Staves and opposition schools...

[seebs]

Assume for the sake of argument you have access to powerful casters, and/or a lot of free time and money. And say you're a wizard with opposition schools.

So far as I can tell, opposition schools do not in any way prevent you from using a staff containing a given spell. You take a penalty to crafting checks to make it, but that's not a problem.

This suggests that you could use the staff creation rules to get access to at least a couple of spells that are otherwise opposition school.

This leads to some questions.

1. If a staff has two spells of the same level, but one requires one charge and one two, how is the cost determined? The rules say the highest level spell always gets the 400*level*CL/charges cost, but what if two spells have the same level? I'd assume that, to minimize absuse, the answer would be "fewer charges come first". (Otherwise, a staff of fireball which also contains two other third level spells that cost 10 charges each would cost a little over half as much as one which didn't.)
2. Even without that, it seems that you can definitely make a staff cheaper by adding a not-much-higher level spell that requires a lot of charges.

For instance, consider a staff which contains Fireball and Lightning Bolt, each for one charge. Caster level is presumably 8. Total cost is (400*3*8)+(300*3*8) = 16,800.

Now add Ice Storm, at four charges. Cost is (400*4*8/4)+(300*3*8)+(200*3*8) = 15,200.

If the new spell is high enough level to increase caster level, this may not work as well; a cone of cold at 4 charges gets total cost to 18,000 because it increases caster level to 9. But you can add a cone of cold and, say, dimension door or ice storm, both at five charges each, and now you're down to 16,560 for a staff which not only has extra spells, but casts at a higher level (if you're not already 9th or higher).

Obviously, some amount of GM discretion is called for. But for a hypothetical specialist who picked evocation as an opposition school, consider the utility of a staff which has, say:

* some first level specialized-school spell, 1 charge
* two fourth-level specialized-school spells, 10 charges each
* fireball and lightning bolt, 1 charge each

Cost comes out to 13,440. At the cost of sacrificing your bonus first level spell slot every day, you can use a fireball or lightning bolt every day, and you can have it charged up to 10 charges if you've had downtime.

Question is: Am I missing anything RAW? I am pretty sure our GM is just going to laugh and say "yeah no" if I actually try to do this, but I am wondering whether I've missed a rule that should have been obvious.

[seebs]

I should point out, I found one of my errors: The recharging spell has to be a spell (or slot) of level equal to the highest level of anything in the staff. So you can't use a low level spell to recharge a staff that has any higher-level spells.

Can still convert, say, a school specialization bonus spell into an opposition school spell.

[Aureate]

I don't see any reason that you couldn't use a staff for access to spells from an opposition school.

Technically you are right by RAW in the craft staff section, however items costs should be balanced. The most charges any existing staff uses is 5. And that is the Staff of life, using the higher charges to reduce the cost is prudent since it costs so much to cast raise dead in the first place.

I might limit it in my games to 3 charges for cost purposes. Even allowing 4 charges seems to break pricing.

[seebs]

Yeah, the cost reduction seems to be a little unbalanced. It's not really awful, but it does seem a little buggy that you can reduce costs below what they'd be without the extra spell. On the other hand, without the cost reduction, staves would be pretty overpriced.

[Aureate]

The pricing for things really is an estimate/guideline. If an item does more it should cost more, even a staff. However the GM decides to represent this is up to him/her.

Limiting the charges to 3 seems to keep things from breaking AND gives you a more useful item. (Meaning you might actually use those 4th level spells.) (18667GP)

It's still far better than if you used the more general estimate of most costly ability is full price, then 75%, then half. (again 3 charges, 22667) That's what items other than staves go by.

[Gauss]

Aureate, staff pricing is not an estimate or a guideline for the spell trigger part. It is just like wands, scrolls, and potions. Now, if the staff does more than just cast a spell then yes, that is a custom item.

To put it another way: Custom pricing is Table 15-29. Spell-trigger staves do not use that table. They use the rules laid out on CRB p552.

Seebs,

All of your pricing is correct. However, the actual usefulness of this staff is rather negligible. Sure, you can use a charge every day but then you have to expend a charge every day. Kinda pointless.

Staves are best at casting spells on an emergency basis while still benefiting from your feats, caster level, etc.

Personally, I think the Scroll Master archetype is a better deal.

- Gauss

[seebs]

The stored-up nature is significant; I might well make it through a chunk of adventuring between downtime only *wanting* maybe five or six spells from a staff -- so I could charge it during downtimes and do pretty well. Scrollmaster is interesting, but I'm not sure how it's related; I am not short of options for melee attacks if I wanted them. I was more thinking of AoE damage. :)

[Gauss]

Perhaps you missed the last ability: a scrollmasters' final ability at level 10 does the exact same thing Staves do but with scrolls. Full caster level and feats whenever you use a scroll.

UC p89 wrote:

Improved Scroll Casting (Su): At 10th level, the scrollmaster can cast a wizard spell from a scroll and use his own Intelligence score and relevant feats to set the DC for the spell, and can use his own caster level if it is higher than that of the scroll (similar to a caster using a staff ). The scrollmaster must have already deciphered the writing on the scroll to use this ability. This ability replaces the 10th-level wizard bonus feat.

So, you get staff-like abilities one level earlier and can get a wider array of spells to do it with. Main drawback is that yes, you will be using up consumable resources (although presumably, you are crafting these scrolls yourself).

- Gauss

[seebs]

Ahh, interesting. Well, in this case, I'm already built using a different arcane bond feature, and furthermore, I'm only 4 levels of wizard, the rest has been arcane trickster. So, while it's a neat power, it's not as useful to me as a staff. Especially since a staff could also let me (in the long run) save on expensive material components.

[Gauss]

Interesting, that would have to be a very long run for it to pay for 50 castings of the material component. Which expensive spells were you planning on sticking into the staff?

- Gauss

[Aureate]

I realize that strictly speaking RAW says that the staff pricing was correct. I am not disputing that.

I still hold that it is not intended for anyone to abuse a poor formula to get something cheaper. It doesn't make sense.

[Gauss]

If you had something you can use 10 times before recharging shouldnt that be proportionally (10x) more expensive than something you can only use once before recharging?

Consider this: Someone puts a high level spell in a staff but reduces the cost of that spell by having it burn 5 charges. To recharge that single use will take 5 days. Not something that many campaigns have time for.

Even if he does have the time to recharge it he will only have 2 castings of that spell compared to 10.

So, it makes sense to me.

- Gauss

[seebs]

Gauss wrote:

Interesting, that would have to be a very long run for it to pay for 50 castings of the material component. Which expensive spells were you planning on sticking into the staff?

Not totally sure, but the obvious candidate would be Sepia Snake Sigil -- a spell which benefits a lot from DC-boosting things like casting stats, which costs 500 gp *per casting*, and which is ENDLESSLY USEFUL.

There is no real upper bound to how often it is funny to find that someone has gotten put in stasis for a few days. Heck, you can use it on PCs on purpose as an emergency poison/disease stopper.

[seebs]

As to the pricing: I don't think anyone would dispute that it makes sense for a staff to be cheaper if you made the spells in it take more charges. The thing that's weird is that you can take a staff that has a given cost to make, and then make another staff that has MORE spells, and in which every spell that was in the first staff takes the same number of charges, but the new one costs less to make.

Being able to cast two fireballs instead of ten should be cheaper.

Being able to cast ten fireballs or two ice storms should probably not be cheaper than being able to cast ten fireballs.

[Gauss]

I wouldn't think of Sepia Snake Sigil since it is basically unusable in combat situations. In any case, such a staff would cost an extra 25,000gp. Not really worth it for a spell that I would almost never use.

Do you have a second candidate?

- Gauss

[seebs]

Ahh, see. You might almost never use it. If I had the ability to cast it without having to pay an extra 500gp per usage, I'd cast it... a lot.

The obvious other candidate would be stoneskin. Sure, it's 12.5k gold or something to make the staff, but... Yeah.

[Gauss]

seebs, if it didnt have any material cost I still wouldn't use the spell. It has no combat value. It is of limited out of combat value for PCs. The spell is primarily there to be used against PCs.

Stoneskin isn't a bad option. :)

- Gauss

[seebs]

Your GM must be very different from ours. I've had pretty good luck with things like sepia snake sigil.

[Gauss]

I am the GM usually. Please, describe how you use it usable in combat?

Just seeing it does not trigger it. That is specified in the spell. The creature must make an effort to read a document containing at least 25 words. Thus, no combat option since no creature is going to stop and read a piece of paper you flash at him while in combat.

It should take at least a move or full round action to read that paper. Are you going to do that in combat? Neither would I.

- Gauss

[seebs]

Oh, not a combat spell, but there is a whole lot of not-in-combat to be had. Think people will search your stuff? Put it on letters or in suspicious-looking books. First page of a spellbook, say. Scrolls. Messages that are going to be sent to people who have some reason to read them.

Consider: It's reflex-based, and NO SPELL RESISTANCE. This means it's pretty good against some particularly tough opponents. Lots of things have weak reflex saves, especially some casters, some of the larger critters with lots of hit points, and so on. It completely disables the target for days. Plural. Furthermore, consider the insane variety of ways in which this could be useful on willing subjects.

Yes, willing subjects. Say you're a caster level 7 wizard. Can you think of any use for a thing that allows you to place people into suspended animation for at least a week? I sure can. I would probably consider it to suspend poisons and diseases; it says subjects can still be affected by "outside" forces, but complete suspended animation seems to me to be a pretty compelling argument for "you are not taking more damage or making more saves until this is dispelled". It can be dispelled, by the caster, at will. So, someone took poison damage, and a failed save could kill them? "Read this." They read it. They voluntarily fail their save. You now have a week to get them to someone who can cure the poison, or heal the ability damage so they wouldn't be killed by a failed save, or whatever else. Wilderness adventure, ran out of food? "Read this." Now the heavy guy who can't navigate the wilderness anyway can be stashed in a portable hole or bag of holding for a few days. No need to breathe, no need to eat. Pop him out when you need him.

The ability to put things into suspended animation for multiple days, with a single save that's often a weak save for casters and no spell resistance, is unreasonably powerful. I am pretty sure the material cost is a reasonable balancing choice.

This spell strongly attracts me to Spell Focus (Conjuration).

[Gauss]

Hrm, in 30 years of gaming I have never had an encounter where the bad guys have gone through the PCs equipment. It just hasn't come up. I know it comes up rarely for other gamers but it is still a rare occurrence and not worth an entire staff.

Now, willing subjects, of course there are benefits, but there are much less expensive means to deal with poisons and diseases. Heck, it takes 2 days to deal with most diseases. Just memorize the correct spell.

As a cleric I usually have an open spell slot or two. It is easy to memorize remove disease. Far easier than putting someone in suspended animation.

Ability Damage? Wand of Lesser Restoration deals with that.
Poison or Disease? Heal check gives the target a +4 bonus to the save. This can be further boosted via various spells.

As a Wizard yes, you do not have those options. But someone in the group should. Most Diseases are simply not that bad. Neither are poisons. I can see having a single scroll of Sepia Snake Sigil for the purposes of suspending an ally. I cannot see using 50 charges worth in the entire life of a character.

If given the choice between poisoned and weakened or suspended animation, unable to do anything if combat occurs, and subject to attacks I will take poisoned and weakened.

As for Spell Focus (Conjuration) I love it for many conjuration effects. But again, it has little value with Sepia Snake Sigil since it is not usable in combat. You should has Rope Trick and with standard guard techniques you are pretty much not going to have anything stolen from you while you sleep.

Anyhow, perhaps your GM loves to steal stuff from you. If so, I guess it works. But most campaigns are not written that way.

- Gauss

[seebs]

Well, they don't have to be searching *our* stuff. Just stuff we had access to.

While there's certainly combat in our games, we usually have a fair amount of non-combat exploration, and there's sometimes some amount of infiltration and/or counter-infiltration going on.

Keep in mind, this is only a second level spell. Low-level parties (except for the material component cost) might easily have access to this, but not have anyone present who can cast the better disease/poison removal spells -- but be able to get to people who can do that.

Long story short: I find that if I have interesting options that aren't necessarily combat-focused, I'm a lot more likely to find uses for them. If I don't have them, I'm not likely to miss them, because I'm not thinking about how they could have been useful; instead, I focus on what I can do. So I like to build for non-combat utility, and do things that interest and surprise, and it makes for nice shift in pace now and then.

[Gauss]

Isn't Sepia Snake Sigil level 3 for both Bards and Sorc/Wizards?

Im not saying I could not find uses for it. Especially in the type of game you are discussing. Im just saying it is not really worth a staff. Staffs are 'emergency' resources that need your caster level intact and need to benefit from your higher ability score and feats.

Criteria for a good staff spell:
1) Needs to benefit from your higher DCs.
Sepia Snake Sigil used as an emergency for players does not meet that criteria. Make a scroll for it instead.
Sepia Snake Sigil used to screw up the enemy (presumably out of combat) meets that criteria. Move to criteria #2.

2) Can you do it better using scrolls or your own available spells?
Yes, since it is permanent until triggered it can easily be done as a spell performed during downtime. Make up a bunch of sigil pages when you have nothing better to do. This way, it has all your saves etc. Alternately, leave open a 3rd level slot and use that.

3) Will you use it so much that paying the material component cost x50 is cheaper than the number of times you will use it over the life of your character from the time you acquire the staff.
In your case, it seems the answer is yes.

4) Does your GM use the WBL system to make sure that you have the appropriate resources each level?
If yes, it is not worth making a staff that will continually cost that x50 charges worth. It is better to pay the material component as you go. Even if the answer is no it is less of an expense ratio-wise to pay as you go rather than all at once.

I may have missed some criteria but this is a good list. Ultimately, I think that for you to use >50+ charges from level 11-20 you must be coming up with some very creative ways to use this spell. Perhaps cheaper methods to accomplish the same goals can be found.

- Gauss

[Aureate]

Seebs, Sounds like you are having fun with spells like the Sepia Snake Sigil. I can't see using that spell 50 times in a single characters adventuring career. That said, I like some of your uses and may try them out as a player. I like the idea of shoving an ally into a bag of holding and not worrying about suffocation. It could also be good for an underground railroad.

Because of its entertainment value, as a GM I'd probably drop in more opportunities to use these sorts of techniques. But then, I prefer to minimize combat in games that I run and try to offer a non-combat solution to encounters.

[seebs]

Ahh, yeah, we don't use WBL. My thought about this was mostly: Say I'm already thinking of making a staff. Adding sepia snake sigil to a staff with other spells will cost 200*2*8 = 3200 gold, plus the 50x material components, and then I have it around whenever I want it. I don't think it's any less convenient than a scroll, and it doesn't cost 500gp per casting once I've got it. (And you wouldn't use the staff on the fly for emergency use; you'd use it in advance to prepare little notes with two haiku on them or something.)

Basically, around the 57th time I use it, I'm ahead monetarily. And maybe I'd use it that often, maybe not, but it would be sorta neat. And of course, some of that is just a general observation that I tend to get more use out of things if I've already put the costs in up front than if there's additional marginal cost to using them more.