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I'm sure there's been variations of this before but I can't find one for pathfinder. So I have recreated the "Scriveners Pen" however I'm not quite sure how to price it and would appreciate advice.
Scrivener's Pen
This fine inkpen creates an endless supply of ink allowing the traveling scribe to reduce the amount of equipment they need to carry. The colour of the ink produced can be changed by clearly stating a colour while holding the inkpen. It will then write in that colour until such time as it is changed again. The inkpen can only produce single colours e.g. black, red or gold but not gold with silver spots or green and yellow stripes. Similarly the inkpen is unable to produce specialty inks such as fire or invisible ink.
The inkpen has a lacquered body and barrel with gold trim, the lacquer changes colour to match the colour of the ink being produced. Each inkpen comes with 5 gold nibs that can be inserted into the barrel for different widths of lines when writing or drawing with it as well as a case to carry the inkpen and nibs in.
{b}Construction Requirements{/b}
Craft Wondrous Item,
I was hoping to use the foresight quill as a base but that has no require spells and it costs 3,250 most of which is for the ability to pick an ability and roll twice then take the best result.
I'm thinking maybe 100ish gold? A scrivener's kit is only 2 GP for nibs, quills, ink and a knife to cut more quills, an inkpen is 1 SP (wooden pen with metal tip), black ink is 8 and coloured is 16. This is essentially an endless amount of black/coloured ink but on the flipside its not something I suspect most players worry about and it wont do specialty inks.
seem to me you have two cantrips working on this pen. Arcane Mark for permanent writing (altered somewhat via the 2nd spell to allow words other then the limited mark it normally allow for) and Prestidigitation for the coloring and sizing (*see 'EDIT') of the writing.
A one cantrip item that only do one specific thing the cantrip can do are set around 500 gp (such as this and that) these are items that do not cast spells rather use their effect somewhat limited. (the item doesn't allow any use of the cantrip rather a pre-determined use) it's following the pricing of 1,000 gp X caster level X spell level (where level 0 is considered as 1/2). as your item use 2 cantrips but again limited i wouldn't call in the X2 price on the 2nd spell, but others might.
so i would price it at 1,000 gp (for 2 cantrip's use at 500 gp each combined) others might ask for the price to be around 1,500 gp (for a 2nd spell added at X2 the price).
i will only add that for this price i would add the benefit of arcane mark to be applied here, so while the writing seem to use 'ink' it's not, thus it's not suspectable to stuff that happen with normal ink such as solvent that erase inks (or smudges that come up with ink). i will also add that if the writer so choses (turn a diel?) the writing can be invisible as per arcane mark.
and the best part - using the feather end of the quill the user can erase any part of what he wrote (using this part from arcane mark "The mark cannot be dispelled, but it can be removed by the caster or by an erase spell")
EDIT : i missed the part of 'nibs' being the reason to the altering the width of the writing, the pen i imagined should have like a ring around the area one grab it (a diel) that can be turned to change the width of the writing and another diel to turn it visible\invisible. (imagine the gold ring on this pen being a diel to be turned to do the stuff i mentioned)
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Hmmmm so how does this look then?
This fine inkpen creates an endless supply of ink allowing the traveling scribe to reduce the amount of equipment they need to carry. The colour of the ink produced can be changed by clearly stating a colour while holding the inkpen. It will then write in that colour until such time as it is changed again. The inkpen can only produce single colours e.g. black, red or gold but not gold with silver spots or green and yellow stripes. Similarly the inkpen is unable to produce specialty inks such as fire or invisible ink.
The inkpen has a lacquered body and barrel with a gold ring at the base that can be rotated to change the with of the writing. from the gold nib, the lacquer changes colour to match the colour of the ink being produced. The base of the pen can be swept over writing to erase it if a mistake is made, though this only applies to writing or drawings made with that particular inkpen and will not work on those made by other sources e.g. a regular quill or a different scrivener's inkpen..
{b}Construction Requirements{/b}
Craft Wondrous Item, Arcane Mark, Prestidigiation
Cost: 800 GP.
Changes in bold but in summary it now costs 800 gold, you can change the width of the writing by rotating a gold ring at the base of the barrel, the pen can erase its own writings but not ones made by other means e.g a different pen and you need arcane mark and prestidigation to make it. That fountain pen will do nicely for how it looks. Just picture the black parts changing colour to match whatever ink its producing e.g red, green, blue, silver.
I would ask, what in game benefit does this provide? and why does it need to be created? Aside from being something neat for a character to draw/record info with, I see no real in game benefit. Depending on how magic heavy the world is, I'd almost just let me player have it for free (i.e. handwave the cost). In a magic heavy world like Eberron, I could see a shop having a stash of these with their logo on it that they give away for free.
Also, you can remove the line width ring part. Nibs draw different widths based on the pressure used and direction of pull. (i.e. they are built to draw different widths)
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I would ask, what in game benefit does this provide? and why does it need to be created? Aside from being something neat for a character to draw/record info with, I see no real in game benefit. Depending on how magic heavy the world is, I'd almost just let me player have it for free (i.e. handwave the cost). In a magic heavy world like Eberron, I could see a shop having a stash of these with their logo on it that they give away for free.
Also, you can remove the line width ring part. Nibs draw different widths based on the pressure used and direction of pull. (i.e. they are built to draw different widths)
No real benefit its just a fun item for anyone who wants to draw or write a journal and a bit of world building.
If you can draw different widths why do things like this quill.. Have 5 different nibs with visible differences in width?
I would ask, what in game benefit does this provide? and why does it need to be created? Aside from being something neat for a character to draw/record info with, I see no real in game benefit. Depending on how magic heavy the world is, I'd almost just let me player have it for free (i.e. handwave the cost). In a magic heavy world like Eberron, I could see a shop having a stash of these with their logo on it that they give away for free.
Also, you can remove the line width ring part. Nibs draw different widths based on the pressure used and direction of pull. (i.e. they are built to draw different widths)
No real benefit its just a fun item for anyone who wants to draw or write a journal and a bit of world building.
If you can draw different widths why do things like this quill.. Have 5 different nibs with visible differences in width?
Well, I guess I should rephrase. a quill can draw particular width ranges, watch some calligraphy videos on how it works - so you would have different tips for various width ranges.
they basically draw near zero width lines as you pull sideways with no pressure, but the tips will split to draw wide lines as you pull towards you with more pressure.