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<blockquote data-quote="Sir Brennen" data-source="post: 2752762" data-attributes="member: 553"><p>This topic was brought up on my regular group's msg board awhile ago, so I yoinked a big section from there:</p><p></p><p>I think of mundane books more as a kind of masterwork item, and don't see them being more than +2. IMC, a book which grants +1 would be 200gp, and +2 would be 500gp. They have to be actively referenced when making the skill check to give their bonus.</p><p></p><p>Monte Cook's <em>Arcana Unearthed</em>, has books that add a bonus to a relevant Knowledge check. The price is Bonus (squared) x 10 gp. A Book with a +5 bonus would therefore be a 250 gp book.</p><p></p><p>The <em>Monsternomicon</em> (Privateer Press) has a similar mechanic, but ups the gold piece value considerably, with a +1 Tome being 1,000 gp, going up to 15,000+ for a +5 Tome.</p><p></p><p>A couple of other d20 sources on books and libraries:</p><p></p><p>Mongoose has <em>Tomes and Libraries</em> from their <strong>Encyclopedia Arcane</strong> line. It's got some interesting ideas on using individual books, rating them as Average, Good and Excellent (bonuses of +1, 2 and 3, respectively.) They are, however, really cheap (5, 10 and 20gp) They also require a training period, but I'm not going much into mechanics for copyright reasons.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: SandyBrown">Manuals </span>introduce the idea that there are basic 'how-to' books which can give a skill bonus, <strong>but only up to a point</strong>. A rogue could buy a Good book on Locksmithing, but once he has 10 ranks in Open Lock, he knows everything in the book by heart, and no longer receives any benefit from it. Manuals generally do <em>not</em> apply to Craft, Profession or Knowledge skills. Applying the manual's bonus requires a Concentration check ("Was it cut the blue wire, or cut the green wire?")</p><p></p><p><span style="color: SandyBrown">Reference books</span> are more comprehensive, often coming in several volumes, and contain more info than even a skilled character could be expected to memorize. Therefore, there is no point at which the books become useless.</p><p></p><p>There's a paragraph on using language reference books, like an Elvish-Common dictionary. Thought that was a neat idea.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: SandyBrown">Definitive Texts</span> are Excellent (+3) reference books for a particular skill, as well as giving some other added benefits, which are a bit narrower in focus. All of these texts have well known names. </p><p></p><p>A character with the definitive work on runes and hieroglyphs, for example, can tell what's on a magical scroll without Read Magic, gets a +2 bonus on caster level check when casting a scroll spell above his level, and gets a +10 on Spellcraft checks when identifying a <em>Symbol</em>. The book gives a +3 on Decipher Script, is written in Dwarvish, is made up of two volumes and is <em>huge</em>.</p><p></p><p>There's a section on books related to magic item creation, allowing the building in of certain augmentations to items. There's also a few magical books listed.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sir Brennen, post: 2752762, member: 553"] This topic was brought up on my regular group's msg board awhile ago, so I yoinked a big section from there: I think of mundane books more as a kind of masterwork item, and don't see them being more than +2. IMC, a book which grants +1 would be 200gp, and +2 would be 500gp. They have to be actively referenced when making the skill check to give their bonus. Monte Cook's [I]Arcana Unearthed[/I], has books that add a bonus to a relevant Knowledge check. The price is Bonus (squared) x 10 gp. A Book with a +5 bonus would therefore be a 250 gp book. The [I]Monsternomicon[/I] (Privateer Press) has a similar mechanic, but ups the gold piece value considerably, with a +1 Tome being 1,000 gp, going up to 15,000+ for a +5 Tome. A couple of other d20 sources on books and libraries: Mongoose has [i]Tomes and Libraries[/i] from their [B]Encyclopedia Arcane[/B] line. It's got some interesting ideas on using individual books, rating them as Average, Good and Excellent (bonuses of +1, 2 and 3, respectively.) They are, however, really cheap (5, 10 and 20gp) They also require a training period, but I'm not going much into mechanics for copyright reasons. [COLOR=SandyBrown]Manuals [/COLOR]introduce the idea that there are basic 'how-to' books which can give a skill bonus, [B]but only up to a point[/B]. A rogue could buy a Good book on Locksmithing, but once he has 10 ranks in Open Lock, he knows everything in the book by heart, and no longer receives any benefit from it. Manuals generally do [i]not[/i] apply to Craft, Profession or Knowledge skills. Applying the manual's bonus requires a Concentration check ("Was it cut the blue wire, or cut the green wire?") [COLOR=SandyBrown]Reference books[/color] are more comprehensive, often coming in several volumes, and contain more info than even a skilled character could be expected to memorize. Therefore, there is no point at which the books become useless. There's a paragraph on using language reference books, like an Elvish-Common dictionary. Thought that was a neat idea. [COLOR=SandyBrown]Definitive Texts[/color] are Excellent (+3) reference books for a particular skill, as well as giving some other added benefits, which are a bit narrower in focus. All of these texts have well known names. A character with the definitive work on runes and hieroglyphs, for example, can tell what's on a magical scroll without Read Magic, gets a +2 bonus on caster level check when casting a scroll spell above his level, and gets a +10 on Spellcraft checks when identifying a [i]Symbol[/i]. The book gives a +3 on Decipher Script, is written in Dwarvish, is made up of two volumes and is [i]huge[/i]. There's a section on books related to magic item creation, allowing the building in of certain augmentations to items. There's also a few magical books listed. [/QUOTE]
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