Scribing scrolls while doing other things


Rules Questions


So the CRB says you can take 2 hours out of your day to scribe a cheap scroll (250 GP or less) and perform the act of completing the scroll while doing other things such as adventuring. What about OTHER other things?

I am going to be using Ultimate Campaign for my home game. If the party wizard is using Downtime to generate 2 pts of Magic Capital in a day and I houserule he can use these to buy up enough material for, say, 8 scrolls, then could he conceivably spend another 8 days gathering other kinds of Capital for the party's construction AND scribe one scroll/day?


Anyone?


He can actually write four scrolls a day (they take 2 hours if under 250 gp), but i would rule that since its not dedicated work, he would need twice as much time to work on his scrolls, afterall he is busy earning Capital elsewhere (same rule as crafting while adventuring).

Thus he would need 4 extra hours per scroll per day to craft his scrolls.

You need 8 hours of rest, 8 hours to benefit from a "downtime day", and have an extra 8 hours to complete the 24 daily hours.

The downtime (or crafting) rules dont explain what happens if you exploit the extra 8 daily hours left, if it has any consequences to your health or not, or if they are actually hours that you spend doing nothing if you are sitting in a town.

Thats up to the GM to decide, but i would surely make him feel fatigated for the rest of the days due to overwork, unless he took a day off to rest.


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shadowkras wrote:
He can actually write four scrolls a day (they take 2 hours if under 250 gp)

There is a (weird) rule in the magic item creation section which doesn't seem to make any exception for scrolls or potions: "Regardless of the time needed for construction, a caster can create no more than one magic item per day."


Yeah, forgot about that one. Its one of those rules we ignore for the sake of remaining sane.


Ok, regardless of making 1 or 4 scrolls in a day, there's nothing RAW that says a wizard CAN'T make one while spending Downtime right? Example:

Wizard with Craft: Books +8 and an Owl (Valet archetype) familiar takes 10 with his Craft skill for a 20. He uses this and 50 GP to acquire 2 Magic Capital. He then turns right around and spends that Capital to pay the costs of the material to make 8 Scrolls, 1 of which he makes that evening.

For the next 7 days he's spending his time doing other things; building more Capital to spend toward the construction of a Scriptorum, copying spells into his spellbook and earning regular gold. All the while, each day he's taking 2 hours on his lunches, between jobs or in the evenings scribing more scrolls which he's already paid the cost for with the Magic Capital.

Do I have this right?


The downtime rules are very abstract. The 8 hours a day is an approximation because they had to write down how long a work-day is. In short, a downtime day is a downtime day - ignore the '8 hours' part. The idea being, that even though you are working 8 hours a day, and sleeping 8 hours a day, you also have to eat, deal with personal care issues, and general time wasting that is required to remain sane.

Regarding Earning: If you are working on earning capital for the day, that's your day. If you are bookbinding for the day with your owl helping, as you described, then for that day, you get your 2 Magic (which cost you 50gp EACH - so you'd have to pay 100gp to earn that capital.

Regarding Craft: Each day, you can craft 1000 gp worth (base price) of scroll. You can use your Magic capital to pay for some or all of the crafting cost (at 100gp/Magic). So, to crank out scrolls at minimal cost:

Earning Capital to craft scroll:
Day 1: Earn Capital: 2 Magic : Pay 100 gp
Day 2: Earn Capital: 2 Magic : Pay 100 gp
Day 3: Craft Scroll (1000gp base price, 500 gp cost): Paid with 4 Magic and 100gp.

This took 3 days and cost you 300gp.

Crafting Scroll without Earning Capital:
Day 1: Craft Scroll (1000gp base price, 500 gp cost): Paid with 500gp.

This took 1 day and cost you 500gp.


Actually, with the Valet familiar, you can craft 2000gp worth of scroll a day. The rule on scrolls is that you can only scribe 1 spell per day.

Quote:
Time Required Scribing a scroll requires 1 day per 1,000 gp (2,000gp with the valet) of the base price. Although an individual scroll might contain more than one spell, each spell must be scribed as a separate effort, meaning that no more than 1 spell can be scribed in a day.

Cheap scrolls can be done in 2 hours (250gp or less), but there is still a limit of 1 magic item a day.

Quote:
Regardless of the time needed for construction, a caster can create no more than one magic item per day.

There is nothing in the downtime rules that change this 1 a day limit. There is also nothing in the downtime rules about partial days.

A GM might rule that you could squeeze a 250gp scroll in a day with another downtime activity, but I would use the suggestion under the Gather Information downtime activity, of applying a -4 to any skillchecks for the actual downtime activity for that day. With this in mind, you might be able to:

Downtime Activity: Earn Capital: Craft(books) +10; -4; Take 10 = 14 :: earn 1 Magic, paying 50gp.
Minor Crafting: Craft 250gp scroll, cost 125gp, paid with 1 Magic and 25 gp.

You just spent 1 day, and made a 250gp scroll, and it cost you 75gp.

Liberty's Edge

CraziFuzzy wrote:

The downtime rules are very abstract. The 8 hours a day is an approximation because they had to write down how long a work-day is. In short, a downtime day is a downtime day - ignore the '8 hours' part. The idea being, that even though you are working 8 hours a day, and sleeping 8 hours a day, you also have to eat, deal with personal care issues, and general time wasting that is required to remain sane.

This ^

A day of work is the full day for the downtime rules.

and:

PRD - Magic Item Creation wrote:
The caster can work for up to 8 hours each day. He cannot rush the process by working longer each day, but the days need not be consecutive, and the caster can use the rest of his time as he sees fit. If the caster is out adventuring, he can devote 4 hours each day to item creation, although he nets only 2 hours' worth of work. This time is not spent in one continuous period, but rather during lunch, morning preparation, and during watches at night.

You can devote 4 hours day to crafting magic item while adventuring, not while working at another project.

The way in which you spend time while adventuring is different from the way in which you spend time wile working.

If you are fighting someone generally it take little time, even exploring a dungeon take little time (for a old timer like me, too little time against the kind of exploration you do [I have done some spelunking, you spend a lot of time even exploring a small cave with 200' square feet of floor space]). Traveling from a place to another while adventuring can take a lot of time, but usually you have plenty of interruptions that will allow you to do your enchanting. If youa re doing a forced march I wouldn't allow you to enchant something the same day.

Working generally keep you occupied for 8 solid hours, with relatively short interruptions.


@ Diego: so, you're saying that during 8 hours of working your wizard doesn't have morning preparation, take a lunch or stay awake a little afterwards? That seems odd.


Not odd, just abstracted.

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