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D&D Ideas — Scrolls

Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is scrolls, which we discussed in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST on Nerdarchy Live to talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. One of the many places we create content for you to drop right into your games is Nerdarchy the Website where you’ll find stuff like the Tome of Holding, a very rare magic item any wizard would treasure. Check it out and stash it in your next treasure hoard here. You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here.

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Delving Dave’s Dungeon

Scrolls in 5E D&D are both the largest and smallest magic item category at the same time. Every spell and cantrip is technically a potential scroll but as for unique scrolls I can find four specific scrolls on D&D Beyond. Scrolls offer a huge opportunity to add new magic items to the game. Perhaps in ways that are useful to non-spellcasters and spellcasters alike.

R.A. Salvatore’s Icewind Dale trilogy and fourth edition D&D are a couple of source of inspiration for me. Early in The Crystal Shard, the first book of the trilogy, a character uses a scroll to create an enchanted weapon. Ted shares more of the details about this in his editorial this week. In 4E D&D you could extract the magic from an item to create a substance called residuum, which could be used to enchant another item. It was a great idea.

So many times a DM gives out random treasure and the party ends up with items they either can’t use or aren’t useful to them. Residuum offers another option. With a little effort the party could transform those less useful magic items into something more beneficial to the party. Instead of recreating residuum from 4E D&D I like the idea of using scrolls to replace it. The DM can out scrolls allowing the transfer of magic from one item to another.

Scroll of Magic Transferal

Scroll, varies

You can use a Scroll of Magic Transferal to conduct a ritual that takes one hour. At the end of the hour the magic from one magic item can be transferred into a non-magical item of the same type. The scroll’s rarity determines the rarity of the magic items whose features can be transferred this way.

From Ted’s Head

Scrolls are marvelous things to give out in 5E D&D games. Not only are scrolls great as one-use spells for clutch moments but are fabulous rewards for any games with a wizard, who not only gets access to more variables when they finish a long rest but also a treasure strain since scrolls carry a gold cost to add it to their spellbook. Look how often Caleb (Liam) was broke in Critical Role Campaign 2.

Scrolls offer solutions to so many problems. Perhaps the party does not have access to certain spells or types of spellcasters but have a situation in need of resolution. While there are specific rules for scrolls in 5E D&D some DMs allow anyone with spell slots to use any scroll, some allow anyone to do it and some require an appropriate Arcana check for just a few examples. The longer I play the more ease of use I am interested in incorporating into my games. The clueless fighter using a scroll of fireball does not break the game to me.

Beyond the use of spell scrolls these rolls of parchment can be so much more. I hearken back to the early days of reading books and the beginning of The Crystal Shard by R.A. Salvatore. Bruenor Battlehammer, a dwarven fighter, uses a scroll to create Aegis Fang, a mighty weapon throughout a very long story.

A recipe and enchantment for a magic item like this can easily be a reward tucked away in a dusty library or long forgotten tomb. Having all the reagents gathered and the reward just waiting for the individual to make it happen is a way to make it even easier on a party. And there is a story here. Why did the previous owner not perform the enchantment? This is a nice mystery and a chance for you to put some extra lore into your world.

Scrolls need not stop here. While books are great, not all works are collected. Not all information worth reading makes it into a bound work. Scrolls can offer useful information or even a portion of information. Lost lore, conversations from the past and even untested research waiting for new hands to pick up where the last master left off all may be found on scrolls.

Now comes the evil twist. Scrolls could be cursed items like anything else. (Be careful doing this too often. Players might not be interested in dealing with items like this and might start to mistrust a DM who does this too often.) The cursed item in question might look like a particular spell scroll. I will use the example of fireball. An identify spell reveals it as such. A successful DC 13 Intelligence (Arcana) check can give this basic information. If the user is a wizard and fireball is already in their spellbook they can make the check with advantage. If the check succeeds by 5 or more the curse is revealed. The formula I used for the DC is 10 + the level of the spell +5 for the hidden curse.

The curse could be something minor like disadvantage on saving throws for a certain period of time, a bane spell or an equivalent drawback. The scroll curse could also be a larger plot point. Perhaps it allows an entity with an interest in the ongoing plot to immediately scry on the one reading the scroll. This gets them a glimpse of them most likely in combat and allows them to see the user’s allies. Imagination can take this down lots of different directions.

Use scrolls however you want in your 5E D&D games. Have fun however you feel will bring the most enjoyment to your table. Now scroll on to the next idea.

From the Nerditor’s Desk

Like Ted I’m 100% on board with any 5E D&D character invoking the power of a spell scroll. Other sorts of scrolls are absolutely okay for any character to use so long as they understand a written language and the description doesn’t otherwise restrict them. Spell scrolls in particular require the spell be on the user’s class spell list but a house rule allowing anyone to use them makes for not only more exciting moments when non-spellcasters bring some magical power to bear.

If you’re on the fence about taking the plunge with this house rule you might find the variant rule in the 5E D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide a soothing balm (and applicable to any character attempting to use a spell scroll). The Scroll Mishaps table suggests any creature who tries to cast a spell from a spell scroll must succeed on a DC 10 Intelligence saving throw or roll on the table, which offers six possible outcomes.

The thing I most wanted to share in this week’s editorial about scrolls relates to something I’ve touched on in several of these newsletters focused on the categories of 5E D&D magic items — crafting. I’m never quite sure why I so often run across online discussions bemoaning the lack of crafting in 5E D&D because it’s right there in the Player’s Handbook chapter 8: Adventuring with additional details in the DMG chapter 6: Between Adventures

When it comes to crafting scrolls using downtime the benefits are even greater than with potions, which themselves are quite profound when you think about it. Scrolls are consumables like potions so right off the bat the crafting cost is halved. Multiple people can combine their efforts too. Work takes place in increments of 25 gp per day per person. For example an item costing 100 gp to craft would take one person four days or four people one day. To craft a scroll the crafter must be able to cast the spell the scroll can produce. Here’s a breakdown of the cost for crafting spell scrolls:

• Cantrips and 1st Level Spells. Crafter must be at least 3rd level. Crafting the scroll costs 50 gp.
• 2nd and 3rd Level Spells. Crafter must be at least 3rd level. Crafting the scroll costs 250 gp.
• 4th and 5th Level Spells. Crafter must be at least 6th level. Crafting the scroll costs 2,500 gp.
• 6th, 7th and 8th Level Spells. Crafter must be at least 11th level. Crafting the scroll costs 25,000 gp.
• 9th Level Spells. Crafter must be at least 17th level. Crafting the scroll costs 250,000 gp.

What I find most intriguing about crafting scrolls in particular is the potential impact on the adventuring day. Characters who use their downtime wisely can save those precious spell slots when they’re out questing. Just ten days downtime and 500 gp could result in five scrolls of shield for example, or scrolls of cure wounds. Even a single scroll of something with a niche use like protection from evil and good would take only two days of work and 50 gp.

If you incorporate the house rule of allowing any character to use a spell scroll the appeal of crafting becomes even greater. This can make a tremendous impact and also provide a place for adventurers to invest all the gold they acquire during their adventures — and not just the casters or crafters either! These spell scrolls benefit the whole party and collectively pooling their resources and time to craft some scrolls can be incredibly useful.

Not for nothing either, using downtime means characters get opportunities to explore their characters in different ways and develop in new directions too.

*Featured image — Two adventurers try to solve one of Candlekeep’s great mysteries. There’s a lot of scrolls along with all the books in the great library, both magical and otherwise. The free Basic Rules include but a single scroll, the spell scroll, but since there’s over 375 potential spells to appear on those scrolls from those same rules there’s more than enough scrolls to keep adventurers busy for quite a while. [Images courtesy Wizards of the Coast]

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