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It has recently been brought to my attention that there is a pricing discrepancy between magical spell staves in the Core Rulebook and in the Advanced Player's Guide. I'm looking to find out which is correct.
Either all the published staves in the Core Rulebook are priced at twice what they should be, or all the staves in the APG are priced at half what they should be.
Which is correct?
Obviously this calls for some serious errata and clarification on an official level. To that end, I've started this thread for FAQing and discussion.
Can you provide an examples?
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I'll try, but it seems some staves have prices that don't conform to either formula theory, which complicates matters.
EDIT:
A core staff example would be the staff of earth and stone. It has a listed market price of 85,800gp and a creation cost of 42,900gp. According to the staff pricing calculations in the magic item creation section of the Magic Item chapter, however, it should be exactly half that (Market Price 42,900gp; Creation Cost 21,450gp). Many core staves follow this trend of "doubled pricing."
Conversely, many (but not all) staves in the APG seem to conform to the pricing guidelines given in the core rulebook.
The staff of bolstering from the APG is an example of a staff that seems to follow the guidelines as written: It has a market price of 20,800gp and a creation cost of 10,400gp.
So the question is this: Which is right? The core rulebook samples? Or the APG samples?
What's more, some staves are just priced weirdly: The staff of toxins from the APG is an example of complete non-conformation. It has a market price of 12,600gp and a creation cost of 6,300gp when it should be 17,100gp and 8,550gp, respectively.
Well simply post up your findings and we can work through it together.
Well simply post up your findings and we can work through it together.
See my above edit. :)
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Staff pricing needs to be fixed the formula for staffs is very broken
right now it is not worth it to place spells below 3rd level on staffs as it is far too expensive the bang is not worth the bucks.
RIght now I do not see how you can put metamagiced spells on staffs.
The whole concept of staffs in PF need to be rethought and rebuilt.
Staffs are spell storage devices. You should not pay for induvial
spell you place in the staff. You should pay for the maximum spell level that you can place in the staff and the maximum number of charges a staff can hold. I would charge 2500 x the maximum spell level for the staff and flat fee for the number of charges 10K per 25 and 25K for 50 charges. This way meatmagiced spells can be easily placed in a staff
For instance if you bought a staff capable of holding 5th level spells
and 50 charges you could have your satff hold 5 empowered Maximized fire balls for 35 charges and still have 15 charges for other spells
cost of the staff would be 37500 for a kick ass staff that you could buy by 9th level.
I would modify the recharge rules. When you prepare you spells for the
day you simply mark of the number of spells equal to the sells you charge your staff with. For instance the above for maximized empowered
fireball you would mark off one 9th level spell slot. This would make it very worth while for a caster to buy a metamagic rod of the correct metamagic he desires to charge his staff with. For instance if the caster in the above example had a lesser metamagic rod of empower he could use it to knock 4 spell levels of and only use a 5th level spell slot for each empowered maxed fire ball.
Comments any one?
Staff pricing needs to be fixed the formula for staffs is very broken
right now it is not worth it to place spells below 3rd level on staffs as it is far too expensive the bang is not worth the bucks.RIght now I do not see how you can put metamagiced spells on staffs.
The whole concept of staffs in PF need to be rethought and rebuilt.
Staffs are spell storage devices. You should not pay for induvial
spell you place in the staff. You should pay for the maximum spell level that you can place in the staff and the maximum number of charges a staff can hold. I would charge 2500 x the maximum spell level for the staff and flat fee for the number of charges 10K per 25 and 25K for 50 charges. This way meatmagiced spells can be easily placed in a staff
For instance if you bought a staff capable of holding 5th level spells
and 50 charges you could have your satff hold 5 empowered Maximized fire balls for 35 charges and still have 15 charges for other spells
cost of the staff would be 37500 for a kick ass staff that you could buy by 9th level.I would modify the recharge rules. When you prepare you spells for the
day you simply mark of the number of spells equal to the sells you charge your staff with. For instance the above for maximized empowered
fireball you would mark off one 9th level spell slot. This would make it very worth while for a caster to buy a metamagic rod of the correct metamagic he desires to charge his staff with. For instance if the caster in the above example had a lesser metamagic rod of empower he could use it to knock 4 spell levels of and only use a 5th level spell slot for each empowered maxed fire ball.Comments any one?
My comment is that this is in the wrong thread and forum. You should consider deleting this and placing it in Homebrew.
I agree with Cheapy. This is not the place for such off-topic discussion. Please remove your post. If you do it before the time lapse, Cheapy and I shall do the same to ours.
I would suggest we should break down all the staves according to what they should cost by the formula:
Staff of earth
6th level spell and a 5th level spell at caster level 11 should be:
6*11*400+5*11*300=42,900gp
staff of charming
4th level spell(2 charges) and 1st level spell at caster level 8 should be:
(4*8*400)/2+(1*8*300)=8,800gp
Staff of Fire
4th level spell(3 charges), 3rd level spell(2 charges) and 1st level spell at caster level 8 should be:
(4*8*400)/3+(3*8*300)/2+(1*8*200)=8,400gp
Staff of Insects
5th level spell(3 charges), 2nd level spell caster level 9
(5*9*400)/3+(2*9*300)=11,400gp
So far it's looking like Ravingdork isn't simply raving mad this time.
Here is the link to the original discussion (which I inadverdantly began, oops!).
are staves too expensive for what they do
I just wanted to say thank you, RD, Cheapy, and everyone else. I wasn't sure if it was just me (since I am new to Pathfinder rules) and I had missed another hidden rule somewhere. Which, I did on the recharge thing. lol
But, I do think this is question that the developers should be asked.
Master Arminas
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APG Staves Price Comparison (Long)
Core staves appear to use the staff creation formula as the creation cost and APG staves appear to use the staff creation formula as the price.
This post is a comparison of the listed price of APG staves prices vs Core prices. Each of the staves from the APG are listed along with their calculated gp cost, APG _price_, percentage of Core price and any observations
There are probably some math errors in here but it helps to illustrate the differences.
Staff of Toxins – Formula 17100 - APG price 12600 – 37% of actual Core price
- to make the calculated cost match the APG price Stinking cloud was likely calculated with 2 charges (but listed as 1 charge) and using caster level 8 in error (rather than 9 – all spells must be same caster level)
- I suspect we might see this staff in late pathfinder society play
Staff of Journeys – Formula 13600 – APG price 13600 – 50% of core price
Staff of Rigor – Formula 10400 – APG price 13600 – 65% of core price
- Align Weapon was likely calculated with 1 charge but listed with 2
- only first and second level spells in a stave? Pointless!
Staff of Traps – Formula 33325 including 16125 of components – APG price 21200 – 32% of core price
- Suspect it includes some but not all material components in the cost (Sepia Snake Sigil?)
- A bargain for the free components but not an adventuring staff
Staff of Shrieking – Formula 14400 – APG price 14400 – 50% of core price
Staff of Souls – Formula 16400– APG price 16400 – 50% of core price
Staff of Stealth – Formula 18400 – APG price 18400 – 50% of core price
Staff of Revelations – Formula 22275 inc 1875gp components – APG price 20400 – 46% of core price
Staff of Bolstering – Formula 20800 – APG price 20800 – 50% of core price
- Bears Endurance, Bulls Strength, Cats Grace? For Aroden’s sake why are these in a staff? They have exactly the same effect at caster level 3 as they do at caster level 20. And you are paying for them at caster level 9. Nuts.
Staff of Cackling Wrath – Formula 29700 – APG price 23600 – 40% of core price
- no idea what went wrong here – possibly all spells calculated with 2 charges?
- I _might_ give this staff a second look at this price – a useful selection of thematic spells
Staff of Obstacles – Formula 27050 (inc 1250 components) – APG price 25800 – 48% of core price
Staff of Performance – Formula 26800 – APG price 26800 – 50% of core price
Staff of Hoarding – Formula 27817 – APG price 30016 – 54% of core price
- Secret Chest! What? Why? You must supply 5050 gp of manufactured chests every time you cast this spell. How many secret chests do you need?
Staff of Vision – Formula 45417 (inc 4167 components) – APG price 41250 – 45% of core price
Staff of Weather – Formula 42033 – APG price 44200 – 53% of core price
Staff of Many Rays – Formula 28600 – APG price 52800 – 92% of core price – odd one out
Even with these costs none of the staves are jumping out as must haves and only the Staff of Toxins and Staff of Cackling Wrath are getting close and that is because they are underpriced due to formula calculation errors.
If there is to be errata I would suggest the Core prices are halved rather than the APG prices doubled.
My observations on making useful and tempting staves with the current formula are:
1) Avoid spells below level 3
2) Make all spells use at least 2 charges
3) Avoid spells that don’t scale with caster level
4) Only include spells that are potentially useful on a daily basis
5) Keep the number of spells per stave low – I would suggest up to 3 spells per stave.
6) Where there are multiple spells in a stave they should all be the same or adjacent levels
And they HAVE been asked, Master Arminas. I've since posted a link to this thread in James Jacobs' >>Ask *James Jacobs* ALL your Questions Here!<< thread, which he is quite good at following. So hopefully, this will all be cleared up soon.
Thank you for bringing it to my attention. An error of this magnitude concerns me greatly, and I must say, I'm surprised I didn't find out about it much sooner.
Also, I'm of the opinion that the pricing formulas presented in the Core book are correct, and that the core staves as priced are over-priced.
ZomB, DID you check to make sure you were accounting for spell components and charge cost reductions (which reduces components costs as well)? If our numbers aren't absolutely perfect, they aren't going to be much help.
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ZomB, could you please spoiler the above post? It's a bit of an eye sore.
Done
Also, you DID check to make sure you were accounting for spell components and charge cost reductions (which reduces components costs as well), didn't you? If our numbers aren't absolutely perfect, they aren't going to be much help.
Yes I did, and double checked my spreadsheet as I typed the post. But a calculation and post of that size almost certainly contains errors. And I am doing "math after midnight" which is generally a warning sign. So second opinions are definitely welcome.
Staff pricing has been messed up since way back in 3.5. Its no surprise its still a mess now.
ZomB, If you don't mind, I'm going to double check your numbers using my own excel program since it's only 9pm here. :P
A match means it matches ZomB's findings. The listed price in the APG may still be wrong.
Staff of...
Toxin - Match
Journeys - Match
Rigor - Match
Traps - APG staff listing SHOULD be 36,525gp. Overlooked material components would be my guess.
Shrieking - Match
Souls - Match
Stealth - APG staff listing SHOULD be 20,900gp. Again, overlooked material components.
Revelations - APG staff listing SHOULD be 30,633.34gp (seems they forgot the components)
Bolstering - Match
Cackling Wrath - APG staff listing SHOULD be 31,500gp and CL 9th.
Obstacles - Match
Performance - APG staff listing SHOULD be 24,400gp. I suspect they meant for glibness to be 2 charges rather than the lower level enthrall (which would make it 23,600gp).
Hoarding - APG staff listing SHOULD be 40,916.67gp
Vision - APG staff listing SHOULD be 45,916.67gp. Components? (You forgot the focus component of scry ZomB)
Weather - APG staff listing SHOULD be 42,033.33gp (Are you rounding off the change ZomB?)
Many Rays - Match
Slumber - APG staff listing SHOULD be 49,216.67gp (Perhaps they forgot the components again?)
It seems to me that common errors are (1) material component and focus component costs are frequently overlooked and (2) they don't put their spells in the proper order before doing the math, meaning some staffs could actually be cheaper than they are (such as in the case of the staff of performance).
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I'll try, but it seems some staves have prices that don't conform to either formula theory, which complicates matters.
All the Core school themed staves (abjuration, conjuration, etc) have a caster level of 13 even though they only need level 11 and it is the whole point of staves you can use your own caster level.
I'll try, but it seems some staves have prices that don't conform to either formula theory, which complicates matters.All the Core school themed staves (abjuration, conjuration, etc) have a caster level of 13 even though they only need level 11 and it is the whole point of staves you can use your own caster level.
Did even one of them need a CL of 13? It's entirely possible they made them all the same caster level in order to "keep to the theme" of all the staves being of equal power level.
Off the front page already? Not if I have anything to say about it.
Do you guys want clarification, or don't you?
Oh yes, we do! LOL
Master Arminas
FAQ'd. That said, I'm really with Ashiel's suggestion on staves, even if it's total homebrew.
Off the front page already? Not if I have anything to say about it.
Do you guys want clarification, or don't you?
Half Price CRB staves would certainly make them more appealing as an option :)
So yeah, clarification would be great.
Weird, I was just noticing the price of the staff of toxins and searched google if this is a known issue. Beat me by a few hours. ^^
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Staff of...
Traps - APG staff listing SHOULD be 36,525gp. Overlooked material components would be my guess.
Stealth - APG staff listing SHOULD be 20,900gp. Again, overlooked material components.
Revelations - APG staff listing SHOULD be 30,633.34gp (seems they forgot the components)
Cackling Wrath - APG staff listing SHOULD be 31,500gp and CL 9th.
Agree. I found my errors on these.
Performance - APG staff listing SHOULD be 24,400gp. I suspect they meant for glibness to be 2 charges rather than the lower level enthrall (which would make it 23,600gp).
I only match if I put 3rd level Glibness as the 3rd power (1 charge) after the other two 3rd level 2 charge spells, which seems a bit cheesy but looks technically legal.
Hoarding - APG staff listing SHOULD be 40,916.67gp
Not following this, but I am not at all sure how you would put Secret Chest in the staff. The large and small chests seem to be things you need to provide at casting time rather than material components.
Vision - APG staff listing SHOULD be 45,916.67gp. Components? (You forgot the focus component of scry ZomB)
I did generally omit focus costs, but not a significant cost.
Weather - APG staff listing SHOULD be 42,033.33gp (Are you rounding off the change ZomB?)
Yes. I thought 5 significant digits was already overkill
Slumber - APG staff listing SHOULD be 49,216.67gp (Perhaps they forgot the components again?)
I get 50716.67.
When I look at the formulas for other non-staff magical items, they are always for the PRICE, not the COST. This leads me to believe that the staves in the core book are incorrect, as written.
| 1 person marked this as FAQ candidate. |
Well, we got an official response...of a sort:
James, I would very much like to direct your attention to this thread where the following question is being asked:
There is something seriously fishy going on with staff pricing somewhere.It has recently been brought to my attention that there is a pricing discrepancy between magical spell staves in the Core Rulebook and in the Advanced Player's Guide. I'm looking to find out which is correct.
Either all the published staves in the Core Rulebook are priced at twice what they should be, or all the staves in the APG are priced at half what they should be.
Which is correct?
Obviously this calls for some serious errata and clarification on an official level. To that end, I've started this thread for FAQing and discussion.
Hit the FAQ button on that thread. I don't work with rulebook errata, so alerting me to the thread doesn't really do much, honestly. Hitting the FAQ button for the question, though, does.
Personally, I thing ALL staves are priced too high—it's too hard to give them to NPCs without blasting the roof off treasure limits for most adventures.
So you heard him fellas! FAQ! FAQ! FAQ!
FAQed, pretty surprising that this issue was detected so late.
I think it's indicative of the amount of problem there was with staves in the first place -- no one wanted them because they were so overpriced.
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I did mention it back in May, but like you say no one really cares about staves. Which is sad considering they are one of a very few items that actually scale with caster level: Pearls, ring of wizardry, staves, what else?
There is also the issue that the spell selection in staves is usually not appealing due to spell bloat or theme restrictions. So even if the price was right you wouldn't want them.
If we assume the formula is the price (as per APG) and that a stave has to have at least 2 spells in it - then the basic formula says a stave costs at least spell level*caster level*700 (400+300) where the cl floor is level 8. So they would be similarly priced to wands as long as the spell count was kept down and spell level was kept up. Though wands above level 1 are seldom value for money.
What 2 spells would you pay for if they were in a stave?
With a single spell in a staff, they might actually be popular.
What 2 spells would you pay for if they were in a stave?
Limited wish and wish. Stoneskin and transformation. Any other two commonly cast spells with high cost material components (since you will never have to pay for them ever again when using the staff).
Some fun staves I've made in the past:
Aura Moderate Evocation; CL 9th
Slot –; Price 45,000 gp; Weight 5 lb.
DESCRIPTION
A powerful weapon carved from orc bone, this staff was created by the elven maiden Corral to aid her in the destruction of her husband’s orc murderers. This magical staff possesses the following spells:
• Cone of cold (1 charge)
• Extended acid arrow (1 charge)
• Intensified fireball (1 charge)
• Intensified lightning bolt (1 charge)
• Reach magic missile (long range) (1 charge)
CONSTRUCTION
Requirements Craft Staff, Extend Spell, Intensified Spell, Reach Spell, acid arrow, cone of cold, fireball, lightning bolt, magic missile; Cost 22,500 gp
Aura Strong Enchantment and Necromacy; CL 13th
Slot –; Price 59,800 gp; Weight 5 lb.
DESCRIPTION
This gnarled black staff is 5 feet long, has a face carved into a large wooden knob at the top, and is made of magically darkened wood. The face twists and screams in agony whenever the staff is gripped tightly. The staff is strongly evil-aligned and cannot be wielded safely except by those who possess an evil alignment. Those of non-evil alignment that wield it suffer one negative level, which persists until they relinquish possession of the staff. The staff also becomes temporarily non-functional when in the hands of such a wielder (as if it had been the target of a successful dispel magic) and remains that way until relinquished. The staff allows the use of the following spells:
• Empowered Maximized ray of enfeeblement (1 charge)
• Empowered Maximized touch of idiocy (1 charge)
CONSTRUCTION
Requirements Craft Staff, Empower Spell, Maximize Spell, creator must be evil, ray of enfeeblement, touch of idiocy; Cost 29,900 gp
Aura Moderate Conjuration and Evocation; CL 8th
Slot –; Price 21,600 gp; Weight 5 lb.
DESCRIPTION
This smooth oak staff allows the use of the following spells:
• Fireball (1 charge)
• Lightning bolt (1 charge)
• Sleet storm (1 charge)
Many staffs of vengeance also double as magical spears. Add the costs of the magical spear and the staff of vengeance together and use the spear’s weight value when using this variant.
CONSTRUCTION
Requirements Craft Staff, fireball, lightning bolt, sleet storm (add additional requirements as necessary if made as a spear); Cost 10,800 gp
What 2 spells would you pay for if they were in a stave?
I had a thought for a game I'm currently in of getting a Stave with Heal/Teleport, as those are two hugely utility spells our party doesn't have but really need (or rather, we dont have them yet, but my understanding is our Druid can recharge it in a level when he gets 6th level spells).
Heal because dealing with Insanity and other semi-permanent status effects in a party with Druid/Inquisitor/Magus/Barb/Ninja is surprisingly difficult, Teleport because it allows you to actually go shopping when you're stuck out in the middle of nowhere with no one who can use Travel type spells.
Just need to find a Cleric of Desna to make us one.
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I have been thinking about the staff formula. If we understand how it arose then we can better propose revision. My take is:
It appears to use the standard once-per-day item price formula rounded up (sl*cl*1800/5) for the first power, 75% price for the second similar power, and 50% price for the third and subsequent similar powers.
Hence why staves are "themed" to allow the second and third spells to count as "similar" abilities.
The once-per-day restriction is satisfied by only allowing one charge per day to be added to the staff.
Normally there would be an extra cost for it being caster scalable - again this seems to be satisfied by a caster having to recharge it - with spell list limitations.
The level 8 minimum caster level only seems to be there to reduce overlap with wands.
Which just leaves the ten charges that it comes with - which _might_ be accounted for by the rounding up on the formula.
EDIT: Hmm, if we assume that the base price of a spell trigger item is 1500 (double wand price for a never-wears-out item) so that once-per-day would be sl*cl*1500/5=300 then we are paying for the initial ten charges in the extra 33% we are paying for the staff.
FAQ'd. This seems important.
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I just noticed that it is more confusing than it needs to be because all the tables in the magic item creation section are incorrectly labeled "Base Costs" in their titles when their body actually lists item market prices instead. The body text below each table generally gives the formula for determining the creation costs.
It's no wonder people are getting them mixed up. The tables should be listed as "Base Prices" or "Market Price."
If you are just looking at the section as a quick reference, then you might see the table, see "Base Cost" and end up doubling the pricing of your stuff. If you skip the table and go straight to the text underneath it, however, then you end up with the right formula.
If you are looking to buy a staff, rather than create it, you might end up with the opposite problem from reading the incorrect table labels.
No doubt this is the mistake the developers made as well when putting together the APG.
DAGNABBIT!
This means that all my APG staff price breakdown that I did above IS completely wrong, and that all the Core Rulebook staves are indeed correct.
Yeah, this needs official clarification. Soon.
EDIT: This also leads me to believe that staves are way overpriced, and I'm hoping that the developers fix the table listings and adjust the core formulas to match the pricing of the APG staves.
I had a thought for a game I'm currently in of getting a Stave with Heal/Teleport, as those are two hugely utility spells our party doesn't have but really need (or rather, we dont have them yet, but my understanding is our Druid can recharge it in a level when he gets 6th level spells).
Druid will need to be 13th level to recharge, as he must be capable of casting Heal, which is a 7th level spell for Druids.
Nothing has changed. Not so much as a response from the design team to let us know they are looking into it. I guess we need more FAQ button presses. Keep it up everyone!
FAQed.
Developer
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My group was overjoyed when they saw the staff prices in the APG, because they felt like those staves were actually remotely affordable. Until the APG came out, all my players basically skipped over the staff section whenever they were considering treasure for their characters, because staves are simply way too expensive to ever drop as loot and you have to be well into high levels to save up cash for one.
Now that I've seen this thread and crunched the numbers in a spreadsheet myself, we've realized that basically all the APG staves are incorrectly priced, and it's got us down, especially since we've just started purchasing and using some of those staves in our games (including one that dropped in a published adventure).
I really hope this issue gets fixed, and I hope the fix includes a reduction in staff prices as presented in the Core Rulebook. They are a really great type of magic item that every spellcaster wants, but basically nobody ever gets to use until they are level 14+.
This is a question out of curiousity.... What would the pricing on a Staff of Healing (that actually only casts the Heal Spell be??) I get somewhat north of 26000gp for 10 charges at level 11 but points raised here make me wonder if I am wrong! {This is not meant to derail but i do wonder at the absence of such a potentially useful Staff}
Does anybody else think that the part about needing 50 castings worth of material components when creating staves is in error? As in, maybe this was left over for when staves had 50 charges? Or am I just not seeing something here.
Its intended, because it compensates for the potentially infinite use of that spell over the course of the staffs life.
For instance, how long does it take a Staff of Wishes to pay for itself? :)
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This is a question out of curiousity.... What would the pricing on a Staff of Healing (that actually only casts the Heal Spell be??) I get somewhat north of 26000gp for 10 charges at level 11 but points raised here make me wonder if I am wrong! {This is not meant to derail but i do wonder at the absence of such a potentially useful Staff}
A staff that just casts heal would cost 26,400 gp to craft and have a market price of 52,800 gp.
Formula: spell level x caster level x 400
6x11x400 = 26,400 (cost), doubled to 52,800 (price)
| 1 person marked this as FAQ candidate. |
Does anybody else think that the part about needing 50 castings worth of material components when creating staves is in error? As in, maybe this was left over for when staves had 50 charges? Or am I just not seeing something here.
From the footnotes on the chart of pricing magic items:
4 If item is continuous or unlimited, not charged, determine cost as if it had 100 charges. If it has some daily limit, determine as if it had 50 charges.
It might be a grandfathered rule, but it is still there. 50 seems a good compromise. 10 charges worth of material would be too cheep, 100 too much. Remember: due to the rechargeable nature of staves these days, you can get a lot of milage out of spells with expensive components.
I remember reading a developer comment somewhere that the "paying for 50 charges" rule was deliberately and knowingly kept in the game.