A Land Far Away

Exactly what is the status of the "trade scrolls" in ALFA? Are they completely OOC? Are players to pretend these are regular spell scrolls? Or perhaps they are exactly what they claim to be: trade scrolls. But if so, why are they never sold by merchants?

They are to be used by mages to trade knowledge (spells). I believe there's an issue with merchant pricing, and they need to be sold via scripted convo. I don't beleive anybody's made the scripted convo.

It's like trading Pokemans. In PnP there is never a physical copy of the spell when you trade, but instead you copy it from each other's spellbooks directly into your own. The trade scrolls, as I understood it when they first popped up, was simply a way to make it possible to trade at all with other players.

I have run into a snag while trying to prepare some trade scrolls for my toon's cousin (who never got the full complement of ALFA cantrips, since he created a lvl 1 mage, rather than multi-classing into it). I can't scribe read/detect magic trade scrolls. I'll be testing the rest, oh so slowly, when the server is finally back up and vaulted.

Best way to get the RP spells to a wizard is to very nicely ask a DM to toolset the RP cantrips as a set of scrolls, then bring them in on an avatar. I'd encourage DMs to ask every wizard PC on their server if they have the RP cantrips, and offer them for free if not- really, it's just an OOC game engine limitation that they're not available at character creation. One toolsetted set of RP scrolls can be reused indefinitely so long as the DM avatar is saved with them in inventory.

It's essentially inconceiveable that any spellbook would be without Read Magic and Detect Magic, adding Mending and one or two more can safely be assumed as well IMHO. No need to charge the PC for them, the 0th level cantrips are essentially freebies.

This said, we're drifting away from Canon Lore and getting into a discussion of game mechanics. Hope this answers the question though (some of the RP spells work unpredictably with central engine mechanics).

Maybe trade scrolls are meant to simulate some of the costs involved in "copying into spellbooks" as well. Spellbooks are supposed to be worth a mint, 100gp per page, and copying a single spell takes 24hrs. Trade scrolls I guess are a "light" version of that, maybe. This probably is more a "rules" than "canon" question, though one influences the other (i.e., wizards need to set aside a big research budget and treasure their books).

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview ... alwritings

Wizards should definately take good care of their tomes. Spellbooks are indeed very expensive to produce. That's why many cast permanent fire resistance and vermin repelling spells on them or use special materials when crafting them. This is also the reason that some take the Spell Mastery feat and lock up their tomes in a vault for example, and the reason a Kiira or "lore-stone" is useful.