Need help with new PrC: "The Keeper of Scrolls"

[jolt]

I'm at a loss as to how to create this prestige class. The inspiration for it was from a piece of fiction. In the story, the Keeper of Scrolls was your basic wizardly archetype with the caveat that all his magic use required the reading of a scroll. Now, in D&D such a spellcasting restriction strikes me as fairly severe. As such, I imagines that this PrC might be of more iterest to, say, Rogues and Bards; maybe even the odd Cleric (such as those who worship deities of literature and/or writing). I perceived it as a 5-level PrC but, mechanically, I don't how how to make "spell-use-but-only-through-scrolls" attractive enough to encourage anyone to take it. Any ideas?

jolt

 

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

Perhaps they can cast any spell on any scroll, and have a small chance (5% per class level) that the scroll does not lose it's magic powers and can be used again. (It might takes some time to determine if the scroll is still usable) Perhaps they have no spellcasting progression themselves, but can scribe scrolls without prerequisite spells. That would make it a neat rogue class with a bit of spell-thief flavor.
Whatever the case, the class still should look like a narrow option, but at the same time should be playable.

 

[Roger]

I wouldn't bother with a PrC just for this. I think you can pull it off just with colour and fluff. Every morning when the wizard prepares his spells, he does so by scribbling a bit of gibberish on some paper. When he casts the spell, part of his somantic components is reading from his bit of paper. I suspect this will be sufficient to emulate the fictional character in question.



Cheers,
Roger