I'm looking for an answer but cannot find it: is it possible to recharge staffs with spell-like abilities? I would be happy if anyone could not only post Yes or Not but could tell where the rule is written down. Thanks a lot in advance!
From the description of staves:
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.
Looks to me like it's restricted to actual spellcasters rather than spell like abilities. Your DM could make a case by case exception.
I concur with Maugan. While SLAs act like spells for many things, they aren't able to completely replace spells for everything. Since SLAs aren't listed as a viable recharge tool for staves but spell slots are, I'd say SLAs don't cut it.
I havent seen an official ruling, But as a DM I would allow it. They would have to forfiet 1 daily use of a SLA that fits the level requirement of the staff to regain 1 charge as normal.
Necro'ing this thread because I was about to ask the same question...
Can you recharge a staff with a SLA?
There is a FAQ to take into account that would lead me to believe that you could actually do this.
Cleric domains, sorcerer bloodlines, wizard schools, and certain other class features give spell-like abilities that aren't based on spells. What's the effective spell level for these abilities?
The effective spell level for these spell-like abilities is equal to the highest-level spell that a character of that class could normally cast at the level the ability is gained.For example, a 1st-level elemental bloodline sorcerer has elemental ray as a spell-like ability. Because a sorcerer 1's highest-level spell available is 1st, that spell-like ability counts as a 1st-level spell. A 9th-level elemental bloodline sorcerer has elemental blast as a spell-like ability. Because a sorcerer 9's highest-level spell available is 4th, that spell-like ability counts as a 4th-level spell.
Kinda makes that 1st level domain/bloodline ability a little more useful (because let's face it, 1d6+{1 per 2 levels} doesn't go very far...).
You're not going to find such a text. But if you look at the process of recharging you'll see that there are TWO required steps to the process.
1. Attuning to the staff that you're going to charge.
2. Spending the spell/slot to do so.
SLAs by themselves can perform the second step, but not the first. They also won't qualify for the casting requirement if you don't have a spell list that includes both them and the spells on the staff.
I'm not seeing anything about 'attuning' to the staff. However, upon looking up the exact text for recharging staves (I guess I should have looked that up first), it does explicitly state "spell slot or prepared spell". So unless a spell-like ability's uses per day can be considered specific spell-like ability spell slots, I guess this wouldn't work.
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.
