Yea Jonathan, that was my first reaction also. But the PC countered by
saying "well if I can't get to the actual tomes of magic, I want to lay
my hands on every piece of literature that somehow might help me to
research more magical spells." I guess a better way to put it is the PC
is walking up to the folks at the CoS/Heralds College and saying "Hey,
would you allow either myself or some of my associates to come on into
your archives and copy everything that we possibly can? It doesn't have
to me magical in nature (although I'd sure like to have that too)."

Now the PC is trying to be inventive (in a money-motivated sort of way)
and he's basically trying to overcome some of the obstacles that I've
placed in his way for the acquisition of magic. So I can't fault him on
his efforts. However, I don't really believe that the people in the CoS
and Heralds College are just going to open their doors and yell "Sure
enough, come on down!" no matter how much money the guy lays down.

Bryan Palmer
Arizona State University
Bryan.Palmer@asu.edu
ICQ# 4715206

From: Jonathan Picklesimer
Reply-To: birthright@MPGN.COM

To: "'birthright@mpgn.com'"
Subject: RE: [BIRTHRIGHT] - Regarding Magic

Bryan,

I like what you are saying, but I think that there is
one problem. All of the scribes would need to be capable of casting the
spells they are copying, otherwise they could not perform the job. I
know that is a harsh restriction, but if you read the PHB, and the DMG
they make it very clear that a magic user cannot copy a spell into their
book that they cannot cast. So, I think that your PC would loose the
advantage of having all of the spells that other wizards do not because
he would have to hire wizards to copy the spells thus giving them
access to the same information that he wants to gain an advantage.
Just my 2 GBs.
Jonathan


----------
From: Bryan Palmer[SMTP:BRYAN.PALMER@ASU.Edu]

Sent: Thursday, June 25, 1998 7:43 PM
To: Birthright Listserver (E-mail)
Subject: [BIRTHRIGHT] - Regarding Magic

Thanks for the comments regarding the PC wizard
acquiring magic from the
CoS and the Heralds College. I think I need to clarify
one thing. The
PC doesn't want to enroll in the college (s). He just
wants to either
visit them himself or better yet, send a pack of scribes
(that he wants
to hire from the PC guilder) to copy everything they can
get their hands
on. He's not really interested in matriculating into
either program and
his level (6th) is far too high for either to accept him
into their
programs.

My concern is primarily for creating a baseline idea of
how difficult
(in terms of money, time, and influence) it would be to
even try what he
has in mind. Personally, I think it would be just about
impossible but
he and various other PCs in my game have the belief that
money can get
you anything (I wonder where that concept came from!?).
Unfortunately,
since I have made magic so difficult to acquire it has
somewhat
frustrated this player and I'm a bit concerned that if I
don't give him
some "scraps from the table" he'll pack up shop and
literally go home.
So I thought it would be best to speak to my fellow DMs
first and get a
general idea of how they might handle the situation,
especially in terms
of money charged or even the availability of this type
of action.