From: scythe@stein.u.washington.edu (The Grim Reaper)
Subject: Re: Read Magic
Keywords: stupidity magic spells nwp
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 00:45:04 GMT

In article <1gr10qINNav@crcnis1.unl.edu> pmenard@cse.unl.edu (Patrick Menard) writes:
>Does anyone else out there think its kind of stupid to have a spell that allows
>you to read spells?  How are you supposed to read the 'read magic' spell to
>begin with?(kind of a catch-22 I think)

Whoah.  Calm down and think for a minute.  It says somewhere that read
magic is NOT NECESSARY to read your own spells, in your spellbook.
Read magic is necessary to read other's scrolls and spellbooks,
since their magical writing is different from yours.

>
>Ok, so when Gygax made up 1st edition he had to have some way to make magic
>different.  So he went and made Read Magic so only mages could read it, cool.
>Well, when second edition came out, they used the same thinking (imagine that)
>and arrived at the same conclusion.(Captain Cook, pirate of T$R (admittedly,
>Gygax isn't the most likable person in the world, but at least give him the
>credit he deserves (like Cook actually made up any of the stuff)))  Well, at
Argh.  Not this arguement again.

>the same time they were installing these nice new non-weapon proficiencies in
>the world and even included one called 'Spellcraft'.  I rejoiced!  I thought
>"Gee, someone finally fixed that 'Read Magic' problem, what a great bunch of
>people over there, expecially that wonderful Dave Cook guy.(little did I know
>then!)".  Well, when I read the description of it, I was quite surprised.  In
>stead of giving mages the ability to Read Magic, it did some other sort of
>nonsense.  Dave had a great opportunity, and he blew it.

Whaddya mean? Spellcraft is one of the BEST NWPs out there.  If you look
at the desc, it can be used to know facts about spells, to identify opponents
spells, and (at half) to simulate a detect magic on items.  

>Oh, well, stupidity runs rampant at T$R.(must be something in the water up
>there)  Anyway, the only thing that needs to be done, in my opinion, is to
>either: A) Make Spellcraft the equivalent of Read Magic also;  B) Make a
>new non-weapon proficiency called Reading/Writing-Magical;  or C) Make
>reading/writing-magical something inherent to the Mage class.
Nope.  You're wrong, at least in my world.  READ MAGIC IS NOT NECESSARY
TO READ YOUR OWN SPELLS AND SCROLLS.

>
>Of the 3 choices, I believe adding Read Magic into Spellcraft is the best
>solution.(also adding 1 to the cost of Spellcraft)  Basically Mages and
>Bards would have to buy it before being allowed to cast spells.(or hell,
>just give it to them as a bonus like rangers get tracking (this is what I'll
>probably do in all my campaigns from now on (right now I just pretend that 
>mages and bards already know how to read magic so the spell doesn't really
>exist (adding a new proficiency adds more detail for those that want the
>extra hassle))))
>
>All this was promted when I read the thread on mages sharing spellbooks and
>people mentioned the fact that the mages would have to cast a read magic to
>read the other persons spell book.(kind of like having to read a book in
>Spanish in order to learn the language)  Oh, by way, I also think they should
>be able to share the books, but not cast out of them.(unless they had the
>material components available, and still had a spell learned.(which would be
>forgotten in place of the one cast (this is another thing I've a problem with,
>but thats for another time ;)  )))
>thats all for now.
>
>Shadow

On that topic, I'd say mages have to copy the spell into their own
spellbook (at a cost of 100 gp*spell level) and first use read magic
before they can cast them.