Our group just started playing Pathfinder a few weeks ago and we noticed that Staffs are no longer extremely overpriced wands. You can actually recharge them now, something I've wanted to see for ages! I might actually buy a staff now, imagine that. ;)
I noticed that they only hold ten charges now. I'll have to look up how the recharge works.
Starting on page 491 of the Core rules, says: "Each morning, when a spellcaster prepares spells or regains spell slots, he can also imbue one staff with a portion of his power so long as one or more of the spells cast by the staff is on his spell list and he is capable of casting at least one of the spells. Imbuing a staff with this power restores one
charge to the staff, but the caster must forgo one prepared spell or spell slot of a level equal to the highest-level spell cast by the staff. For example, a 9th-level wizard with a staff of fire could imbue the staff with one charge per day by using up one of his 4th-level spells. A staff cannot gain more than one charge per day and a caster cannot imbue
more than one staff per day."
The recharge is theoretically nice, if you have the downtime to make it worthwhile. But without that downtime, the limit of only 10 charges actually makes staves, to me, less attractive than the 3.5 versions. You acquire a staff to use it, but you've got less utility from it unless you have the time to refill it over the course of days. Days going without possibly one of your highest spells, which runs counter to the whole point of staves and wands - to provide you with additional spell resources, not less.
My party just recently acquired a staff that we'll use for backup healing in the last module of Second Darkness. I'm hoping that I don't kick myself for it, honestly, and that I'll find myself loving them more than I'm expecting. But I'd almost rather just have a glorified superwand...
If you want to speed up recharging, I think it would be fairly safe to do this:
If the spell slot expended to recharge the staff is higher than the highest-level spell cast by the staff, the staff gains additional charges equal to the difference between the spell slot expended and the staff's highest spell level.
The example 9th level wizard could use a 5th level spell slot to restore the staff of fire by two charges.
In essence it's a spell battery, you can charge it up periodically and then on the days you really need it you get somewhere between 2-10 extra spells. Yes it really only works in campaigns where you have periods of downtime between adventures so if the campaign is under a really tight time frame then the stave is going to be tapped out relatively quickly.
I dont care for the rule. I am thinking of allowing multiple charges per day, upping the max to 20 while, or just using the 3.5 rules
you can just create an additional rule to be allowed it to recharge faster with the craft staff feat, might be especially interesting with the arcane bond ability.
Personally, I've changed it so you can recharge a staff completely whenever you please - but you're still limited to one staff a day for recharging. As soon as you begin recharging one staff, it's the only one you can do until you next rest. Makes staves more useful overall, and especially more useful for sorcerers, without making them stupidly powerful.
I would have it be a Feat something like
Improved Charging (General)
You are skilled at fueling the magical energies needed for a staff.Prerequisite: Craft Staff
Benefit: You may place as many charges in a staff per day as equal to your relevant casting stat. For example a wizard with a 20 Intelligence could use five spell slots to give a single staff five charges in one day. These may not be spread between multiple staves.
Normal: A staff cannot gain more than one charge per day and a caster cannot imbue more than one staff per day.
I think the craft staff feat should already contain the ability to recharge them, limited to one staff per day and as many eligible spellslots you can spare, the spell slots might already limit the practicality during an adventure.
The recharge is theoretically nice, if you have the downtime to make it worthwhile. But without that downtime, the limit of only 10 charges actually makes staves, to me, less attractive than the 3.5 versions. You acquire a staff to use it, but you've got less utility from it unless you have the time to refill it over the course of days. Days going without possibly one of your highest spells, which runs counter to the whole point of staves and wands - to provide you with additional spell resources, not less.
My party just recently acquired a staff that we'll use for backup healing in the last module of Second Darkness. I'm hoping that I don't kick myself for it, honestly, and that I'll find myself loving them more than I'm expecting. But I'd almost rather just have a glorified superwand...
I'd rather be able to recharge a staff than have it run out and crumble to dust. I mean, geez, with some spells costing 2 or more charges and staffs costing tens of thousands of gold, before you were paying a ridiculous price for each casting of a spell, far more than any scroll. It just wasn't worth it.
And it does provide you with additional spell resources. Think of it like a ring of spellstoring that can hold several spells and several casts. Would you not think that item worth it just because you occasionally have to expend spells to refill it? You can just recharge it inbetween adventures. Or you could look at it this way, it lets wizards "swap" a prepared spell for a different spell they need more but didn't prepare (or ran out of). For sorcerers, it increases their spell selection and offers a "battery" of a few extra spell slots they can draw upon in need.
I like the staffs as they are, but we do not play with the 'magical item economics' a staff might still not be worth it for the gold you have to pay.
There used to be an epic 3.5 feat, staff mastery that allowed you to charge the staff with your own spells, maybe a similar non-epic feat is possible now that the staff has been reworked.
Maybe a feat named 'attune staff' or something similar, it probably will still need a limit otherwise it might be too easy for sorcerers to expand their spell knowledge.
Using Staves: Staves use the wielder's ability score and relevant feats to set the DC for saves against their spells. Unlike with other sorts of magic items, the wielder can use his caster level when activating the power of a staff if it's higher than the caster level of the staff.
This means that staves are far more potent in the hands of a powerful spellcaster. Because they use the wielder's ability score to set the save DC for the spell, spells from a staff are often harder to resist than those from other magic items, which use the minimum ability score required to cast the spell. Not only are aspects of the spell dependent on caster level (range, duration, and so on) potentially higher, but spells from a staff are also harder to dispel and have a better chance of overcoming a target's spell resistance.
Staves hold a maximum of 10 charges. Each spell cast from a staff consumes one or more charges. When a staff runs out of charges, it cannot be used until it is recharged. Each morning, when a spellcaster prepares spells or regains spell slots, he can also imbue one staff with a portion of his power so long as one or more of the spells cast by the staff is on his spell list and he is capable of casting at least one of the spells. Imbuing a staff with this power restores one charge to the staff, but the caster must forgo one prepared spell or spell slot of a level equal to the highest-level spell cast by the staff. For example, a 9th-level wizard with a staff of fire could imbue the staff with one charge per day by using up one of his 4th-level spells. A staff cannot gain more than one charge per day and a caster cannot imbue more than one staff per day.
Furthermore, a staff can hold a spell of any level, unlike a wand, which is limited to spells of 4th level or lower. The minimum caster level of a staff is 8th.
I'm really loving the fact that it does not crumble to dust when you expend all the charges. Also, it makes it more viable to enhance the staff as a melee weapon as well as you know it'll be sticking around awhile. Wizards are always in need of a little extra AC so why not give your staff the defending property? :)
Even campaigns with a tight deadline often require travel time. Some of the best adventures at higher levels often have continent wide and/or global wide events that require travel from place to place. I think thats the best time to re-charge staves. Also, although pricey, if you can acquire or make more than one staff it gives you a nice variety of options that you might not have prepared for the day.
I'd rather be able to recharge a staff than have it run out and crumble to dust. I mean, geez, with some spells costing 2 or more charges and staffs costing tens of thousands of gold, before you were paying a ridiculous price for each casting of a spell, far more than any scroll. It just wasn't worth it.
And it does provide you with additional spell resources. Think of it like a ring of spellstoring that can hold several spells and several casts. Would you not think that item worth it just because you occasionally have to expend spells to refill it? You can just recharge it inbetween adventures. Or you could look at it this way, it lets wizards "swap" a prepared spell for a different spell they need more but didn't prepare (or ran out of). For sorcerers, it increases their spell selection and offers a "battery" of a few extra spell slots they can draw upon in need.
It's not exactly a swap out - you have to forgo preparing a spell when you prepare your spells, giving that energy to the staff instead to recharge it. Not my favorite solution, especially when a spell cast from the staff may actually effectively cost you three spell slots, rather than one.
The benefit to staves, in my opinion, has always been that they use your caster level and casting stat, which makes them superior to wands and scrolls already. The recharge could be nice if you have the time to do it, but in a lot of games I've seen, downtime is a luxury high level PCs (the ones that have access to staves) don't really get. Could just be my experience with the last volume of 2nd Darkness, though...
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That's with an assumption that there is zero downtime. Yes, if you adventure for 5 days straight, you won't get full utility out of it. In fact you'll most likely run out of charges. However when you get back to town (Or more importantly, as you are heading back to town which may take 2-3 days or more), you are recharging it. Or while you are crafting an item, or another character is off doing something else... Lots of possibilities.
If there isn't any downtime with a campaign, then that's an issue to bring up with the DM.
Personally I think a staff that isn't an expensive wand that you need to "nova" to get good use out of it is wonderful.
I have made a little adjustment to the recharge mechanic, as a house rule:
-If an appropriate spellcaster has the staff in its possession, the staff recharges 1 charge every day. Automatically. (It is assumed the wizard/druid/whatever takes care of this, using some small mundane magic ritual over the day).
-Also, if the owner of the staff wants to, he can recharge the staff the normal way, as described in the Core Rules (and still max 1 charge/day).
So the staff automatically regenerates charges, but it wont prevent staves found in dungeon-treasure to always have the full 10 charges. And the staff is much more useful this way (and not costing 2 or 3 spellslots to cast 1 spell..).
I see it as a slightly powerful 'cast X 1/day' wondrous item, with some addition benefits as well as some drawbacks. My players seem to like it!
One thing people seem to forget is that you don't necessarily have to have downtime to charge the staff. If you have a staff with up to 4th-level spells, and you adventure for 5 days straight, and at the end of 3 of those days you happen to have a 4th-level spell slot left over, why not use it to charge your staff with 3 more charges before going to bed? You could theoretically stretch those 10 charges a good long time if you use them wisely.
I can't tell you how many players would use up charges from their staff, have left over spell slots when it came time to rest, and then didn't charge their staff simply because they "were still adventuring and didn't have any real downtime." It's funny how players think sometimes.
EDIT: Nevermind. You have to do it in the morning when you prepare spells. Man, that does kind of suck. (Also, how does that effect evil cleric who prepare spells at dusk?)
Also, where did this "crumble to dust" idea come from? Staves never did that! If you had a +5 quarterstaff that was also a magical staff, when it ran out of charges, it was still a +5 quarterstaff (which could be re-magicked with another 50 charges no less). A normal magical staff would become a mundane staff when it ran out of charges--not turn to dust.
Simple fix then, no? Do as Ravingdork thought; allow staff recharges at any reasonable point. Same ritual, time frame, etc. but giving up the spell slot appropriate, losing a prepared spell for wizards/clerics or just losing the option for spontaneous casters.
Even the way they are now I find them quite nice.
It's a handy way for my character (with Craft Staff) to have a large number of spells available in the same spell slot, and cast them multiple times if required.
Say there's a bunch of 1st level utility spells I want to have available, I can make a staff with all of them and thereafter cast any one of them up to ten times, and if I keep it to only one of any of them per day it's pretty much the same as having prepared whichever spell it is that I happened to need.
The recharging is a vast improvement over 3.5 staves IMO.
In 3.5 the only way to recharge a staff was to craft a new one. That requires both downtime and money. At least this way you can save on the money cost.
I never used staves under the 3.5 rules. In PF I can seem myself getting one.