Magic "xerox" spell?

[Coredump]

The unseen servant is mindless. It can continually repeat the same basic motions, but
doesn't have the ability to adapt. I think that changing what words are written would
require a new command. On the other hand, I would allow a mage to sit there and
direct an unseen servant through copying a book. Unfortunately, this doesn't save the
mage any time.

I could see that if the servant was writing the book, but he is just making an exact copy of what he sees. Monks (the real European types) used to do the same thing, even if they couldn't read. They had no idea what the 'scribbles' meant, they just made sure to make the page look just like the other one.

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[Deadguy]

Yep, right. But if a wizard wants to copy a spell from a different book into his own with that xerox spell, it will work. Spells in books are not magical texts AFAIK. Scrolls...ummmh, heck, not sure for them...I'd say they are magical, because a wizard needs XP and materials to create them (so it's a magic item).

Please correct me if I'm wrong on this matter.

Jumping in late here, I would say that merely copying a spell from a different Wizard's spellbook into your own will not help you much. You'd still have all of the original wizard's magical notations to contend with, and so you'd still need to make the appropriate Spellcraft checks to even understand the text. And you'd not be able to prepare the spell unless you'd already converted such a spell in the past and had it in your spellbook! So, whilst direct copying of a spell from one book to another would seem possible by magic, it just wouldn't serve any really useful purpose to do so. Or rather the only one I can see is to quickly copy a spell out of a 'borrowed' book ( ) so that you could try and learn it later at your leisure - an expensive proposition, but maybe useful.

 

[Dark Dragon]

I agree. Amanuensis allows only to make a quick copy from a spell (or other non-magic text) from one book into another. Spellcraft checks still must be made if required.

 

[dkilgo]

Yeah, the SpellCraft checks do need to be made.

But, what if you created a higher level spell that would copy all text on the pages you intend to copy whether magical or not?

 

[Chun-tzu]

But, what if you created a higher level spell that would copy all text on the pages you intend to copy whether magical or not?

I agree with mmu1. Copying magical text by spell is a bad idea. No DM would allow you to copy magic scrolls just by casting a spell, not even if it was a 9th level spell. The only way to allow it would be if the caster paid the full experience cost that it would take to make the scroll. I guess that might still be useful, because it would allow casters to create scrolls they couldn't otherwise create.