Magical Shorthand and Learning Spells in Downtime in PFS

[ikemook]

I had a few quick questions about Magical Shorthand and learning spells in PFS.

Regarding Magical Shorthand, it allows you to learn spells in downtime, and describes the process as the following:

"You can use downtime to learn and inscribe new spells. This works as if you were using Earn Income with the tradition’s associated skill, but instead of gaining money, you choose a spell available to you to learn and gain a discount on learning it, learning it for free if your earned income equals or exceeds its cost."

Do you still have to make the skill check to actually learn the spell? It doesn't say here, so I'm not sure if this just allows to flat out learn a spell without making the Learn a Spell check (you just make a check to see how much it costs), or if there's some point in this process where you have to make a Learn a Spell check.

My second question is about learning spells in PFS. In P1E, you could, during downtime, track down a spell from another pathfinder and learn it at an increased cost (I think 50%, if I remember correctly). Does anyone know if a similar mechanic will exist in PFS, so that we can learn spells during downtime (such as through Magical Shorthand) without actually having to have acquired a copy of the spell during a scenario?

Thanks in advance!

--David

[mrspaghetti]

I know this is a thread necro, but I recently made a discovery that is pertinent to the question.

Basically, there has been some confusion about this, centering on what the Task DC should be for Learn a Spell during downtime, and whether having Magical Shorthand allowed one to use a task level appropriate for the spell being learned, which would often be higher than the PFS default of PC level minus 2.

My recent discovery was the PFS boon Storied Talent, which may be purchased cheaply with Achievement Points and allows you to attempt tasks at your character level when trying to Earn Income. So having both Magical Shorthand and that boon should prevent any issues in PFS for you related to task level.

Regarding whether you have to make a skill check, consider that what you are doing is the Learn a Spell activity. So I contend that you do make the check to Learn a Spell, and that is the only check you make. If you succeed, you learn the spell and if you fail you do not. Learn a Spell states the cost of the attempt, depending on the outcome of your roll. If you succeeded, you look up the amount you saved on table 4-2, with Task Level corresponding to the DC for whatever spell you learned, at the proficiency for your Arcana (expert or whatever). Multiply by the number of downtime days you are spending, and deduct it from the cost given in Learn a Spell. If you fail, then you get nothing (because you can't save on costs you don't have). If you critically fail, you look up the failure amount for that task level instead and deduct it from your cost the same way.