Relevant rules:
Magical Shorthand
Learn a Spell
Earn Income
I have a few questions about how Magical Shorthand interacts with these things.
1. Is the Earn Income check different than the check made to learn the spell, or are they the same roll?
2. What task level for Earn Income would you use? The highest one available to you?
3. It says "you choose a spell available to you to learn", what does available to you mean? Does it have the same limitations as Learn a Spell (you have to have a person who knows the spell or have it in writing) or can you pick any common spell on your list?
4. This is less of a magical shorthand question and more of a learn a spell question, but when copying a spell from a scroll, is the scroll used up? I know witches make their familiar eat the scroll, but what about wizards?
1. It's a different check.
2. Depends of the place that you are trying to earn income, setlement level influence the task level that you can take.
3. Avaliable in scrolls, spellbooks or someone willing to teach you.
4. Playtest familiar Witch consumes the scroll, Wizard does not and after they learn the spell from it they can still use the scroll.
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1. They are considered separate checks. The first check determines how much gold you earn, which can be put as a discount (or discounts) toward a spell (or spells) you learn in terms of cost in resources (because even if you have a written form of the spell in a scroll or other spellbook, you must spend the required resources to consider it a part of your own spellbook). The second check determines if you successfully scribe it into your own spellbook, add it to your spell list/repertoire, etc.
Of course, if you do fail the check, you still gain the gold cost from your downtime (since it still functions as Earn Income), but you can't expend your earned gold to learn your chosen spell again until you level up (or a week having been passed, since as a GM, being 20th level and failing 2 checks in a row for an uncommon spell or two meaning you never get an opportunity to try again is very poor design). Similarly, if you critically fail the check, you expend half of its cost from your earned gold (or into any reserve gold you may possess if that cost is greater than your earnings), and if you critically succeed, it only costs half as much to learn.
As for its interactions with Magical Shorthand, it just makes it so time isn't much of a factor into actually scribing the spells.
2. I'd say it depends on the spell. If you're learning a 1st level spell or cantrip, it'd probably be a 1st level task. If you're learning a 5th level spell, it'd be a 9th level task. As the guidelines state, Uncommon and Rare spells will have a higher DC, but they will still be of the lowest level you can cast in terms of availability to do.
Of course, as Kyrone states, settlements can place a factor, especially if you are trying to learn uncommon/rare spells, or if the settlement is of a lower level than what spell levels you're trying to learn (such as a Settlement counting as 9th level for earning income through Lore skills, but you're trying to learn a 6th level or higher spell). That being said, if you have a scroll or spellbook with the relevant spell, I imagine these sorts of requirements or issues would be waived.
3. Common spells are always available in every settlement unless stated otherwise in the settlement (such as being a lower level settlement than available spell level), and usually each settlement will say if it has access to certain uncommon or rare spells, as well as how to acquire them if so inquired. Otherwise, the limitations in the Learn a Spell section are pretty cut and dry. You need either a written form of the spell, or a person who can teach/scribe it to you. For common spells, this isn't much of an issue (again, unless they are of a lower level than the spell you're trying to learn), but for uncommon and rare spells, having a written version or someone who has knowledge and can teach to you is paramount to being able to learn it into your spell book, spell list, spell repertoire, etc.
4. Per the rules, no. The rules don't say that you expend any written sources upon scribing it, meaning that if you scribe a 1st level scroll as a spell into your spellbook, the scroll is still available for use as normal. As I stated above, even with a written form of the spell, you must still expend materials (valued in gold) to properly scribe and/or learn the spell.
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1. While Magical Shorthand is unclear on this, there is no language in it to change the procedure of how Learning a Spell works. So, different checks would be the assumption.
2. The task level is always decided by the GM.
3. Again, Magical Shorthand is unclear on this. Again however, there is no language in it which would change the general procedure. So, the assumption would be the standard availability rules for Learning a Spell.
4. As Darksol said, according to the rules, no.
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2. Depends of the place that you are trying to earn income, settlement level influence the task level that you can take.Agree with Darksol the Painbringer here.
Assuming you already have a scroll/spellbook with the spell you want to learn, or someone who knows it to teach you, the settlement wouldn't matter. The Task Level would be the level for a scroll of whatever spell you're trying to learn (see table 11-3 p. 565 CRB).
So using your downtime to learn a spell with Magical Shorthand will actually net you significantly more income than using Lore - at least for PFS. This because the Task Level is going to be at level rather than level minus 2.
While it would make sense for the task level to depend on the spell, there is no specific text to support that. As such, it is ambiguous. For PFS, without specific text supporting a change in task level, I would think it would stay at the default of level -2.
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It is the same as it is in the CRB. That is what I am saying. Magical Shorthand does not say that it deviates from the standard procedure for Learning a Spell. So it doesn't. While I agree that makes it very wonky with what would happen if you fail or crit fail, the only alternate options are assumptions. So I will go with the SOP for Learning a Spell and hope that the wizard player has the wherewithal to pick up Assurance (as I did) so that we don't have to deal with the fail or crit fail possibility.
I believe the Earn Income task level should be based not on the spell level, but on the minimum level necessary to cast the spell. (For example, a 5th-level spell would use the task level 9 DC.)
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 believe the reference to Availability is in regards to the rarity system, not to resources such as a teacher or a scroll. If a GM doesn't want a spell in his campaign, then you aren't going to get it this way.
Furthermore, Magical Shorthand says "You can use downtime to learn and inscribe new spells." I believe that to mean that the time to Learn a Spell is subsumed in the downtime used to Earn Income. (Why on earth would you bother tracking a few extra hours or minutes when you've already been tracking whole days?)
I believe the Earn Income task level should be based not on the spell level, but on the minimum level necessary to cast the spell. (For example, a 5th-level spell would use the task level 9 DC.)
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 believe the reference to Availability is in regards to the rarity system, not to resources such as a teacher or a scroll. If a GM doesn't want a spell in his campaign, then you aren't going to get it this way.
Furthermore, Magical Shorthand says "You can use downtime to learn and inscribe new spells." I believe that to mean that the time to Learn a Spell is subsumed in the downtime used to Earn Income. (Why on earth would you bother tracking a few extra hours or minutes when you've already been tracking whole days?)
I'm of the opinion that it would be based off of the level you're learning it at. If you have a Heightened uncommon spell you're learning from, it would be equal to that level, not the minimum, as that is the level of the source you're learning from. For common spells, it usually is from the lowest level, but with heightening rules and rarity being a factor (especially for written/consumable versions of rarer spells), the current level of the source should be what matters as that is what you're learning from. It's especially important for Spontaneous Spellcasters whom need to learn each individual spell level of a given spell to have it known to them.
That's an interesting point. Isn't one level as good as any other for prepared casters though? Why would you ever learn it at high level when you can learn it at low level, then put it in the appropriate slot?
That's an interesting point. Isn't one level as good as any other for prepared casters though? Why would you ever learn it at high level when you can learn it at low level, then put it in the appropriate slot?
Because you might not have access to a lower level version of it, which is mostly important for uncommon or rare spells.
Let's say you find a 4th level Circle of Protection scroll in your loot. As it is Uncommon, you might not have access to it any other way, in, say, a town or a church, meaning you won't be able to utilize a lower level version of the spell to learn.
If you wish to learn it to add to your repertoire, you would have to make a check as if it were a 4th level spell, as that is the only form of the spell you have access to. If you found a 3rd level version and learned it, then you could prepare it as a 4th level spell, and vice-versa. But the level you have access to is the level you make the check on.