I have spotted something a little worrying about the staff Magus.
Look at the 2 primary abilities you get from the archetype.
Quarterstaff Defense (Ex): At 7th level, while wielding a quarterstaff, the staff magus gains a shield bonus to his Armor Class equal to the enhancement bonus of the quarterstaff, including any enhancement bonus on that staff from his arcane pool class feature. At 13th level, this bonus increases by +3. This ability replaces the medium armor and heavy armor class abilities.
Staff Weapon (Su): At 10th level, a staff magus treats any magical staff he is wielding as a magical quarterstaff with an enhancement bonus to attack and damage equal to the staff's caster level divided by 4 (minimum +1). The staff must have at least 1 charge for the magus to use this ability. A staff magus can restore 1 charge to a staff by expending a number of points from his arcane pool equal to the level of the highest-level spell cast in the staff, as long as at least one spell in the staff is on the magus spell list. The magus cannot restore charges to more than one staff per day. This ability replaces fighter training.
Ok, simple enough. You get an enhancement bonus and a shield bonus for any staff you hold.
However, what happens when you either make a staff, or make a special order for one?
Item creation cost for the first spell put into a staff is 400gp x spell level x caster level.
Lets say your level is 13. You have the Create Staff feat.
The staff you want to make has only 1 spell in it of first level (shocking hands for example. You also choose to create the staff at a caster level of 12.
400x1x12=4,800 gp for a staff you can wield as a +3 quarterstaff, +6 shield bonus item.
Is this correct? Also, the cost could be reduced by even more by having the shocking hands cost more charges.
Lets also look at what happens if you get a level 20 caster to make you that item, at their full caster level.
400x1x20=8,000gp x2 probable selling price, so say 16,000gp.
That makes a staff you can wield as a +5 quarterstaff, +8 shield bonus item.
Again, am I reading the rules correctly?
You are correct. Note that you don't need a 20th level caster to create a staff with a caster level of 20. When you craft the staff you can just add 5 to the DC to raise the caster level to 20.
Yup.
Staff Magus get cheap weapons and solid defenses. This makes up for the fact that they are offensively terrible.
Why terrible?
Generally the use of High crit weapons makes magi dangerous. Staff magi get inexpensive weapons and a shield bonus.
I Think it is ok.
I thought that was correct. Just seemed a little silly.
Thank you for the input.
Of course item creation is always best kept under the watchful eye of a GM.
Just because RAW an item could be made doesn't mean it should be allowed.
that happend in my group once. the gm sent a rogue to dirty trick and then disarm the staff. turn over to magus and umd the only spell in it a his face..he didn't like it.
Yes item creation is broken. Dhu. Staff Magus is actually terrible with by the book staffs. So terrible that even broken item creation just makes him meh.