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In spirit, if not in technicality depending on how you look at it, the scroll and thus the wealth has gone into the wizards spellbook, rather than going POOF into the ether the way a depleted scroll or wand charge does.I don't see "lending a scroll " to a wizard, who uses it to copy it into his spellbook as being any different from a fighter who gives the cleric a scroll of remove paralysis to use. The consumable is bought by character a, lent to character b, and used up.
It doesn't violate any of the society guides stipulations.
Even so, someone made what I thought was a good point earlier, to which no one's really responded: this would be a non-issue of we were using Core Rules for spell access. If buying a new spell from an NPC vendor used CRB pricing instead of scroll-based pricing, then the notion that someone might willingly elect to pay an exorbitant amount of money to get a scroll for someone else to scribe from (saving wizard B a tiny fraction of what it cost wizard A) would be laughable. We wouldn't even be having this discussion.
If the idea of buying a scroll for somenoe else to scribe from is a problem, it's one created by the non-Core price of spell access. The root problem is still PFS's deviation from Core prices; this other issue is merely a symptom.
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What about this scenario, similar to Rogue Eidolon's:
Party of 2 humans, 2 half elves and a halfling. At the briefing with the VC, you learn you are going into a VERY dark cave and to prepare accordingly.
No-one in this party has Darkvision. Could the party split the cost of a scroll of darkvision, communal before heading out? Yes.
Can the wizard in the party scribe the scroll instead so he can prepare it multiple times in the adventure? ??????
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The root problem is still PFS's deviation from Core prices; this other issue is merely a symptom.
As a player with a level 12 wizard, I really don't see the problem here. Spell prices from scrolls is a core way of getting access to scrolls. I've yet to have major problems getting access to the spells I want. Maybe it's just me though, but I still fail to see why this is considered to be so horrible; it certainly hasn't broken my wealth per level (and ask the GMs I've pissed off with my "godlike powers").
Something to think about. How many of you have high-level wizards who can speak to this being the issue that it's being presented?
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My highest-level caster is Jiao-long, my Fighter1/Wizard5. From this point on, he's paying for all his spells, because Eldritch Knights don't get two free spells per level. I'm already feeling the pinch as I try to decide what third-level spells are worth the cost to get into my spellbook, especially when I haven't even gotten my armor or cloak up to +2 yet. Maybe Ethan Snide has reached the point where the 22,000gp difference (exponentially more when we look past 4th level spells) between Core and PFS prices is trivial, but Jiao-long sure hasn't.
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Maybe Ethan Snide has reached the point where the 22,000gp difference (exponentially more when we look past 4th level spells) between Core and PFS prices is trivial, but Jiao-long sure hasn't.
Possibly - but I also passed through all the levels (Ethan has very little GM credit) and have been buying spells since day one. Yes it gets expensive, but it's never been so expensive to limit my wizard in any way. I don't see the problem that is being discussed, that Wizards get shafted because they "don't buy spells per the core rulebook".
The question about people having Wizards is that I see a lot of theorycrafting here (22,000 gp is too much, spells cost to much, being a wizard is hard), that I wonder how many of you who are posting about this being a problem have wizards since my experience is completely contrary to what is being discussed here. Of note - I have NEVER, to date, played with another wizard at the table. I've had to earn every one of my spells either through a chronicle sheet, a spellbook in adventure (happened twice), or paid for out of pocket. That said I've still had enough gold for some very good class-appropriate gear (staff of fireballs, rod of selective spell, headband of INT +4, plenty of expendables, ring of invisibility, necklace of adaptation, pearls of power, etc.).
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To me, the issue isn't so much about "playing a wizard is hard/expensive". It's more that someone (such as Wraithcannon) can go about their business, buying spells per the CRB, and then find out later through half a sentence buried at the end of a not-entirely-related FAQ, that their PC is illegal (to the tune of thousands of gp worth of underspending). It's as though the change was made without knowing it was a change, and it's trapping innocent players who (quite reasonably) thought that they could buy spells the way the CRB describes.
If you've been following this thread, you may recall that within the first page or two I pointed out that I'm fine with the idea of this pricing scheme, I just want two things:
1) Let's make sure it's a deliberate change and not an accidental one, and
2) If we keep it, let's put it where it can be more easily seen (such as its own FAQ entry).
Secondarily, there's the issue that cropped up on the previous page of whether or not someone should be able to scribe from someone else's scroll. That wouldn't even be a topic if we were going by the CRB, because no one would ever do it.
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The problem is not that playing a wizard is now financially unfeasible. The problem is that we have a stance of going by the CRB, yet have a contradiction that's hard to find and looks like an accident.
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It's as though the change was made without knowing it was a change, and it's trapping innocent players who (quite reasonably) thought that they could buy spells the way the CRB describes.
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The problem is not that playing a wizard is now financially unfeasible. The problem is that we have a stance of going by the CRB, yet have a contradiction that's hard to find and looks like an accident.
I would not describe this as "a change made without knowing it was a change". It has been like this since Day 1 of PFS. It was originally something put in place by Josh Frost, and as soon as the FAQ was made available it was codified there so players didn't have to look it up. So while it may look like an accident, it certainly never was one.
I am certainly not denying it couldn't be given its own FAQ entry though to make it abundantly clear.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I am certainly not denying it couldn't be given its own FAQ entry though to make it abundantly clear.
If it wasn't an accident, it could also certainly use some rephrasing to make that clear. As it is, it's a passing thought that reads like a reminder of something you were supposed to already know or figure out, rather than being phrased like an alteration of the rules.
Something like this...
"In Pathfinder Society Organized Play, spellbook users who wish to purchase access to a spell to scribe into their spellbooks must buy a scroll of that spell rather than paying the fee described on p.XXX of the Pathfinder Core Rulebook."
...reads like an alteration. But something like this...
"An NPC isn't just going to give you access to his spells for free, and purchasing a scroll of that spell represents the cost of gaining access to his spellbook."
...reads like the author of the statement thought they were filling in a gap where no rule existed, rather than changing an established rule. When you add this to the fact that it's at the bottom of a FAQ which opens with "we've made one change" but this sentence lists a second change, it really ends up looking like an accident.
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Ryan, did you think you get spell access from a chronicle? That's what I used to think, because older, higher level wizards I played with told me that.
I find a scroll during the adventure. I scribe the scroll into my spellbook (making all the appropriate checks) before I walk away from the table. I learn the spell without paying the scroll cost and just paying the scribing cost. This is in essence "gaining spell access from the chronicle." It's described that way because it's just the easiest thing to describe being the place where all the scrolls you could find are summarized.
I didn't get involved in this thread because it's just running around in circles. I should have remembered that before posting.
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His tears were weak and insufficient. I will collect yours when I run you through EotT.Just remember - while those godlike powers denied you my tears, they earned you Dragnmoon's tears. It all worked out in the end.ask the GMs I've pissed off with my "godlike powers").Grrrr.
Bee tee dubs, just a couple of weeks before Thomas the Tiefling Hero hits the PFS scene. Thanks for the boon, but at least wait until I've built up some Prestige before you come to town and kill him, alright?
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The root problem is still PFS's deviation from Core prices; this other issue is merely a symptom.As a player with a level 12 wizard, I really don't see the problem here. Spell prices from scrolls is a core way of getting access to scrolls. I've yet to have major problems getting access to the spells I want. Maybe it's just me though, but I still fail to see why this is considered to be so horrible; it certainly hasn't broken my wealth per level (and ask the GMs I've pissed off with my "godlike powers").
Something to think about. How many of you have high-level wizards who can speak to this being the issue that it's being presented?
I may not be high level, as I only just gained the ability to cast spells like Invisibility--I think you call them "level 2" spells? However, I have spent 2,200 gold on my spellbook. It would have cost 12,000 gold instead if I had paid for all of it through scrolls, which is vastly outside my budget, as I've only been on 6 Pathfinder missions so far. So that 22,000 is not a crazy number to throw around, if you never meet a fellow Wizard. If we were allowed to pay wizards who were not fellow agents for access to their spellbooks, it would have instead cost me 3,300 gold to acquire my current spellbook, which, while a good deal more than 2,200, is not the huge blow-up that 12,000 is. As it is, I owe a massive savings in my spellbook cost to adventuring with a far mightier wizard when we both were called to a horrible ship called the Throaty Mermaid...
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I posted the difference in price here.
Yup saw it. I'm saying that as a player with a 12th level wizard, once you count gold in pocket, it's not an issue. It's easy to do math and go "DEAR GOD THAT'S HORRIBLE", but when you're looking at gold in pocket and spells scribed via other mechanisms when you're actually at 11th-12th level, it's not that bad.
That's my question - how many people who are claiming this is an issue have high level wizards/spellcasters. I want to know if this is really something that people who have characters of that level are struggling with, or is it an assumed issue because you're theorycrafting? My experience is the later.
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I posted the difference in price here.Yup saw it. I'm saying that as a player with a 12th level wizard, once you count gold in pocket, it's not an issue. It's easy to do math and go "DEAR GOD THAT'S HORRIBLE", but when you're looking at gold in pocket and spells scribed via other mechanisms when you're actually at 11th-12th level, it's not that bad.
That's my question - how many people who are claiming this is an issue have high level wizards/spellcasters. I want to know if this is really something that people who have characters of that level are struggling with, or is it an assumed issue because you're theorycrafting? My experience is the later.
True or not, there's still this issue.
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True or not, there's still this issue.
Absolutely - I'm in 100% agreement that it could be spelled out in the FAQ a lot clearer.
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I posted the difference in price here.Yup saw it. I'm saying that as a player with a 12th level wizard, once you count gold in pocket, it's not an issue. It's easy to do math and go "DEAR GOD THAT'S HORRIBLE", but when you're looking at gold in pocket and spells scribed via other mechanisms when you're actually at 11th-12th level, it's not that bad.
That's my question - how many people who are claiming this is an issue have high level wizards/spellcasters. I want to know if this is really something that people who have characters of that level are struggling with, or is it an assumed issue because you're theorycrafting? My experience is the later.
No theorycrafting required--Cordelia is level 3 and has already saved 10,000 gold from the scroll cost due to copying from fellow wizards. To put it another way, to have Cordelia's identical spellbook, another PC who never met a fellow wizard and bought those spells only from scrolls would have already paid vastly more than Cordelia's net worth. Even a character that played up all 6 times from level 1 to level 3 couldn't afford it. Now granted, Cordelia has a rocking spellbook.
Anyway, the 20,000 gold gap quoted by Dragnmoon is, if anything an underestimate for a wizard, since he used an alchemist as an example, and alchemists pay less due to having lower level spells.
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No theorycrafting required--Cordelia is level 3 and has already saved 10,000 gold from the scroll cost due to copying from fellow wizards. To put it another way, to have Cordelia's identical spellbook, another PC who never met a fellow wizard and bought those spells only from scrolls would have already paid vastly more than Cordelia's net worth. Even a character that played up all 6 times from level 1 to level 3 couldn't afford it. Now granted, Cordelia has a rocking spellbook.
Anyway, the 20,000 gold gap quoted by Dragnmoon is, if anything an underestimate for a wizard, since he used an alchemist as an example, and alchemists pay less due to having lower level spells.
I give up. I'm out of this discussion.
The question has never been is Dragnmoon's math right. I'm sure it's just fine. The question is - is it a real problem, because in my experience, with my level 12 wizard who has never copied a scroll from another PC caster to-date it is not an issue. You can sit and argue "I'm out 20k gold and this sucks" until we're blue in the face, but it doesn't mean anything if it's not actually causing a real problem (which in my experience it's not).
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Ryan, gold in pocket?
My alchemist is almost level 12, and he cannot afford the scrolls he wanted. Now he could have if he used the rules on page 219.
Now that may be their goal, to make it that it is difficult to get spells, espeically at higher levels.
How much money can you save by getting spells with a costly material component as your 2 free spells per level and then buying scrolls for the other spells you want?
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How much money can you save by getting spells with a costly material component as your 2 free spells per level and then buying scrolls for the other spells you want?750 gp, not significant.
Hmmm... so they need more wizards to kill for their library.
The shattered star adventure path players guide has an option to get library access with prestige points, we may see that drift over to PFS.
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Possibly - but I also passed through all the levels (Ethan has very little GM credit) and have been buying spells since day one. Yes it gets expensive, but it's never been so expensive to limit my wizard in any way. I don't see the problem that is being discussed, that Wizards get shafted because they "don't buy spells per the core rulebook".
Ryan, just to verify, you are saying that the all spells your 12th level Wizard has were gained from the following sources:
3 + original Int Mod starting 1st level spells2 free spells for each level from 2-12
Spells from scrolls and spellbooks scribed during/at the end of an adventure
Spells from purchased scrolls
No spells purchased from NPC Wizards at the half-scribing cost as defined in the CRB?
I would not describe this as "a change made without knowing it was a change". It has been like this since Day 1 of PFS. It was originally something put in place by Josh Frost, and as soon as the FAQ was made available it was codified there so players didn't have to look it up. So while it may look like an accident, it certainly never was one.
Ryan, given that I have had to rebuild a Season 0 3.5E character into a PFRPG character for PFS, I have been around here for a while. I don't remember anything about this cost of being Wizard from Josh Frost. Do you happen to have a citation from Josh Frost as to this rule?
While I do not currently have a high level spellbook caster, yet, it is of concern to me for my Magus PC, since it is something that will, undoubtedly, affect him at some point. While being a Kensai reduces the number of slots I'll have to worry about with him, I will still want to have some versatility in his spell options...
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What the rules are doing is keeping PC spellcasters a bit closer to the kind of libraries that NPC spellcasters will have.
Then why don't the Core rules feel the need to do the same? The CRB seems to think that a much smaller "access fee" is perfectly appropriate. Why did PFS change it? And again, was it really on purpose?
And possibly more important is this: in a campaign where we advertise as being as close to Core rules as possible, why is a several-hundred-percent increase in price for spell access hidden in one sentence at the bottom of a long and only somewhat-related FAQ?
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I posted the difference in price here.Yup saw it. I'm saying that as a player with a 12th level wizard, once you count gold in pocket, it's not an issue. It's easy to do math and go "DEAR GOD THAT'S HORRIBLE", but when you're looking at gold in pocket and spells scribed via other mechanisms when you're actually at 11th-12th level, it's not that bad.
That's my question - how many people who are claiming this is an issue have high level wizards/spellcasters. I want to know if this is really something that people who have characters of that level are struggling with, or is it an assumed issue because you're theorycrafting? My experience is the later.
No theorycrafting required--Cordelia is level 3 and has already saved 10,000 gold from the scroll cost due to copying from fellow wizards. To put it another way, to have Cordelia's identical spellbook, another PC who never met a fellow wizard and bought those spells only from scrolls would have already paid vastly more than Cordelia's net worth. Even a character that played up all 6 times from level 1 to level 3 couldn't afford it. Now granted, Cordelia has a rocking spellbook.
Anyway, the 20,000 gold gap quoted by Dragnmoon is, if anything an underestimate for a wizard, since he used an alchemist as an example, and alchemists pay less due to having lower level spells.
This extreme cost difference is why my Magus, until 7th level only had the 2 free spells he got from leveling up.
Once he hit 7th level however and picked up Knowledge Pool and added every spell he wanted from his spell list to his spellbook (actually his 3 spellbooks since he filled the first two immediately and duplicated a few of them into his book of harm) at only the cost of scribing them.This does tend to make him popular with other adventuring wizards/magi/bards.
The question however is it legal?
The default CRB says any spell you currently have memorized can be written into your spellbook for the cost of the ink (in case you lose your regular spellbook). The PFS rules says the only way to add spells to your book is via scroll or someone Else's spellbook.
Which rule do we follow in this case?
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I posted the difference in price here.Yup saw it. I'm saying that as a player with a 12th level wizard, once you count gold in pocket, it's not an issue. It's easy to do math and go "DEAR GOD THAT'S HORRIBLE", but when you're looking at gold in pocket and spells scribed via other mechanisms when you're actually at 11th-12th level, it's not that bad.
That's my question - how many people who are claiming this is an issue have high level wizards/spellcasters. I want to know if this is really something that people who have characters of that level are struggling with, or is it an assumed issue because you're theorycrafting? My experience is the later.
No theorycrafting required--Cordelia is level 3 and has already saved 10,000 gold from the scroll cost due to copying from fellow wizards. To put it another way, to have Cordelia's identical spellbook, another PC who never met a fellow wizard and bought those spells only from scrolls would have already paid vastly more than Cordelia's net worth. Even a character that played up all 6 times from level 1 to level 3 couldn't afford it. Now granted, Cordelia has a rocking spellbook.
Anyway, the 20,000 gold gap quoted by Dragnmoon is, if anything an underestimate for a wizard, since he used an alchemist as an example, and alchemists pay less due to having lower level spells.
This extreme cost difference is why my Magus, until 7th level only had the 2 free spells he got from leveling up.
Once he hit 7th level however and picked up Knowledge Pool and added every spell he wanted from his spell list to his spellbook (actually his 3 spellbooks since he filled the first two immediately and duplicated a few of them into his book of harm) at only the cost of scribing them.
This does tend to make him popular...
I'm pretty sure someone brought up the knowledge pool exploit to Jason Bulmahn who said it shouldn't be allowed, so it's likely to be errataed in any case.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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The recent update to the FAQ regarding copying spells from an NPC spellbook.
This means that as a GM I can set any price I want for access to an NPC spellbook.
How in the world do you interpret this to mean the GM can set any price they want? The CRB sets a specific price.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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So when the FAQ said it's handled like in the Core Rulebook, your conclusion was "I can set the price" instead of "Better look at the Core Rulebook"?
In most cases, wizards charge a fee for the privilege of copying spells from their spellbooks. This fee is usually equal to half the cost to write the spell into a spellbook (see Writing a New Spell into a Spellbook).
EDIT: Ninja'd by the big man himself.
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I guess I'll ask one of the developers what they intended by adding the word usually.
Jiggy, what's the best thread to ask that in? Ask James?
Why do you need a developer to chime in?
Mike Brock, the coordinator of our campaign. The head honcho, has explained what his interpretation is.
James Jacobs is not the right guy to ask if you want a developers opinion. Good luck in getting Jason Buhlman or Sean K. Reynolds to answer what they mean when they say usually.
Furthermore, in organized play, and specifically Pathfinder Society, when something says usually, it typically means always.
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Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator
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I guess I'll ask one of the developers what they intended by adding the word usually.
Jiggy, what's the best thread to ask that in? Ask James?
No need. In PFS, this fee is always equal to half the cost to write the spell into a spellbook (see Writing a New Spell into a Spellbook). Does that clear it up for you or do you have any further questions?
So a PFS GM can't use the next sentence - "Rare and unique spells might cost significantly more." - to argue that he can charge more if he feels like it?
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So a PFS GM can't use the next sentence - "Rare and unique spells might cost significantly more." - to argue that he can charge more if he feels like it?
Define rare and unique in the context of PFS?
If a GM has to arbitrarily decide whether something is rare or unique, then yeah, a PFS GM can't use that sentence.
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Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator
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So a PFS GM can't use the next sentence - "Rare and unique spells might cost significantly more." - to argue that he can charge more if he feels like it?
That is correct. A GM can not charge more. I have added the following sentence to the end of the new FAQ:
In the rare instance of a wizard charging a fee for the privilege of copying spells from their spellbooks, this fee is equal to half the cost to write the spell into a spellbook (see Writing a New Spell into a Spellbook). Rare and unique spells do not change the fee in PFS.