[Super Genius] The Genius Guide to Apeiron Staves

The first product from new to Super Genius author Will McCardell is now up. Get your copy of "The Genius Guide to Apeiron Staves" here!

Ok... But what in creation are "Apeiron Staves"?

Glad you asked! Apeiron (pronounced a-pay-ron) Staves are, simply put, to spellcasters what a magic sword is to a fighter. They are magical implements whose most basic function can be used without draining the magical reserves of their owner.

Awesome! Now tell me why I need one.

Need is such a... subjective word, but I can tell you that no self-respecting spellcaster will be seen in public now without one! And here's why! In the core rules, staves are treated as “spells-in-a-can” – a delivery mechanism for a specific number of abilities the user likely already possesses. So yeah, "normal" staves let you create some impressive effects, but at the end of the day they're little more than a different way to cast a spell. And frankly, we already have potions, wands, scrolls, and a multitude of command-word items to do this, which is why you can now get an apeiron staff.

Since I already own "The Genius Guide to Rune Staves and Wyrd Wands", what's the difference between Rune Staves and Apeiron Staves?

The two books are actually very different. Rune Staves are for the most part incredibly generic, giving flat bonuses to spell damage and they might include a special ability that makes specific spells or spell types more effective. On the other hand, Apeiron Staves always have a specific effect (such as summon a spectral hero at a location within 50 feet) and each staff also lets you enhance that effect in defined ways by spending charges (like giving the spectral hero a +4 dodge bonus to AC for 1 round at the cost of 1 charge), with each staff having at least 2 of these "augmentations".

Now we're talking! Alright, one last thing. Apeiron sounds like a word you made up and used to name you your 18 in all stats, elven fighter-magic user-bard who has listed under items "Everything in the PHB" and under spells "Everything in the PHB, x2" character from Jr. High. Be honest, did you just make that word up?

Nope. The word apeiron is Ancient Greek for “infinite” or “unlimited”, and maybe its most famous user was a 6th century B.C. Greek natural philosopher named Anaximander, which he used in his response to the Pre-Socratic natural philosophers of his age who were debating which element, Earth, Wind, Air, or Fire, was the basis of reality. He proposed that the universe was a creation of the infinite, or as he would say it, the apeiron. Which is why we think the name “apeiron staves” is appropriate for a type of magical staff that can continuously create a basic magic effect, infinitely.

Besides, it just sound cool when you can have your incredibly mouthy character say "Stand fast foul creature of the Abyss or feel the wrath of my Greater Apeiron Staff of Force! Take one more step and not only will you suffer (roll 5d4 + your caster level + your casting ability modifier force damage) massive damage, but by spending but 1 charge I can cause you to trip over your own hellish feet!"

;)

I'm glad you explained that, because I was totally thinking, "Why would apes make iron, and why is it good for staves?"

Because it's a venture into primate private enterprise: Monkey Business.

I recommend this project, as one of my favorite freelancers Will McCardell aka cheapy is the author on this.

So basically... those are staves with at-will powers that can be enhanced with charges, right?

At a very high level, yep. That's what they are. A sword doesn't run out of charges :-)

So basically... those are staves with at-will powers that can be enhanced with charges, right?

And to be clear, like normal staves those charges can be recharged over time.

So how does one price new apeiron staves? I don't really get the math underlying these.

The term "Apeiros" was used in the Torg RPG for the source of all reality energy. ... But now every time I see this thread title, I think "Ape Iron."

So how does one price new apeiron staves? I don't really get the math underlying these.

I haven't checked to see if Owen changed pricing too much, but the way I originally did it involved figuring out when I'd be happy with their given power level being available and then figuring out a good cost based on that. The cost of an item is, after all, just a check for when the item should be available and when they can be assumed to be in play. One draft had enhancement bonuses like the ones presented in Wyrd Wands and Rune Staves, but we scrapped that after too many difficulties arose. So it's woefully unlike the way other items are priced. But due to that, if you want me to figure out a price for a custom staff or two, PM me it :)

The term "Apeiros" was used in the Torg RPG for the source of all reality energy. ... But now every time I see this thread title, I think "Ape Iron."

See, now that you guys all mentioned it, I'm having trouble not seeing Ape Iron too!

What is the price range of the staves? I know most standard staves are fairly pricey. Is there anything in this product for characters under say 8th level?

Yep! One is 350 gp, and 10 are under 8,000 gp. One of them was priced so that a rich first level character could start with it.

And the feat for creating them is available as soon as 3rd level. It upgrades to Craft Staff at 11th level too.

Kvantum wrote:

So how does one price new apeiron staves? I don't really get the math underlying these.

I haven't checked to see if Owen changed pricing too much, but the way I originally did it involved figuring out when I'd be happy with their given power level being available and then figuring out a good cost based on that. The cost of an item is, after all, just a check for when the item should be available and when they can be assumed to be in play. One draft had enhancement bonuses like the ones presented in Wyrd Wands and Rune Staves, but we scrapped that after too many difficulties arose. So it's woefully unlike the way other items are priced. But due to that, if you want me to figure out a price for a custom staff or two, PM me it :)

Will, my issue is I want whole new categories of staves and combination rune staff-apeiron staff others. One or two ain't gonna really cut it. :)

What a wonderful problem for me to have, eh? Check your PMs, I sent you a bit more in-depth answer.

I'll start by saying I like the idea and I like these wonderful staves. I'll definitely introduce them into my games right away. This .pdf was very much worth the price so don't take the following to suggest that I think this is a bad product because I don't.

That said, I'm an engineer and a mathematician. I'm trying to reverse-engineer the existing staves to figure out how to make new ones. I keep stumbling on two major things:

1. The abilities themselves are hard to nail down to any consistent pattern. Several staves might have the same ability but the details of it change. For example, most of the Force staves have a "Force Recharge" augmentation, but the beginner's version uses 3 charges while the lesser and standard versions use 2 charges. I'm having a hard time figuring out why these variations exist (and they exist on most of the staves when I compare them to each other) - I get it that the beginner's staff could be a bit overpowered if the augmentation worked like the other two, but wouldn't it have been more consistent to reduce the basic effect and then keep the augmentation the same on all staves?.

2. The pricing. This has already been asked and answered in this thread, but I gotta say, the engineer in me finds a "it feels right to me" pricing structure is a little too arbitrary for my taste. Is it possible that the lack of a pricing system is the result of having inconsistent staves to begin with? If the staves were "tuned" to all be consistent, then I bet a systematic pricing structure could be deduced.

Neither of these would be a big issue, but the feat to craft these staves exists (and rightly so), so once I introduce them I'll have players who want to craft their own, or upgrade their existing staves, and then it's going to be them vs. me to figure out a happy compromise on what they can do, how it works, and how much it costs.

Long story short, I think one of us should create a more reproducible, less "gut-feeling", system for crafting and pricing these wonderful staves.

(I'm hoping it's you)

Thanks for the feedback! Honest feedback is always the best, so I really appreciate it.

Regarding the first point...the reduced-cost of augmentations (as well as the expansion of their effects in some staves) came about as a desire to provide progression in the staff. Just increasing the damage is fairly good for this, but actually being able to use the augmentations more often allows the wielder to feel the results of this progression in a more real sense, in my experience. There was also the consideration that what would've been a powerful ability at 3rd level is now just a fairly weak and barely worthwhile ability at a higher staff level. Thus, the cost of the ability goes down. In fact, in one draft some of the higher level staves had augmentations that cost nothing, but still went against the max number of augmentations per use. So due to this, there is a pattern going on. Namely that as you get a higher level staff, the augmentation cost generally goes down. Now, this unfortunately also falls victim to the "does it feel right for this level?" criteria so there are some cases where the aug cost doesn't go down.

On number two, I understand the frustration (maybe that's too strong a word) and I'm considering the possibility of coming up with a guideline for new staves. I might discuss this with Owen, but if I do this, it'd most likely wouldn't be fit to the staves that are out now. If I do this really depends on what other people chime in with and how the reviews go. Three separate people asking about it is certainly pointing towards this being useful to a fair number of people, but I'd like to see what the reviews say too. I really didn't expect the prevailing feedback to be "these are so good that I want to make my own, but I don't know how to price them!". And while the prices could be seen as arbitrary, they're influenced by both Owen and my understanding of the system in general, and the relative rank of abilities. So they were definitely influenced by a lot of factors (primarily in the discerning the appropriate level step), but they are fairly hard to enumerate after the fact. Especially since a lot of the prices were set many months ago!

The good news is that the Design Principle section near the front does go into a few of the things we kept in mind, so while it doesn't help with the pricing issue, it should make designing some apeiron staves that are balanced an easier prospect.

Once again, thank you for the feedback.

I really didn't expect the prevailing feedback to be "these are so good that I want to make my own, but I don't know how to price them!".

Bask in the glory! ;-)

Seriously, Apeiron staves are what staves should have been from the start. They certainly are more iconic than the SIAC staves we have now.

Even if those last two lines was literally the whole thing, I'd greatly appreciate it if you would throw that in a review. I want to write The Genius Guide to More Apeiron Staves :-)

I'l try to write a review tonight.

Hey, just a headsup, due to customer demand, we're now coming up with some guidelines on how to price Apeiron Staves (or a-staves as Owen calls 'em!). This will cover both how to get a good starting point, as well as tips for pricing augmentations. There won't be any formula, but I'm hoping it'll help people out in their own custom staves.

And if you have any custom staves, I'd love to see them :)

I've been toying with one sort of based around the Witch's Healing hex. Heals 1d6 or 3d6 or 5d6 hp plus casting stat, but only once per person per day. Not a good idea how to price it yet.

I've been toying with one sort of based around the Witch's Healing hex. Heals 1d6 or 3d6 or 5d6 hp plus casting stat, but only once per person per day. Not a good idea how to price it yet.

That kind of cool idea, which is difficult to sum into a formula, is one of the reasons pricing these things is tricky. :)

That's a pretty interesting idea. We had been shying away from free healing, but limiting it to one person does help ease our concerns. I think I'd start out with the lesser one being about the same price as the lesser blaze staff, but then switch over to being closer to the apeiron staff of soothing for the normal and the major version. At higher levels, that healing will be a pittance, so it shouldn't scale as high as the major blaze staff does. Plus, healing is purely reactive, so you're already at a slight disadvantage.

But of course, that's just where I'd start looking around. I'd then probably compare it to some of the wondrous items at those price points, and figure it out based off of that.

The idea I had was to try and keep the cost of it so the 1d6+mod one would be a cheap item, maybe around 20% of suggested wealth for a 3rd level character. A witch character could have the Healing hex as soon as 1st level, and by 5th level the hex upgrades to function as per Cure Moderate, so the staff would be handy, but swiftly becomes an afterthought.

The 5d6+stat mod might need some help, maybe you could swap out d6s for d10s and kind of base it off of the Rejuvenate Eidolon Summoner spells. It would make the lowest level staff a more expensive item, at least the equivalent of 20% of a 6th level character's gear.

So Lesser/Regular/Greater Staff of Repair, healing 1d10/3d10/5d10+ casting stat mod, but oly once per target per day, all with augments similar to those of the Apeiron Staves of Soothing?

Just rough ideas. I know they need more work.

I was thinking maybe around 20% of a 5th level character, because in the situation where there's a witch in the party, it lets her hex shine for a little longer, and in the situation where there isn't a witch in the party, it'll mean that wands of CLW will still be useful. Although I'm thinking a bit more on that now.

Kind of an interesting idea though: instead of buying Wands of CLW, just buy a few of these. And never have to think of running out of charges. That's actually pretty cool idea, Kvantum. I think you just replaced CLWs in my games.

Now to help a bit more with a price.

And agreed with the 5d6+stat mod. At higher levels, damage taken outpaces healing potential by a fair bit, so you'd probably have to scale it up a bit. This was one of the most difficult aspects of the original apeiron staves. Coming up with the damage die for the basic effects. You want them to be useful, but not overpowering, you know? And it's a delicate balance. I really like Owen's development on that aspect too. The staves had their damage tweaked quite a bit to focus on different aspects of the capabilities of the staves. Force is just all about damage, the others are about status effects that may be more useful at higher levels than just damage.

But I digress. One way you could set the dice is by taking a look at how many uses it would take to fully heal someone from 1 HP at the levels the staves are available at. I know you can only use them once per day per person, but this is just a thought experiment to help set the dice.

So if at level 7 (when the healing a-staff is available, presumably), let's say you decide it should take 6 uses to fully heal someone with 80 HP. That number is just based off a d8 guy and copious amounts of guessing average HP. This gives us about ~14 damage healed per use.

At level 7, we can expect about +6 to your casting stat mod. So now we need to account for 8 healing, which we can do with about 2d6. So this sets us at 2d6+Casting Ability Modifier.

(This was roughly the way I determined my final damage values, but as I said, Owen did a wonderful job in developing them to be more interesting.)

So, let's assume he's at half HP already (40), and we use this staff. We're averaging at 13 HP, so we can give him 53 hp after one use. Since it's one use per day, perhaps we can throw another die in there, to add an extra 3.5 HP. This gives us 3d6 + casting modifier, and deciding between 2d6 or 3d6 is something that you can ponder for a while.

Hope that helps! I guess it doesn't help with the price...but it was fun to think about!

Here are the suggestions and guidelines for pricing Apeiron staves and their augmentations.

If you have any questions, do ask!

Why no infinite healing?

Not to drag the 4th edition of that other game into the discussion, but they don't seem to be too badly hurt by frequent and even ridiculous amounts of healing.

So, what if an Ape Staff has the ability to do just 1d3 healing as a base effect and then uses augments to boost that? Without augments, this becomes healing for out of combat. But, during combat, someone could burn limited charges for bigger heals as needed.

Or it could be further limited to require a delay of 1 minute or even 10 minutes between reusing the base power, although then I'd suggest a bigger healing amount, with a typical "force recharge" augment like many of the existing staves have.

Or it could be capped to only healing a maximum HP per day equal to the max HP of the recipient, so I could heal the barbarian 70 HP today, the rogue 45 HP, and myself 40 HP. Not quite infinite, until I want to heal an army (still not technically "infinite" but then I don't imagine the "No infinite healing." comment was meant to specifically prevent "infinite" healing).

Some of these options would allow the 15-minute adventuring day to be upgraded to all-day adventuring (or, in my last example, a 30-minute adventuring day), but wouldn't really change the outcomes of encounters much (other than that resources could be conserved differently and more encounters might be handled in an adventuring day).

I was just following the guidelines set forth by PF RPG. Jason Bulmahn got rid of Cure Minor Wounds for the infinite healing reason, and they errata'd another infinite healing combination out of existence once it popped up (despite it being in the rarely-errata'd Players Companion line).

But if you're fine with infinite healing, by all means go for it!

Why no infinite healing?

Because it would create a fundamental change to the assumptions of the game,. I'm okay doing that in a Houserules product. I may even discuss some healing options in one someday.

But Genius Guides are supposed to give you new options without bending the way the game works in unexpected ways. I hope to keep it that way. :)

Infinite (or just really vast) out-of-combat healing is a neat idea worth exploring, but not as a small part of a rules expansion with a different focus.

I get the idea that we don't want truly infinite healing. I was just suggesting that the staff mechanic already has built in limitations and maybe we shouldn't be shy about using them.

Another way might be a staff that removes conditions or that has a base effect of some kind of combat buff, but with augments to add healing when the user wants to - that way, at least the healing is limited to the charges available. Definitely not "infinite" then.

The apeiron staves of soothing (normal and greater) actually have that augmentation :)

When you do the guide to more apeiron staves, you need to include a staff that summons a construct chimp, with the possibility to spend charges to summon construct gorillas instead. Maybe augment them with cold iron skin. It's cosmic law, you must do this pun, it's to good to let it go to waste.

Why wait that long? :)

Apeiron Stave of Ape Iron
Slot none; Price 19,000 gp CL 7th
Description
This iron stave is topped with a miniature barrel, much like you'd find at a cooper's shop.
Effect
You summon a small metallic monkey at a location within 50 feet. Treat the metallic monkey as a small size monkey with DR 5/Adamantine. You can command this monkey to attack an enemy, defend an ally, or distract an enemy. If you have the monkey distract an enemy, it continues to make Steal and/or Dirty Trick combat maneuvers until slain or given a different command. Giving a command is a move action. The monkey lasts for a number of rounds equal to the modifier of the ability score that determines your bonus spells. The monkey attacks the closest enemy immediately after being summoned, and always acts on your turn.
Special: If the staff is activated again, any previously summoned metallic monkey is destroyed. Unlike normal augmentations, the most augmentations for this staff affect the behavior of the already summoned monkey. As a standard action, the spellcaster may apply a number of augmentations, up to the normal limit.
Augmentations
Ape Iron: Unlike most other augmentations, this one is used when you activate the effect. Instead of a metallic monkey, you create a metallic ape. Use the gorilla statistics as the base for this, except that they posses DR 5/Adamantine and they deal an extra +2 damage on all damage rolls. (3 charges)
Banana Bomb: Your metallic monkey (or iron ape) creates a metal banana and throws it at an enemy of your choice that’s within 30 ft of the monkey. This banana has a range increment of 10 feet, and on a successful attack roll deals 1d6 damage to the target and each adjacent creature. (2 charge)
Barrel O' Fun: Your metallic monkey multiplies many times, creating a veritable mess of monkeys on the battlefield. These monkeys become a 10’ cube of mischievousness. Anyone can still enter this cube, but the entire cube is treated as mist cloud and it counts as difficult terrain. Each round spent in the cube also deals 1d6 points of non-lethal damage. Abilities that let you see through fog do not allow you to see through the barrel of’ fun effect. This dissipates after 1d4 rounds, reverting back to a single monkey. Because Apes do not fit in barrels, you cannot have an iron ape be affected by this. (5 charges)
Fez: A small fez appears on the head of the metallic monkey (or iron ape). This fez lasts for one round and gives a bonus to AC equal to the ability score that determines your bonus spells. (1 charge)
Sacrificial Power
None. Super Genius Games does not condone the words ‘sacrificing’ and ‘monkey’ in the same sentence.
Construction
Craft Apeiron Staff, mad monkeys Cost: 9,500 gp

No monkeys were hurt in the creation of this staff.

...

This is so funny and a good itme at the same time. Awesome!

Thanks! It was fun to make. Plus, joke items are always best asfree web enhancements :)

I am truly madly deeply in love with these staves and intend to begin pestering my DM to add them to our game soonest.

One question: saves set at 10 plus half level seem to get a bit weak as parties approach double-digit levels. Most CR 9-12 critters are not going to be sweating DC 15 saves (for 10th level casters) overmuch. Was this done to try and hold down the power level of the staves? It also raises the cost versus benefit of sacrificing higher-level spells: pouring a 7th level spell into a Blaze staff will often produce a lower-level save than the spell would have, often by quite a bit.

Glad you're enjoying them! I've sent the question on to Owen as I think that was his decision. As a somewhat educated guess, I'd guess that it was because these effects are in addition to the regular effect, but I'd have to double check the book again.

If you use a 7th level spell to activate the sacrificial power of a blaze staff, your main benefit is that you get a 9d8 ranged touch attack. Against that effect, the foe receives no save. Being a touch attack even at higher levels you are very, very likely to hit your foe.

Burning a charge for augmentations is putting power on top of that and, as Cheapy says, the DCs are kept low for game balance. And yes, you want to choose your targets carefully with such things. Looking at the blaze staff:

Some CR 10 foes are a good choice for burn like a torch. A gug's +6 reflex means he'll fail the DC 15 45% of the time. Since you regain your charges at one a day anyway it's not a bad choice when just burning away on the staff. obviously if the encunter is 16 CR 6 foes, the choice becomes better.

Dazzling flare will rarely be useful unless you are facing lower-levels foes... but that would be true no matter the DC.

Fire storm is obviously most useful against groups of lower-CR foes, since it's an area. But importantly, it also allows the staff to affect swarms, which it otherwise wouldn't.

Powerful Flare is just flat more damage, and has no save.

Volcanic Bomb allows you to do bludgeoning damage -- which lets you hurt creatures immune to fire with your fire staff, or just add +2d6 damage, and it creates an environmental effect (which can be tactically useful).

The economy of action means that anytime you can do two things (deal fire damage AND get an additional effect) it's very important to look at how easily that secondary effect becomes overpowered.

Since none of the staves' main powers involves saving throws, the augmentations are the only place they matter, and it's up- to the player to decide when an additional effect with a low DC is a worthwhile choice. In most cases, there are non-DC dependent options available for when a low save DC is a bad choice.

One thing I'd like to clarify too is that these were meant to be used in the rounds between you casting your awesome spells. They weren't meant to be used exclusively, so they aren't quite meant to replicate the effects of spells in all cases.

They're still freakin' awesome.

By the way, BookKeeper, if there are any ideas for staves you'd like to see in a future product, I'm trying to get a grasp of what the fans want right now :)

I want to see the monkey staff above in the new one. :D

My thoughts on that matter are basically that, while cool, I'd rather use the space for other staves that aren't just puns-in-a-barrel.

Might do an updated version and post that in the comments though.

Ha fair enough. It gave me a chuckle though!