D&D 5E Spell Scrolls: How Many Mystic Ciphers Are There?

[Hriston]

If nothing else this has got a few of us thinking, though I suspect in my case I will just leave it as the 'hand wave'. Though each class having a cipher I may consider,which means a scroll would be only usable by a particular class as this does make sense to me. I even allow something like if the spell is on a characters spell list but the scroll is created by another class then an Arcana or relevant check could be made to use the scroll. This in my mind implies that the cipher for a spell is similar but not the same for each class but if you know the cipher for one you might be able to break it for another.

My issue with that would be the extra step for the DM in deciding for which class the scroll is intended. In some cases it would be clear cut, like if it belonged to a specific NPC, but at other times a correct answer wouldn't be so apparent and becomes one more thing for the DM to determine.

I didn't make this very clear I even thought that as I was writing it. I guess to me if say Warlock and Wizard shared spells had one cipher and if Sorcerers had another spell which was in common with the other 2 classes it would be a different cipher, meaning from the original post their would be 67 different ciphers. This just didn't make sense to me felt way to 'clunky'. At some stage a Warlock and Wizard had to come up with a cipher usable by those 2 classes alone and then get a Sorcerer in for the next one. Which didn't doesn't seem realistic at all (of course everything else about the game obeys the laws of physics and common sense so why shouldn't this ).

I would think of the 67 ciphers as representative of different magical traditions. The six spells shared by warlocks and wizards, for example, have a loose thematic coherence having to do with inflicting debility and/or confinement perhaps by/or opening a conduit to another plane of existence. I can imagine this tradition having been developed by one or a group of spellcasters in the past. It doesn't matter to me what their class(es) might have been. For both warlocks and wizards to then make this tradition, along with its associated mystic cipher, part of their repertoire doesn't require any particular cooperation between members of the two classes, at least not to me.

I like the overall thinking but expect I will just have it running how it does now but will probably discus with my group and see what they think.

Just to be clear, nothing I'm suggesting is intended to change the way spell scrolls are run, but rather it is intended to describe how and why they are run the way they are.

 

[Blue]

I see no evidence there is more than one, and lots of evidence that there can't be more than one. So I'm going with one.

With spells being able to be done by different caster classes, even divine/arcane crossover, it's not that a single cipher that is protecting it from other casters reading it.

The idea of a spell being written multiple times in multiple ciphers does not work. PCs can create scrolls. Originally this was in the DMG under downtime (DMG pg 129) but is now in Xander's (XGtE pg 133). If a PC can't read those ciphers, they can't write in them either.

Between there, there's no evidence point to more than one cipher.

On the other hand, there is never a spell on your list that you can't understand even if created by someone of a different class, so there is strong circumstantial evidence that there is only one cipher.

So I take "magical cipher" to mean that it's written such that casters can decode it. Or perhaps it's even the archaic version of cipher meaning to do arithmetic.

 

[Hriston]

I see no evidence there is more than one, and lots of evidence that there can't be more than one. So I'm going with one.

Yeah, if I was to do this over again, I would definitely make one cipher an option on the poll. It's a valid understanding of the item description, just not one that readily occurred to me. It might be interesting to see how many who chose "other" would have voted for one cipher if it was an option, but interest in this subject seems pretty low, so it probably isn't worth starting another thread.

With spells being able to be done by different caster classes, even divine/arcane crossover, it's not that a single cipher that is protecting it from other casters reading it.

The one-cipher interpretation seems to rest on separating the ability to read and understand the spell scroll (because the spell is on your class's list) from being able to "crack" the mystic cipher (which is then seen as not dependent on class but, in your interpretation at least, seems to be dependent on being a spellcaster). The question this raises is what the benefit is to a spellcaster of the wrong class being able to crack the code but unable to read the scroll. Why would such a thing exist?

The idea of a spell being written multiple times in multiple ciphers does not work. PCs can create scrolls. Originally this was in the DMG under downtime (DMG pg 129) but is now in Xander's (XGtE pg 133). If a PC can't read those ciphers, they can't write in them either.

I agree, this is a good argument against there being eight mystic ciphers. But it doesn't necessarily support there being only one. Other solutions also don't require multiple ciphers on a scroll.

Between there, there's no evidence point to more than one cipher.

The evidence, to my mind, for more than one mystic cipher is that a scroll of animal friendship can be read by a bard but not a warlock, and a scroll of witch bolt can be read by a warlock but not a bard. If both scrolls are written in the same cipher, then what prevents them from reading one but not the other?

On the other hand, there is never a spell on your list that you can't understand even if created by someone of a different class, so there is strong circumstantial evidence that there is only one cipher.

That ignores the suggestion that both you and the creator of the scroll know the same cipher because it is associated with the spell or group of spells you both know.

So I take "magical cipher" to mean that it's written such that casters can decode it.

But if they can decode it, they can read it, can't they? But the item description says they can't read it unless it contains a spell that appears on their class's spell list.

Or perhaps it's even the archaic version of cipher meaning to do arithmetic.

You mean there's actual arithmetic written on the scroll, and the spellcaster has to solve an arithmetic problem to cast the spell?