Scrying Material Components

[Hawk Kriegsman]

Hello All,

Last night one of my player's decided to use scrying. This would have been the first time since we converted to PFRPG when it came out!

In 3.5 the materials and focuses were pretty clear.

Arcane: The eye of a hawk, an eagle, or a roc, plus nitric acid, copper, and zinc along with a 1,000 GP silver mirror

Cleric: A holy water font costing not less than 100 GP.

Druid: a natural pool of water

The PFRPG version is a little more cloudy.

It appears that an arcane caster needs a pool of water and a 1,000 GP mirror, while a divine caster needs a divine focus and a 1,000 GP mirror.

Am I reading that correctly?

I would like to know what others out there think.

Thanks in advance.

Hawk

[Splendor]

Scrying
Components: V,S,M/DF (a pool of water), F(a silver mirror worth 1,000 gp)
A Divine caster needs a pool of water.
An Arcane caster needs a silver mirror worth 1.000gp. Since its a focus it is reusable.

[Crai]

Interestingly, in 3.5 (since you mentioned that you might be using backported material), one of the WotC Eberron sourcebooks had a 'Scrying Shard' focus for the Scrying spell that cost 1,100 GP and weighed 1 lb. So it was slightly more expensive, but much smaller and lighter. You can Google "Eberron Scrying Shard" for more info and forum thread links regarding the object.

I'm not sure, but I think it might have been considered a magical wondrous item (craftable via the CWI feat) instead of a mundane [yet expensive] mirror item.

[Ed Reppert]

The PRD says "If the Components line includes F/DF or M/DF, the arcane version of the spell has a focus component or a material component (the abbreviation before the slash) and the divine version has a divine focus component (the abbreviation after the slash)."

So the divine (cleric, druid) version requires a pool of water as a divine focus, and the arcane version has a material component and (?) a focus component (the mirror). Or is the mirror both focus and material component?

I guess it doesn't matter. The PRD also says "Unless a cost is given for a material component, the cost is negligible. Don't bother to keep track of material components with negligible cost. Assume you have all you need as long as you have your spell component pouch." So it seems that even if there is a material component in addition to the focus, it's of negligible cost and we just assume the caster has it in his component pouch, right?

Hm. How much does a component pouch weigh? How much volume does it take up? Does this change per level? (I would expect a 20th level caster need more components than a 1st level one.)

[Azothath]

An arcane caster needs a 1000GP silver mirror. Size of 2*4ft though a masterwork hand mirror is possible. Steel mirror is 10GP 1/2lb, so 1000GP ->50lb, density of flint glass is 180-370 lb/cuft, use 275 -> 0.182cuft or 314.2 cuin at 1/4in gives 1256.73 sqin or 35.5*35.5" or about 24"*48". FYI by silver mirror I assume they mean a mercury/silver backed glass mirror and not a piece of polished silver. These were called "silver mirrors" and were known for there great reflectiveness and quality (long lasting backing that didn't corrode and turn brown then black). A bronze mirror would be a piece of polished bronze. A steel mirror is a piece of polished steel and at 3*4" weighs about 2 oz. Density of silver is 654.91 lb/cuft which at 500GP would yield 10 lb or 26.4cuin or 10.25*10.25" at 1/4" thickness.

A divine caster needs a divine focus and a pool of water (classically they use their holy font or pool).

optional foci are given in the table under connection, if you treat these as components then they are 1 time uses and then the connection is lost.