Magical Ink

[Crothian]

Wizards need this ink, special ink, to scribe spells into their spellbook. It costs 200gp per page. Are their any rules for making this stuff? It seems that a wizard might be able to save a lot of money if he could make this stuff.

Would it be Alchemy or a craft skill? We have the final price, but we would need a craft DC. Any thoughts on this?

 

[Vaxalon]

Craft (ink)

Requires 75gp in materials to make one page's worth.

 

[Crothian]

Craft (ink)

Requires 75gp in materials to make one page's worth.

Is that from an actual book?

 

[Forrester]

A wizard in my campaign was put into the situation of needing to make ink, as there was no store he could go to to buy it.

My (admittedly still too vague) rule:

1) 1/3 of the price of ink comes from crushed gemstones
2) 1/3 of the price of ink comes from the blood of various and sundry monsters and beasts and such -- the rarer the creature, the better
3) 1/3 of the price comes from very rare (i.e., difficult to find) mushrooms/plants/etc.

AND finally, the wizard must have access to an alchemical lab.

#1 is there to make sure that the ink always costs SOMETHING.

#2 is there so that the wizard can make steady progress towards making his own ink, in a way that makes sense.

#3 is there to make sure that the wizard can't just kill a few monsters to turn into a huge magical-ink making machine which nets him thousands and thousands of gold pieces when he brings it to market.

The rare mushrooms/plants/etc. take time to find, take someone with Wilderness Lore *AND* high ranks in Knowledge:Nature. Not common unless you hang out with a druid.

So far, the system has worked great. He's been able to make progress, and because of #3, I've been able to keep a cap on how much ink he gets at any one time.

 

[Crothian]

Thanks. We are in a position where buying the ink is bankrupting the party. It's not that big a deal becasue my Ranger is cares less about money. However, the player asked about making the ink and we can't find anything about it in the rules.

Forrester, what DC did you use for the achemy roll?

Anyone else have ideas or references?

 

[Forrester]

Thanks. We are in a position where buying the ink is bankrupting the party. It's not that big a deal becasue my Ranger is cares less about money. However, the player asked about making the ink and we can't find anything about it in the rules.

Forrester, what DC did you use for the achemy roll?

Anyone else have ideas or references?

I haven't thought about it, actually; the party is traveling with a bunch o' goblin/kobold refugees, two of which are around 4th level and have maxed out Alchemy (and one has Skill Focus in it). AND both have Brew Potion (which seems vaguely related).

In other words, with the help he's got, he doesn't find it tough at all.

And in general, I don't think it should be that tough. It's not as though it should be a rare thing for a wiz to want to create spell ink -- depending on how much he wanted to make in a day, I'd make it DC10 to DC15. The main challenge should be getting the ingredients together.

ON the other hand, how many wizards travel with a full alchemist's lab? If a wizard wanted to make some ink "on the fly", I'd make it a check of DC20 to DC25, depending how much he was looking to create quickly.

 

[Crothian]

Well, the DC should be the same no matter how it's being done/ THe lab does give that impressive +2 bonus. I think a DC of 25 would be about right. I set the DC high because the goal of 2000sp is going to take a while with a low DC. Assuming you roll a 25 each tim, it'll take 3.2 days to craft on page worth of ink. The stuff is expensive and rare so making the DC high is not out of line. DC of 30 yields a page of ink in a little over 2 days.

Thoughts?

 

[Forrester]

Well, the DC should be the same no matter how it's being done/ THe lab does give that impressive +2 bonus. I think a DC of 25 would be about right. I set the DC high because the goal of 2000sp is going to take a while with a low DC. Assuming you roll a 25 each tim, it'll take 3.2 days to craft on page worth of ink. The stuff is expensive and rare so making the DC high is not out of line. DC of 30 yields a page of ink in a little over 2 days.

Thoughts?

So you can brew a magical potion o' Heroism in one day, but it takes 3 days (ASSUMING the DC25 check is made) to make 100gp of spell ink?

So to make enough ink to scribe a 10th level spell (20 pages), you need to spend two months? Minimum?

That seems way way way too strict to me -- obviously, that's your call, though. If you go that way, I'd make the "rare ingredients" a little easier to get, and maybe eliminate the admittedly iffy-sounding "powdered gems" part of the cost.

One thing . . . it means that it's almost impossible for a clan of humanoids or others without access to a major city (or a really high level caster) to make their own spell ink at a rate faster than a few pages a year, and that's probably not a good thing.

 

[Crothian]

So you can brew a magical potion o' Heroism in one day, but it takes 3 days (ASSUMING the DC25 check is made) to make 100gp of spell ink?

So to make enough ink to scribe a 10th level spell (20 pages), you need to spend two months? Minimum?

That seems way way way too strict to me -- obviously, that's your call, though. If you go that way, I'd make the "rare ingredients" a little easier to get, and maybe eliminate the admittedly iffy-sounding "powdered gems" part of the cost.

One thing . . . it means that it's almost impossible for a clan of humanoids or others without access to a major city (or a really high level caster) to make their own spell ink at a rate faster than a few pages a year, and that's probably not a good thing.

Well, the ability to craft magical items is completely different then the craft skills. You can craft up to 1000gp per day. Actually, the numbers I have should be weeks, not days. That makes it even worse. However, that is how Alchemy and craft skills work. So, I'm really not sure how else to do it. If we want to use the Achemy/craft rules a DC of 45 will allow it to be done in a week. That's ridiculus.

So, perhaps it should be a special type of potion. Prerequite Spellcaster level one and the Brew potions feat. Base cost 200gp, cost to produce 100gp, XP spent 8. That would be per page. I'd say the use of special meterials would replace the XP cost.

Personally, I'm not happy with either way. But frankly, I can't think of a third way it could be done that does not complete rewrite some rules.

 

[Crothian]

Even after a not so good nights sleep I'm not thinking of any ideas. Anyone else got anything?