I am not a frequent player of arcane casters. Nor is my GM, so I learn something, and he gets to learn it at the same time.
Enter scrolls. I am a Wizard. I like scrolls. He likes to give me scrolls. There are questions though, raised by the most recent scroll he dropped in my lap. Animate Dead.
We fought a Necromancer named Marrow (from an adventure path so that might help). As far as he can tell me, her class was "Necromancer". She cast Lightning Bolts and other wizardly spells, (Stone Shape, Technomancy, Hydraulic Push) and had a handful of wands. They could also Channel Negative Energy, so all in all, I have no idea what type of caster they were.
Due to the spells not being on our cleric's list, we rules arcane, and I took the scrolls (many of which were Evil anyway which our cleric is against). Two days later, I discovered I need to ask how much material component was in the Animate scrolls, as I'm only level 5 and can't just transfer it into my spellbook yet (level 4 wiz spell). The default would be about 350gp according to the CRB. He wanted to default to 500gp, which would have meant the scroll was at least 10th level (which is insane for right now), so I instead asked what Marrow's CL was, so we could use that as the price like.
Spoiler, Marrow was CL 6. Too low for knowing the spell, however, she could in theory cast from a scroll of higher level with a spellcraft check, just as I could if I wanted to. Or, she's a divine caster and I guess the scrolls would be useless to me?
What is the difference between a Divine and Arcane scroll, other than cost (in some cases)? Obviously a scroll not on my spell lists could not be learned, but what of those on both? And when the book fails to clarify (or random treasure charts which just give you spell name) what do you assume the scroll is if it's on both arcane and divine spell lists? As far as I can tell, an arcane caster can't cast from a divine scroll and vice versa. This makes sense with some spells having varying focus or material components, but for ones the same, what do you do?
If treasure is rolled randomly, it is either an arcane scroll or a divine scroll. Determining that is part of the random roll.
From Scrolls: The spell must be of the correct type (arcane or divine). Arcane spellcasters (wizards, sorcerers, and bards) can only use scrolls containing arcane spells, and divine spellcasters (clerics, druids, paladins, and rangers) can only use scrolls containing divine spells. (The type of scroll a character creates is also determined by his class.)
If you are the right type, and the spell is on your class list, you can cast the spell if you are high enough level, no problem. If it is a higher caster level than you are, you have to make a caster level check, not a spellcraft check. d10 + your caster level vs scrolls caster level + 1. So if the animate dead was an arcane scroll with a caster level of 7 you would have to roll a 4 or better to use the scroll successfully.
The Necromancer in question was a Wizard (Necromancy School.) While they do have channel energy, it is only used for command undead, probably a mistake on your GMs part (and fairly easy one to make just looking at the stat block). They would have to make a caster level check to use the scroll.
In published material, if a scrolls type isn't mentioned and it is part of the equipment of a caster, it is safe to assume that it is usable by the caster (i.e. arcance casters have arcane scrolls).
If treasure is rolled randomly, it is either an arcane scroll or a divine scroll. Determining that is part of the random roll.
I guess we'll have to start rolling the "both" spells then. Our go-to roller tends to not give us Divine or Arcane, so we generally just assume "is it on you spell list? Then it's yours".
The Necromancer in question was a Wizard (Necromancy School.) While they do have channel energy, it is only used for command undead, probably a mistake on your GMs part (and fairly easy one to make just looking at the stat block). They would have to make a caster level check to use the scroll.
In published material, if a scrolls type isn't mentioned and it is part of the equipment of a caster, it is safe to assume that it is usable by the caster (i.e. arcance casters have arcane scrolls).
We have been assuming that latter part. This was the first one where we weren't sure just cause channel. We also didn't find her spellbook which would have been a dead giveaway. Thanks for the info, I informed our GM, and this didn't taint me on the adventure by making me have to dip into the book.
As an aside, there are specific forums dedicated to each Paizo advemture path, I strongly advise players not to read them, as spoilers abound, but your GM would find alot of support there for questions like this one.