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In the case of two spell abilities at the same level, the 'primary' ability should be whichever one costs more to add on. For example, let us call the first 4th level spell "Alpha", and the second one "Beta". Casting Alpha takes 10 charges, casting Beta takes 1 charge.Th
First look at their costs individually. This is assuming caster level 8 as well.
Alpha - (400 x 4 x 8)/10 = 1,280
Beta - (400 x 4 x 8)/1 = 12,800
The most costly ability stays the same. This would be the Beta cost of 12,800. The 'next most costly ability' is Alpha, at 1,280. You take 75% of that and add it to the initial cost.
1,280 * 0.75 = 960
This is the same as (300 x 4 x 8)/10, by the way.
12,800 + 960 = 13,760
13,760 GP is the final cost of the above staff.
Your God of Knowledge,
Nethys
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Problem is, the RAW states that you add the highest spell level first, regardless of charges/use cost. And if we bump that 10 charges/use spell up to fifth level, the resulting staff is still less expensive than the staff with just the 4th level spell alone.
The caster level would need to be increased to accommodate a 5th level spell (lowest would be 9th). The cost would then be as follows.
Alpha - (400 x 5 x 9)/10 = 1,800
Beta - (300 x 4 x 9)/1 = 10,800
Total - 12,600 gp
So by the RAW, you would be correct in this instance. However, the slightly lower cost is understandable. This staff now requires the expenditure of a 5th level spell each day to get back 1 charge (instead of a 4th level spell with the initial staff) and requires expenditure of both the 5th and 4th level spells every day of creation.
If the spell levels are equal, the RAW does not really comment on this and I would suggest then comparing their end prices as I did before deciding which is the 'primary' ability.
Your God of Knowledge,
Nethys
Actually, I suspect that most staffs will have the sort of charge scaling described. Higher level spells are significantly more expensive, so it makes sense to require multiple charges to reduce the cost. For example, a healing staff might have:
Cure Critical Wounds (1 charge)
Heal (2 charges)
Resurrection (3 charges)
You applied the discount twice. 400*75%=300; 400*50%=200. The 300 and 200 reflect already decreasing the secondary and tertiary spells by 75% and 50%, so you don't get the discount again.
Also, the staff is at caster level 13, not 11.
The proper formula is:
400 x 6 x 13 / 3 = 10400 gp
300 x 5 x 13 / 2 = 9750 gp
200 x 4 x 13 / 2 = 5200 gp
200 x 3 x 13 / 1 = 7800 gp
200 x 2 x 13 / 1 = 5200 gp
200 x 1 x 13 / 1 = 2600 gp
Total of 40,950 gp.
I hope that clears it up.
BTW, there really isn't any reason why you couldn't have a CL 11 staff of evocation. Its cost to create would be 34,650 using the same rules.
Don't give any spells from a staff a cost requirement of more than three charges. The 4- and 5-charge spells in some of the CR staves are weird and should be the rare exception.
Don't give any spells from a staff a cost requirement of more than three charges. The 4- and 5-charge spells in some of the CR staves are weird and should be the rare exception.
In response to this, I'll note that it's really not an exploit. The cost reduction is never significant because of the higher caster level, and having to recharge the thing with higher-level spells is usually not going to be worth the fact that you can occasionally get a single higher-level spell out of it.
In other words, even though 10-charge spells on staves were not intended, doing so is fine as far as I can tell.
Example #2)
400 x6 spell x11 caster = 26400 /3 charge = 6600 (next costly)
400 x3 spell x11 caster = 13200 /2 charge = 4400 (other ability)
400 x2 spell x11 caster = 8800 /1 charge = 8800 (highest cost)8800 x 1.00 = 8800
6600 x 0.75 = 4950
4400 x 0.50 = 2200
TOTAL = 15950 x2 = 31,900 gpIs it odd that in this example, lowest level spell becomes the costliest ability?
page 552, Creating Staves = last line on that page ..."" Note that this does not change the order in which the spells are priced (the highest level spells is still priced first, even if it requires more than one charge to activate.)""....
So you would still
6600 x 1.00 = 6600
4400 x 0.75 = 3300
8800 x 0.50 = 4400
TOTAL = 14300 x2 = 28,600 gp
As it currently stands the pricing does not reward, but rather penalizes having staves with spells of different levels in them.-James
Do you say that because the staff pricing must use the caster that the highest level spell requires (and that means that lower level spells end up costing more) but the caster level of the staff plays almost no role since the staves use the user's caster level?
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How much would a staff that can cast thread necromancy cost? :)
OK, in all seriousness ...
Pricing for spells makes sense. How does one then factor in non spell abilities? For instance, what about a staff that also acts as a +1 quarterstaff? How about a staff that allows one to cast a low level spell at will, with no charge cost? What about other things like giving the wielder an AC or saving throw bonus?
Are there rules for these? I'm thinking the Table: Estimating Magic Item Gold Piece Values in the Magic Item Creation section is probably a good place to start ?
@Nigrescene
Replace raise dead with limited wish. Infinite mumber of wishes!!!!!!!!!!
@Nigrescene
Replace raise dead with limited wish. Infinite mumber of wishes!!!!!!!!!!My same points apply, only remove the corpse requirement.
Your item is also even MORE expensive. Yeah, let's see how well you fare when you have almost no gear but this staff. Hint: It won't be pretty.It also isn't infinite. It is limited, specifically to 10+1 per day, and that's IF you don't reduce the cost by requiring more charges, the optimum, meaning it's even MORE expensive. It gets an additional 1 per day for each caster you have available to recharge it.
Still, try this all you like, I can guarantee that you won't like the results if you attempt to abuse it like this, and that is without special effort on my part to put down this exploitative abuse.
Let's see some numbers:
creating a staff that can cast only limited wish and it takes all of it's 10 charges to do so will cost you 78640, that's roughly half the money a 14th level character has. And by losing one 7th spell slot (in order to recharge the staff) you gain three free limited wishes per month for the rest of your life.It sure looks like a loophole to me.
I'm not sure where you got your numbers. By my calculations, a staff that casts Limited Wish using all 10 charges costs 11,140 gp.
That's 400x7x13/10 + 1500x50/10.
Am I missing something?
@Nigrescene
Replace raise dead with limited wish. Infinite mumber of wishes!!!!!!!!!!My same points apply, only remove the corpse requirement.
Your item is also even MORE expensive. Yeah, let's see how well you fare when you have almost no gear but this staff. Hint: It won't be pretty.It also isn't infinite. It is limited, specifically to 10+1 per day, and that's IF you don't reduce the cost by requiring more charges, the optimum, meaning it's even MORE expensive. It gets an additional 1 per day for each caster you have available to recharge it.
Still, try this all you like, I can guarantee that you won't like the results if you attempt to abuse it like this, and that is without special effort on my part to put down this exploitative abuse.
Let's see some numbers:
creating a staff that can cast only limited wish and it takes all of it's 10 charges to do so will cost you 78640, that's roughly half the money a 14th level character has. And by losing one 7th spell slot (in order to recharge the staff) you gain three free limited wishes per month for the rest of your life.
It sure looks like a loophole to me.
That isn't very practical though. If you have a DM who already prevents the 15 minute workday, I doubt you're going to be manage a 15 minute work-week. You've spent 1/2 your WBL, but 95% of the time, it's unavailable for use AND you've given up a 7th level spell slot permanently.
More with the Raise Dead staff above, if I were the DM I would start sending Inevitables at the player, who'd leave him alone once the staff were destroyed. There are already being in the mythos who don't take kindly to those who fine "loopholes".
I'm not sure where you got your numbers. By my calculations, a staff that casts Limited Wish using all 10 charges costs 11,140 gp.
That's 400x7x13/10 + 1500x50/10.
Am I missing something?
You don't divide the material cost. it's 1500x50.
Edit: Scratch that you are right.
You pay 11140 and one of your 7th spell slots for having 3 limited wishes per month for the rest of your life.
@Irontruth
What does the 10 minute workday has to do with this?
When the DM is forced to inevitables to the player for such a reason i call it a loophole.
I find it telling when someone complains about something specific in the rules, and they ignore every other rule that is in place related to it.
I never said that this is the answer to all of your problems but as you have said it's loophole that can be abused and you (as DM) would have to take extra measures to stop that abuse.
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Sheesh!
You know guys, this theoretical argument over if staves need new rules or whatever was dead since March!
I resurrected the thread so I could ask an actual rules question, not so you could pick up where you left off and continue arguing. Could you guys please just agree to disagree so we can get back to actual rules questions about pricing staves according the the rules as they are currently written?
So, here was the question again:
How much would a staff that can cast thread necromancy cost? :)
OK, in all seriousness ...
Pricing for spells makes sense. How does one then factor in non spell abilities? For instance, what about a staff that also acts as a +1 quarterstaff? How about a staff that allows one to cast a low level spell at will, with no charge cost? What about other things like giving the wielder an AC or saving throw bonus?
Are there rules for these? I'm thinking the Table: Estimating Magic Item Gold Piece Values in the Magic Item Creation section is probably a good place to start ?
Sheesh!
You know guys, this theoretical argument over if staves need new rules or whatever was dead since March!
I resurrected the thread so I could ask an actual rules question, not so you could pick up where you left off and continue arguing. Could you guys please just agree to disagree so we can get back to actual rules questions about pricing staves according the the rules as they are currently written?
So, here was the question again:
How much would a staff that can cast thread necromancy cost? :)
OK, in all seriousness ...
Pricing for spells makes sense. How does one then factor in non spell abilities? For instance, what about a staff that also acts as a +1 quarterstaff? How about a staff that allows one to cast a low level spell at will, with no charge cost? What about other things like giving the wielder an AC or saving throw bonus?
Are there rules for these? I'm thinking the Table: Estimating Magic Item Gold Piece Values in the Magic Item Creation section is probably a good place to start ?
For adding weapon enchantment to a magic staff you just calculate how much gold it would cost you to make a normal staff a magic weapon and you add that amount to the cost, after that see if the cost of being a magical weapon is higher than the cost of the magic staff and add half the price of the lower of those two amounts to the final price of this item.
And yes the estimating magic item values table is a very good start.
@Irontruth
What does the 10 minute workday has to do with this?
When the DM is forced to inevitables to the player for such a reason i call it a loophole.
It has to do with the amount of available resources to a character. The 15 minute workday is the assumption that you can spend all your daily resources on a single encounter. If you DM is pushing for multiple encounters per day though, resources must be used more sparingly.
Lets during the course of an adventure, the DM encourages 5+ encounters per day when the action is really going. During a 10 day period (though I doubt most heavy action periods would last that long), there would be 50 encounters, but you'd only have 1 Limited Wish to use amongst all of them.
Now, scaling that back a bit, since it's pretty obviously fairly extreme, lets say that most adventures have 1-2 action heavy periods and these have a 10 day gap between them. That means that the player gets 2 Limited Wishes per adventure.
I would agree, that the material component cost does get reduced significantly. The player is paying 11k gold upfront for all his Limited Wishes, but Limited Wish only costs 1,500 gp already. He already had the money to cast the spell 7 times. If we assume the player was going to cast the spell anyways, but only use it the same amount during the action heavy periods, that's anywhere from 3-7 adventures until the staff starts to come out ahead on money. If the player wanted to cast it more often, the comparison to a 10 charge cost staff is irrelevant.
3-7 adventures. If we assume 3 adventures, each with 2 heavy action periods, you're probably looking at 1 to 1.5 adventures per level. If you're using things about the size of adventure path books, that's as much as 2 levels per adventure. Since the staff can only be crafted at 13th level or higher, you're probably looking at having advanced to 17th level by the time the staff actually starts to save you money.
400.
3200. Min CL is always 8. Staves should generally have at least two spells though.
3200. Min CL is always 8. Staves should generally have at least two spells though.
Staves are priced based on the spells. There is no rule saying any spell has to have a caster level of 8.
3200. Min CL is always 8.
Well, not always. The Monstrification Staff from the Advanced Class Guide has a caster level of 5.
3200. Min CL is always 8. Staves should generally have at least two spells though.Staves are priced based on the spells. There is no rule saying any spell has to have a caster level of 8.
Oh?
To create a magic staff, a character needs a supply of materials, the most obvious being a staff or the pieces of the staff to be assembled.
The materials cost is subsumed in the cost of creation: 400 gp × the level of the highest-level spell × the level of the caster, plus 75% of the value of the next most costly ability (300 gp × the level of the spell × the level of the caster), plus 1/2 the value of any other abilities (200 gp × the level of the spell × the level of the caster). Staves are always fully charged (10 charges) when created.
If desired, a spell can be placed into the staff at less than the normal cost, but then activating that particular spell drains additional charges from the staff. Divide the cost of the spell by the number of charges it consumes to determine its final price. Note that this does not change the order in which the spells are priced (the highest level spell is still priced first, even if it requires more than one charge to activate). The caster level of all spells in a staff must be the same, and no staff can have a caster level of less than 8th, even if all the spells in the staff are low-level spells.
The creator must have prepared the spells to be stored (or must know the spells, in the case of a sorcerer or bard) and must provide any focus the spells require as well as material component costs sufficient to activate the spell 50 times (divide this amount by the number of charges one use of the spell expends). Material components are consumed when he begins working, but focuses are not. (A focus used in creating a staff can be reused.) The act of working on the staff triggers the prepared spells, making them unavailable for casting during each day of the staff 's creation. (That is, those spell slots are expended from the caster's currently prepared spells, just as if they had been cast.)
Creating a few staves may entail other prerequisites beyond spellcasting. See the individual descriptions for details.
Crafting a staff requires 1 day for each 1,000 gp of the base price.
If you're adding abilities to a staff over time, do higher spell levels added later always cost full price?
E.G. you create a staff with a level 2 spell at 400*2*CL/charges. If you later add a level 3 spell, is the cost to add that then 400*3*CL/charges because it is now the highest spell level?
Thanks!
You would pay the difference, not the full cost.
Therefore you would pay (400*3*CL/charges) - (100*2*CL/charges).
Assuming one charge and CL 8th in the above example, you would only pay 8,000gp for the upgrade.
EXAMPLE:
Staff with a 2nd- and 1st-level spell
400 * 2 * 8 = 6,400.
300 * 1 * 8 = 2,400.
6,400 + 2,400 = 8,600gp.
Staff with a 3rd-, 2nd-, and 1st-level spell
400 * 3 * 8 = 9,600.
300 * 2 * 8 = 4,800.
200 * 1 * 8 = 1,600.
9,600 + 4,800 + 1,600 = 16,000gp.
The Difference you pay for the upgrade
16,000 - 8,600 = 7,400gp.
Dot.
3200. Min CL is always 8. Staves should generally have at least two spells though.Staves are priced based on the spells. There is no rule saying any spell has to have a caster level of 8.Oh?
** spoiler omitted **...
So any idea how the Monstrification Staff has a caster level of 5?