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Ok, I am running a Pathfinder Chronicles game and reading through the book I happen upon a section regarding technology and it has a section detailing the existence and use of the printing press, both fixed and movable font type.
Assuming normal gold investment for the ink and papers, plus quite a bit of a deposit for the use of the machine itself what is to prevent someone with the related feat from using this, a few craft checks, and the assistance of an operator to mass produce scrolls? I don't anything anywhere that would really prevent me from doing this rule wise.
As quoted from the book "..can engrave a special "press" containing words, images, or a series of words and images that are perfectly replicated, in ink and paper, hundreds or even thousands of times"
This hasn't become an issue but I am thinking it could be an interesting way to make a few lower level spells available to players at a dramatically reduced price. In fact I have a rough draft for a scribe-nest located in the market district of Alkenstar City, Egorian, and Promise at the very least marketing these.
Your thoughts?
Well it's more than just the ink on the paper -- please note not just anyone can make a scroll anyways. But I would allow an expensive magical press that could do something like this in less time (but at the same cost) than making scrolls normally would do.
We're talking about magic here.
The rules for scribing scrolls says it always takes at least one day to scribe a spell. Interestingly enough, Power Word Kill takes 4 days, and the entire spell is just one word long. It takes 32 hours to write that word, and that word fills up 9 pages of your spellbook.
Magic is funny that way.
So, while it might be possible for a qualified spellcaster to enscribe the necessary bookplates, and then those bookplates could be used in a printing press to produce scrolls, there might be weird consequences.
Maybe the press runs very, very slowly, so slowly that you would need time-laps photography to even know for sure if it is moving.
Or maybe it churns out hundreds of scrolls but only one of them each day is magically active. Bummer if it used those expensive inks on all the inert scrolls...
Then again, those two notions are silly, so it's probably best if the DM just makes a ruling. Either it works, and your players will crank out the Gutenberg Spellbook in no time flat, or it doesn't work and the magic just gets lost in the machine.
But, I imagine the players might get a kick out of meeting a really sad gnome crying in a mug of ale in some tavern somewhere, once they get him to tell the tragic story of how he lost his family fortune by investing in rare inks, planning to get rich with his printing press, only to end up with a mountain of very expensive non-magical scrolls.
And then he could show them one. And the PC wizard might notice, with a good spellcraft check, that while there is no magic, the words are still perfectly legible, and he might even be able to scribe it into a spellbook. Sure, the DC is harder since the scroll isn't magical, but it works! Even better, it doesn't erase the scroll since there is no magic in it, just expensive ink!
And the PCs then convince the gnome to sell them his wagon-load of "inert" scrolls for, oh, say 1,000 gold - just enough to get the little guy back on his feet. They bluff the gnome with a story of an eccentric artist in Absalom who tried to hire a wizard to scribe hundreds of scrolls for wallpaper at an art exhibit and they think they can sell him these useless scrolls for his art.
Then they run off to sell their new inert-but-scribable scrolls to every wizard far and wide, thinking they are going to make a fortune and laughing about swindling the sad little gnome.
Only, they quickly find out that the gnome, a clever illusionist, had sold them the only real scroll in the wagon, cleverly disguised with a Magic Aura spell to make it look non-magical, and an Illusory Script spell to make it look like the spell didn't fade after the wizard scribed it.
The scrolls in the wagon? Just expensive toilet paper. And the gnome is nowhere to be found...
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Well it's more than just the ink on the paper -- please note not just anyone can make a scroll anyways. But I would allow an expensive magical press that could do something like this in less time (but at the same cost) than making scrolls normally would do.
I was thinking somewhere in the price range of 8,000 Gold to construct and maintenance of somewhere around 150g per press made for it.
The operator would obviously have to meet the requisites to make any given scroll and have specialized training, quite likely the one running them would be a Pathfinder chronicler.
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We're talking about magic here.
The rules for scribing scrolls says it always takes at least one day to scribe a spell. Interestingly enough, Power Word Kill takes 4 days, and the entire spell is just one word long. It takes 32 hours to write that word, and that word fills up 9 pages of your spellbook.
Magic is funny that way.
thats one big word.
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We're talking about magic here.
The rules for scribing scrolls says it always takes at least one day to scribe a spell. Interestingly enough, Power Word Kill takes 4 days, and the entire spell is just one word long. It takes 32 hours to write that word, and that word fills up 9 pages of your spellbook.
I see that in the creating scrolls portion that it indicates that each scroll takes one day but as I am interpreting it is as RaI quoting from the feat description itself
"You can create a scroll of any spell that youknow. Scribing a scroll takes 2 hours if its base price is 250
gp or less, otherwise scribing a scroll takes 1 day for each
1,000 gp in its base price."
It is also worth noting that for all intensive purposes 8 hours is a day, that is how long you must wait to recharge spells, get progress on crafting and so forth.
I can see later on it indicates that
"Scribing a scroll requires 1 day per 1,000 gp 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"
I interpret this to meaning it applies only to scrolls containing multiple spells or in excess of 1000g in base price.
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Well it's more than just the ink on the paper -- please note not just anyone can make a scroll anyways. But I would allow an expensive magical press that could do something like this in less time (but at the same cost) than making scrolls normally would do.I was thinking somewhere in the price range of 8,000 Gold to construct and maintenance of somewhere around 150g per press made for it.
The operator would obviously have to meet the requisites to make any given scroll and have specialized training, quite likely the one running them would be a Pathfinder chronicler.
If I allowed this in my games -- and it's highly doubtful, because a way to produce scrolls in a shorter time sounds like a good way to throw away a lot of the game balance -- it'd be a Thassilonian or Azlanti artifact (and cost *WAY* more than 8000 GPs). In addition, once the word got out, it's likely that half the spellcasters on Golarion would assail the PCs to get such a miraculous magical item.
What would be next? A wand-copying machine? I mean, anything magical that PCs can buy or produce at a faster rate will result in more daily "firepower", and consequently add to their power. If everyone (including the players of all the "martial" characters) is okay with this and you're willing to compensate by ramping up the opposition -- sure, it won't probably "break" the game. But I imagine it would boring to play a fighter or a rogue in such a party...
What would be next? A wand-copying machine?
I call it a "zip" drive...
Your thoughts?
Where does press get caster levels? How is it getting the Scribe Scroll feat? How many spells per day does it have to put onto the scrolls? How many spells does it know to make scrolls from?
Scrolls are not just fancy ink and paper. Srolls are magic spells made material by an arcance process that the caster has learned.
Put as much ink on paper as accurately as you want, even the proper inks, without the caster to infuse the magic into the scroll during creation you have a pretty picture and naught else.
And allowing a 'Magical, scroll making' printing press into your world is ASKING for headaches.
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Your thoughts?Where does press get caster levels? How is it getting the Scribe Scroll feat? How many spells per day does it have to put onto the scrolls? How many spells does it know to make scrolls from?
Scrolls are not just fancy ink and paper. Srolls are magic spells made material by an arcance process that the caster has learned.
Put as much ink on paper as accurately as you want, even the proper inks, without the caster to infuse the magic into the scroll during creation you have a pretty picture and naught else.
And allowing a 'Magical, scroll making' printing press into your world is ASKING for headaches.
As far as I see it the technology would be incredibly self limiting, unpurchasable most likely, and at best ran by someone who's career it was to do such a thing professionally.
The system would be self limiting to lower level spells (1st and 2nd) as it can only do one page at a time.
And you seem to be under the impression that the thing would be operating itself, these machines are HIGHLY labor intensive and finicky, require inking, sheeting, a clean environment and someone to manually operate the device. Besides it is the character and the effort put into the scroll making process that defines it, not the materials and process, for precedent I cite the Caster's Shield as an example of an a-typical scroll making process.
Perhaps that cost is low, esp given the rarity and expertise required to build such a thing and maintain it but that is just a minor detail regardless in the scope of things.
I was thinking of Allowing it the following
2 Scrolls per hour production rate, 8 hours of runtime a day due to crafting limitations already set here for PCs, First and second level spells only, 5x the initial scroll cost for the press die, and of course the per scroll normal cost to produce.
Thoughts concerns? Criticism? I'd like to find a way for this to work.
To the nay sayers, all I have to say is that it is a DM's job to keep the players in line and prevent abuse. I wouldn't shy to let my players commission the use of the machine if they were in the right areas, with the right connections, gold to spend, and the willingness to role-play the encounter out.
We're talking about magic here.
The rules for scribing scrolls says it always takes at least one day to scribe a spell. Interestingly enough, Power Word Kill takes 4 days, and the entire spell is just one word long. It takes 32 hours to write that word, and that word fills up 9 pages of your spellbook.
Magic is funny that way.
Your thoughts wouldn't have been inspired, would they?
By this, perhaps?
We're talking about magic here.
The rules for scribing scrolls says it always takes at least one day to scribe a spell. Interestingly enough, Power Word Kill takes 4 days, and the entire spell is just one word long. It takes 32 hours to write that word, and that word fills up 9 pages of your spellbook.
Magic is funny that way.
Your thoughts wouldn't have been inspired, would they?
By this, perhaps?
I may indeed have been channeling some of Vaarsuvius' pain there.
Wondrous Scroll Press
Aura strong transmutation; CL 14th
Slot --; Price 20,000 gp; Weight 1,200 lbs
This monstrous machine contains all of the components of a conventional printing press with an expanded typeset of characters appropriate for spellcasting.
The press can be used to produce nonmagical text as normal, but its primary function is to greatly speed up the production of multiple copies of the same scroll.
A caster with the Scribe Scroll feat can configure the scroll press to produce a scroll. To do so, the caster must expend the same time and make the same skill checks as though scribing the scroll, including knowledge of the spell to be scribed, but no component costs are incurred and the spell is not cast.
Once the press is configured with a spell, whenever an operator supplies the press with ink and paper of appropriate value to scribe the scroll and expends the spell into the press as though casting it, the press produces a working scroll after 1 minute. There is no limit to the number of copies of the scroll that can be produced in this way, but each copy requires fresh materials and a fresh casting of the spell.
A Wondrous Scroll Press can only be configured for a single scroll at any given time; any attempt to use the press to print anything else ruins the configuration.
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, Mage's Lucubration, Read Magic, creator must have Scribe Scroll Feat; Cost 10,000 gp
This is a pretty interesting idea. I have no thoughts on the subject though as I've never taken magic item creation feats before :O
We're talking about magic here.
But, I imagine the players might get a kick out of meeting a really sad gnome
And the PCs then convince the gnome to sell them his wagon-load of "inert" scrolls for, oh, say 1,000 gold - just enough to get the little guy back on his feet.
The scrolls in the wagon? Just expensive toilet paper. And the gnome is nowhere to be found...
I love this. This is awesome.
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Wondrous Scroll Press
Aura strong transmutation; CL 14th
Slot --; Price 20,000 gp; Weight 1,200 lbs
This monstrous machine contains all of the components of a conventional printing press with an expanded typeset of characters appropriate for spellcasting.
The press can be used to produce nonmagical text as normal, but its primary function is to greatly speed up the production of multiple copies of the same scroll.
A caster with the Scribe Scroll feat can configure the scroll press to produce a scroll. To do so, the caster must expend the same time and make the same skill checks as though scribing the scroll, including knowledge of the spell to be scribed, but no component costs are incurred and the spell is not cast.
Once the press is configured with a spell, whenever an operator supplies the press with ink and paper of appropriate value to scribe the scroll and expends the spell into the press as though casting it, the press produces a working scroll after 1 minute. There is no limit to the number of copies of the scroll that can be produced in this way, but each copy requires fresh materials and a fresh casting of the spell.
A Wondrous Scroll Press can only be configured for a single scroll at any given time; any attempt to use the press to print anything else ruins the configuration.
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, Mage's Lucubration, Read Magic, creator must have Scribe Scroll Feat; Cost 10,000 gp
This is perfect! Exactly what I was looking for. The limit for producing the spell would be dependent on the Casters number of daily perpetration of the spell therefore preventing MASS huge quantities unless employing an entire coven of wizards.
You are amazing.Someone should add this to the d20pfsrd