17 April 2016

Options for Magic Scroll Manufacturing

This may be heresy, but I am thinking of adding the Holmes Basic scroll rules to my Swords & Wizardry White Box game, but with one change: Instead of requiring one week per spell level to inscribe a spell, I'd reduce it to one day per spell level. In a campaign in which adventures occur in rapid succession due to certain events, there is very little time for study between them. Taking a week between adventures just to inscribe one first level spell simply isn't worth the time and effort even if a week can be spared. A fourth level spell requires an entire month to inscribe, just so it can be used once. It would be more time and cost effective to manufacture a magic item that can accomplish the same effect.

As for the material cost, I'd rather leave it for the individual Referee to set based on his or her campaign needs and setting requirements. Holmes offers a good base cost of 100 gold pieces per spell level (or silver pieces in the case of my setting), but some Referees may prefer to send their player characters on quests for the exotic materials necessary for producing spell scrolls.

[Visit the Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day 2016 Contribution Index for a list of Swords & Wizardry contributions and resources! Special thanks to R.J. Thompson, this year's host!]