How does Magical Shorthand work?

[Zamfield]

I understand the part about reducing the time to learn, what I don't get is the part about using downtime to learn a spell.

1. What task level do I use for learning the spell via downtime? Spell level?
2. Do I still have to make the "Learn a Spell" check?
3. If I do, can I still get it for half price if I critically succeed?
4. Do I still need a teacher or a copy of the spell on scroll or in a book?
5. If not, can I use this to get any spell from my tradition's list?
6. Also, if not, can I get access to uncommon, rare and unique spells this way?
7. How is this any more economic than just working a day job and spending money the traditional way?
8. Is it really going to take a month to learn a 3rd level spell for free?
9. If I do understand how the "Earning an Income" table and this feat work, is there really no difference between expert rank downtime checks and legendary rank downtime checks? (except for 10th with you earn an extra gold per day on success.)

Thanks.

[Zamfield]

Would love to get even partial answers for this.

[thenobledrake]

1) spell level
2) no specific exception to that rule stated, so yes
3) see 2
4) see 2
6) you only get access to uncommon, rare, or unique spells when something explicitly says so, so no
7) time - this feat enables your time to be spent both earning money and scribing, when you'd normally earn income and then later do the scribing.
8) that depends on some variables, but the basic answer is: yes, getting extra spells for 'free' will cost time.
9) from task level 10 upwards, proficiency ranks higher thank expert earn more money than expert ranks do.

[Zamfield]

Thanks for the response.

7. So once you have the feat, the most amount of time you'll need to spend learning a single spell will be 1 hour and 40 minutes. (100 minutes), by 7th level you'd spend half that so 50 minutes, and by 15th it could be 10 minutes or less. The downtime rider becomes less and less relevant as you level.

This also leads to another question. If you fail the Learn A Spell check, can you continue to reduce the cost with additional downtime days? or do you need to wait the 1 week or level gain before trying again?

[Ravingdork]

Instead of spell level, wouldn't it be minimum caster level necessary to cast the spell? (For example, a 5th-level spell would be task level 9.)

What is the point of the rider if you still need a teacher, scroll, or other resource? Isn't the point of the feat rider to allow you to learn the spells solo, much like Inventor lets you learn formulas?

I've been looking into this lately myself, and also would like some answers.

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

The downtime bit is suspiciously similar to the "instead of Earning Income, you can do this thing that works out the same" bit in Bargain Hunter. I'm convinced that bit is there for RP only. Spending all day buying and selling stuff is beneath your character's dignity? Instead you can spend it looking at stuff, then acquire the thing you actually wanted cheap (or free).