Can a magic-user who finds a scroll in a dungeon take said scroll and copy the spell to his/her spell book so that he/she can prepare that spell in the future? Also if the character finds the scroll of a spell he/she already knows can the magic-user use said scroll normally?
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3\$\begingroup\$ For confused answerers, the "adnd" tag is for first edition AD&D and its hover-over and tag wiki make that clear. \$\endgroup\$– mxyzplkFeb 25, 2013 at 2:37
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2\$\begingroup\$ For the poster, the answer is "yes" and you have a number of questions that are verging on "have you actually read the DMG yet" territory... \$\endgroup\$– mxyzplkFeb 25, 2013 at 2:38
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2\$\begingroup\$ Mxyzplk has a point: if you haven't read it cover-to-cover yet, you really need to. It's not a game that can be played by only skimming the books, unlike modern editions. \$\endgroup\$– SevenSidedDieFeb 25, 2013 at 3:02
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3 Answers
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When you find a spell scroll, you have two options:
- Scribe the spell into your spellbook (which consumes the scroll), which makes the spell available for you to memorize.
- Cast the spell from the scroll (which consumes the scroll).
So the answer to your question is 'Yes'.
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1\$\begingroup\$ Note that there's more to it than this. There are rolls to check if the spell is successfully learned, for one. However, that's also commonly houseruled, so know the rules, but feel free to change them. \$\endgroup\$ Feb 25, 2013 at 5:36
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\$\begingroup\$ The check to learn the spell is given in the players handbook intelligence table II correct? \$\endgroup\$– AntonioFeb 25, 2013 at 12:40
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There is a great article by by Lenard Lakofka in the free publication by &Magazine Issue: #9 – "Spells and Spell Casters" located at: https://web.archive.org/web/20140710010302/http://www.and-mag.com/2014/05/9-spells-spell-casters/ where Mr. Lakofka covers the Write spell in depth. However, his article expands on the spell, so you need to have the original PHB1 text which Mr. Lokofka does not duplicate. So Enjoy! :)
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Actually, this depends on if you're playing 1ed or 2ed of AD&D. In 1st ed, you needed to use the Write spell (1st level) in order to transfer the spell into your spell book. You also needed to make certain that you could interpret the spell (look under intelligence) and not exceed the maximum number of spells per level (also based upon intelligence).
2ed doesn't seem to have the Write spell listed, but does have the intelligence check & max number of spells per level.
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1\$\begingroup\$ I don't recall an requirement that the write spell be used. The spell description says it is used to scribe spell the magic user cannot currently understand but there is nothing about having to use it in all cases. Can you give a page/book ref for that? \$\endgroup\$– LeezardFeb 25, 2013 at 22:58
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\$\begingroup\$ Per the question tags, this is a 1e question. \$\endgroup\$ Feb 26, 2013 at 0:20
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\$\begingroup\$ The Write spell mentions it's for transcribing spells the player doesn't know into their spellbook. Since the player is copying the spell from a scroll to their spellbook, it's not likely that the player already "knows" the spell (i.e., that they can already memorize & cast it). \$\endgroup\$– zelgarFeb 27, 2013 at 20:20
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\$\begingroup\$ @zelgar If it was necessary to know the write spell to copy a spell into your spellbook, a wizard would need to know the write spell to learn new spells, and could not learn spells without it. \$\endgroup\$– GMJoeFeb 13, 2022 at 21:22