. If instead the DM can read that Feature and still determines that the costs referenced by the rule do still apply to this situation for some reason then the DM should declare that there is a cost involved in this situation.
You've misunderstood. If those are the conclusions you've drawn from my posts... You've not understood what those posts were about.
The part of the copying rules about what is required to copy is incompatible. Specifically the part about what is needed for copying. Maybe when I refered to that sections as incompatible you mistook it for the entirety of the whole section? But I guess I assumed we are all familiar with how general vs specific works. And that everyone could easily follow along. Maybe an assumption I shouldn't have made.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
See post #133.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Different thing here in noun vs verb, which produce is. If you ask your dog to bark, it would not refer to tree outer sheath.
If all quills would produce ink, it would be redundant to specify a Wizardly Quill doesn’t require ink. When you write with it, it produces ink since they would all do by that definition. But if it instead refer to creating, then it only make sense.
Is it a different thing, though? If I asked my dog to bark, it would indeed not refer to a tree's outer sheath, because the grammar necessitates that it's a verb, which a tree's outer sheath isn't. Normally, you can tell based on the grammar whether a word is a verb or a noun. However, in the case of produce, both definitions in question are verbs, so that wasn't ever a problem.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
The word produce doesn't really have multiple meanings in the sense of a quill though; when you talk about producing ink you're using produce in the sense of "to bring forth", which is the most common, general purpose meaning of the word. For example, a production line doesn't create something from nothing, it assembles, casts, cure, treats etc. one or more thing(s) into something new. A person who is a producer doesn't usually create what they "produce" – they bring together and manage those who do etc., but all of these are "to bring forth".
If you want to use a much more specific definition of "produce" to mean "to create" then the onus is on you to prove that this is the intended meaning, and the obvious question to ask in that case is "why not use the much less ambiguous word 'create' if that's what they meant?" Spells and features that create things use that word, or something like "conjure", though even that's a vague one (it really means "cause to appear"). Unless a word is used in a context whereby it can only mean one thing, you have to use its more common and more general definition, and this is definitely not a context where it can only mean one thing as the more general definition is never ruled out.
When a rule describes something that happens "on a hit", you wouldn't interpret this to mean only when a Bard releases a catchy new song, because that would be a less common and more specific meaning of the word "hit".
Exactly, so it must therefore function as an ordinary quill by default because the Wizardly Quill doesn't override that capability.
Actually it does, it says the copying takes 2 minutes instead of the usual 2 hours, so it's expressly altering time for the task somehow. What it doesn't say is that it alters the cost, yet you seem determined to claim that it does.
It's not gibberish in the slightest, and the numbers are all present within the quotes you keep trying to use – it normally takes 2 hours (120 minutes) per level to copy a spell, but we're never told how much of that is spent on experimentation vs. writing.
I mention casting times because there exist both spells that to cast them even once would take longer than 2 hours per level, as well as spells that take only a few seconds to cast, which means that if we're following the logic you're trying to apply to your argument, then experimentation can't be the bulk of that 2 hours per level.
In fact logically it follows that the bulk of the two hours (or one hour, i.e- 60 minutes, if you're a specialist in the appropriate school of magic) is mostly occupied by writing out the spell in whatever laborious, precise glyphs or whatever is required, and that it must be this that the Wizardly Quill somehow accelerates. We are given no reason to assume that the 2 minutes for the Wizardly Quill excludes any experimentation, because it doesn't say so.
It literally says "you must practice the spell". 🤦♂️
But this is all besides the point; your claim was that it's only possible for the quill to reduce the time by eliminating the cost, but this is not the case, and I'm not the one advocating that something must happen that the feature doesn't tell you to do. Mechanically the feature is very clear; the time (and only the time) is reduced, because that's the only part it tells you to reduce.
An Order of the Scribes Wizard's spellbook is always an Awakened Spellbook. When you copy spells from a scroll you always copy into your spellbook. Ergo an Awakened Spellbook is always part of the process, this is not optional.
Order of Scribes Wizards don't require backup spellbooks, in fact the Awakened Spellbook arguably replaces the entire "Replacing the Book" section because it can be recovered in its entirety over the course of a short rest, requiring only your Wizardly Quill (which you can summon on demand) and a spare spellbook, which can be entirely blank. Order of Scribes wizards do not require backup spellbooks, only spare blank ones.
Neither of which the Wizardly Quill feature tells you to ignore. Again, the Wizardly Quill feature doesn't tell you that copying is now free of charge – if it was intended to be so, then all it had to do was say so. It literally required only 2-3 extra words changing "2 minutes" to "2 minutes and 0 gp".
Instead the bullet point literally only mentions time, yet you're trying to argue that it must have meant to say something extra even though it says literally nothing to that effect.
Because that would be illogical in the extreme; you'd be arguing that by removing text they're saying something without saying it, but their not saying something is literally the entire problem with your argument to begin with, because you're having to make big assumptions and logical leaps to justify an additional capability you're never told that the Wizardly Quill has.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.