I'm going to have to disagree. I think the cost is more than fair. Take in consideration the amount of money you take in at higher levels. 3825gp for a 9th level spell is chump change. There would be no limit to how many scrolls could be made at top level. I've heard it a bunch of times in game - oh I can make this item that does 2d8 damage at level 2, I'm going to make 40 of them.. oh wait they cost 25g to make nevermind.
The cost is there so your players aren't casting 9th level spells every round. There needs to be a high cost and craft time or its game breaking. Even the material components for these spells are pretty laughable. It also depends on the level of magic you want in your campaign. Personally, I want legendary spells to feel rare and legendary. 250,000gp makes them a one off item to give an extra one up on your bbeg or a difficult battle. From a balance perspective, 9th level spells should be very strategic and cast once per battle. They are incredibly powerful. Imagine your players walking around with mitt fulls of wish spells at their command.
Without these imposed costs you're going to have a hell of a time trying to balance your game.
I'm going to have to disagree. I think the cost is more than fair. Take in consideration the amount of money you take in at higher levels. 3825gp for a 9th level spell is chump change. There would be no limit to how many scrolls could be made at top level. I've heard it a bunch of times in game - oh I can make this item that does 2d8 damage at level 2, I'm going to make 40 of them.. oh wait they cost 25g to make nevermind.
The cost is there so your players aren't casting 9th level spells every round. There needs to be a high cost and craft time or its game breaking. Even the material components for these spells are pretty laughable. It also depends on the level of magic you want in your campaign. Personally, I want legendary spells to feel rare and legendary. 250,000gp makes them a one off item to give an extra one up on your bbeg or a difficult battle. From a balance perspective, 9th level spells should be very strategic and cast once per battle. They are incredibly powerful. Imagine your players walking around with mitt fulls of wish spells at their command.
Without these imposed costs you're going to have a hell of a time trying to balance your game.
Below are the prices to buy magic items per Xanathar’s Guide (half price for consumables). Max price for Lengendary is 300,000 gp (150,000 for consumable, such as scrolls), so why should a 9th level scroll cost 100,000 gp more and multiple years of down time to make? For something you can already cast once a day.
I agree a 9th level scroll should feel legendary (as a 9th level spell should). I agree they shouldn’t be something you can knock out in an afternoon. But I don’t think it should be punishingly expensive and time consuming for a player to use crafting (or in this case scribing). I don’t know about the rest of you, but my players rarely get more than a month of downtime between adventures, much less years.
So it really boils down to who is running the game. The DM has to take into consideration everything in their game in order to be fair because rules as written aren’t consistent or equitable.
And not all campaigns provide the same level of loot. More importantly, to the previous point, why should I expend a large chunk of my spoils and a huge amount of downtime to create an object that will disappear the first time I use it, and will only do what I can do already? Where is the incentive to create a spell scroll? It seems like these rules are designed to discourage the creation of spell scrolls by player characters by making it prohibitively expensive to do in both time and money. You certainly wouldn't do it to make money under the 5e rules, but more importantly, there's no incentive to do it to increase your capabilities either ('You create them to be able to cast spells without using up a spell slot...'). That works if it doesn't cost me an arm and a leg and weeks to months just to create one scroll of any strength. I don't have that much money and I don't get that much lead time on adventures. As a working wizard, if I can't knock it out in a few days to a week (maybe a few weeks for the bigger spells) and with a reasonable subset of the cash on hand, it's not worth it to me to do - I have better things to do with my time and money.
I agree with you on that honestly. I made a character recently that is basically a map and scroll wizard, with some of the costs and time with the group I am in yeah no, nothing above level 3 with the offical rule is going to work because traveling by ship has its own problems, so I wholeheartedly agree with you.
Personally, I still think the costings are waaaaaaay off when you get to the higher levels. I use a base price of 25 gp and then use Spell level and caster level you have that spell slot modifiers so that spells can be scribed at higher levels. So a 1st level spell cast as if it was using a 1st level spell slot is 25gp to make (1x1x25). A 9th level spell is 3825gp to make (9x17x25). This also allows flexibility for scribing a scroll at higher levels - a 1st level spell cast at 5th level is 225gp (1x9x25). For Cantrips I use 0.5 for spell level and the level of casting (for different damage cantrips).
I also change the crafting magic items speed to 100gp per day, with the rule that you can only work on a maximum of 2 scrolls per day.
I was also looking at doing a Spell level x Spell slot (rather than level you need to be to cast spell slot) - in that instance I'd make base price 50gp, ends up being slightly more expensive than my first option, but still has a similar path progression (and removes these scrolls that cost 250k...)
Can't wait to use these rules as a high level Artificer or Scribe Wizard. Haha. Churning out ALL THE SCROLLS!
Personally, I still think the costings are waaaaaaay off when you get to the higher levels. I use a base price of 25 gp and then use Spell level and caster level you have that spell slot modifiers so that spells can be scribed at higher levels. So a 1st level spell cast as if it was using a 1st level spell slot is 25gp to make (1x1x25). A 9th level spell is 3825gp to make (9x17x25). This also allows flexibility for scribing a scroll at higher levels - a 1st level spell cast at 5th level is 225gp (1x9x25). For Cantrips I use 0.5 for spell level and the level of casting (for different damage cantrips).
I also change the crafting magic items speed to 100gp per day, with the rule that you can only work on a maximum of 2 scrolls per day.
I was also looking at doing a Spell level x Spell slot (rather than level you need to be to cast spell slot) - in that instance I'd make base price 50gp, ends up being slightly more expensive than my first option, but still has a similar path progression (and removes these scrolls that cost 250k...)
Can't wait to use these rules as a high level Artificer or Scribe Wizard. Haha. Churning out ALL THE SCROLLS!
That's interestingly quadratic - the cost to scribe a scroll where "l" is spell level is l*(2l-1)*25 = 50l^2-25l. Since it doesn't jump in cost for very high spell levels as the game's basic math does, we could make it cubic in spell level by replacing 25 with five times the spell's spell/sorcery point cost to make the slot (making level 1 and 2 scrolls cheaper, 3 equal, and 4+ more expensive than the 25-based math):
10
90
375
840
1575
2970
4550
6600
9945
That way you have to pay once for the necessary caster level, once linearly in spell level (just like the cost for scribing a spell into your book), and once slightly super-linearly for spell level (the spell point cost algorithm is simply starting at 2 and then skipping all multiples of 4), just like a sorcerer does for making a spell slot.
Remember, the game is deliberately designed to make spamming L9 spells overwhelmingly difficult, so making L9 spell scrolls too cheap is antithetical to the core design.
So I have a question. I created a Order Of Scribes Wizard. It states that with their special quill it can do any color of ink. Part of the gold cost of making spell scrolls is the special inks. So should the cost of making a spell scroll be reduced? If so, by how much? (Note, I am not discussing the special 10th level feature)
So I have a question. I created a Order Of Scribes Wizard. It states that with their special quill it can do any color of ink. Part of the gold cost of making spell scrolls is the special inks. So should the cost of making a spell scroll be reduced? If so, by how much? (Note, I am not discussing the special 10th level feature)
The way I understand it, no. The inks used to scribe scrolls are not just colored, they're magical. I could see it reducing the time required though, just like it does to add a spell to your spellbook.
I posted instead of replied I think but yeah I agree with what you are saying, now I saw a video that talked about how under the rules of activating magic items a spell scroll can't be countered but for some reason, I have the belief that they can be countered. If it is true that they can't be countered then I can see kind of a trade-off of the time and money for the trade of a guaranteed spell to go off without the problem of counterspell.
Its only 50GP per spell level for NEW/UNKNOWN spells. If a mage is copying a spell he has/knows, as in making a new spell book as a backup...or...in this case likely a scroll...its 10GP; but since scrolls actually contain the power to make the spell happen, 25GP seems like a fair middle ground.
"Replacing the Book. You can copy a spell from your own spellbook into another book—for example, if you want to make a backup copy of your spellbook. This is just like copying a new spell into your spellbook, but faster and easier, since you understand your own notation and already know how to cast the spell. You need spend only 1 hour and 10 gp for each level of the copied spell."
So I have a question. I created a Order Of Scribes Wizard. It states that with their special quill it can do any color of ink. Part of the gold cost of making spell scrolls is the special inks. So should the cost of making a spell scroll be reduced? If so, by how much? (Note, I am not discussing the special 10th level feature)
The way I understand it, no. The inks used to scribe scrolls are not just colored, they're magical. I could see it reducing the time required though, just like it does to add a spell to your spellbook.
I had a similar question that I asked of a DM about the 'Illuminator's Tattoo'. It basically makes your finger a quill. I was told the same, 'No, it's not magical ink'.
The dmg rules are following the pricing for what it suggests you reward players. So applying its rules for this might not work if you give more or less gold. And then theres the fact that spell scrolls shouldn't be cost effective because if they were then theres no reason to not carry 30 scrolls of fireball. Not targeting anyone with this just pointing some things out. Scrolls arent meant to be used to make a profit (unless you sell them of course), they are more like a back up plan, so that you can cast spells when your out of spellslots, or when you dont have the spell prepared (ie featherfall. Never want it until you need it).
So yeah whether the pricing is fair depends on the amount of gold you give your players. I've played in campaigns where 10 gp per character is an average amount to make in a session, as well as ones where its in the hundreds. Magic is a rich mans skill.
If this is true why are not low level wizard spell books flooded the market I can easily see low to mid level wizards dropping double this for access to new spells. For level 1-3 spells everything should be their and cheap no?
Hey. One of my DM`s having a difficulty interpreting some rules when it comes to casting spell scrolls ,when it comes to some things another player has done.
When you use spell scrolls, is that counted as casting a spell or is spell scrolls it`s own thing.
An example for instance that when we fought a necromancer, the necromancer used a spell scroll and since when you use a spell scroll you don`t use components you shouldn`t be able to counterspell it. But the player said since a spell scroll say it has to be read, that he can then see the necromancer read the spell scroll and therefor he can counterspell it. The DM tried to argue that a spell scroll isn`t necessarily a spell.
He then proceeded to take forth a spell scroll and tried to make it so the necromancer tought he read it(Rolled a deception check and succeeded.) and counterspelled it when he didn`t use it.
Casting time: 1 Reaction* (* - which you take when you see a creature within 60 feet of you casting a spell )
Activating Magic Items: Spells (Basic Rules):
Some magic items allow the user to cast a spell from the item. The spell is cast at the lowest possible spell and caster level, doesn't expend any of the user's spell slots, and requires no components, unless the item's description says otherwise. The spell uses its normal casting time, range, and duration, and the user of the item must concentrate if the spell requires concentration.
Scroll magic items (DMG):
Most scrolls are spells stored in written form, while a few bear unique incantations that produce potent wards... Whatever the nature of the magic contained in a scroll, unleashing that magic requires the user to read the scroll.
Spell Scrolls:
A spell scroll bears the words of a single spell, written in a mystical cipher. If the spell is on your class’s spell list, you can read the scroll and cast its spell without providing any material components. Otherwise, the scroll is unintelligible. Casting the spell by reading the scroll requires the spell’s normal casting time. Once the spell is cast, the words on the scroll fade, and it crumbles to dust. If the casting is interrupted, the scroll is not lost.
So some brief notes. Counterspell doesn't say how you need to know that it is casting a spell. A literal reading might indicate that it is impossible to attempt to counterspell anything that is not a spell, since you technically wouldn't have met the trigger. It is true that not all scrolls are spells, but I don't think that matters as far as counterspell goes. Particularly, scrolls that aren't spells are not spell scrolls, but I don't know if there are any ways a character could easily tell the difference between a scroll (say a scroll of protection) and a spell scroll. But generally, casting from a spell scroll can be counterspelled.
Unless I'm missing something, when someone casts a spell from a spell scroll in front of you it should be as impossible to counterspell as when a sorcerer uses subtle spell on a spell with no M component. You don't see someone casting a spell, so you can't react to it. You might see someone reading a scroll, but that's not the same thing at all. For all you know, the scroll might be their shopping list.
Unless I'm missing something, when someone casts a spell from a spell scroll in front of you it should be as impossible to counterspell as when a sorcerer uses subtle spell on a spell with no M component. You don't see someone casting a spell, so you can't react to it. You might see someone reading a scroll, but that's not the same thing at all. For all you know, the scroll might be their shopping list.
The spell scrolls description says "...you can read the scroll and cast its spell without providing any material components. Otherwise, the scroll is unintelligible. Casting the spell by reading the scroll requires the spell’s normal casting time." So, if they're reading a spell scroll and producing the spell effect, they're casting the spell. If you see it then you see them casting a spell.
And again, Counterspell doesn't say how you have to figure out that what they're doing is casting a spell or whether you even have to know. You just have to see it, by a very strict reading of the trigger. Maybe it's so obvious that you know it when you see it. If there is a check involved at your table, that isn't in the rules anywhere. Even if you guess that when someone is reading from a scroll, you should counterspell, that could be enough knowledge to go off of. Someone who has enough knowledge about magic to interrupt another caster's spell probably knows that spells sometimes come on scrolls.
So you see someone reading off of a scroll:
Its their grocery list (or even any other non-spell scroll magic scroll). You cannot counterspell. They're not casting a spell, so the trigger isn't met.
It is a spell scroll. You see them reading and casting a spell. The trigger is met (you see them doing the thing to cast the spell) and so you can counterspell.
I'm going to have to disagree. I think the cost is more than fair. Take in consideration the amount of money you take in at higher levels. 3825gp for a 9th level spell is chump change. There would be no limit to how many scrolls could be made at top level. I've heard it a bunch of times in game - oh I can make this item that does 2d8 damage at level 2, I'm going to make 40 of them.. oh wait they cost 25g to make nevermind.
The cost is there so your players aren't casting 9th level spells every round. There needs to be a high cost and craft time or its game breaking. Even the material components for these spells are pretty laughable. It also depends on the level of magic you want in your campaign. Personally, I want legendary spells to feel rare and legendary. 250,000gp makes them a one off item to give an extra one up on your bbeg or a difficult battle. From a balance perspective, 9th level spells should be very strategic and cast once per battle. They are incredibly powerful. Imagine your players walking around with mitt fulls of wish spells at their command.
Without these imposed costs you're going to have a hell of a time trying to balance your game.
Below are the prices to buy magic items per Xanathar’s Guide (half price for consumables). Max price for Lengendary is 300,000 gp (150,000 for consumable, such as scrolls), so why should a 9th level scroll cost 100,000 gp more and multiple years of down time to make? For something you can already cast once a day.
I agree a 9th level scroll should feel legendary (as a 9th level spell should). I agree they shouldn’t be something you can knock out in an afternoon. But I don’t think it should be punishingly expensive and time consuming for a player to use crafting (or in this case scribing). I don’t know about the rest of you, but my players rarely get more than a month of downtime between adventures, much less years.
So it really boils down to who is running the game. The DM has to take into consideration everything in their game in order to be fair because rules as written aren’t consistent or equitable.
Magic Item Price
2d6 × 25,000 gp
And not all campaigns provide the same level of loot. More importantly, to the previous point, why should I expend a large chunk of my spoils and a huge amount of downtime to create an object that will disappear the first time I use it, and will only do what I can do already? Where is the incentive to create a spell scroll? It seems like these rules are designed to discourage the creation of spell scrolls by player characters by making it prohibitively expensive to do in both time and money. You certainly wouldn't do it to make money under the 5e rules, but more importantly, there's no incentive to do it to increase your capabilities either ('You create them to be able to cast spells without using up a spell slot...'). That works if it doesn't cost me an arm and a leg and weeks to months just to create one scroll of any strength. I don't have that much money and I don't get that much lead time on adventures. As a working wizard, if I can't knock it out in a few days to a week (maybe a few weeks for the bigger spells) and with a reasonable subset of the cash on hand, it's not worth it to me to do - I have better things to do with my time and money.
I agree with you on that honestly. I made a character recently that is basically a map and scroll wizard, with some of the costs and time with the group I am in yeah no, nothing above level 3 with the offical rule is going to work because traveling by ship has its own problems, so I wholeheartedly agree with you.
Can't wait to use these rules as a high level Artificer or Scribe Wizard. Haha. Churning out ALL THE SCROLLS!
That's interestingly quadratic - the cost to scribe a scroll where "l" is spell level is l*(2l-1)*25 = 50l^2-25l. Since it doesn't jump in cost for very high spell levels as the game's basic math does, we could make it cubic in spell level by replacing 25 with five times the spell's spell/sorcery point cost to make the slot (making level 1 and 2 scrolls cheaper, 3 equal, and 4+ more expensive than the 25-based math):
That way you have to pay once for the necessary caster level, once linearly in spell level (just like the cost for scribing a spell into your book), and once slightly super-linearly for spell level (the spell point cost algorithm is simply starting at 2 and then skipping all multiples of 4), just like a sorcerer does for making a spell slot.
Remember, the game is deliberately designed to make spamming L9 spells overwhelmingly difficult, so making L9 spell scrolls too cheap is antithetical to the core design.
So I have a question. I created a Order Of Scribes Wizard. It states that with their special quill it can do any color of ink. Part of the gold cost of making spell scrolls is the special inks. So should the cost of making a spell scroll be reduced? If so, by how much? (Note, I am not discussing the special 10th level feature)
The way I understand it, no. The inks used to scribe scrolls are not just colored, they're magical. I could see it reducing the time required though, just like it does to add a spell to your spellbook.
I posted instead of replied I think but yeah I agree with what you are saying, now I saw a video that talked about how under the rules of activating magic items a spell scroll can't be countered but for some reason, I have the belief that they can be countered. If it is true that they can't be countered then I can see kind of a trade-off of the time and money for the trade of a guaranteed spell to go off without the problem of counterspell.
Its only 50GP per spell level for NEW/UNKNOWN spells. If a mage is copying a spell he has/knows, as in making a new spell book as a backup...or...in this case likely a scroll...its 10GP; but since scrolls actually contain the power to make the spell happen, 25GP seems like a fair middle ground.
"Replacing the Book. You can copy a spell from your own spellbook into another book—for example, if you want to make a backup copy of your spellbook. This is just like copying a new spell into your spellbook, but faster and easier, since you understand your own notation and already know how to cast the spell. You need spend only 1 hour and 10 gp for each level of the copied spell."
I had a similar question that I asked of a DM about the 'Illuminator's Tattoo'. It basically makes your finger a quill. I was told the same, 'No, it's not magical ink'.
The dmg rules are following the pricing for what it suggests you reward players. So applying its rules for this might not work if you give more or less gold. And then theres the fact that spell scrolls shouldn't be cost effective because if they were then theres no reason to not carry 30 scrolls of fireball. Not targeting anyone with this just pointing some things out. Scrolls arent meant to be used to make a profit (unless you sell them of course), they are more like a back up plan, so that you can cast spells when your out of spellslots, or when you dont have the spell prepared (ie featherfall. Never want it until you need it).
So yeah whether the pricing is fair depends on the amount of gold you give your players. I've played in campaigns where 10 gp per character is an average amount to make in a session, as well as ones where its in the hundreds. Magic is a rich mans skill.
If this is true why are not low level wizard spell books flooded the market I can easily see low to mid level wizards dropping double this for access to new spells. For level 1-3 spells everything should be their and cheap no?
In your world, there might be. It all depends on factors like prevalence of magic, number of scribes, demand for low level spellbooks, etc.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Hey. One of my DM`s having a difficulty interpreting some rules when it comes to casting spell scrolls ,when it comes to some things another player has done.
When you use spell scrolls, is that counted as casting a spell or is spell scrolls it`s own thing.
An example for instance that when we fought a necromancer, the necromancer used a spell scroll and since when you use a spell scroll you don`t use components you shouldn`t be able to counterspell it. But the player said since a spell scroll say it has to be read, that he can then see the necromancer read the spell scroll and therefor he can counterspell it. The DM tried to argue that a spell scroll isn`t necessarily a spell.
He then proceeded to take forth a spell scroll and tried to make it so the necromancer tought he read it(Rolled a deception check and succeeded.) and counterspelled it when he didn`t use it.
Note: He took forth the spell scroll on the next turn. And he is obviously breaking the RAI, but that isn`t exactly what`s in the books.
Do any of you know of any rules that is being broken in any of the books like the PHB, DMG, XGE, TCE.
The relevant sections of each rule.
Counterspell:
Activating Magic Items: Spells (Basic Rules):
Scroll magic items (DMG):
Spell Scrolls:
So some brief notes. Counterspell doesn't say how you need to know that it is casting a spell. A literal reading might indicate that it is impossible to attempt to counterspell anything that is not a spell, since you technically wouldn't have met the trigger. It is true that not all scrolls are spells, but I don't think that matters as far as counterspell goes. Particularly, scrolls that aren't spells are not spell scrolls, but I don't know if there are any ways a character could easily tell the difference between a scroll (say a scroll of protection) and a spell scroll. But generally, casting from a spell scroll can be counterspelled.
Thanks for the help with clarifying the relevant rules. :)
Unless I'm missing something, when someone casts a spell from a spell scroll in front of you it should be as impossible to counterspell as when a sorcerer uses subtle spell on a spell with no M component. You don't see someone casting a spell, so you can't react to it. You might see someone reading a scroll, but that's not the same thing at all. For all you know, the scroll might be their shopping list.
The spell scrolls description says "...you can read the scroll and cast its spell without providing any material components. Otherwise, the scroll is unintelligible. Casting the spell by reading the scroll requires the spell’s normal casting time." So, if they're reading a spell scroll and producing the spell effect, they're casting the spell. If you see it then you see them casting a spell.
And again, Counterspell doesn't say how you have to figure out that what they're doing is casting a spell or whether you even have to know. You just have to see it, by a very strict reading of the trigger. Maybe it's so obvious that you know it when you see it. If there is a check involved at your table, that isn't in the rules anywhere. Even if you guess that when someone is reading from a scroll, you should counterspell, that could be enough knowledge to go off of. Someone who has enough knowledge about magic to interrupt another caster's spell probably knows that spells sometimes come on scrolls.
So you see someone reading off of a scroll: