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From my reading of RAW, I’m am questioning if scroll crafting is worth doing in society play.
A) The scroll crafting rules section seems to indicate that you buy a scroll and write a spell on it in batches of four. But without formulas.
B) The crafting skill seems to indicate you need a formula for each scroll type, tradition and level. So many thousands of combinations and millions of gold spent.
C) Another section seems to indicate their are ten levels of generic scroll formulas. Which seems more reasonable.
So if I want my wizard to craft scrolls do I need 1) acquire a spell, 2) pay to learn the spell, 3) buy the spell formula for the proper level, tradition, and spell itself, 4) spend gold on materials, 5) make my roll to craft (possible loosing half and gaining nothing), 6) paradoxically spending more time on something to make it cheaper?
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Tagged to be moved to the right forum, unfortunately, a lot of rules are a bit unclear as far as crafting is concerned (I am also pretty unclear about the formulas necessary personally), but that is not a question the organized play team or players can solve. That is something for the design team to clarify and to make it more visible to them, it should be moved.
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In the "Crafting a Scroll" section (p. 565) there's no indication that you'd need to have a specific formula for each different spell. It somewhat implies the opposite actually:
When you begin the crafting process, choose a spell to put into the scroll.
This to me sounds a bit like "I have a piece of paper in front of me, now what am I gonna write on it?"
Since scrolls are consumables, you can write a batch of up to 4 at the same time, but they all have to be the same scroll.
Looking further at the Crafting rules, they say we need a formula. Looking at the rules for formulas on page 293, we see that the formula's price depends on level, so it stands to reason that we would at least need a different formula for each different spell level.
So yeah, it looks to me like you simply need up to 10 different formulas, one per spell level, since there's no strong indication that anything more than that is needed.
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So a step by step process.
With examples.
1. Decide which spell you want a scroll of, at what level, and how large a batch you would like.
We're going to make 4 scrolls of Faerie Fire. That should let us cope with lots of invisible monsters over our career. It's a level 2 spell with no special heighten effect so we're just going to make it at its base level.
2. Get a formula for crafting scrolls of the desired level.
Faerie Fire is a level 2 spell, so the scroll would be a level 3 item. We buy the formula such scrolls for 3gp.
3. Be able to supply a casting of the spell. You probably have to be able to do this yourself, you can't get someone else who happens to be at the table do it for you.
Assume we have this spell on our spell list.
4. Spend GP on raw materials equal to half the cost of the batch.
Half of 4x12gp is 24gp]
5. Spend 4 days of Downtime.
Done.
6. Roll a Crafting check against the DC of the item level, using table 10-5 on page 503.
The DC for a level 3 task is 18.
7. Determine your result.
Critical Success As success, but if we continue working downtime days, we count our own level as 1 higher to determine how much money we save per day.
Success (see below)
Failure We're not successful, the 4 days of Downtime are wasted but we still have our 24gp worth of raw materials, so we could try again by spending more time.
Critical Failure As failure, but we also lose 10% of our raw materials.
8. If we succeed, we could call it quits right there and walk away with our scrolls, by paying the remainder of the cost (the other 24gp). Or we could spend some more days working on it to reduce the outstanding cost. For each day we work, we subtract an amount from the cost based on our level, not the level based on the item. We find this amount in table 4-2 on page 236.
Suppose we're a level 5 cleric who's an expert at Crafting and succeeded at the Crafting check. We still need to pay 24gp to finish the scrolls, but we'd rather spend more time working to reduce that cost. Looking in the "expert" column in table 4-2 and at row 5 (our level), we see that each day we reduce the remaining cost by 1gp. If we'd rolled a critical success, we would instead use row 5+1 = row 6, and save 2gp per day.
9. When the cost has been reduced to 0 or we lose patience and pay off the remaining cost, the items are finished.
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So is it worth it? I'm not sure, I haven't run the math on it extensively. Some basic things to consider though:
- You roll against the DC of the item, but use your level to determine the income. That compares well against Earn Income which uses a DC of your level -2 and uses that for income too. If you're crafting items well below your level, you're likely to roll critical successes and craft them quite efficiently.
- The 4 days of initial time investment are days not spent on Earn Income and it may be that you could have earned more just directly working.
- Formulas cost some money, although if you can re-use them not outrageously much.
Lau's breakdown matches how I run it at my tables too.
+1 to Lau's interpretation.
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+1 to Lau's interpretation.
I’m not looking for an interpretation but an actual ruling. One of my lodges more vocal and letter of the law GM’s is fixated on every scroll, needing a formula for every individual spell, heightened level and I assume tradition. So rough math y spells multiplied by heightened levels multiplied by tradition = several thousand combinations = more gold than I should spend given there’s a finite amount of gold in 20 levels.
The formulas don’t just cost some money under this schema they cost more than learning spells do, as you only learn the first level of a spell. Not every heightened level as in this case. You need to know the spell to craft the scrolls or pay for a casting.
Add this to the fact that every lodge will interpret the crafting rules differently because they are unclear. So no community standards means no game balance. As other players will be spending far less gold than I am to do the same thing.
I spoke to one of the herolab developers on this subject and they said RAW is every spell, heightened level, and tradition is a new formula. However they went with 10 scroll formulas instead as the database would have over 100,000 entries, and they couldn’t believe it was RAI.
I have read the page about scrolls being “types” and every “type needs a formula per level which seems to indicate 1-10 levels of scroll formula.
However the scroll crafting section doesn’t even mention formulas, and seems to suggest you just need materials called scrolls which are symbolically represented as gold. However the same section also says you can’t put a Focus spell in a scroll, but a couple of paragraphs later it says you can pay focus when casting a spell into a scroll that needs focus.
And the example scrolls cost less than they should according to the table on the same page. So many editing issues.
Also this post doesn’t belong in another section. It’s a society issue caused by the society’s play structure that being multiple GM interpretations on a meta game issue. It’s not an issue in house games due to GM handwaivium. So really my beef is not with what ever scroll rules end up being but not having a uniform interpretation of crafting as it’s 1/4th the core book.
+1 to Lau's interpretation.I’m not looking for an interpretation but an actual ruling.
Then you're asking in the wrong spot.
Also HeroLab is not a rules source so I'm not sure what relevance one of their developers' opinion on a rule is.
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Some other notes, you seem to have numerous misunderstandings regarding some of the rules surrounding scrolls and crafting:
Your claim about focus is not what the text says.. Focus spells can't go in scrolls. If a spell requires the focus component you must provide it.
The scroll section doesn't need to mention formulas, it's a requirement for the Craft action.
Only one of the scrolls on page 565 is mispriced
Even if each spell/scroll needs its own formula, scrolls do not have traditions. (There's no such thing as an arcane scroll) In fact the only time the word tradition (or arcane, divine, occult, or primal) appears in the scroll text is in the casting section.
To Cast a Spell from a scroll, the spell must appear on your spell list. Because you’re the one Casting the Spell, use your spell attack roll and spell DC. The spell also gains the appropriate trait for your tradition (arcane, divine, occult, or primal).
Lack of clarity in core rules is not the purview of the PFS team to fix or make rulings on.
There's just enough ambiguity in scroll formulas that one could come to the conclusion that every spell needs its own formula. I don't think it's a good conclusion, but it's certainty possible, and it's bad when core features that have long term wealth implications are ambiguous like this.
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Then you're asking in the wrong spot.+1 to Lau's interpretation.I’m not looking for an interpretation but an actual ruling.
Indeed.
The correct place to have this discussion is the Rules Forum if anyone desires an outcome. Having it here will only showcase "table variation". It's not in Leadership's job description to fix ambiguous rules. That's the purview of the Design Team.
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Then you're asking in the wrong spot.+1 to Lau's interpretation.I’m not looking for an interpretation but an actual ruling.Indeed.
The correct place to have this discussion is the Rules Forum if anyone desires an outcome. Having it here will only showcase "table variation". It's not in Leadership's job description to fix ambiguous rules. That's the purview of the Design Team.
They have been unresponsive for over a year. Gatekeeping and shuffling me off to the corner doesn't stop this issue from remaining broken.
As I have stated it's a problem caused by the nature of society play it should be resolved by the society. Is there not a formal ruling mechanism?
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While it is certainly inefficient, I can recall some rules discussions during PF1 that took several years to be resolved. So this isn't anything new.
We want your question to be answered, which is why we're telling you where the question needs to be asked. The Design Team doesn't look at this Forum for FAQ material.
If you need an answer now, either go with the more conservative interpretation, and possibly get a refund later, or find a more liberal-minded GM, and possibly pay more later.
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- The 4 days of initial time investment are days not spent on Earn Income and it may be that you could have earned more just directly working.
This is less of an issue in org play as there are a bunch of ways to reduce that time. Even outside org play there is goblin junktinkerer. (Actually I kind of love the idea of a goblin pulling out a "scroll" written on a tattered pieces of several dresses, covered in pictograms...)
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They have been unresponsive for over a year. Gatekeeping and shuffling me off to the corner doesn't stop this issue from remaining broken.
As I have stated it's a problem caused by the nature of society play it should be resolved by the society. Is there not a formal ruling mechanism?
I understand your frustration. When it comes to rules discussion, there is very little feedback from the Developers on the forums. We might get a FAQ or an errata but they are very unlikely to get any sort of dialog from them.
We are not trying to "Gatekeep" or "shuffle" you off. The experienced forum users are offering you advise on the best way to try and get an answer or update to something. Sometimes the answers are a conscience of other users on what the best way to handle a situation.
There is no formal ruling mechanism for Org Play but leadership has implemented "task forces", comprised of volunteer Venture Officers to look at the various areas and provide feedback and insight to the Org Play leadership.
So posting here is a good place. Give your reasons (maybe again because it might have gotten lost) why you believe this something that can be addressed by Org Play Leadership as the "GM" for our adventures.
Also, asking for (demanding?) an answer to your specific question is likely not going to work. I know, I have tried and was "directed" by the more active members of the forum on the "correct" way to approach getting answers. And they were right.
My comments are my own. I don't intend any offense.
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I think those upthread have a pretty good handle on this. There is just enough ambiguity to create some table variation which is going to impact the local lodge. You will not get a consistent ruling between lodges. You might be able to get your lodge leadership to rule how it will work within your local in order to have some consistency.
Generally speaking, crafting is unnecessary in org play. It becomes important when you are in a campaign where you have limited access to buy gear or you have much more time than money.
For example, I am running a converted Ironfang Invasion campaign. They have no access to merchants and very limited resources, but they have [relatively] abundant time. So, they can craft their own needed items which can save them half the cost in materials. Works very well, especially since I have allowed them to pool man-hours which means they can say brew a batch of an elixir in one day if they assign a journeyman plus three apprentices all working together. Then all four roll for earned income each day until they complete the batch. If they had access to the items through a merchant they would be better off just buying them. Which is how PFS works.