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Message: <blockquote data-quote="cjosephs1s" data-source="post: 5711697" data-attributes="member: 6683450">Actually yes there is precendent just not from WotC. Mongoose Publishing's Encyclopaedia Arcane: Tomes and Libraries...Secrets of the Written Word is a book about books if you will. Many of the books listed are kind of magical in nature and give a permanant bonus to a skill check. Or when doing research on a subject give a temp bonus to knowledge checks. Its even 3.5 <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />  WARNING: THE NEXT PART IS LONG AND EXTENSIVE AND THEORYCRAFT USING SOME MATHEMATICS As for making Tomes and Manuals that give "inherent bonuses" once read sure. Anythings possible with magic its just getting an agreed upon price with your DM. I'm going to disagree with Jimlocks pricing method and say its too expensive. Sorry Jimlock but I do give you kudos for the methodology. Here's why I think its a bit overpriced.  For creating magic items you can enchant items with skill check bonuses up to +20 in a non epic campaign. I'm going to assume more in an epic one using their x10 approach to cost. So what is the base cost to enchant a magic item to give a continual bonus to a skill check? .5(bonus squared x 20). So for example you have a +10 bonus squared (100) x 20x.5 = 1000gp plus some xp cost and perhaps some materials cost for the item. This is exactly 1% the cost of your Ability bonuses. So I'm going to argue that the cost to create these magical "books" should also be 1% of the price of that for the ability books. So if you want a +1 skill book it will cost you 12.5g + 51xp to make. Or you can buy one for 275gp.  Now I think some of you will say: THIS IS WAAAYYY TO CHEAP!!!! Well lets look at the alternatives for enchancing your skills magically. The first way is to just create an item of +1 skill bonus for 0g. .5(bonus squared x20) Or if you don't want to give up another slot you can double the cost of this second enchantment 2(.5(bonus squared x20)) =20gp. Now while this was a very inexpensive example lets look at the extreme: +20  New magic item. .5(20x20x20)=8000gp+materials+320xpAdding skill to existing magic item: 2(.5(20x20x20)=16000gp+materials+640xpMaking Book: 20x12.5gp+ 51xp x 20=250gp+1020xp (market price of 5320).  Wait? A +20 book is cheaper than the magic item? That can't be right? Well actually it can because my initial assumption was slightly flawed and I post this because like all good new theory and magecraft the process should be documented so others can learn. My initial assumption forgot about how epic pricing works for abilities. I continued to use the standard pricing model and while it still is a constant 1% ratio the numbers changed on me. So now lets test the new theory which I think will work (if not well maybe someone smarter than me can find out where I messed up and fix it).  Ok first lets test skill check at 10 to make sure it works out.  New magic item: .5(10X10X20)=1000GP +25XPAdding to existing magic item 2(.5(10x10x20)=2000gp+50xpBook of Skill 12.5gpx10+51xpx10=125gp+510xp (2675gp) Now lets apply a modifier of x10 to the base cost to create a +20 bonus New magic item: 10(.5(10x10x20))+1000gp=11000gp + 440Adding to existing magic item 10(2(.5(10x10x20)))+2000gp=22000gp +880xpBook of Skill: 12.5x10x10 + 51xp x10x10 +125gp+510xp=1375gp+5610xp (30800gp) There...Now the math seems to work out slightly better than before and the cost seems to be inline with what they should be for the items.  With Jimlocks system the cost benefit just isn't worth it. I would just add the skill modifier to an existing magic item (even with the enchanced cost as laid out by my formula at +20 or the original one in the DMG) and it would still be significantly cheaper than using a book of the same caliber. 137000gp vs 2000gp.  Hopefully this presents a reasoned, logical, balanced way to give PCs a Book of Skill that incorporates existing rules on magic item creation. A special thanks to Jimlock for initial logic behind my pricing model (I will try and give xp as soon as I'm done posting).</blockquote>

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