PCs with too many scrolls?

[taliesin15]

In one of the last campaigns I ran, the mid-level spellcasters spent so much of their cash and time making endless scrolls, to the point where it seemed pretty pointless for them to memorize spells.

Any practical ideas on how to handle this as a DM (besides throwing fire based monsters at them more than usual)?

 

[Festivus]

In one of the last campaigns I ran, the mid-level spellcasters spent so much of their cash and time making endless scrolls, to the point where it seemed pretty pointless for them to memorize spells.

Any practical ideas on how to handle this as a DM (besides throwing fire based monsters at them more than usual)?

I have been guilty of this... even to the point of having a special wristband that held hundreds of scrolls, all summonable by verbally speaking the name of the scroll I wanted.

Make it impractical to use them in any situation... zones of silence... fireballs... darkness... sunder scrolls... magic mirror land where everything written is backwards and thus unreadable

 

[Timeboxer]

My thoughts:

1. If they invested the money in it, go ahead and let them use it. Scrolls don't solve everything however.

2. The problem with scrolls is that the spell save DCs are terribly low. It's very unlikely that the scrolls will be very useful in combat unless they change the battlefield terrain in some way.

3. No matter what, they only have one standard action per round. I wouldn't worry about them having tons of scrolls until the amount of spells they can potentially cast per round changes.

 

[AllisterH]

Um, I'm pretty sure that WAS the purpose of the scroll creation feat.

To allow the spellcasters to use those non-combat spells without having to waste slots on them.

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

I never found a good solution for this sort of thing; I think ultimately your best solution is going to be speaking to the group and asking if they can tone it back a notch to make your job easier.

 

[taliesin15]

I'm going to take this discussion into Magic Theory for a second here. In many representations of a magical universe, the more magic in one close area tends to have a stronger aura or power. I'm wondering if one couldn't argue that if one character has more than say 25 or 50 magic items on their person, if they wouldn't more easily draw attention from magic oriented beings? I'm thinking along the lines (no pun intended) of the Ley Line theory of magic as presented in Robt Aspirin's Another Fine Myth series and elsewhere.

And I guess it goes without saying that if someone was carrying more than 10-15 scrolls, a Detect Magic spell would register pretty strongly.

 

[taliesin15]

First, I want to thank everyone for their feedback.

Merlin the Tuna: I insist that spellcasters writing scrolls (and copying into spellbooks) use Magic Ink, similar to what is suggested in 1st edition DMG. There are several recipes, and all include components mundane and rare. So rare, you'd only find them in towns and cities, and vials of prepared Magic Ink would be rarer still (PCs would do an Alchemy check to make Magic Ink, very low DC). I was thinking that one consequence of a party with 2-3 spellcasters making dozens of scrolls would be local spellcasters would get wind of what's happening when the shop runs out ("Master Grimshield, you're out of Dire Squid Ink again?!") or the suppliers decide to raise the price from 50gp a vial to 500 gp.

I'm really not trying to be cruel to the players, just simply trying to have some real world versimillitude...

Another idea I had in mind is someone with multiple scrolls might have a higher DC for finding the right one, shuffling through the thick stack of vellum, or even making sorting through more a dozen is a standard action, or something like that.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

2. The problem with scrolls is that the spell save DCs are terribly low. It's very unlikely that the scrolls will be very useful in combat unless they change the battlefield terrain in some way.

The DCs won't be low if the players are in fact making the scrolls themselves.

The easiest way to stop that is to limit down time. If they're merely buying scrolls, let them! they're spending treasure on expendables instead of permenent gear, and the low save DCs and CL will make them weak to use in combat.

 

[Timeboxer]

The DCs won't be low if the players are in fact making the scrolls themselves.

If they're making scrolls with higher than normal DCs, then they'll pay the commensurate cost -- higher caster level = higher save DC = higher expense. Sounds fine to me.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

If they're making scrolls with higher than normal DCs, then they'll pay the commensurate cost -- higher caster level = higher save DC = higher expense. Sounds fine to me.

Save DC is not attached to CL at all, it is just assumed the wizard making the scroll has the min. casting score required. If the wizard is a PC with int 20, his grease scrolls will be DC 16 regardless of what CL he creates it at.