Remember I discussed scrolls a while back?
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...Item-Pricing&p=7349872&viewfull=1#post7349872
Well, guess what. Let's kick-start the discussion with spell scrolls. That suggestion I made was essentially "what if a bundle of spell scroll costs its level?"
Let me show you:
Code:
Item Level "npc" "xp=gp" "typical"
1st 1 300 0 30
2nd 3 800 300 100
3rd 5 1400 2200 1400
4th 7 2400 7700 3600
5th 9 4000 16000 5900
6th 11 7000 28300 15800
7th 13 11700 40000 27900
8th 15 19700 55000 40000
9th 17 33300 75000 127600
Pretty neat, huh? (Obviously I'm using a spreadsheet here)
Let's compare to Sane Magical Prices, shall we:
Code:
Item Cost Bundle
1st 60 300
2nd 120 600
3rd 200 1000
4th 320 1600
5th 640 3200
6th 1280 6400
7th 2560 12800
8th 5120 25600
9th 10240 51200
(A "bundle" is five scrolls, again this 1/5th is an arbitrary fraction, chosen to be about midway between 1/10th and 1/2)
I don't understand why Sane changed the formula of pricing scrolls compared to d20. Maybe because, at first blush, "caster level" does not appear to play a large role (effects does not automatically improve with character level)?
Anyway, low level spell scrolls are given especially low prices in Sane relative to d20, and of course prices also start at a low level, allowing even mid-level characters to bathe in low-level scrolls.
This is an interesting one to work on, because Xanathar's provides costs for scribing your own scrolls. So let's try some comparisons.
First, Xanathar's introduces both base cost, and time to scribe a scroll. However if you price out the time using the basic 2 gp per day rate of a skilled worker, the extra time is generally less than 1% of the cost assigned, so I'll assume that it's already included in the provided price.
Code:
Item Each Bundle /Typical
1st 25 125 400%
2nd 250 1250 1000%
3rd 500 2500 180%
4th 2500 12500 350%
5th 5000 25000 400%
6th 15000 75000 450%
7th 25000 125000 450%
8th 50000 250000 625%
9th 250000 1250000 1000%
So a bundle of five scrolls tends to be around 500% of 1/3 of your expected wealth at a given level. Or, more simply, a single scroll generally costs about 1/3 of your expected wealth per level (except for spell levels 2 and 9, which cost twice as much, and spell level 3, which costs half as much).
That certainly keeps spell scrolls far from disposable utility — at least, for spells at your caster level. What do the ratios look like when the caster is one spell level (two class levels) higher? Two spell levels/four class levels higher?
I'll skip the bundle and just do the single scrolls, since that's easier to deal with. Rounded to the nearest 10%:
Code:
Item Each /Typical /Typical+1 /Typical+2
1st 25 80% 20% 0%
2nd 250 190% 20% 10%
3rd 500 40% 10% 10%
4th 2500 70% 40% 20%
5th 5000 80% 30% 20%
6th 15000 90% 50% 40%
7th 25000 90% 60% 20%
8th 50000 130% 40% 20%
9th 250000 190% 100% 80%
So it looks like when you're two spell levels above the scroll level, the scrolls tend to run about 10% of 1/3 of your typical wealth level each, pushing more towards 20% for spell levels 4 and higher. (Also, Typical+2 for 9th level spells were fudged, only reaching 20th level wealth levels instead of 21.)
So generally, if you were to spend one 'slot' (1/3 of wealth at level) on scrolls, you could get 5 to 10 scrolls if you aimed at spells that were a couple spells levels below your current level. If you got spells 3 spell levels below your current level, it would be trivial costs for spell levels 1 through 3, and 10% above that, with 20% at 8th, and staying at 80% at 9th.
Thus, given a desire for spell scrolls to be 'disposable', and given that you don't want to allow players to have 'disposable' scrolls for current spell levels, this degree of scaling actually seems pretty much fine. A bundle or two of 5 scrolls would be reasonable to acquire, as long as you're aiming for relatively lower level scrolls.
Spell level 3 scrolls are notably underpriced compared to surrounding levels. Bumping the individual cost up to 750-1000 each brings everything back in line pretty nicely. Likewise, level 2 scrolls seem overpriced. I might drop them to 125, which puts them at 100% of Typical.
So setting a more generalized approximation, price a single spell scroll at 80% to 100% of the 1/3 wealth level for the scroll's spell level (which gives some room to smooth out the actual prices). That makes them a significant expense
at the scroll's level, but a disposable expense once the player has gained a few levels. A 10th level player having a bundle of Fireball spells would be a reasonable purchase. For a 5th level player, a single scroll would be a precious emergency measure.
Aside: Scrolls are certainly an item that are more reasonably analyzed relative to the level of the item, rather than a fraction of a tier, so I'm not going to bother looking at it from the tier perspective.
