Powerful Knowledge ability mechanics


Rules Questions

Liberty's Edge

Trying to figure out exactly what the Cavalier Order of the Tome's "Powerful Knowledge" ability lets you do.

Powerful Knowledge:
At 8th level, the cavalier gains the ability to read scrolls and cast arcane or divine spells from a scroll as if he had a caster level of his cavalier level –4. He can decipher all scrolls, using his Linguistics skill in place of Spellcraft, and does not need to cast read magic in order to decipher a scroll. Which type of spell the cavalier can cast is based on the Knowledge skill he chose for specialized knowledge. If he chose Knowledge (arcana), he can cast any arcane spells from a scroll. If he chose Knowledge (religion), he can cast any divine spells from a scroll. Furthermore, he gains a +1 bonus to an ability score for purposes of determining the level of spells he can cast from a scroll, and this bonus increases by +1 at 10th level and every 5 levels thereafter (to a maximum of +4 at 20th level). The ability score that gains the bonus is dependent on which skill the cavalier picked for his specialized knowledge ability. If the cavalier picked Knowledge (arcana), he gains the bonus to Intelligence. If he picked Knowledge (religion), he gains the bonus to Wisdom.

So it's clearly trying to let you bypass some of the requisites for casting a scroll. To cast a scroll you need:
1. The spell must be of the correct type (arcane or divine).
2. The user must have the spell on her class list.
3. The user must have the requisite ability score.

How many of these does the powerful knowledge ability let you bypass? It looks to me like 1 and 2, with them main focus being on 2, then the second part of the ability helps you meet requirement 3.
Eaxmple: Provided the cavalier picks knowledge (religion), and has a wisdom of 10, he could cast a scroll of cure light wounds.
1. Knowledge Religion ties you to divine spells
2. Ability lets you bypass class spell list
3. Ability score will be 11 with the PK ability, meaning you can cast 1st level spells.

Is this correct?


That seems like exactly how the ability was intended to be used.

Liberty's Edge

Mauril wrote:
That seems like exactly how the ability was intended to be used.

awesome. thanks for the backup.

Liberty's Edge

Salabrian wrote:

To cast a scroll you need:

1. The spell must be of the correct type (arcane or divine).
2. The user must have the spell on her class list.
3. The user must have the requisite ability score.

There's two additional requirements, though both are taken care of by the ability somewhat:

-You must have deciphered the scroll (which is taken care of by the bit about Linguistics in place of Spellcraft).
-Your caster level must be at least equal to the caster level of the scroll (that's why the caster level equal to Cavalier Level-4 is in there).

That last one is the most important. An 8th level Cavalier with this ability, for example, would only be able to use scrolls of caster level 4 or lower (without resorting to UMD, that is).

PS: Found you!

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