Memorize Page Spell and copying spells from scrolls

[Supel]

Hey folks, an interesting question came up in a play session last night. Can a spell caster who knows the memorize page spell buy a scroll of an unknown spell and after making their spell craft check to learn it, but before copying the spell into their spell book memorize the scroll and not use it up in the copying process? The spell as written seems to all this.

Normally the scroll is consumed during the copying process. To take this a bit further, what if the caster borrowed the scroll last week from another mage and is now copying it into their spell book after memorizing it a week ago?

[Quorlox]

I'd allow it, but then again, our group has house ruled that scrolls are not used up when copied into a spell book.

[Dr Styx]

So, would a 9th level scroll be 1 page? Or 9 pages?

[DM_Blake]

Not likely.

The general rule is that when you copy from a scroll to your spellbook, it consumes the scroll. I find nothing in the description of Memorize Page that convinces me this doesn't happen. In this case, there is no specific rule to override the general rule because it makes no mention of how this works.

Given that, and the fact that I find it unlikely that the developers intended to make this 1st level spell become a free pass on non consuming scrolls, I'm inclined to think it should consume the scroll just like normal - the only benefit being that you can cast this spell, memorize the scroll, and then later, at any time, even years later, copy this spell into your spellbook from memory. But the scroll is consumed when you decipher it (at the time you memorize it).

Dr. Styx raises a good question. Scrolls are always just one page, so it seems like you should be able to memorize a scroll of even a 9th level spell, but that means if you use Memorize Page on a scroll of Wish it works, while if you use it on a spellbook of Wish it does not. I don't think that is intended either, so I would be inclined to assume the number of spellbook pages is the page count for the spell, even if it comes from a scroll.

That ruling makes this spell almost useless for memorizing spells, except with very low-level scrolls and spellbooks. Then again, that might be the intent - use it for espionage and other mundane purposes or with low-level spells, but it's not a pass on high-level spells.