My group is light on any kind of divination magic. I've been using an in game library as a way to provide them with a bonus to knowledge checks. So far, it's just been a standard +2 or +3 and 2-5 days of research. Does anybody have anything a little more detailed?
Having a cleric in the party, or having a wizard find an old spell book is a good way to add a twist. But of course other people in the party would get jealous.
My group is light on any kind of divination magic. I've been using an in game library as a way to provide them with a bonus to knowledge checks. So far, it's just been a standard +2 or +3 and 2-5 days of research. Does anybody have anything a little more detailed?
Depending on the library, it could offer as much as a +6 circumstance bonus on Knowledge checks (detailed in the Stronghold Builder's Guide, though the price for using such a specialized library could be quite high unless the character has already spent the 20,500 gp+ to buy his own library of awesomeness +6 ^^ (not actually a magical item).
Also, sages for hire charge at least 2 gp per question, though they typically use nonmagical means to answer questions, so answers could take a while.
A diviner specialist wizard for hire can provide all sorts of magical aid, beyond the obvious divination magic. Just remember, price per spell is generally spell level x caster level x 10, plus price of material components & 5 times any experience point cost.
My players have a good working relationship with the local temples and use that to figure out hard questions. Sometimes they get the answers they were looking for and sometimes not.(shrug)
As a side note, the priest in the party for one reason or another has never bothered to cast a divination spell. Why? Heck if I know...
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My group is light on any kind of divination magic. I've been using an in game library as a way to provide them with a bonus to knowledge checks. So far, it's just been a standard +2 or +3 and 2-5 days of research. Does anybody have anything a little more detailed?
The "Spells & Spellcraft" book from Fantasy Flight Games (Legends & Lairs series) has extended rules for libraries creation and in-game perusal for infos retriaval and skill check bonuses.
And it has a bunch of other useful ideas and rules to boot.
In our last session, the sorcerer found a drocoliches library and took some books. Among these include best selling titles such as:
"How to rule the deceased"
"1000 ways to make a zombie"
"History of evil and necromancy"
"How to make a blood golem"
"Your cyst and you"
"100 helpful hints to mummy making"
"Graveyards can be your friends"
He's gonna read them once the adventures over...but its up to me to see what they do...
MWHAHAHAHAHAHA!
He wants to know what to read first.
Once in a while, I'll drop a book in a treasure hoard. This book specializes in a certain skill and gives a +1 or +2 bonus on a check when the book is used as a reference to make the roll. These books could be pretty much anything...
"The Creation of Cauldron" : +2 bonus on Knowledge (local),
"Unlocking the Secrets" : +1 bonus on Open Lock rolls,
"Khi's Guide to Magic" : +1 bonus on Spellcraft checks,
You get the drift.
When my players are faced with a tough Knowledge check to make and can't seem to have what it takes, they usually turn to sages temple priests or local wizards to do the roll for them... But it's never cheap. I'm finding this method quite useful because my players are putting more and more points in different Knowledge, Profession and Craft skills than before.
Ultradan
Once in a while, I'll drop a book in a treasure hoard. This book specializes in a certain skill and gives a +1 or +2 bonus on a check when the book is used as a reference to make the roll.
Excellent idea!
The "Spells & Spellcraft" book from Fantasy Flight Games (Legends & Lairs series) has extended rules for libraries creation and in-game perusal for infos retriaval and skill check bonuses.
And it has a bunch of other useful ideas and rules to boot.
I really like all of the Legends & Lairs books that I have (and I have most of them), and Spells & Spellcraft has come in handy for all of the campaigns I've run since I've picked it up on it release date. There are about six pages on libraries and more on magical research, and neat ideas on various rituals and cermonies for clerics, druids, paladins and rangers.
I think this was the book that I first noticed Wil Upchurch (as lead developer in this case), and I've since looked at anything with his name attatched to it, most recently Champions of Ruin.
Fantasy Flight games has discontinued the Legends & Lairs line, but you can still find copies here (at the Paizo Store) and there, or get the PDF books at DriveThruRPG.com for $4.99. Here's a link to the Legends & Lairs page at DriveThruRPG.com.
My group is light on any kind of divination magic. I've been using an in game library as a way to provide them with a bonus to knowledge checks. So far, it's just been a standard +2 or +3 and 2-5 days of research. Does anybody have anything a little more detailed?
Stronghold Builder's Guidebook includes a small bit about libraries of different sizes and bonuses to Knowledge checks.
Once in a while, I'll drop a book in a treasure hoard. This book specializes in a certain skill and gives a +1 or +2 bonus on a check when the book is used as a reference to make the roll. These books could be pretty much anything...
"The Creation of Cauldron" : +2 bonus on Knowledge (local),
"Unlocking the Secrets" : +1 bonus on Open Lock rolls,
"Khi's Guide to Magic" : +1 bonus on Spellcraft checks,
You get the drift.
I submitted similar idea to dragon
I used to have some players who'd drive me nuts going through libraries, wanting to examine every book. So one day I created some tables to help me when in those situations.
Book Topic
01-20-Fiction and Drama
21-30-History
31-35-Reference Works
36-40- Myths and Fairy Tales
41-45-Art
46-50-Law
51-55-Philosophy
56-60-Naturalism
61-65-Technical
66-70-Biography
66-70-Poetry
71-75-Religious Works
76-80-Political and Economic Tracts
81-85-Travelogue and Memoirs
86-90-Health and Medicine
91-Linguistics
92-Magical Theory
93-Games and Sport
94-Education
95-Picture Books
96-Gazzetters
97-Children’s Books
98-Military Theory
99-Music
100-Mathematics
What language is it written in?
01-50-Common
51-55-Old Common/Dead Language
56-60-Monster language (see below)
61-70-Dwarven
71-80-Elven
81-85-Gnome
86-90-Halfling
91-95-Planar language (see below)
96-Natural (1-50 Sylvan, 51-100 Druidic)
97- Gibberish/Indecipherable
98-Multiple Languages (roll d6+1 times)
99-Cypher
100-Magical
Monster Languages
01-40-Draconic
41-50-Goblin
51-55-Giant
56-60-Gnoll
61-70-Orc
71-100-Undercommon
Planar Languages
01-15-Abyssal
16-25-Aquan
26-35-Auran
36-65-Celestial
66-75-Ignan
76-90-Infernal
91-100-Terran
I used to have some players who'd drive me nuts going through libraries, wanting to examine every book. So one day I created some tables to help me when in those situations.
Very nice, mind if I steal them? :)
One thing which has been bugging me however (in past articles of eg. Dragon) is that if we take a look at real medieval times (one might think again how different the game worlds are from medieval earth) books are actually quite rare and thus books like "101 Uses for Dead Orc", "Mating Habits of Beholders" and such rather trivial works wouldn't exist.
Making books by hand is time-consuming process and they are expensive (100 books is already a big library in those times). Also, most books were done or ordered by monasteries and churches and thus amount of religious texts should form a considerable part of output. In history and especially in magical worlds also different magical works should be considerable part of books in general...
Also fields like music (notes), philosphy and poetry could use larger percent on expense of fiction and some of the other sciences. Combinations are also common, for example adding philosophical content to scientific or travelogue works or religion to poetry...
Not sure about status of political tracts, those generally require printing and literacy being relatively common (character classes except barbarians have automatic literacy as probably do many aristocrats but what about adepts, experts or commoners?).
Another thing to remember is that compound volumes are common, where several shorter books are binded together to one big volume. So just looking at the first page and seeing it's Suloise poetry isn't enough, it might continue with true name of Grazzt and then 17 teachings of Wee Jas...
I used to have some players who'd drive me nuts going through libraries, wanting to examine every book. So one day I created some tables to help me when in those situations.
Very nice, mind if I steal them? :)
One thing which has been bugging me however (in past articles of eg. Dragon) is that if we take a look at real medieval times (one might think again how different the game worlds are from medieval earth) books are actually quite rare and thus books like "101 Uses for Dead Orc", "Mating Habits of Beholders" and such rather trivial works wouldn't exist.
Feel free to use those tables if you find them useful, though I do tweak them depending upon the owner of the library (i.e. lich=more magical theory, less children's books :) ).
In your comments you touched upon one of the critical differences between D&D societies and genuinely midieval societies (besides magic of course :) ), almost universal literacy. The rules expressly forbid it to barbarians, but from what I can recall of the description of the Speak Languages skill it gives literacy to everyone else, including commoners and the other NPC classes. This means just about everybody has taken the time to master a very complex skill.
This implies many opportunties for reading, just as a society with lots of driver's licences suggests many cars, since there's no percentage in mastering a skill you will have little chance to use. In this case demand creates its own supply.
How this could come about is an interesting topic all on its own (printing presses aren't all that hard to make in theory especially if you can get a few dwarfs and gnomes to work together... plus I've always been partial to "golems of copying" myself) but if you assume a mass market audience for books a few other assumptions naturally evolve from it.
(1) A wide distribution of topics as depicted on that chart
(2) A wide number of books in print, making large volume libraries feasible
(3) Relatively cheap printing processes, potentially making marketing trump some economic consideration so that compound volumes would be considerably rarer then in a setting that more closely mirrors a genuine midieval society.
There was a 2nd Ed spell called "Amanuensis" (1st-lvl, I think - would make a great 0-lvl spell) that allowed someone to copy pages of nonmagical text. Get this spell converted and created a wondrous item - presto changeo oatmeal squareo!
Printing Press!
it is in Magic of Faerun (page 77) the 3e version if Cleric 3, sorcerer/wizard 3
This means just about everybody has taken the time to master a very complex skill.
True, which would mean that some easy method of book-copying is available, whether it is by magic or printing.
Somehow I am a bit tempted to suggest some house rules limiting the literacy to fit more medieval idea...something like: Mages and clerics (and maybe monks) can read automatically, for rogues, bards, paladins, experts and aristocrats it is common (spend a skill point or get an extra feat if you are illerate or something), for druids, rangers, fighters, sorcerers and adepts it is uncommon (spend more skill points or get a feat or something). Commoners, warriors and barbarians cannot read.
Races and cultures should naturally play a role here too. More long-lived and civilized cultures seem to favor literacy while some localized modes can take place (a noble knight might take pride of being illiterate since reading and writing is something scribes and monks do and if he wants that done he will employ one).
If you couldn't tell, I quite enjoy making life more difficult for the players without simply using bigger monsters or more deadly traps :)
One thing to consider in use of libraries as reference is level of scientific thought. After all, in historical writings hearsay was generally considered a good source and a bit of fiction to gild the facts was common manner. For example, Germania by Tacitus starts out fine when describing lands right next to Roman border but farther the book goes more inexact it becomes (since Tacitus never actually bothered to travel there). Add to this the fact that he was also pushing a politico-philosophical point (liberty and civilization of Rome, further you got from it more barbaric and tyrannic people became and after the worst tyrant comes people with a woman as a leader *horror* and then come people with no leaders at all...) and you have a book which is a happy mix of truth and falsehoods.
Then again, there were writers who actually did try to get their information correct.
And so that life wouldn't be too easy, it should be remembered that not all copyists actually could read and even for those who could, it was rather tedious work...which easily led to text corruption. Some words or passages could be omitted or repeated, scribblings in the marginal could be mistaken as part of original text (there are some pieces in Bible for example which appear to be such :) ), common misspelling or uncertain spelling happened...and then this corrupted version was copied further. So it might be a good idea to travel a bit further to see what the older version of the book did say...
Books are such a wonderful way to feed misinformation to players that it is a pity to take it away by common literacy and printing press.
Of the tables, different cultures produce different books too...cultures like orcs' probably do mostly histories and geography and I doubt dwarves are as big on poetry as elves :)
And I would think that dwarves would be most likely to do some of that "philosophical science" since at least in my head they would be most rigid to imagine how world "should be" in stead of how it actually is...
Books are common in DnD for the same reason as steel weapons, full plate, ships, traps, and castles/forts.
Fabricate
Even a single casting of Fabricate can produce items that would cost thousands of GP and millions of man-hours, so that if a few wizards exist in the world who can cast the spell for hire, the elite of your world(leveled characters) can easily have access to things that would be difficult to produce with manual labor.