So the Oracle has a Halt Undead scroll, CL5th, and she is level 4. She's deciphered the writing previously and knows the scroll could be useful as they face a Mummy. She's not in a threatened space and goes to cast the spell. She easily passes the DC for casting a spell from a scroll higher than her level. She fulfils all other criteria for casting. But then I see that deciphering allows a caster to skip to the activation step, not to simply be able to trigger the spell at a later time as the player believed. The activation step says that to trigger it, she needs to be able to both see and read the writing on the scroll at the time of casting. Makes sense. Only doesn't she need read magic in effect in order to be able to read it? This would have caused a critical one round delay in the casting of the spell due to having to cast read magic first ( where the groups Magus might have bought the farm against the Mummy ). I allowed the casting to proceed, and the Mummy in question failed to resist the spell and was rendered immobile.
Next up they try to coup de grace it. Why not? So I read that section quickly and see that it requires a fort save vs DC and damage dealt but the Mummy has undead traits and escapes the fort save and repercussions. But I allow the full round coup de grace action to score the critical hits and before the Mummy is free of the Halt Undead it is slain. So the PC's triumphed and that's awesome. My question is was this interpretation right, and if not, is it wrong only in that the Oracle did indeed need to have read magic in effect prior to casting the spell Halt Undead from the scroll? Thanks in advance.
