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IMO the price of staffs is broken when compared to the WBL table. I just took the top 90 listed staffs and averaged their costs. The average cost of a staff is 56482 that is 100% of the wealth for a 9th level character and just below the average for a 10th level character. My contention is the design team did not look at the WBL table when the created the formula for the pricing of staffs. According to what I have read you should not have any one item that consumes over 40% of the character total wealth according to this convention that would mean you would have to be 14th level to buy the average staff. Which means the single most iconic item for an arcane caster is effectively taken out of the game, as
most of the produced content is below 14 level.
Could I get some comments from both the design team and members of the community on this please.
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- First, average price is a poor way to determine when access to an item is available. The "average" magic weapon is probably *very* expensive, and wouldn't be available until at least 10th level.
- Second, Craft Staff feat has an 11th level prerequisite - you're not *intended* to have staves too much earlier than that.
- Third, staves are very useful items that in the end can save a caster an awful lot of money in wands/scrolls, to better effect (user's caster level and ability score). The earlier they are available, the more they do.
- Fourth, the cheapest Core Rulebook staff would be affordable at about 9th level, and is cheaper than a 4th level wand.
The single most iconic item for an arcane caster should be something memorable, not just another purchase at the corner store. I don't really care to hear at the gaming table "oh, let me dig through my golf bag of staves".
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So, where's the rules question again?
- First, average price is a poor way to determine when access to an item is available. The "average" magic weapon is probably *very* expensive, and wouldn't be available until at least 10th level.
This right here.
Don't go by "average". More damage has been done by lawyers and advertisers in using the word "average" than probably any other word.
Majuba is right. If you make every possible magical weapon in the book and then take the top 90 of them, the average price is (estimably) just as bad as the average price of the top 90 staves, too - the difference is that the cheap weapons can be had for just a couple thousand gold while the cheap staves cannot.
As Maezer said, make lower level staves if you want, by using low-level spells only, and then limiting it to one or two spells instead of lots of spells, and the price becomes much more manageable. A Staff of Fireball (just Fireball, nothing else) is only 6,000 gp retail (3,000gp to make one yourself).
When you do that, the price seems VERY reasonable. A wand of Fireball costs 11,250 retail, nearly twice what that staff costs, and the staff will do more damage with a higher save DC and never run out of charges (permanently).
If you want two staves, one of Fireball and one of Lightning Bolt, the price is 6,000gp each, but if you make it just one Staff of Fire and Lightning, the price is only 10,500gp because it's actually cheaper to make one staff with everything you need than it is to make lots of different staves, not not mention, it's easier to carry just one staff around.
Finally, that's apparently what everyone does - they have to be 11th level to even get the feat. By then they have decent cash and a desire to carry only one staff around, so they make what they want - any 11th level mage can cough up 9,475gp to make himself a Staff of Fire if he wants one.
So since they have the cash and the desire to save some money and not carry around a "golf bag of staves", they make one expensive staff with everything they like on it.
Makes perfect sense to me.
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My contention is that staves have been priced out of the game with the current formula used to determine there price.
You cannot compare staves to wands as they use different rules. as pointed out above. Under the current rules staffs have far fewer charges than wands but cost far more per charge. IMO staffs should have a set value for the highest level of spell on the staff and each lower level of spell, the cost per spell should be at .25 cost of the highest level of spell on the staff. This would reduce the cost of the staff and male them useable by lower level casters.
I personally do not see why staffs should be priced
out of the realm where PFS characters can use them as PFS is a marketing tool for the greater game and the way it is now no PFS caster will ever see a staff in society play because of the cost of staff and the WBL rules.
... Not to say I've ever gotten a staff in Pathfinder. They're overpriced by far compared to what they do. There are a TON of things that are much better buys, mostly wondrous items and the like.
Pretty much this (and i almost always play arcane casters) and i never saw anyone make or even try to buy one either.
Honestly , staves are cool and all , but the way it is now , it is actually hard to find anyone who even considers using one if it is not loot AND EVEN THEN some would rather trade it for the gold.
Haven't bought one in play, haven't even SEEN one used.
Every time i consider it, i look at the price savings for taping some wands together.
You may still have a staff you can recharge after you're done, but a wand would have been 150% more useful.
Actually, you could have bought two staves for about the same price, and still had *two* rechargeable staves left afterwards.
However, you cannot have a staff of just one spell: "A staff is a long shaft that stores several spells."
Staves are high level items, you're not going to see them in PFS until at least 11th level, nor should you see them sooner. And because few characters go past that in PFS, few will purchase a staff. Even strands of prayer beads won't be purchased, even though they're available much earlier, because there is simply not enough time to recoup the expense.
You may still have a staff you can recharge after you're done, but a wand would have been 150% more useful.Actually, you could have bought two staves for about the same price, and still had *two* rechargeable staves left afterwards.
However, you cannot have a staff of just one spell: "A staff is a long shaft that stores several spells."
Staves are high level items, you're not going to see them in PFS until at least 11th level, nor should you see them sooner. And because few characters go past that in PFS, few will purchase a staff.
Not really talking PFS.
Im talking in general , i never see anyone , dont matter the gold/level EVER get one of these themselves. (Myself included)
Even if it drops like i said at beast it gets a chance , it is not like people usually even try to keep them , chances are they will turn into gold even if the spell in it is not so bad.
This can be the classical mage "weapon", but mostly only NPCs might have them.
I will have to say, I 'm looking at a staff of understanding. 16 k isn't that much more than 11k for a wand of tongues vs a staff that can cast it, and the other abilities are nice without taking up spells known/pages of spell knowledge.
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Staff of life: the whole party shouted "we will keep it" when they found it, even if that meant that everyone was renouncing to a loot of money.
10 heals plus raise dead for free. Great deal.
Especially as it was in a 6th level module.
As they don't have heal recharging it require hiring a high level spellcaster and that cut on the money saved, but having heal at minimum caster level (11) is very good.
- * -
Custom made by the 11th level characters: Staff or restoration, that cast lesser restoration for 1 charge and restoration for 2.
Again a money saver in the long run. Every restoration you cast out of the staff is 100 or 1.000 gp in components you don't have to spend and it mean they have 5 restoration at hand if needed.
- * -
It is a iconic item, a high level pure spellcaster will have one, not a golf bag of them, instead several posters seem to want a different staff for every season, depending on what they need.
As Maezer said, make lower level staves if you want, by using low-level spells only, and then limiting it to one or two spells instead of lots of spells, and the price becomes much more manageable. A Staff of Fireball (just Fireball, nothing else) is only 6,000 gp retail (3,000gp to make one yourself).When you do that, the price seems VERY reasonable. A wand of Fireball costs 11,250 retail, nearly twice what that staff costs, and the staff will do more damage with a higher save DC and never run out of charges (permanently).
True, that staff is cheaper than a wand of Fireballs and has the benefit of casing 10 dice fireballs and using your DCs, but it costs a whopping 4 charges per use, so you could only use it about once every 4 days (max twice in one day), vs. the wand which can used at will.
A CL 10 staff that only consumes a single charge per use would cost 24,000gp retail.Actually, since you could only reasonably afford such a staff after level 10, you'd be better off purchasing the staff at CL 8 for 19,200gp. Considerably more than the price of a wand, but you get a lot more.
I will have to say, I 'm looking at a staff of understanding. 16 k isn't that much more than 11k for a wand of tongues vs a staff that can cast it, and the other abilities are nice without taking up spells known/pages of spell knowledge.
All the listed, pre-made staves in books other than the CRB are incredible deals as they typically cost only half what the should according to the crafting guidelines put forth in the CRB. The staves in the CRB follow the guidelines pretty closely.
You may still have a staff you can recharge after you're done, but a wand would have been 150% more useful.
The wand costs 187.5% more.
And the staff uses the wielder's save DC, something like a DC of 20, where the wand uses a flat save DC of 13 - nearly everything will beat a Dc of 13 at those levels, but not everything will beat a DC of 20ish. So figure most enemies take half of 5d6 from a wand, while most enemies take full of 10d6 from the staff.
And the wand still costs nearly double the price.
However, you cannot have a staff of just one spell: "A staff is a long shaft that stores several spells."
I think that's more of a fluffy description of what staves (usually) are; it's not and out-and-out explicit rule that all staves MUST be made with several spells - if it were such a rule, someone would have to define what "several" means. 2? 3? 4? Where do we draw the line and say "that's 'several' enough, but one fewer spell wouldn't qualify as 'several' enough for a staff"?
I certainly don't see that flavor text line as prohibiting a crafter from making a one-spell staff if he wants, or from adding more spells later if he chooses.
Player: I want to make a staff with Fireball.
GM: What else?
Player: Just that. Fireball.
GM: Nope, can't do it. You MUST have "several" spells in there.
Player: Why?
GM: I dunno. Maybe the stick will break if you only have one spell.
Player: What? The stick breaks with one spell, but put more spells into it and it won't break? That makes no sense!
GM: Well, the rule says "several" so you need several.
Player: OK, I add Burning Hands.
GM: Not enough. That's "a couple", it's not "several" yet.
Player: Fine! I add Protection from Fire, too.
GM: Nope, not enough. That's "a few", it's not yet "several".
Player: What!?!? I have the same number of spells as the Core book Staff of Fire, how is it possible that I don't have enough spells?
GM: That's a non-standard item. If you make the exact same staff, duplicating it perfectly, I'd allow it. But since you're making your own staff, you have to follow the rules. You don't have "several" yet.
Player: All right, all right. Lucky we raided three dragon hordes last week. I add Lightning Bolt, Haste, Invisibility, and Glitterdust. Might as well get those out of my head and into my staff too.
GM: Nope, can't do it.
Player: Oh, for crying out loud! That's not enough?
GM: Sorry, it's too many. You went way past "several" and now you have "lots" of spells. You had to stop with "several".
3 spells minimum (more than two), and a vague maximum as what constitutes a "large number" of spells can actually be argued (example: I'd say 10 is the cut off).
That's not correct. The CRB has staves with just two spells.
The fact that it has no one-spell staves does not mean that the rules prohibit making such a staff; it's just that it's cost-beneficial to include more spells at a reduced cost.
The same section that says "several" spells also says that each staff is of a "certain kind" and holds "specific spells", so if we're going to take that as being restrictive, that would imply that you can't actually create a custom staff anyway.
That can't be correct. The CRB has rules for crafting staves, and a feat that lets you do it. If the rule was "You can only make the staves that are in the book" then that is what the CRB would say. It doesn't. Therefore, like all other items, you can craft anything you can imagine as long as your GM is OK with it, and since the rules give you the explicit formula to craft staves with any spells, you clearly can do so.
Quantum Steve points out you're using the price for a staff that uses 4 charges per casting.
Not sure where that's coming from.
Let's see, I did make some errors. One was that I forgot the minimum caster level of 8. The other is that I assumed 400 x SL x CL was the Base Price but it appears that this is the crafting price.
So, a Staff of Fireball has a minimum CL of 8, SL of 3, and costs 400 x 3 x 8 = 9,600 to craft or 19,200 if purchased. That does make a difference, but that means the staff retails at 6,400 if the fireball uses 3 charges or 4,800 if the fireball uses 4 charges.
So everyone's math is off.
So, let's compare apples to apples - at least as much as we can.
My staff (in my hands) does 10d6 damage, so let's make a wand that does the same: 375 x 3 x 10 = 11,250 gp to make it, 22,500 gp retail.
9,600 gp to craft my Staff of Fireball to do 10d6 damage with a save DC of 21 (or thereabouts), using ONE charge per fireball and it can cast a million fireballs as long as I keep charging it.
11,250 gp to craft my Wand of Fireball to do 10d6 damage with a save DC of 13 and it's a worthless stick after 50 fireballs.
The staff still doesn't look so bad.
What if I want a Staff of Fireball, Haste, and Spiked Pit. The price to make it is 9,600 + 7,200 + 4,800 = 21,600gp. To make that with wands, I need 33,750gp. And my Fireball and Spiked Pit still are harder to resist than from the staff than they are from the wand, and my Haste is harder to dispel.
And, what happens when you want to make a Staff of Cone of Cold and compare to the price of a Wand of Cone of Cold? Oh, yeah, you can't make that into a wand at all.
Staves definitely have a purpose and their price seems more than fair.
Me, if I were going to do anything different houserules-wise, I would make them easier to charge. I mean, go into a dungeon and burn most of your charges and it takes you a week to restore your staff - fine if your GM gives you that kind of downtime, but otherwise, your staff quickly becomes a walking stick if the campaign is fast-paced. What that really means is that the caster will save his staff for a true emergency because he doesn't want the recharge tax to prevent him from having it fully charged when he needs it.
Yes. Which is why I think the existence of the crafting rules, and omission in them of any strict requirement that you have More Spells, can be reasonably taken as evidence that you can do whatever you want.
Well, up to a point.
Consider two staves:
Caster level: 8
Spell 1: level: 3, charges: 1, cost 8 * 400 * 3 / 1 = 9600gp
Spell 2: level: 2, charges: 1, cost 8 * 300 * 2 / 1 = 4800gp
Spell 3: level: 1, charges: 1, cost 8 * 200 * 1 / 1 = 1600gp
Spells: 3
Price: 32000gp
Cost: 16000gpCaster level: 8
Spell 1: level: 4, charges: 5, cost 8 * 400 * 4 / 5 = 2560gp
Spell 2: level: 4, charges: 5, cost 8 * 300 * 4 / 5 = 1920gp
Spell 3: level: 3, charges: 1, cost 8 * 200 * 3 / 1 = 4800gp
Spell 4: level: 2, charges: 1, cost 8 * 200 * 2 / 1 = 3200gp
Spell 5: level: 1, charges: 1, cost 8 * 200 * 1 / 1 = 1600gp
Spells: 5
Price: 28160gp
Cost: 14080gpNote how adding spells to a staff has reduced its cost.
I don't see the problem. Your logic seems flawed:
You also increased the required charges on the expensive spells. So adding more spells DID NOT reduce the cost. Adding those spells actually INCREASED the price by 4,800gp. The price reduction is the fact that you increased the charge cost on the existing spells.
But who'd buy a wand of fireballs in the first place? Really, that's kind of the issue - fireball is a horrible spell to put in a consumable. Not so horrible in a staff (though there are much better options) but anyway.
Consumables are mostly used with stuff that give benefits without allowing saves or have a good effect even on a save - compare a wand of Sleet Storm, Heroism, Heatstroke, Haste, or Communal Resist Energy and the staff will come out as the weaker option.
So if you're dead-set on blasting (or using pure save-or-suck effects) then yeah, staves are better. And for high-level spells you only need once in a while (resurrection for 5 charges is nice). But for most purposes, wands are better.
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The prices aren't totally unreasonable compared to wands, but! You're comparing to wands in a price range where I've never, ever, seen anyone use a wand. I use wands for first level spells where caster level is mostly irrelevant. Stuff like endure elements or unseen servant, where 750gp means an extra first level spell slot or two every day, and most days I don't use a charge, even.
And I instead use often enough wands with a higher CL, an example is a CL 7 or 9 wand of magic missile, a CL 10 wand of fireball or similar items.
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Then it is piss poor game design. The single , most iconic arcane item should be able to be crafted by no more than 7th level. I played in a long term campaign where staffs could be had a low levels [this was using a different rules set] and it had no adverse effect on the game. Designing an iconic arcane item for adventures that your company did not support at the time staffs were introduced [CRB]is plain silly IMO. Magic items should be able to be used at all levels by the class they were intended for. Not priced out of the game by some some poorly designed WBL.
Why price out a whole class of magic items in this case staffs from your major marketing tool for your whole game setting PFS. This strikes me as very poorly thought out by the rules team. Pricing of magic items need to take into account all aspects of the game Including PFS.
Owner - D20 Hobbies
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Why price out a whole class of magic items in this case staffs from your major marketing tool for your whole game setting PFS.
Items are fundamentally priced based on their power. Staffs are arguably more powerful than their price currently would suggest. If anything they are under-priced, as the change from 3.5 to PF is they can be recharged. So now instead of "expensive in a pinch power houses" they are "energizer bunny combat encounter stoppers".
Then it is piss poor game design. The single , most iconic arcane item should be able to be crafted by no more than 7th level.
You can craft a magic staff at 5th level. You just cannot have it be charged with magical abilities as a magic staff. In addition you can buy a magic staff at 6th level that takes no more than 40% of your WBL. At 7th level you have three different you could choose between, and at level 9 you could have ANY lesser medium staff.
But in fact, if you want to have an iconic staff that is a key item to your wizard, I can understand that and you can have that at level 1. At first level, chose a staff as arcane bond, make use of it's extra spell per day. The power of the staff increases as your accessible spell levels do. At level 5, you can enchant it as a +1 staff and add abilities like flaming etc. At level 11, you can enchant it as a magic staff.
Why price out a whole class of magic items in this case staffs from your major marketing tool for your whole game setting PFS. This strikes me as very poorly thought out by the rules team. Pricing of magic items need to take into account all aspects of the game Including PFS.
If the PFS standard is no single item at >40% of your WBL, you cannot have a staff (other than an arcane bond or one enchanted as a weapon) during levels 1-5, and you can have them through levels 6-13.
That's not "pricing out the whole class".
But yeah, you could always hope for more cheap staves in the future. I've created a half-dozen or so homebrew staves, and usually cut down the price on spells not very useful in staves.
But these kind of sweeping claims of "piss poor game design" and similar are just silly. To me, 7th level is very high level - all staves should be craftable at level 1! Level 7 is piss poor game design, stop doing such piss poor suggestions!
You see the point, certainly. What level is appropriate is completely subjective and throwing around that kind of language to something that's so much a matter of opinion is just silly.
And let's not forget that early access to staves could really increase the power of full casters. ESPECIALLY in PFS, if we can assume they can fully charge staves between the modules. And full casters do not need any more power than they have.
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On a side tangent.
For those who like the idea of staves at lower levels, AND staves that can be useful more than 10 times a day, check out Apeiron Staves from Super Genius Games. I love this book. They have staves that are appropriate for level 1 characters, as well as staves that would be only appropriate at high levels - all levels of play are covered. These staves can be used every round of every day for their basic effect (no charges consumed) and have enhanced effects that do require charges but the staves also recharge themselves.
SGG made staves useful again. Check it out.
I don't think WBL works like you think it works.
I think the restriction on a single item of 40% is to prohibit nonsense from cropping up when you roll a new character at higher level.
For instance, if a character finds a staff at 10th level that happens to be more expensive than 40% WBL, I don't think the GM is under any obligation to remove the staff.
Even if that staff pushes him into the next WBL bracket, it is not *the rules* that the GM needs to take money away.
WBL exists to balance wealth against CR, and to enable new PCs to have a set amount of treasure. Scrutinizing it like it is some kind of rule the GM must abide by is going to lead to phantasms of "piss poor game design".
If you play the game, rather than scrutinizing obscure rules, there's not really an issue here.
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Why price out a whole class of magic items in this case staffs from your major marketing tool for your whole game setting PFS.Items are fundamentally priced based on their power. Staffs are arguably more powerful than their price currently would suggest. If anything they are under-priced, as the change from 3.5 to PF is they can be recharged. So now instead of "expensive in a pinch power houses" they are "energizer bunny combat encounter stoppers".This totally fails to match my experience of them. The absolute maximum sustained output for a PF staff is one spell per day, and to do that you have to sacrifice a spell slot of at least that high a level every day. They allow you to build up a supply of charges over time, but even then, I am not seeing that much value.
The big reason I'm even considering a staff is that I don't want to burn feats or arcane discoveries overcoming opposition schools. Apart from that, they recharge slowly enough that they're sort of pointless. (D&D Next just gives them a few charges a day of recharge, which would suddenly make them quite attractive, to me.)
By high levels, there will often be times where you are merely preparing for an assault. If your campaign has any degree of downtime, staves are very useful to have . If your campaign has no downtime whatsoever, then wands are a better pick.
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We do have some downtime, and I could probably recharge a staff during it, but in practice, my primary combat utility is my ridiculous variety of options. Although I suppose I could beef that up some if I put a handful of commonly-doubled-up spells in a staff. But the ones I care about are high-level enough that it'd be pretty insanely expensive anyway.
I'm looking at stuff like greater dispel magic, greater teleport... Those prices add up real fast. So say I made a staff with greater teleport and greater dispel magic, 2 charges each so I can cast more than three spells from it. That's ~60k gold. And I can't quicken the greater dispels from it with a metmamagic rod.
You're right, the staff you've designed isn't great. 29,900 gp to create a staff that takes two charges to cast each spell is pretty weak.
So let's look at making this better for you then. First off, do you REALLY need greater teleport as much as you need greater dispel magic? We could shave a ton off of that price tag by increasing the charges to 4 for greater teleport.
With that change, the price to create the staff is 20,800 gp. (7 x 13 x 100 + 6 x 13 x 150)
Let's say you want more greater dispel magic. We can make that take only one charge for a mere 11,700 gp more, bringing us up to 32,500 gp to create a staff that you can probably get a bit more use out of.
However, I think we could reduce the price a bit, so let's do the best custom staff trick there is: add a third spell. If we add a third spell at the same level as our highest, and make it take a whopping five charges to cast, I bet we can REDUCE the price. So on the theme of spells we want to have but don't want to prepare, let's go with plane shift.
With that added, the price to create the staff is 21,905 gp (7 x 13 x 80 + 7 x 13 x 75 + 6 x 13 x 100)
Slot None; Price 43,810 gp; Weight 5 lbs.
- greater dispel magic (1 charge)
- greater teleport (4 charges)
- plane shift (5 charges)
Construction
Requirements Craft Staff, greater dispel magic, greater teleport, plane shift; Cost 21,905 gp
Not good enough? Need to teleport more often? For the low price of 6,500 gp (added to crafting costs), we can get teleport on the staff as well, giving us:
Slot None; Price 56,810 gp; Weight 5 lbs.
- teleport (1 charge)
- greater dispel magic (1 charge)
- greater teleport (4 charges)
- plane shift (5 charges)
Construction
Requirements Craft Staff, greater dispel magic, greater teleport, plane shift, teleport; Cost 28,405 gp
There. It's cheaper than the one you were originally looking at, and has more versatility. If you're in range of a regular teleport, no need to burn extra charges. You can greater dispel magic to your heart's content, and you can plane shift in emergencies.
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Mythic Evil Lincoln, I agree with what your comments on WBL, my problem with it is that the DEV's and there subcontractors that write scenarios and modules adhere to WBL when they put treasure in their modules and scenarios. So no iconic items get placed in their content.
The problem that I see with recharging staffs lies with the vancian spell slot system that is in use for the magic system. I do not know how to correct this problem short of using a Mana system for casting of spells.
For casters I have always liked the Mana for casting spells.
It was easy to recharge staffs under the rules set [Arduin] that the mana sysem that I played for many years used. Under that rules system any spell could be placed in your staff simply by casting the spell into your staff and paying 3x the mana cost per the spell. Maybe a rule could be made for staff recharging to just spend 3 spell slots of the spell level that you want to put in your staff. Example if you want to put a fireball spell in you staff you would spend 3 third level spell slots and your staff would have another charge of fireball.
DM Blake I have Apeiron Staves from SGG. I really like it but you cannot use it in PFS as it not written by Pazio.
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I like it when I find a staff. The utility ones are great and will let me focus on other stuff for spella. In one of the adventures we found a staff of swarms. It was great.
But really don't look at staves in terms of re harge. Use them to blow thtough fights faster snd worry about recharge between adventures.