This is where having a Game Master, as opposed to a Central Processing Unit, comes in very handy. A simple "Hey man, I don't really want characters getting thirty wishes a day" should suffice to halt this issue.
For one thing youve missed on the creation rules, specifically the material component part.
Cost of staff of wishes:
400 gp × (SL(9)/Charges(3)) × CL(17)= 20400
Then we add the material component costs. These costs represent the
amount needed to cast the spell 50 times divided by the number of
charges the spell uses.
20400 + (MC(25000) × 50 / Charges(3))= 437067
So thats quite alot more than you initially expected. Add on top of that this staff can't duplicate spells with material components of more that 10000 gp since the component costs werent included in the crafting (I dont know if you could supply them at time of activation, thatd be up to the gm)
If you are planning to abuse it be careful in asking for any sort of the greater effects since then youre completely at the whim of a potentially annoyed gm.
As an added benefit though, you can slowly recharge a staff now by expending an unused spell slot of equal or greater the highest level spell in the staff, the staff regains 1 charge. More on imbueing can be found in the magic item description of Staves.
Refrences:
PFSRD Magic Item Creation
PFSRD Staves
PFSRD Wish
The staff police will hunt you down! Like a dog!
Or not, because the staff police doesn't exist and I just made it up in my head.
Anyway, in the absence of staff police, I'll try to fix stuff:
You could say that each charge you expend costs you a charge of equal value. So you want to use your wand of fireball, you'll need a 3rd-level slot. Or maybe even two. 3 1-level slots won't do it. And for the wish staff, you'll probably need 1 or 2 9th-level slots. 9 1st-level slots won't do.
Find some extra rule for stuff that consumes extra charges maybe, and you're set.
I had the same idea about a year ago. :-)
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So...
What does Arcane Bond, a WIZARD ability, have to do with Arcane Apotheosis, a SORCERER ability? Or are we talking about a 21st level character?
So we have our magical friend, a 21st level badboy who has sidestepped pesky feats and skill requisites for our argument...he goes to make this staff and...
Per the SRD:
"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.)"
so material component cost for our staff of wishes is...
(50 x 25000)/3 = 416,666 (We will round down to be nice)
and you want that three times, because we need to make the staff before we can apothesis the heck out of it:
So... 3 charges to activate. Cost 400 x 9 x 17 x 3/10 = 42,840. Material cost 416,666 x 3 (# uses in the staff) = 1,249,998. Total cost: 1,292,838 gp.
Now I read the line "material component costs sufficient to activate the spell 50 times" pretty literally so you need 16 (we will round down again to be nice) of those 25,000 diamonds per wish instance to make the staff...and last time I checked those things are hard to come by.
Now I guess as a GM I would say that after you have leveled up that much and spent more money than two level 20 characters would have in wealth at that level:
20th level = 880,000 gp
as per the SRD Character Wealth by Level Table
then yeah...30 wishes a day. Go nuts...replicating your own spells...unless you want DM interpretation for exceeding wish's power threshold...
So...
What does Arcane Bond, a WIZARD ability, have to do with Arcane Apotheosis, a SORCERER ability? Or are we talking about a 21st level character?
An arcane bloodline sorcerer gets an arcane bond at level 1.
I agree that it's more of a silly observation than an actual flaw in the rules.
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For one thing youve missed on the creation rules, specifically the material component part.
Cost of staff of wishes:
400 gp × (SL(9)/Charges(3)) × CL(17)= 20400
Then we add the material component costs. These costs represent the
amount needed to cast the spell 50 times divided by the number of
charges the spell uses.
20400 + (MC(25000) × 50 / Charges(3))= 416667So thats quite alot more than you initially expected. Add on top of that this staff can't duplicate spells with material components of more that 10000 gp since the component costs werent included in the crafting (I dont know if you could supply them at time of activation, thatd be up to the gm)
If you are planning to abuse it be careful in asking for any sort of the greater effects since then youre completely at the whim of a potentially annoyed gm.
As an added benefit though, you can slowly recharge a staff now by expending an unused spell slot of equal or greater the highest level spell in the staff, the staff regains 1 charge. More on imbueing can be found in the magic item description of Staves.
Refrences:
PFSRD Magic Item Creation
PFSRD Staves
PFSRD Wish
Awww! You typed faster than I did. Glad I wasn't the only one who thought about that!
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So...
What does Arcane Bond, a WIZARD ability, have to do with Arcane Apotheosis, a SORCERER ability? Or are we talking about a 21st level character?
An arcane bloodline sorcerer gets an arcane bond at level 1.
I agree that it's more of a silly observation than an actual flaw in the rules.
Ohh yeeaaahhh. Sneaky so and so s ...pesky bloodlines. Aw well. It is still a level 20th sorcerer with more money than he should ever have...
Ohh yeeaaahhh. Sneaky so and so s ...pesky bloodlines. Aw well. It is still a level 20th sorcerer with more money than he should ever have...
That's why I used a Staff of Miracle in my example; it's much cheaper and it gives him more cleric spells to choose from. :-)
(Of course, a sorcerer would need to activate it with Use Magic Device, but that's pretty easy at level 20.)
Help me out with the bolded part...
Arcane Apotheosis (Ex): At 20th level, your body surges with arcane power. You can add any metamagic feats that you know to your spells without increasing their casting time, although you must still expend higher-level spell slots. Whenever you use magic items that require charges, you can instead expend spell slots to power the item. For every three levels of spell slots that you expend, you consume one less charge when using a magic item that expends charges.
English is not my native language, so I read that:
The 20th level sorcerer expends his whole 1st, 2nd and 3rd level spell slots (all of them!) to gain ONE (!) charge for free.I don't have a german book at hand, but I'd like to read that in my native language. Maybe it's more clear afterwards...
My reading is that "three levels of spell slots" means 3 1st level spells, or 1 1st level spell and 1 2nd level spell, or 1 3rd level spell (for instance).
(I.e. a number of spell slots where the total spell slot levels add up to three.)
What does Arcane Bond, a WIZARD ability, have to do with Arcane Apotheosis, a SORCERER ability?
Follow these two easy steps:
1. Get your facts straight
2. Be snarky
The order in which you do them is really important.
Or just don't be snarky ;-P
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What does Arcane Bond, a WIZARD ability, have to do with Arcane Apotheosis, a SORCERER ability?Follow these two easy steps:
1. Get your facts straight
2. Be snarkyThe order in which you do them is really important.
Or just don't be snarky ;-P
Yeah...that is why I threw the mea culpa out there after horgarth said something and I was gonna just edit it out of my post but then everyone else thumping me on the head wouldn't make sense ; - P
I have been hiding and just reading the board too long muttering to myself that I forgot my manners.
And why is it still x50 (besides the obvious exploit in this case)? Staves USED to be 50 charges, but are now only 10. Because they can be recharged?
It's x50 for any permanent magic item.
But, Pirate,
I just want to say that you should never say "But, Pirate" in polite company.
*Fixed addition in my formula, I listed to add the staff costs to the material component cost but didnt actually add it for the result.
So the total staff cost is
20400 + (MC(25000) × 50 / Charges(3))= 437067
or as I said earlier
400*9/3*17 + 50*25000/3 = 20400 + 416667 = 437067 Total costs
Good point on the character wealth by level too!
English is not my native language, so I read that:
The 20th level sorcerer expends his whole 1st, 2nd and 3rd level spell slots (all of them!) to gain ONE (!) charge for free.
It usually means you need three levels worth of slots, i.e. a 3rd-level slot or 3 1st-level slots (and so on)
I don't have a German book at hand, but I'd like to read that in my native language. Maybe it's more clear afterwards...
I'm not so sure. That book talks about Des Magiers Allerheiligstes....
I have been hiding and just reading the board too long muttering to myself that I forgot my manners.
"My precioussssssss"
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I did miss that it was still a x50 for the material component.
But, Pirate, you do not need to spend that 3 times to create the staff. Once is enough, by my reading.
And why is it still x50 (besides the obvious exploit in this case)? Staves USED to be 50 charges, but are now only 10. Because they can be recharged?
And if you are going to worry about providing material components, there are plenty of uber-munchkin ways to generate wealth. However, at least the cost is significantly higher than I thought.
HOWEVER, this does not disallow the basic idea, which is that you could have the wish use 5 charges, and burn 15 spell levels of power to fuel the wish. That would drop the material component cost significantly (to 250,000gp) and still give 15+ wishes per day.
That's 10 gems, and nearly unlimited power.
I think the charged count was manipulated to allow recharge and to avoid this sort of issue.
I only did the calculation of three wishes because you seemed to ; - P Maybe I misread your math line... but we are talking something different now
So let me think here...
That makes the staff about 300k which is way more doable on a wealth by level issue and it seems to me finding basically perfect diamonds is a chore in of itself...
And this is what I was trying to get at before: The character wealth by level chart and the rarity assumed in high quality precious gems ( as a factor of cost and rarity in random treasure generation) indicate an attempt in my mind to legislate, through rules of thumb, a narrative action : the accumulation of wealth.
COULD you get that much money? Sure...but then the DM is asking for it on that level, the book provides a baseline of how much a given character should have- ignore at your peril DMs.
Could you find that many perfect diamonds? I would make the argument that there are not that many in our world and there has been more than enough diamond mining, and we keep them only to look at them. In a world where they are evaporated for magic, are there really that many just sitting around waiting for magic users to just pick them up? (At that point I start wondering about the economic impact of that clarity of diamond only costing 25,000 but that is a separate issue.) Again this is more a narrative problem. If you are in a world where you were able to make the money and find that many diamonds then, again, the DM is asking for it.
I mean 15 wishes is big magic and that is pretty powerful but I think this falls into an area that some people get really caught up on: Mechanical extrapolation of narrative restriction. The rules do provide the substance of necessary steps to make it happen, but there are so many holes in the narrative side to me that the issue is easily avoided and not in a "well you just can't do that" sort of way...but that gets into game style and play style and all that jazz that makes Fraust's original posts about cpu versus human moderation the core of the argument.
But, Pirate,I just want to say that you should never say "But, Pirate" in polite company.
Prepare for boarding!
It's also not polite to talk in "Arrrr"-s
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But, Pirate,I just want to say that you should never say "But, Pirate" in polite company.Prepare for boarding!
It's also not polite to talk in "Arrrr"-s
But I don't want to be the butt of jokes... 8 - 0
Yah- the classic problem with picking a web handle 15 years ago and being too lazy to change it to anything else
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That's 10 gems, and nearly unlimited power.Could you find that many perfect diamonds? I would make the argument that there are not that many in our world and there has been more than enough diamond mining, and we keep them only to look at them. In a world where...IF there were less than 10 25,000 gp diamons in the world, the Wish spell would be next to useless. What are the chances that they hadn't been already been used up? The very first Tome of Clear Thought would have used up the worlds supply of diamonds, yet such items are still around, correct? There must be a fairly good supply of quality gems, considering the number of items that actually have Wish listed as part of the creation. Therefore, ruling that the character wouldn't be able to get 10 gems is begging the question of how did anyone ELSE ever get the gems THEY needed to create the Luck Blade.
Besides, since you essentially cast the spell in order to use the material components, use Planar Binding on some Effretes and get them to cast it. It's all the same in the end. At 300,000gp, and with only 10 gems needed, it is within conceviable range.
And totally stupid-munchkin to boot!
Oh yeah absolutely, I am not saying there are only ten I meant more to make a case for "rarity" as a general concept. You provided many examples why there must be more diamonds around, although I still question them -easily- being obtained...but that is narrative not mechanical.
Look, this is for a level 20 sorcerer. We are talking about someone who goes out and can face down...well, whatever he wants. In my mind, he should be one bad mama jama and this is an excellent illustration of just how bad he would be. Is 15 wishes stupid good? Absolutely. Is it a game breaker against CR 20+ creatures? I guess that would depend on not least of which, the GM. I mean this guy is at a point in his casting career where he is casting wish a couple of times a day just by himself so he is not one to mess with ANYway.
It is munchkiny-crunchy goodness but given its time frame of execution (highest level right?) I certainly have bigger fish to fry in my mind as far as "things I am worried my players will do."
(400 x 9 x 17 x 5/10) + (25000 x 50 x 1/5) = 30600 + 250000 = 280,600 gp or less than 1/3 your wealth by level.
(400 x 9 x 17 / 5) + (25000 x 50 / 5) = 12240 + 250000 = 262240 Even better price than you thought.
Whys that 5/10 sneaking into your calculations, it's costing you ;)With a nice staff like that why not throw a few other spells on it too, additional spells get a nice reduced cost too!
I actually have a really nice custom staff myself for an upcoming custom epic level PF game: (For house game of course)
Staff of Sprithyness (Hoopak +5 Defending / +5 Spellstrike) Stave with Heightened(SL9) Sanctuary *3, Mass Heal *3, Breath of Life *2 valued at total of 188,820gp
*# is # of charges used.
I must be tired. How is this getting around the limit of adding 1 charge per day to a staff?
Hes not looking to recharge his staff, hes looking to use the sorcs capstone to reduce the charge cost of activating the staff to 0
Hes not looking to recharge his staff, hes looking to use the sorcs capstone to reduce the charge cost of activating the staff to 0
Ah, thanks. That's what I get for reading threads with low caffeine levels.
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And the first wish (of 15 a day was it?) Shall be a wish for many many many perfect diamonds of course. Problem solved...oh and then you can write off the pesky Wealth by Level table. In fact the rest of the wishes should all be removal of all the rules that keep you from doing whatever it is that your little heart desires.
Well, according to the PRD, the default assumption of the rules is that there's no such thing as a staff of wishes.
Unlike wands, which can contain a wide variety of spells, each staff is of a certain kind and holds specific spells.In other words, even though the magic item creation rules tell you what any possible staff would cost, not every possible staff can be created. The rules place an additional restriction on staves above and beyond what the magic item creation rules allow, limiting you to a particular list of preexisting staves (unless, of course, your GM house rules more kinds of staves into existence).
How about a Ring of Three Wishes instead? :-)
See the Legacy of Fire Adventure path for possible consequences of out-of-control wishcraft.
How about a Ring of Three Wishes instead? :-)
I prefer Rings of Multiple Wishes - they're half a wish better!
And the first wish (of 15 a day was it?) Shall be a wish for many many many perfect diamonds of course.
Exactly the sort of spell that a gm could have OH so much fun with ;)
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Well, according to the PRD, the default assumption of the rules is that there's no such thing as a staff of wishes.
15 wishes a day means you are nearly godly in your abilities.
Is 15 eight level spells a day really that godly?
I am really curious, because we are talking about this in a vacuum. Is there no "response" to this happening? No one goes "hey maybe we should stop that guy" or anything?
I mean as we were saying, you only need 10 diamonds to make the staff but where do you get them from? You just go in to Ye Olde Gem Shoppe and say "10 of your finest AAA clarity diamonds good sir!" and just *poof* get the staff?
Is there an eighth level spell (or below) that will just let you *poof* 25,000 gp diamonds out of thin air? Does this spell have a material component that costs less than 10, 000 gp? Because every wish you cast needs the material component if the spell is that powerful...I just think that this sort of even is happening at a level and with a spell that requires so much context it is not accurate to just claim it works out okay...am I wrong in thinking that? I mean that question honestly.
And the first wish (of 15 a day was it?) Shall be a wish for many many many perfect diamonds of course.Exactly the sort of spell that a gm could have OH so much fun with ;)
How much damage do many many many perfect diamonds do if they fell on you from outer space?
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How much damage do many many many perfect diamonds do if they fell on you from outer space?And the first wish (of 15 a day was it?) Shall be a wish for many many many perfect diamonds of course.Exactly the sort of spell that a gm could have OH so much fun with ;)
There was a ruling for terminal velocity in 3.5 I thought (I mean it said "max from falling" but I assume that TV is why it would cap)....If memory serves it would be like 8-10 d6 or something? Per diamond?
Oh...I was on the end of some bad wishing in Advanced D&D back in the day but I think a meteor swarm of flaming diamonds would be pretty lame to have to deal with.
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Not to mention the fact that according to the Golarion fluff, the Genie world has "Wish Police" that monitor how much and how drastically the fabric of reality has been distorted by wishes. If someone is changing too much of reality or doing it too often, they, as the mob might say "take care of them". I personally would not want to get into a "wish war" with a plane full of genies. Of course, none of this is relevant per se to the question of the OP about the feasibility of creating the staff of wishes in the first place, just the consequences that could result from doing so.
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Is 15 eight level spells a day really that godly?
9th level, unless the SRD is misprinted.
And, yes. Let's start with +5 to all your stats, permanently. Now just look at the entire list of things Wish can do WITHOUT some DM interpretation. Any 7th level Cleric spell or prohibited spell, for starts. Yes, the ability to bring 15 wishes with you to a fight is godly.
Is there an eighth level spell (or below) that will just let you *poof* 25,000 gp diamonds out of thin air? Does this spell have a material component that costs less than 10, 000 gp? Because every wish you cast needs the material component if the spell is that powerful...I just think that this sort of even is happening at a level and with a spell that requires so much context it is not accurate to just claim it works out okay...am I wrong in thinking that? I mean that question honestly.That is not my impression of how casting from a staff works. After getting the 10 diamonds you need, a monumental task, to be sure, but you do have 20 levels to amass them, you now never need to worry about it again. Put it in the staff, and cast until someone takes it away. And again, there is a whole list of things Wish can do that does not need to be adjudicated by the DM. The power potential is incredible.
And I would get the WHOLE PARTY to help me in this endeavor. Their reward? How about, say, +5 to all stats, to start with? Take some time off adventuring, and in a few days, the party has all their inherrent bonuses maxed out.
Wish is 9th. The replicated effect is 8th or below for Arcane without issue and that was what I was referring to.
My understanding is that the staff, replicates the wish. The wish needs the diamond but you did that part. (Over twenty levels and bully for you for having a long term goal) When wish is *cast* you pick what it does. When *that* happens, you have to pony up the material component for the effect it is replicating if the material component is 10g gp or more.
as per the SRD:
When a wish duplicates a spell with a material component that costs more than 10,000 gp, you must provide that component.
You can't meet that condition until the spell is done and cast, no way to cut that cost out by staffing it I believe.
I am not saying it *can't* be done. I want to be very very clear. But it sounds to me like you would have to almost have a game engineered as a campaign to make this work *unless* the DM is just so interested in letting this happen, or so oblivious to what you intend that you catch him/her unawares.
I just wanted to talk a little about the narrative ramifications of some guy just "walking around" casting wish all day. I feel like the debate was initially structured as a "sure no problem lets just crunch some numbers" argument and I think, a completely personal opinion, that it is not so *easy*.
But, like I said. These are epic characters (or close too), they have put the time in, they got a sorcerer who obviously has his crap together, is the right bloodline, found the right stuff, and is basically unopposed in his efforts- Wish away ; - P
Yes, This should work as advertised. No charges will be used from the staff but if the effect you are invoking has a material cost that must come from some place.
When you built the staff you needed to provide the material cost for every charge. If you invoke the spell without using a charge you must have that material cost in hand.
I would go with Time stop or Maze if the cap is level 8.
Just burning the 1st - 3rd level spell should give him an extra 15 uses of that staff a day.
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As pointed out already, this is easy to fix in the narrative of the story. It can also be hand-waved away that the Prime Material Plane (or any plane, if you wish) only has enough magic of such a high level that two or three wishes per day (or week) can be cast anywhere on the plane before the magic coalesces again and more wish spells can be cast.
At 20th level, a character in the game world may be familiar with this -- a Knowledge check will ascertain that. And if they're not, they'll find out when they try to cast the fourth wish of the day.