How are Magical Staves useful?

[meatrace]

TwoWolves wrote:

I see you misspelled "Babylon 5".

I would categorize Londo Molari as a monster.

[meatrace]

RDM42 wrote:

meatrace wrote:

Who on earth would want to play a D&D campaign where you never fight monsters?

Plenty of people? Why are monsters particularly more fun to fight than intelligent opposition with class levels?

Sometimes sure, but all the time? No variety?

When you say "plenty of people" what you really mean is "a hypothetical player I just imagined so I don't have to admit how absurd an idea D&D is without dragons."

[Blakmane]

RDM42 wrote:

text

Stop derailing the thread please. This is a thread about magical staves and their potential uses, not your personal vendetta against WBL.

*edit*

Don't bait him meatrace :-p

Perhaps comment on the math I provided instead? It seems sound but it's pretty late here...

[meatrace]

trololol

[Anzyr]

Anyway, generally speaking staffs are overpriced compared to other magic items and compare unfavorably to wands. There are a few exceptions that are more reasonably priced (and I would like more info on that custom staff thing from last page), but on the whole staffs aren't that useful.

[P.H. Dungeon]

We have a wizard in our group that makes pretty frequent use of his staff of fire. He doesn't really like to memorize combat spells like fireball, as he goes for stuff like haste, fly, and slow (i.e.. the really good 3rd level spells), but having the staff handy gives him access to that destructive magic if he needs to bust it out. The other good thing about staves is that they use your CL, which is great for higher level casters.

[Orfamay Quest]

RDM42 wrote:

Why are monsters particularly more fun to fight than intelligent opposition with class levels?

More variation. Remember that monsters can be intelligent, can have class levels, and can have all of their monster abilities as well. In fact, much of the time they don't even need class levels -- witness the demon, devil, and dragon I posted earlier.

[Atarlost]

Even if you only use player races removing the expected item suite severely distorts the game.

Armor is scaled primarily off of magic items. Attack is scaled primarily off of BAB and to a lesser degree class features. An item restricted game will be more lethal. Without appropriate magic items even enemy wizards will eventually be able to hit anyone who isn't a monk.

Save DCs scale too much faster than saving throws without cloaks of resistance. Your players will succumb to save or die and save or puppet spells far more frequently if you don't let them have appropriate cloaks of resistance.

Stat prerequisites for feats are set with the assumption of stat boosters.

[Kudaku]

I know there are references to custom staff pricing in one of the sorcerer guides, but I haven't seen a guide dedicated to staves. That'd be quite interesting reading, actually.

As near as I can tell the formula is: 400 gp × the level of the highest-level spell × the level of the caster, plus 75% of the value of the next most costly ability (300 gp × the level of the spell × the level of the caster), plus 1/2 the value of any other abilities (200 gp × the level of the spell × the level of the caster). Staves are always fully charged (10 charges) when created.

So let's say we're making a staff of fireball with no frills attached. Each fireball would cost one charge. The craft formula is as follows: 400 * 3 * 8 = 9600 GP. The staff would cost 19 200 GP in the store.

In comparison the craft price of a CL 8 wand of Fireball would be 375 * 3 * 8 = 9 000 GP. The wand would cost 18 000 GP in the store.

That seems odd... If the Fireball staff costs 19 200 the staff of fire is actually cheaper despite having the option to cast four spells instead of one? What am I missing here?

Edit edit: God, this is going through a lot of edits. I missed the charge division on the Staff of Fire.

[Nathanael Love]

I have a set of power staves I am waiting to get right before I unleash them. . . but I think runestaves are a step in the right direction for these.

A Wizards staff (singular) should be an iconic, powerful item. Not just another form of swappable wands and scrolls.

[The Beardinator]

Or you could homebrew other more creative ways to recharge staves. I wrote up a dragon staff that could only be recharged by absorbing the breath weapon of a Huge or larger dragon once a week. I wrote up a "zombie" staff that had a couple of weak undead related spells that could be recharged by stabbing the butt of the staff into immediately, recently deceased corpses, one charge per corpse, no exceptions. Something like that can add flavor and offer more challenging ways to use and recharge staves.

[Imbicatus]

One of the characters in the Dresden Files has a "Staff" that is a chain that can be worn as a belt. It stores electricity and can be recharged by plugging it into a wall outlet.

[Blakmane]

Anzyr wrote:

Anyway, generally speaking staffs are overpriced compared to other magic items and compare unfavorably to wands. There are a few exceptions that are more reasonably priced (and I would like more info on that custom staff thing from last page), but on the whole staffs aren't that useful.

Did you have a look at my post from last page? I think that basically sums up how to make staves actually affordable. The only other real piece of advice is to bite the bullet and make spells use at least 2 charges, which essentially halves the price.

Another example using kudaku's staff:

He wants a pure staff of fireball (1 charge): 3*8*400 = 9600 gold

You could build a staff of wall of fire (10 charges), elemental body 1 (10 charges) and fireball (1 charge) for 4*8*400/10 + 4*8*300/10 + 3*8*200 = 7040 gold. Even assuming you can't do the same-level trick you make quite a saving. That's cheaper than a CL 8th wand of fireball that would have a poor DC and not improve with level.

Of course, the biggest issue with staff crafting is that you don't get to use it until 11th level anyway, which makes it pretty much locked out for most of the theorycrafting we're doing here :(. I had thought wizard bonded object let you bypass the level restriction, but it doesn't.... which means we should really only be discussing high level staves anyway, unless someone can find a way around that.

Seems to me the issue with staves has nothing to do with their costing formula or general idea and everything to do with a) the stupidly high level requirement for crafting and b) the REALLY BADLY put together staves in the core book, full of bad charging and useless spells that bloat the price out.

[Mathius]

Others have mentioned it already but the problem with something like a staff, or any non-big 6, item is that the big 6 are needed. Casters do not need weapons but meta-magic rods and PoP pretty much fill the same niche for them.

There are other items that are bought often (bag or holding, boots of haste) there are many good and fun items that never see the light of day due to this.

I think the game should just wrap the big 6 into level advancement. I have seen threads that have a quick and easy way to do this and others that make it complicated but allow more flexibility.

Once you do this WBL is almost irrelevant. Also removes the we loot the bodies, oh look 10 more +1 longswords.

Might be fun to tell a story where a 15th level character can do just fine but can not afford to stay in the inn for the night.

In games I run I find the non-big six tends to run at 20 percent of the PCs total. I think that granting then 50 percent but no big 6 can be bought would be fine. We weapon and armor properties would be much of it.

[Mathius]

How do staff prices (using the formula) compare to other items of similar cost.

Wands of the same caster level are a pittance less expensive then a staff with just 1 spell in it. The extra you pay to use your feats and stat with the staff is clearly worth the difference it price. It is even better if you can your class features (bloodline, school) to the casting as well.

The real difference is the number of charges. How many campaigns are going to have 40 days of down time to compensate for the extra lost charges? This goes up if you want more spells. You can save money by putting more spells in a staff but not time since each wand has its own set of charges.

The staff like wand discovery costs 2 feats but makes wands far superior.

In a down time heavy game they would be worth it but most games I see are not, so in general a staff is not worth it. Allowing staff to be full recharged in one day would most likely solve this issue. I would make it an hour long ritual that uses up the highest level spell slot of the staff to add 1 charge. A 5th level caster with a day to spare could totally refill a staff with a first level spell in it.

[Oterisk]

I'm working on a wand and staff guide.

With the following conditions as staff is financially viable:

1. Enough downtime to recharge
2. Not needing the spell more than 5-10 times in a day (depending on 1 or two charges)
3. Enough time in the campaign to cast the spell 32 times (24, 16, for second and third spells on a staff, this number is divided by the number of charges.)

Benefits it affords:

1. Expanded spell slots per day
2. Ability to spam certain spells in a pinch
3. Scaling DC's with higher stats and feats
4. Scaling Caster Level for effects and beating SR
5. Expanded spell list for Spontaneous casters
6. Multiple spells in your hand = less move actions to pull out more items

The magic number 32 is calculated by checking CL equal scrolls. If you don't quite get to that many castings, you have to weigh the other benefits that the staff has over the scroll.

Wands of spells that don't really benefit from a higher CL are superior in price, and are useful for healing and a few buffing and battlefield control spells and spells without saves. Staff-like-wand is great, but you can't get it before level 13 if I remember correctly and few low level spells benefit from such a jump in CL unless you are trying to get by CR.

I think Staves are superior when compared to pearls of power especially after 3rd level when the price of a Pearl of Power become more than 50% of the cost of staves for a single spell, but at level 1 or 2, the pearls are superior for spells with which create scrolls or you can prepare.

[Tels]

Frankly, if you're a Wizard and you want a staff, take the Staff-Like Wand arcane discovery and just get minimum CL wands and go from there.

[Edit] Ninja'd. To clarify, yes, you can't get Staff-Like Wand before 13th level as Craft Staff is a pre-req which itself has a pre-req of 11th level caster.

If you had some CL boosting items or abilities (like an ioun stone) you might be able to pull it off sooner if you cans wing your GM on it, but, in general, it's not possible.

[Kudaku]

Tels wrote:

Frankly, if you're a Wizard and you want a staff, take the Staff-Like Wand arcane discovery and just get minimum CL wands and go from there.

[Edit] Ninja'd. To clarify, yes, you can't get Staff-Like Wand before 13th level as Craft Staff is a pre-req which itself has a pre-req of 11th level caster.

If you had some CL boosting items or abilities (like an ioun stone) you might be able to pull it off sooner if you cans wing your GM on it, but, in general, it's not possible.

I'm not 100% sure about this, but it seems reasonable to be able to retrain a feat into an arcane discovery. If your GM OKs that you'd be able to pick up Staff-like Wand at level 11.

[Tels]

Kudaku wrote:

Tels wrote:

Frankly, if you're a Wizard and you want a staff, take the Staff-Like Wand arcane discovery and just get minimum CL wands and go from there.

[Edit] Ninja'd. To clarify, yes, you can't get Staff-Like Wand before 13th level as Craft Staff is a pre-req which itself has a pre-req of 11th level caster.

If you had some CL boosting items or abilities (like an ioun stone) you might be able to pull it off sooner if you cans wing your GM on it, but, in general, it's not possible.

I'm not 100% sure about this, but it seems reasonable to be able to retrain a feat into an arcane discovery. If your GM OKs that you'd be able to pick up Staff-like Wand at level 11.

Yeah, that's like with the Ioun Stone boosting CL thing. Some GMs are okay with retraining (or even leaving feat slots open), some aren't. In PFS, it's totally viable to do, but some GMs in home games like to think of feats as permanent things.

[Cevah]

Summarizing...

Staff benefits:
1) A *charged* Staff lets you cast more spells / day.
2) A Staff can kind of give spontaneous casters more spells known.
3) A prepared caster can divide his spell allocation. As an example, a wizard can rely on his staff for Evocation magic and prepare non-Evocation magic himself for more versatility.
4) Sometimes, Staves come with nifty abilities, like the Staff of the Master, but most don't.
5) No ASF. For my Ninja/Witch, I wear armor and have ASF to deal with. A staff gets past that.
6) Worth adding is that staves are amazing in PFS since unlimited downtime comes at the end of every scenario, and your staff gets fully recharged.
7) Improve SL for multiclassing characters.

Staff downsides:
A) Charging isn't very efficient. An empty Staff of Charming would consume the wizard's 4th level spell to regain a single cast of one specific 1st level spell.
B) They're pretty expensive. 800 gp x spell level x caster level means it's almost always more expensive than one pearl of power at the same spell level.
C) It takes up a hand.

/cevah

[Blakmane]

Wands are NOT cheaper than staves from 3rd level spells and up even with staff-like wand as long as you are willing to have the spell cost 2 charges IE 5 uses per 'adventure'. Let's look at the breakdown for crafting, not even using the 10 charges maths trick so save some money:

Level 1 wand:375 GP
Level 2 wand:2250 gp
Level 3 wand:5625 gp
Level 4 wand:10500 gp

Level 1 staff: 1600 GP
Level 2 staff: 3200 GP
Level 3 staff: 4800 GP
Level 4 staff: 6400 GP
Level 5 staff: 9000 GP (still cheaper than a 4th level wand)

The min CL: 8 makes low level spells drastically more expensive to put in a staff. you should never put spells below 3rd level into a staff and ideally not even below 5th. Putting a bunch of low level spells into the staves is the second biggest mistake of the core staves, second only to poor charging decisions.

Also, you should use the 10 charges trick if you plan on putting more than one 'useful' spell into a staff.

*edit*

I won't copy more numbers here, but staves become cheaper than pearls of power from 4th level onwards as well (staff 6400 GP, Pearl 8000 GP). Pearls have other advantages though (size, no recharge, any spell you have memorised)