[RPG] Do Order of Scribes wizards have reduced GP costs for copying spells into their spellbook

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The Player's Handbook (p. 114) and Basic Rules use the following language to explain how wizards copy new spells into their spellbooks:

Copying a Spell into the Book. When you find a wizard spell of 1st level or higher, you can add it to your spellbook if it is of a spell level you can prepare and if you can spare the time to decipher and copy it.

[…]

For each level of the spell, the process takes 2 hours and costs 50 gp. The cost represents material components you expend as you experiment with the spell to master it, as well as the fine inks you need to record it. Once you have spent this time and money, you can prepare the spell just like your other spells.

In the Unearthed Arcana that first described Order of the Scribes wizards (Unearthed Arcana 2020: Subclasses Revisited), the Wizardly Quill feature used the following language:

  • The quill doesn’t require ink. When you write with it, it produces ink in a color of your choice on the writing surface.
  • The gold and time you must spend to copy a spell into your spellbook are halved if you use the quill for the transcription.

In the final release of the class in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything (p. 77), the language of the Order of Scribes wizard's Wizardly Quill feature has changed to the following:

  • The quill doesn’t require ink. When you write with it, it produces ink in a color of your choice on the writing surface.
  • The time you must spend to copy a spell into your spellbook equals 2 minutes per spell level if you use the quill for the transcription.

Do Order of Scribes wizards have reduced GP costs for copying spells into their spellbook?

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There seem to be at least two possible interpretations of how this affects the GP cost of copying a spell into your spellbook:

  1. Wizardly Quill does not say anything about the GP cost of learning spells, and therefore, the costs remain unchanged.
  2. Wizardly Quill reduces the cost of ink to 0 GP. Spells cost 50 GP/level when learning spells that require costly material components (e.g. find familiar). Spells cost 0 GP/level when learning spells whose material components are substituted by an arcane focus (e.g. feather fall).

My inclination, based on the Rule of Specificity, is to rule for the first option.

Best Answer

They have the same costs to copy spells as other wizards.

The rules don't specify anything different, so you maintain the same cost as before. It is simply faster.

Consider that most people won't check UA for language changes. If you simply read that

The time you must spend to copy a spell into your spellbook equals 2 minutes per spell level if you use the quill for the transcription.

then you would make no assumptions about costs being reduced.

The costs listed in the rules are a mix of inks, reagents, components, to abstractly represent expenses you may have with the process:

The cost represents material components you expend as you experiment with the spell to master it, as well as the fine inks you need to record it.

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