Charged Items

[Prismatic Codex]

Is there any way to discover exactly how many charges an item has remaining, like from a wand or staff(namely Staff of the Magi)?

Any help would be great!

[Noir le Lotus]

You know it when you identify the item.

[osinbar49]

I say yes. Core rules under the Spellcraft skill "identify the properties of a magic item using Detect Magic. The number of charges remaining is a property of a wand or staff.

[Prismatic Codex]

Then is the Staff of the Magi a special case? I was browsing through Classic Treasures Revisited, and it basically said that one of the challenging things about owning the Staff was not knowing if you are going to overcharge it and make it go "boom". I thought it would be easy, if all you have to do is keep track of how many charges you've absorbed. Or am I misunderstanding something...?

[ZomB]

That is talking about a spell being cast at you and being absorbed by the staff. As you don't always know what spell you are absorbing, then that could overcharge it by absorbing too many levels of spell.

Note that the limit on what spells are absorbed are very tight so not many spells can be absorbed.

[Prismatic Codex]

I guess that's true, unless you've already successfully identified the spell being cast. Or if you've already almost exhausted the charges, then you know you have a bit of leeway.