The Archivist = Broken?

[Desdan_Mervolam]

One might argue that spell research adds spells to the wiz/sor spell list. Of course one could always attempt to research an arcane curative spell, wether it would be successful or not is up to the DM.

-Desdan

[Maj]

The bard is precedent for arcane curative spells.

[Username17]

As is Minor Creation, which as written is capable of healing thousands of points of damage between combats (in that it is limited to a number of cubic feet of healing salve, and healing salve is measured in ounces).

Of course, if you buy the idea that researching a spell puts the spell on your list, then a wizard who scribes a scroll into his spellbook also adds that spell to his list. After all, it's the same rule - even the same action - that accomplishes both actions.

-Username17

[Fwib]

What sources are there for healing salve? I only know of the Tome and Blood healing salve, which I don't think explicitly fits the description of things that can be made with Minor Creation.

[Username17]

1130152461[/unixtime]]What sources are there for healing salve? I only know of the Tome and Blood healing salve, which I don't think explicitly fits the description of things that can be made with Minor Creation.

It has been reprinted several times, but that's the one. It's made with Alchemy (which is a Craft Skill), and is explicitly made from materials that are gathered with Herbalism (which is to say that it is vegetable matter).

You cn argue whether there are mineral components of alchemist fire until you are blue in the face - the books at no time make any mention. But Healing Salve is explicitly made exclusively of vegetable matter. So you just make a craft check and there it is.

-Username17

[Oberoni]

1130042338[/unixtime]]
A rule that wizards can't cast spells that are not on the wizard list is conspicuously absent from the rules. And unlike the other rule that people commonly assume where wizards can actually cast their fvcking spells, it is not necessary to operate the wizard as intended.

In fact, since implementing such a rule would invalidate the whole concept of spell research

Not at all.

Tons of rules are "exception rules." That is, they are exceptions to the standard rules listed elsewhere.

It's ok to have spell research, for example, because the book tells me I can.

However, the book doesn't say I can scratch down Cure Light Wounds from some dude and cast it as a wizard spell.

Two very different things. The difference of "one has rules for it" and "one does not" is pretty big, I'd say.

Shifting gears a bit, I'd say that if we're starting to stray into the "common sense" area, it's pretty "common sense" to say that Wizards can't cast whatever spell they want.

That is to say, Frank, that you apparently got to the conclusion that Wizards can cast any ol' spell they can decipher by using Frank Logic. Or so I'd like to think. After all, common sense (to me) would state "wizards can only cast wizard spells."

Common sense would tell me that if this wasn't true, the book would probably be a lot more explicit about it.

Instead, you use rules lawyering to reach a conclusion, and then bust out common sense when I use even more rules lawyering on top of it.

As was pointed out earlier, switching gears from rules literalism to (what you believe to be) common sense midway through is just...unFrankian, I guess.

As was also pointed out by myself and others such as Catharz:

Because wizards gain no specific ability to cast spells not on the Sor/Wiz spell list, they can't (just like they can't spontaniously cast Miracle at will with no XP component).

You really can't argue from the cracks. If the rules say "you can cast spells," and then goes on to list the criteria the spells have...well, I would pretty safely assume that you don't get to cast spells that don't meet those criteria just because it sounds super-sweet.

[Username17]

Tons of rules are "exception rules." That is, they are exceptions to the standard rules listed elsewhere.

It's ok to have spell research, for example, because the book tells me I can.

That's fvcking wonderful. But the rules that tell you that you can add spells to your spellbook via spell research also tell you that you can add spells from found scrolls that you have deciphered. It's the same damned paragraph. And in both cases, all it says is that it is entered into your spellbook.

If the rule that let's you research a spell into your spellbook lets you cast it, then the rule that lets you copy a scroll into your spellbook does as well - because it's the same rule!

You can't continue to argue that one is an exception while the other is not - the wording and location of the sentences are identical.

-Username17

[Crissa]

Where do the rules say the scroll has to be s specific type?

Are there different types of scrolls, or is a scroll a scroll?

And since Divine types don't have to write down their spells to either cast nor learn nor pass them on; wouldn't scrolls detailing divine spells be more rare?

-Crissa

[User3]

1130203553[/unixtime]]Where do the rules say the scroll has to be s specific type?

Are there different types of scrolls, or is a scroll a scroll?

And since Divine types don't have to write down their spells to either cast nor learn nor pass them on; wouldn't scrolls detailing divine spells be more rare?

-Crissa

Scrolls are "arcane," "divine," or "neither arcane or divine."

Arcane casters make arcane scrolls, divine casters make divine scrolls, and Artificers make the 'neither' scrolls.

[Crissa]

1130208699[/unixtime]]Scrolls are "arcane," "divine," or "neither arcane or divine."

And the rules for learning a spell from a scroll doesn't mention what sort of scroll it is?

In the base book, a scroll could be arcane of three flavours and divine of four...

-Crissa

[Username17]

Yes. The rules for actually activating the spell on a spell completion item are massively more restrictive than the rules for learning the spell from a scroll.

Now, as to scrolls being more rare for divine casters, I'd highly suspect that to be true. If for some reason you thought it was very important for you to make spell completion items as a divine caster, there's no reason to make them as scrolls. You could make them as infusions, or candles, or anything else you wanted. Wizards get Scribe Scroll for free, so there's no reason for them to ever bother spending a feat to make any of the other spell completion items. Druids, on the other hand, have to spend a feat regardless of what shape their spell completion items are in, so they might as well choose a shape that they can activate while they are a badger.

-Username17

[Fwib]

1130174794[/unixtime]]

1130152461[/unixtime]]What sources are there for healing salve? I only know of the Tome and Blood healing salve, which I don't think explicitly fits the description of things that can be made with Minor Creation.

It has been reprinted several times, but that's the one. It's made with Alchemy (which is a Craft Skill), and is explicitly made from materials that are gathered with Herbalism (which is to say that it is vegetable matter).

You cn argue whether there are mineral components of alchemist fire until you are blue in the face - the books at no time make any mention. But Healing Salve is explicitly made exclusively of vegetable matter. So you just make a craft check and there it is.

-Username17

That's what I wanted to know: source(s) for 'made only of plant material' because the only source I know (Tome and Blood) just says that you can use herbalism synergy, which only means that there are herbal components, not that they are the only components.

In the end, it doesn't greatly matter since there are spells that will explicitly make pretty much anything (Fabricate, for instance)

[User3]

Looks like Caelic poked a huge hole in Frank's belief that wizards can scribe-&-cast even non-wiz/sorceror spells. His logic is sound, his dissection of semantics and context is sound as well. Here's the thread right here.


Not sure, but I think Caelic also is the guy who poked holes in the solid foundation of the Wish-&-the-Word builds as well.

--------------

Caelic - 2

Frank - 0

[erik]

I'm awfully hesitant to post in reply to such an obvious troll (same guest who isn't even bold enough to have a ficticious anonymous identity, and "scores" discussions, ugh), but I went over to the thread there and it was in fact helpful to me in making up my mind where I sit on this argument.

I was sitting on the fence leaning towards the belief that wizards couldn't acquire and cast divine scrolls by such means, but after having read that thread, and re-reading this one, I really can't find much basis for that belief.

And I can't even find basis for the notion that it would be unfair or unbalanced for wizards to be able to scribe and cast any spell. Spellcasting is all wizards have. Take it away and they are a commoner with an expensive, useless pet. Their spells listed by default are supposed to be more uber than divine spells anyway, so what harm in allowing them weaker spells? And if the other spells aren't weaker than wizards spells, then why the heck is a class that is stronger than wizards spellcasting aside, having spells that are stronger too?

I don't know this caelic from adam, but is this really your white knight that you need to carry a torch for, anonymous troll? Surely you can do better. Any attempt of mine to summarize his argument style would probably violate our code of conduct here.

This last inquiry should probably go to the metaboard forum, but I'll just keep it rhetorical. Is there any way we can have the default "Guest [unregistered]" show up as "Troll" or "Anonymous Coward" instead, and allow it to be changed by unlogged-guests still of course. Heck, they could even change it to "Guest [unregistered]"- that would at least be halfway clever.

[edit:added a moderate dash of civility]

[Murtak]

Of course Caelic also aegues that wizard are not able to scribe divine scrolls and on this point the rules are clear and explicite - they absolutely can. He also likes to talk about the placement of commas a lot. Then there are gems like these "I would suggest that it does not. A wizard can only cast spells from the sorceror/wizard spell list. A Wizard/Rainbow Servant is not just a Wizard, though, and has capabilities that a straight wizard lacks. Just as a wizard/cleric can cast spells granted by his wizard class and spells granted by his cleric class, a Wizard/Rainbow Servant can cast spells granted by both of HIS classes." - which looks like utter bullshit to me.

In short:
Do I believe Frank is wrong here? Yep, though not because of Caelics reasoning.
Do I believe Frank was wrong in his word build? Nope, though I only vaguely remember the ensuing discussion.
Do I think crossposting between boards with enlightened statements such as "caelic 2, frank 0" makes people look stupid? Yep.

You want to have a discussion, quote what you think are the relevant arguments and we can talk it over.

[Maj]

Screw the commas; they should have taken "which" out of the equation all together. God, that thread was painful.



Clikml, hon. I like your logic. If the cleric list (or druid list or ranger list or whatever) is straight ass, what's the harm? You get to have wizards have access to a few more broken spells - which is fairly minor in the face of all the broken spells they already have.

Lately, in games, we've just taken to letting characters have what's thematically appropriate, regardless of type (arcane, divine, whatever). Minor restrictions do apply, but for the most part, it's a nice way of making cooler characters.

[User3]

No trolling there, Clik. I post here all the time. And love and respect Frank's work. It's just that you never see Frank lose a debate on this forum (at least I never have). The only two times I've ever seen Caelic and Frank at opposite ends of a debate (even if on different forums) -- I've seen Caelic's logic come out on top.

Regarding your multiple whining complaints about "trolling" and "rude anonymous posters" - well, I'm sorry that it gets your panties in a knot. I actually forgot to add my usual name to that post.

And since it now apparently really upsets you, I think I'll continue to *NOT* post my name. Cheers!

[Maj]

The only two times I've ever seen Caelic and Frank at opposite ends of a debate (even if on different forums) -- I've seen Caelic's logic come out on top.

Not really. It seems, more often than not, that what people agree or disagree with is how much an idea makes sense and/or appeals to them - and that has nothing to do with logic at all.

If people think that wizards shouldn't cast spells that are on the cleric list, they will find and latch on to any excuse that justifies their perspective. Likewise, if people (like me) don't care or don't have a problem with the idea that wizards can cast divine spells (or that the rules are shoddily written and can be alternately interpretted), then it's easier to accept the logic - however Frankian - behind the argument.

Personally, I think it is amusing that there was the whole debate about the placement of a comma and what that meant. From where I'm sitting, no one's pointed out that it doesn't matter which interpretation is chosen because there is an official source for each. Two official sources - The SRD and the PHB - differ in their English.

That just drives home how much emphasis the game designers and editors place on proper English and wording - very little.

[Murtak]

Since Mr. Anonymous seems to have missed it:

You want to have a discussion, quote what you think are the relevant arguments and we can talk it over.

Until you do you are just flinging shit at people. Your posts on this thread so far are the electronic equivalent of "pointing at someone and yelling haha, you suck", a more elaborate version of "h4 h4 own3d u" if you want.

How about some substance? Heck, no need to even think for yourself, just quote what you deem to be relevant from that thread you linked.

[RandomCasualty]

The designers' intent of not letting wizards cast cleric spells is pretty clear to me, and twisting their words doesn't somehow make it any more legal. I could really care less about breaking down the english and all that crap, as we already know what the designers intended, there's no question about that. That alone pretty much makes the whole argument pointless. Did one of the writers make a subtle grammatical error or make a minor slip somewhere? Honestly, I don't give a fuck.

As for people who do allow wizards to scribe any spell, I don't think it's inherently unbalanced, but it is nonetheless a house rule.

So eh, whatever. I don't realy see what the big deal is about this one. You'll never convince a DM on this with rules lawyering. It's quite obvious that you're trying to pull a fast one with Frank's logic. The only thing that's going to convince a DM is if he wants to be convinced.

[Username17]

So we had to Google up our Wish and the Word builds, because honestly we had no recollection of who he even was. But we looked it up and found his arguments. Ha ha ha.

Yeah, he was the guy who argued that a rule that said you had to be able to craft a magic item yourself for the contest invalidated The Wish because... no reason. Also he argued that The Word was invalid because it was "plainly obvious" that a bonus to your "level for the purposes of spellcasting" didn't affect your "level of a spellcasting class". Or something. He got very vague on that point.

As to Caelic's tirade about commas: it doesn't make any difference at all. The key is actually the first part, where it says "A wizard casts arcane spells" instead of "A wizard only casts arcane spells". The first is a directive, the second is a restriction. Because there is no word "only", the sentence simply directs the spells that the wizard does cast to be arcane, it does not restrict the wizard to not cast spells that weren't arcane to begin with. As such, I honestly don't give a flying fvck what a comma's place or lack thereof means to the connection between "arcane spells" and "the sorcerer/wizard spell list". It really makes no difference, because it's still just a template that is applied to any spell the wizard casts.

Caelic apparently does this a lot, he just picks some irrelevent detail and argues loudly and frequently about it. Which is probably why K and I didn't remember him - his arguments are never more than a distraction as he doesn't seem to have anything to add that is even vaguely on topic.

-Username17

[fbmf]

1130612806[/unixtime]]
And since it now apparently really upsets you, I think I'll continue to *NOT* post my name. Cheers!

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
Reg, I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt with your first post, but this is a blatant troll. Cease and desist immediately.

Everybody else:

1) Guests are allowed to post here. I understand it can be frustrating, but banning guests pretty much prevents unregistered users from viewing the forum, and I'm not willing to go that far.

2) It's a cliche, but I have to say it: Please do not feed the troll.

[/TGFBS]

[Josh_Kablack]

I'd like to point out that there is an unambigious circumstance in which any cleric spell can be cast as an arcane spell:

Can also cast cleric spells and those from the Air, Evil, and Law domains as arcane spells.

At least in theory, this means that any cleric spell can be scribed on to an arcane scroll if a dragon does the scribing.

[Murtak]

That does not help us resolve the argument though - I think we all pretty much already agree that wizards can indeed, by the rules as written, scribe and prepare any kind of spell they happen to find on a scroll. The point there is still disagreement on is whether wizards may only cast spells from the wizard list or whether they can cast anything they can prepare as a wizard spell.

Whether those non-wizard spells come from the cleric, bard or maho-tsukai list was never really important.

[Username17]

The written word and the intention are in clear agreement:

Wizards can choose any spells off the Sorcerer/Wizard list that they want when they go up in level.

Wizards can scribe any spell that the DM gives them as treasure in written form.

Wizards can get any new spell that they can convince the DM that they ought to have by researching it from scratch under DM supervision.

---

That's it. All the shenanigans about whether you can scribe a spell from the Shadowlord list into your spell book are a complete non-argument. If the DM gives you Shadowlord Spells in written form or you can convince the DM that you ought to have one of those Shadowlord spells, you can. Otherwise, you can't.

Yes, if you have a spell in your spellbook, you can cast it. The only regulation that the game allows for is in getting the spell in the first place (or subsequently losing the spellbook). But the DM has full control over the spells that make it to spellbook availability. So it's a total non-issue and always has been.

Now, if you believe in Warlocks, Chameleons, or Artificers, that line can go out the window - because of course those classes have the ability to hijack spells right out of sourcebooks without having the DM ever introduce them to any part of the world. But that's not the wizard's fault, that's a property of those other classes (and indeed, any baneful synergies that might develope as a result will already be a problem).

-Username17