Staves and Using Them

[Sleep-Walker]

Hello,

I have recently been looking into staves for a sorcerer friend of mine, and I got confused.

Some of the staves have Divine and Arcane spells in them.

So who can use such staves?

These staves have Spell-Trigger activation.

So a Cleric who had one could use: Shield Other, Shield of Faith, and Shield of Law, but they couldn't use Shield.

A Sorcerer who had one could use shield, but couldn't use Shield Other, Shield of Faith, and Shield of Law.

Is that right? It seems stupid? Why wouldn't someone only take a stave where they could use all the abilities they are paying for???

[Lathiira]

The only time it matters if a spell is arcane or divine is on a scroll. That said, yes, some staves have a mix of spells from different class lists. Who could use that staff of defense you ask? Maybe a mystic theurge or a multiclassed cleric with levels in sorcerer or wizard who didn't go that way. Also, don't forget that you can always Use Magic Device to get those other functions, or pass the staff to someone who can actually use the function you want. The real pain is that in order to recharge the staff of defense you need 8th level spells....

[Seraph403]

Lathiira wrote:

The only time it matters if a spell is arcane or divine is on a scroll. That said, yes, some staves have a mix of spells from different class lists. Who could use that staff of defense you ask? Maybe a mystic theurge or a multiclassed cleric with levels in sorcerer or wizard who didn't go that way. Also, don't forget that you can always Use Magic Device to get those other functions, or pass the staff to someone who can actually use the function you want. The real pain is that in order to recharge the staff of defense you need 8th level spells....

And burning that 8th level spell only gives you 1 charge/day :/

Wish it gave you an equivalent back on half of the spell level you spend (so an 8th level spell would give you 4 charges back)

[Lathiira]

Seraph403 wrote:

Lathiira wrote:

The only time it matters if a spell is arcane or divine is on a scroll. That said, yes, some staves have a mix of spells from different class lists. Who could use that staff of defense you ask? Maybe a mystic theurge or a multiclassed cleric with levels in sorcerer or wizard who didn't go that way. Also, don't forget that you can always Use Magic Device to get those other functions, or pass the staff to someone who can actually use the function you want. The real pain is that in order to recharge the staff of defense you need 8th level spells....

And burning that 8th level spell only gives you 1 charge/day :/

Wish it gave you an equivalent back on half of the spell level you spend (so an 8th level spell would give you 4 charges back)

I like that rule. Considering it'll take me 6 days to recharge my new staff of souls to full power because people in the party can't stand taking a little negative energy damage :)

[Thazar]

In your example a cleric with the Defense domain could use the Staff of Defense to it's full ability.

[Oliver McShade]

Welcome to Relic Drift.

In the basic set, each staff listed who could use it.
In latter ed, they were more standardized.
As the game changed, some spell switch classes.

So, you can not use every spell that is listed for the staff. Just means that more than one class might use the staff differently from each other.

For the most part, most staff follow a class line. Mostly usable by one class. If your building a staff of your own, ask your DM if you can reduce the cost or swap out another spell that you can cast.