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| 9 people marked this as FAQ candidate. Answered in the FAQ. |
So if a summoner has a staff of fire and can cast wall of fire as a 3rd level spell, can they recharge the staff once they can cast 3rd level spells? Or do they have to wait until they could cast 4th level spells, which is when a wiz/sorc would get wall of fire?
basically do you have to have the 4th level spells if you can cast the highest level spell on the staff at 3rd level?
Recharging Staves: 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.
It's true, this could be argued either way and maybe deserves a FAQ, but I think we can figure it out. I bolded the part that is most relevant.
So, ask a wizard what the highest level spell his staff of fire can cast and he'll say "Fourth". Ask a summoner the same question and he'll say "Third".
They're both correct, of course, which leads me to the answer: They can both recharge it. The wizard needs to give up a 4th level spell and the sorcerer needs to give up a 3rd level spell.
Justification?
1. Earlier in the rule I quoted, it says a spell caster can recharge a staff "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." Note the two bolded bits refer specifically to whoever is recharging the staff. Sure, later, it fails to make the same personalized reference regarding the level of the spell to be given up, but this earlier part establishes the precedent.
2. Both the wizard and the summoner must be 7th level before they are able to cast Wall of Fire - just because it's a lower level spell for the summoner, let's not forget that he is slower to gain spell levels. Since both classes have a minimum requirement of being 7th level (to be able to sacrifice a spell slot that matches their level for Wall of Fire), this is balanced.
3. Telling a summoner that he must wait until 10th level to be able to recharge a staff when other classes could recharge the same staff at 7th level would be poor mechanical balance with regard to this rule.
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There is a tiny problem with your idea Blake:
if we go your way the DC of the save against the spell change too.
for the summoner it is a DC of 13+charisma bonus, for the wizard 14+intelligence bonus.
So what with the introduction of the summoner (what a surprise, another thing that the summoner broke) we need to expand the staff description, specifying the level of the spells that have different version depending on the different classes.
The summoner isn't the only class that share this problem, but it is the one where it is felt the most.
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bump--anyone?
since both the magus and wizards get wall of fire when they are 7th level--the wiz as a 4th level and the magus as 3rd level is being 7th level what matters?
The magus get wall of fire as a 4th level spell, at level 10. It is the summoner that get several spells as a lower level version.
if we go your way the DC of the save against the spell change too.
for the summoner it is a DC of 13+charisma bonus, for the wizard 14+intelligence bonus.So what with the introduction of the summoner (what a surprise, another thing that the summoner broke) we need to expand the staff description, specifying the level of the spells that have different version depending on the different classes.
I don't see the confusion. The Staves description already says "Staves use the wielder’s ability score and relevant feats to set the DC for saves against their spells." So we already know that wizards and summoners use different save DCs for the same staff. Why does this require us to expand the staff description?
You say this is a problem, I see it as just fine. So what if the summoner's DC is 1 point lower than the wizard's (spell level 3 instead of 4), this was already the case when they cast their spells normally so why should it not be the case when they use an item that relies on their class abilities to set the DC?
Where it's somewhat more awkward is wands. Before Summoner, if I had a wand of Fire Wall I would automatically assume it was Save DC 14. Now it could be Save DC 13 if a summoner crafted it.