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Hi all,
My character has written a book about his harrowing experiences on Devil's Elbow. "Tiny Zim and the Island of Devils" is sure to be a great hit with all of the treasure seekers headed for the island. It'll contain detailed maps and illustrations, as well as journal entries about the exotic flora and fauna of the island (including the space monsters).
Problem is that kobolds are paranoid and he doesn't want bootleg copies surfacing before he can cash in, so he wants to produce the book himself. In order to do this, the plucky little Cyphermage has designed a magical pen to copy his original manuscript into blank books.
We are currently using only the Beta rules with no splatbooks or Spell Compendium, so I needed to find a way to replicate Amenuensis (sp?) without delving into non-Beta sources:
New Item:
Stylus of Rapid Replication
Aura: Faint Transmutation CL: 1st
Price: 1800 gp Weight: -
This finely crafted pen has an adamantine tip that never dulls or seems to run out of ink. Upon command, the pen will magically animate and transcribe any non-magical written work at a rate of one page per minute for up to 100 pages per day.
The pen makes exact copies of all visible, non-magical writing and
illustrations, and changes the ink colour as needed. It does not translate the text or reveal any coded messages and requires sufficient blank surfaces (loose pages or a book are common choices) to complete its task, otherwise it will stop when it runs out of space.
Requirements: Craft Wondrous Item, Prestidigitation or Arcane Mark, Mage Hand, 900 gp, 2 days, Craft DC 6
I priced it using a command word (unlimited uses at will), but limited the amount of pages per day for balance. It also has the potential to run amok if left unattended (keeps writing even if out of paper, so you could come home to writing all over the wall).
So, fire away! :)
That will come in handy in _Armageddon Echo_ when the PCs find a critical document that can't be taken with them.
The one thing to think about--if the PCs stumble briefly into a high-end research library, can you live with the consequences of them copying large chunks of it? If you can, great; if not, you might want to tone this down in some way. Such libraries are pretty common in the APs. I wouldn't have a problem with it myself, but some GMs like to keep information under tighter control.
Mary
That will come in handy in _Armageddon Echo_ when the PCs find a critical document that can't be taken with them.
The one thing to think about--if the PCs stumble briefly into a high-end research library, can you live with the consequences of them copying large chunks of it? If you can, great; if not, you might want to tone this down in some way. Such libraries are pretty common in the APs. I wouldn't have a problem with it myself, but some GMs like to keep information under tighter control.
Mary
I'm gonna pretend you didn't write that since I'm the player. :)
We've modified it to 2000gp and it uses invisible servant instead. Expensive, but doesn't copy things like spell books.