Why does anyone want a magic staff?


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a staff that has a small number of spells is really sweet. 15k gold staff of charming is 5 extra charm monsters per day.. thats a lot of charm monster.


True enough. I'm personally in favor of letting people designing their own staves as they please, even with just one or two spells in them considering how expensive they are, even when you cheese them out as hard as you can.


Burnscar wrote:

Do note that the staves use your spell slots to recharge. So if you have days of downtime between adventuring days, they're great!

If you have multiple days with fights in a row? Eh, not so much.

Except that its fairly rare, especially at high levels with staves in play, for casters to use all their spells, and it can be charged with a lower level spell that's still on the staff.

edit: especially a sorc/arcanist, because they arent dependant on having the proper spell slot available


The spell slot has to be one prepared spell or spell slot of a level equal to the highest-level spell cast by the staff, so only a staff of low level spells is going to be painless to recharge. Not that it matters, since recharging while adventuring is giving up a spell for a spell...so it's only going to matter if you don't end up needing that spell.

Recharging a staff is always a gamble, unless the GM goes out of his way to tell you "nothing happens for X days".


Generally? Downtime and travel. XD And honestly, by mid levels, one spell slot really isn't a big loss for a caster.


Thought of a useful one for wizards. Something with animate objects and a wizard spell. Then they can use it to permanently animate something.


In addition to using the oft-mentioned Caster Level of the staff or the caster (whichever is higher), staves also apply feats from the caster that further up the spell's DC, so Spell Focus or similar feats can increase the reliability and power in comparison to scrolls or wands.

While this doesn't seem to apply to Spell Penetration for bypassing DR (though using the stave's or your CL is probably always going to be better than a scroll or wand's anyway), and whether certain abilities apply that aren't strictly feats (such a Gnomes +1 to Illusion DCs) might be in question, the DC increase for Feats is still a definite point in Staves' favor over the other items.


I feel many Staves have things that are not useful. Like +2/+3 or other abilities that might make the price higher but virtually useless.

Liberty's Edge

Letric wrote:
I feel many Staves have things that are not useful. Like +2/+3 or other abilities that might make the price higher but virtually useless.

Actually, staves with enhancement bonuses are VERY useful to some builds... e.g. Staff Magus.

Silver Crusade

CBDunkerson wrote:
Letric wrote:
I feel many Staves have things that are not useful. Like +2/+3 or other abilities that might make the price higher but virtually useless.
Actually, staves with enhancement bonuses are VERY useful to some builds... e.g. Staff Magus.

They make those?


Yes. "A typical staff also functions as a walking stick, quarterstaff, or cudgel", and can be enchanted as such.

Silver Crusade

Rednal wrote:
Yes. "A typical staff also functions as a walking stick, quarterstaff, or cudgel", and can be enchanted as such.

Ooo, Thankies.


My character is planning on a

+2 (Spell storing)/+2 (Training: TWF) Staff with a variety of spells and Command Word Features...


Jason Wedel wrote:

My character is planning on a

+2 (Spell storing)/+2 (Training: TWF) Staff with a variety of spells and Command Word Features...

basic magic item crafting wisdom says to keep the spells in a school and/or themed so you can get a similar abilities discount. Usable by your class only is another easy choice.


Is a TWF Eldritch Knight viable in any sense?

If not just two hand it I guess.


Azothath wrote:
Jason Wedel wrote:

My character is planning on a

+2 (Spell storing)/+2 (Training: TWF) Staff with a variety of spells and Command Word Features...

basic magic item crafting wisdom says to keep the spells in a school and/or themed so you can get a similar abilities discount. Usable by your class only is another easy choice.

I am going to try to convince my GM to allow a variation of class only (Devout follower of Nethys, represented mechanically by Divine Casting or Deific Obedience)


Some Pro's for Staves:
1) Spells cast from a Stave let you use a high CL and DC. By preparing spells that are not covered by the Stave, Staves give a wider variety of potent spells per day available for prepared casters.

2) For spontaneous casters, a Stave also gives more variety of spells per day, but it competes with Page of Spell Knowledge. The advantage to Staves, though, is that the stave has multiple different kinds of spells vs the Page only has one. If a spontaneous caster relying on Pages needs a specific spell, they would need to spend an action to get the right Page into her hand, whereas the Stave replicates multiple Pages so less actions to shuffle items are necessary.

3) Staves also conserve spell slots by using charges. A fully charged Staff of Frost lets you cast 5 extra at-level DC and CL Walls of Ice for ~40k whereas 5 level-4 pearls of power cost 80k (and 5 level-4 runestones of power cost 160k!!). With most Core Staves, one charge is worth multiple spell slots, so recharging every day can be more draining than it's worth. But some campaigns have a lot of downtime between encounters. These campaigns are where Staves can really shine.

Sovereign Court

Cydeth wrote:

I don't like all of the staves in the Core Rules, because they're all too late in coming. I far rather like the ones that appeared in the Beginner Box. For instance, the Staff of Scorching.

4,500 gp for a CL 5 staff that has three spells. Fireball (3 charges), Scorching Ray (2 charges), or Burning Hands (1 charge) seems awesome to me, if I want to play a wizard who prepares utility spells, and has this as a backup for pure firepower.

Same cost, Staff of Curing has Cure Serious Wounds (3 charges), Cure Moderate Wounds (2 charges), and Cure Light Wounds (1 charge).

So my take is that most of the current staves are useless because they come online too late. Build your own custom staff with spells you want either infrequently but just often enough to have on-hand, or for your combat spells in bursts? Seems like a decent idea to me. But that's just my opinion.

Very interesting pricing options Cydeth... I'm trying to find those online somewhere but search fu is failing... Is there any way to see these low level staves other than buy the Beginner's Box? Thanks!


Minimum CL is 8

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Purple Dragon Knight wrote:
Very interesting pricing options Cydeth... I'm trying to find those online somewhere but search fu is failing... Is there any way to see these low level staves other than buy the Beginner's Box? Thanks!

I'll list the prices and spells/charges in each of the books. Since it doesn' seem to be open content, they aren't online, unfortunately, which really annoys me. Also, transcribing from my hardcopy, so bear with me. But I did the math, and technically they're all accurate for regular gameplay. All of them are caster level 5, I'll point out, since the Beginner Box only goes up to level 5.

Staff of Curing, 4,500 gp: Cure Light Wounds (1 charge), Cure Moderate Wounds (2 charges), and Cure Serious Wounds (3 charges).

Staff of Guarding, 5,500 gp: Protection from Evil (1 charge), Remove Fear (1 charge), Shield of Faith (1 charge), and Invisibility Purge (3 charges).

Staff of Scorching, 4,500 gp: Burning Hands (1 charge), Scorching Ray (2 charges), and Fireball (3 charges).

Staff of Swampy Dread, 6,000 gp: Cause Fear (1 charge), Vampiric Touch (2 charges), Web (2 charges), and Stinking Cloud (3 charges).

What I really like is that all of these, between them, give a good set of low-level options for different characters. And if you want to change things up, you could, for instance, take the Staff of Guarding and swap out the spells in it for, say, Protection from Evil, Mage Armor, Shield, and Displacement, let's say, without changing the price to get a decent defensive arcane staff. Most of these can have the spells changed to another of the same level without changing the price, though expensive material components change that dramatically.

Hope it helps, though.


These really feel like nice staves.
I wish by the main rules we could have them.
I find it really weird that the minimum CL for staves is 8, but the minimum CL to even make one is 11, always seemed very weird to me.
I've always thought that wands and staves should have the same requirements, CL wise, with their rules being what makes them different.

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Blindmage wrote:

These really feel like nice staves.

I wish by the main rules we could have them.
I find it really weird that the minimum CL for staves is 8, but the minimum CL to even make one is 11, always seemed very weird to me.
I've always thought that wands and staves should have the same requirements, CL wise, with their rules being what makes them different.

You know, I'd completely forgotten that the minimum caster level on staves was 8. I think that's just a rule I'm going to end up ignoring. Ah, well. *shrugs*


Staves benefit from feats like Spell Focus or Spell Penetration.

Do they also benefit from class abilities for example: Orc bloodline +1 per die of Damage, Versatile Evocation or Intense Spells from the Admixture Evoker School?

Or Racial Abilities: Elf +2 vs SR?

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WabbitHuntr wrote:

Staves benefit from feats like Spell Focus or Spell Penetration.

Do they also benefit from class abilities for example: Orc bloodline +1 per die of Damage, Versatile Evocation or Intense Spells from the Admixture Evoker School?

Or Racial Abilities: Elf +2 vs SR?

Quoting the Core Rules:

Core Rulebook wrote:

Using Staves: Staves use the wielder’s ability score and relevant feats to set the DC for saves against their spells. Unlike with other sorts of magic items, the wielder can use his caster level when activating the power of a staff if it’s higher than the caster level of the staff.

This means that staves are far more potent in the hands of a powerful spellcaster. Because they use the wielder’s ability score to set the save DC for the spell, spells from a staff are often harder to resist than those from other magic items, which use the minimum ability score required to cast the spell. Not only are aspects of the spell dependent on caster level (range, duration, and so on) potentially higher, but spells from a staff are also harder to dispel and have a better chance of overcoming a target’s spell resistance.

I don't see anything about other abilities, so I doubt that any of those would work for you.

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I just went back through the math I did on the staves before, and now I'm annoyed. I was wrong, apparently whoever wrote up the staves in the Beginner Box did the math for all of the staves...and then they forgot to double it. Those are the crafting costs for the staves. I just did the math three times, and I'm very annoyed. >_<

And worse, they got the prices right for every other item I checked in the book. That's just frustrating.


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...Given the lower levels and such of the Beginner Box, is it possible they did that on purpose to make them more accessible in the game?

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Rednal wrote:
...Given the lower levels and such of the Beginner Box, is it possible they did that on purpose to make them more accessible in the game?

It's entirely possible, but in the case of wands, for instance, they did that by reducing them to 10 charge items, and dividing the price by 5 (150 gold for a 10 charge wand of cure light wounds). And only doing it for staves, without stating that prices would be higher in the Core Rules?

My guess is that since unlike all the other items they didn't have staves of the proper price level to work with, they went through the math in the Magic Item Creation section of the core rules to create new items and forgot to double it, since they are used so rarely.


voideternal wrote:

Some Pro's for Staves:

2) For spontaneous casters, a Stave also gives more variety of spells per day, but it competes with Page of Spell Knowledge. The advantage to Staves, though, is that the stave has multiple different kinds of spells vs the Page only has one. If a spontaneous caster relying on Pages needs a specific spell, they would need to spend an action to get the right Page into her hand, whereas the Stave replicates multiple Pages so less actions to shuffle items are necessary.

This isn't true. A page of spell knowledge is usable by "the bearer." You just have to have it on your person, not in your hand. You can put a bound folio of dozens of them (money permitting) in a hip pocket and you're good to go.


Cydeth wrote:
Purple Dragon Knight wrote:
Very interesting pricing options Cydeth... I'm trying to find those online somewhere but search fu is failing... Is there any way to see these low level staves other than buy the Beginner's Box? Thanks!

I'll list the prices and spells/charges in each of the books. Since it doesn' seem to be open content, they aren't online, unfortunately, which really annoys me. Also, transcribing from my hardcopy, so bear with me. But I did the math, and technically they're all accurate for regular gameplay. All of them are caster level 5, I'll point out, since the Beginner Box only goes up to level 5.

Staff of Curing, 4,500 gp: Cure Light Wounds (1 charge), Cure Moderate Wounds (2 charges), and Cure Serious Wounds (3 charges).

Staff of Guarding, 5,500 gp: Protection from Evil (1 charge), Remove Fear (1 charge), Shield of Faith (1 charge), and Invisibility Purge (3 charges).

Staff of Scorching, 4,500 gp: Burning Hands (1 charge), Scorching Ray (2 charges), and Fireball (3 charges).

Staff of Swampy Dread, 6,000 gp: Cause Fear (1 charge), Vampiric Touch (2 charges), Web (2 charges), and Stinking Cloud (3 charges).

What I really like is that all of these, between them, give a good set of low-level options for different characters. And if you want to change things up, you could, for instance, take the Staff of Guarding and swap out the spells in it for, say, Protection from Evil, Mage Armor, Shield, and Displacement, let's say, without changing the price to get a decent defensive arcane staff. Most of these can have the spells changed to another of the same level without changing the price, though expensive material components change that dramatically.

Hope it helps, though.

I like that a lot better than the way it's actually done. The cost of the above under the current rules makes using them (and especially making or buying them) really unattractive.

For example, your Staff of Curing would cost 7200 gp under the current rules (14,400 market price). The current rules also encourages the following:

Staff of Curing, price: 12,960 gp (cost: 6,480 gp): Fireball (10 charges), Lightning Bolt (10 charges), Cure Light Wounds (1 charge), Cure Moderate Wounds (2 charges), and Cure Serious Wounds (3 charges).

Indeed, the cost of staves would be more palatable if they were reduced by half (hint, errata, hint).

Thinking more on the subject, I wouldn't mind a 10-charge rechargeable wand that followed a pseudo-staff creation rules (also half-cost).


Regarding the 10 rechargeable wand, how would that be different than a staff with one power?

For that matter for x2 the cost you could make a wand that does exactly that without needing to be recharged (charges per day 10, divide by (5/10=1/2)) It is marginally cheaper than the staff admiringly (1500 to 1600 per spell level


@Jason: Save DCs and Caster Level.


About the advantage of a Staff for a spontaneous caster, remember they still need to know at least one of the spells on the staff to recharge it.

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I fully agree that staves, as they are, are overpriced. They're still a heck of a lot better than in 3.5, though. I hate items that don't have a recharge mechanism.

Sovereign Court

Thanks for the info Cydeth. I'm gonna assume they're correctly priced... :P


I haven't attempted to verify or cross reference published figures. I think I'd rely on core data first and GMs will have to reconcile inconsistencies.
Generally the probability of a variance increases with the "cool" factor in the descriptive text. Editors and proofreaders always miss something.

There is a play balance concern that as charges get below 25% on changed items that prorating the cost allows early access without the barrier of price created by a fully charged item. Essentially you allow access to cheaper than scroll items (wands with 1 charge) with superior action economy. Implementing a price increase is a matter of taste. IMO Prorating the cost is fine if it is self crafted (user has the Craft Wand feat).
With Staves, the real power is in the usage not in it's current charges (as staves are rechargeable). So I'd split the book price at 66-75%(staff) to 34-25%(charges).

Staves being on the expensive side has been around for 30 years...

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