Looking for a clarifacation on "broken" magic items.
The Alpha 3 says that magic items with the "broken" condition can only be repaired by either mending or make whole, the former of which does not restore any magic properties and the latter only if your caster level is twice that of the item being fixed. It also says that "broken" staves and wands use twice the number of charges as normal.
How does this work? If I'm a 12th level wizard with my staff familiar (CL 10) and it gets broken, I can still use the charges remaining in it (at double cost) but it loses all other magic properties until I can get a CL 20 make whole cast on it?
What about non-weapon or non-charged magic items (say a headband of INT +4)? For these items that fall into none of the other categories A3 only says that their function is not impaired by the "broken" condition but can still be repaired only via mending or make whole.