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!]

2 comments:

  1. Greetings Gordon! Been perusing your entire blog from the beginning, absorbing some of the B/X goodness herein. When I saw your first thought about scroll production and not finding any rules, I was curious and went digging myself. I went through all of the BECMI rules and didn't find a thing! I went through the Rules Cyclopedia and a similar result happened. Really? Nothing about producing any magic items?

    There was a little bit about creating a magic item in the BECMI rules but didn't discuss anything about scrolls. That was a bit dissatisfying.

    I decided to give a quick look at one other resource I've gotten several months back, the Tome of the Magic of Mystara: Volume 3 - Magical Research, Artifacts & Optional Rules. Therein on pg 11, they outline a very similar rule to what you have up above. They advocate the 1 day/spell level & 100 gp/level to create a spell scroll.

    Now that I have come across two different sources that have similar thoughts like my own, I feel more comfortable about house ruling it.

    BTW, I've finished running through the blog as well. Like many of the things you have put forth and may borrow the occasional bits to assist with by game. I look forward to further posts by you. Have a good one!

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    1. Thank you for the comment, William! I might have to look into some of the BECMI material myself. I went from B/X and AD&D 1e to Labyrinth Lord and Swords & Wizardry to DCC RPG and a brief excursion into D&D 5e, but I have little to no experience with BECMI and D&D 2e through 4e. So, thanks for sharing this!

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