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Pebot
2009-02-06, 02:52 AM
So friends and I are playing a dungeons and dragons campaign and the dm has this large book and I need to translate it and copy it. The book is 3500 pages. And I'm wondering how many pages would 1 oz of ink cover. My estimate was about 10-50 pages, if thats the case then 560-2800gp for the ink (plus the paper which is easy to caclulate)

any insight would be great.

Seffbasilisk
2009-02-06, 03:54 AM
375gp for a wand of Amanuensis. Or, if it's just this one time, see if you can get a wand with just 1 charge, which drops the cost down to 7 gold and 5 silver.

Amanuensis is in the Spell Compendium. Page 9.

TheOOB
2009-02-06, 04:57 AM
Even in medieval times, buying stuff like that in large quantities(like what you need) would be cheaper then buying it by the vial. For a book that amazingly large, I'd say either go magic(a 0 level spell could do it) or set a flat price(I'd say 200gp).

Totally Guy
2009-02-06, 05:00 AM
Wow your DM makes a lot of notes. Over my campaign I've managed to fill just 1 and a half A4 jotters.:smalltongue:

Curmudgeon
2009-02-06, 01:45 PM
(plus the paper which is easy to caclulate)

any insight would be great. Paper is very rare in the D&D world. Almost everything is written on parchment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parchment) -- i.e., scraped animal hide. Parchment is much thicker than paper; figure a maximum of 50 sheets (100 double-sided pages) in 1 inch. Your 3500 page book is going to be a full yard thick.

crazedloon
2009-02-06, 02:13 PM
why write it down when you can remeber it perfectly with Autohypnosis :smallwink:

RTGoodman
2009-02-06, 04:57 PM
why write it down when you can remeber it perfectly with Autohypnosis :smallwink:

Yeah, and I'm sure you'd be LOVING that plan about halfway through your 3500 Autohypnosis checks. :smallamused: (It's one DC 15 check per page.)

If you can't get access to amanuensis like Seff suggests, I'd definitely at least try to simplify the problem. A Wizard needs 100gp per page worth of inks and reagents and stuff, but that's for magical writing. I'd be satisfied just going with 1 silver piece per page, meaning 1gp per 10 pages. That'd be 350gp for the whole thing. If that seems too low, maybe up to 1gp per page, for a total (of course) of 3500 gp.

Really, though, your DM will probably charge whatever he wants to charge, either setting it low enough that you can afford it, or high enough that you can't if he doesn't want you to.

P.S. I thought this thread was entirely about the PLAYER needing to copy a book, and didn't learn any different until there was a mention of gold pieces. I though the OP was seriously asking how much ink IRL it would take to copy a 3,500-page book. :smalleek:

Fostire
2009-02-06, 06:02 PM
P.S. I thought this thread was entirely about the PLAYER needing to copy a book, and didn't learn any different until there was a mention of gold pieces. I though the OP was seriously asking how much ink IRL it would take to copy a 3,500-page book. :smalleek:

Haha I thought so too :smallbiggrin:

AmberVael
2009-02-06, 06:33 PM
Amanuensis is great and all, but it makes perfect copies, and most importantly, it specifically says that it does not translate text (which is half of the work the OP need to do).

As for how many pages per OZ of ink...
A printer can get off anywhere from 20 to 70 pages per ml of ink. I'd assume that a human is not as efficient, so we'll say 20 pages (which is for a color printer using ink to saturate a page, so I say that more than makes up for human incompetence).

One ounce = 30 ml, so we have 20 pages per ml, and 30 ml, giving us about 600 pages per ounce of ink.
An ounce of ink is a lot of ink, after all. I might shave that number down enough just to be safe, but this is probably one of the more accurate ways to calculate it.

ericgrau
2009-02-06, 08:20 PM
1 oz is 29.57 cc which is 29,570 mm^3

Line width is about 0.5 mm. Paper thickness is 0.1mm. If we assume the ink soaks halfway through, that's 0.05mm. 29,570 mm^3 / (0.5 * 0.05) = 1,182,800mm = 46,567 inches.

I'll guestimate that a character is 1/4" high by 3/16" wide and takes about 3/4" of ink to write. And that the pages have 1" margins all around. (6.5" x 9") / (3/16" x 1/4") x 3/4" = 936" of ink per page.

46,567 / 936 = 49.75, about 50 pages per vial. This is just a rough estimate though. There would be spaces and gaps and what not, and I guessed on a lot of numbers.

AmberVael
2009-02-06, 09:34 PM
I'm going to retract my former estimate. While accurate for printers, it's obviously not the same as using actual pens.

I did some research on pens (Specifically using the Fountain Pen Network site) and found that people using fine point pens using around a ml of ink could get approximately 10 pages written. Therefore, since there are 30 ml in an ounce, that makes 300 pages.
Off by my previous guess by quite a bit, but still a lot better than the two digit numbers being put out.

LibraryOgre
2009-02-07, 01:30 PM
Yeah, and I'm sure you'd be LOVING that plan about halfway through your 3500 Autohypnosis checks. :smallamused: (It's one DC 15 check per page.)


At 1st level, I have a +1 Wisdom bonus and 4 ranks in Autohypnosis.

I take 10.

If it's not a class skill, at 2nd level I have +2 Ranks, +1 Wisdom, and +2 from Concentration.

I take 10.

Who needs a spellbook?

Pebot
2009-02-14, 08:25 PM
Hey thanks for all the posts.

I think i'll be going with the 300 pages per once of ink. My character will just write tiny :D haha

And like said that spell wouldn't quite work because I need it translated first, but I do like that spell though.

And the Autohypnosis is nice and all, but, Kinda need all my skill points for knowledge and other things, the DM is making use of Knowledge a LOT.

thanks again.

Copacetic
2009-02-14, 08:41 PM
Heh. I thought this thread was about a DM who spilled ink all over his notes and was asking for help. :smalltongue:

Lycanthromancer
2009-02-14, 08:42 PM
There's always the secret page spell. You can translate and scribe, all in the same action (so long as you know both languages, anyway).

NEO|Phyte
2009-02-14, 08:53 PM
At 1st level, I have a +1 Wisdom bonus and 4 ranks in Autohypnosis.

I take 10.

If it's not a class skill, at 2nd level I have +2 Ranks, +1 Wisdom, and +2 from Concentration.

I take 10.

Who needs a spellbook?


You can attempt to memorize a long string of numbers, a long passage of verse, or some other particularly difficult piece of information (but you can’t memorize magical writing or similarly exotic scripts).
Wizards do. Archivists too, I suppose.