Why do Skalds have Scribe Scroll as a bonus feat? (and other odd class features).

[captain yesterday]

First of all, I'm just curious.

Just seemed odd that a class based around singing and rage would take the time to write spells on scrolls. :-)

Anyway, just curious. So if anyone knows why (Is it a historical shtick or game design related?), that would be awesome.

As always in my threads, keep it civil and be excellent to each other. :-)

[Rysky]

It doesn't have to a be a scroll, you could carve runes into a stone too. Or bones :3

[captain yesterday]

Oh I know, totally! My point (curiosity, or whatever) being, you got a Skald, she's pissed off and belting out tunes about burning s!$! down and getting all her companions totally jacked up about burning s@+% down and yet she takes the time to sit on a rock, cure some burnt flesh and start writing out how to comprehend languages. :-)

I guess they're just emotionally complex...

[Rysky]

Very.

[james014Aura]

Skalds were historically warrior-poets, so scribe scroll (alongside bardic casting and rage song) is a reference to the poet part.

[Klorox]

Actually, the skaldic tradition was largely oral, the rules of the poetry were monstrously rigid on rhythm and alliteration so the poems would be easy to remember, and there's little in the way of links between being a poet and knowing runes (pretty much all the writing available in the North before christianisation)... I'm not depriving skalds of their Scribe Rune/scroll feat out of historical correctness, but I must admit it doesn't make much sense to me either.

They are bards, not wizards.

[the Lorax]

I think people have covered the "why" pretty well - its a flavor feat to show "Skald's know runes - spells are made of mystic symbols...runes...so Skald's have Scribe Scroll."

However, read Egil's Saga.

Come back and try to explain why Egil is NOT 900AD's version of a gangster rapper.

Use the PFS variant for Scribe Scroll.

Laugh maniacally as you turn everyone in the party into a barbarian.

Really scribe scroll is a pretty awful feat for a skald - a flat +1 to UMD would be better.

[Cavall]

We can't take "historically" for skalds in a game were clerics get their prayers answered, Rangers are Tolkien based and wizards exist.

They get scribe scroll. There's more viking based ones that don't. That may be closer to the earth based skald.

[technarken]

Now I have the idea for a Skald that scribes scrolls in such a way that the writing disappearing drastically changes the tales written on the paper before. His scrolls are valuable art pieces for this reason.

[Chess Pwn]

skalds have to to synergize with their ability to cast any spell from any list. Thus they can gain the scroll for anything they want.