Have Staves Recharge Rules Ever Changed?

[BuncyTheFrog]

Hi all, question for the archivists in the crowd.

I'm in a game with a player who has been treating staves as if they use different rules than the normal staff recharge rules.

For reference:

PRD wrote:

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.

His understanding was:

Quote:

I have played Pathfinder for years and it was always, one charge per day per staff if you had one of its spells to give up. At least that was what was understood between multiple DMs and myself.

So the major differences are that you can charge multiple staves, and you can charge them using the lowest-level spell on the staff.

I've looked at D&D 3.5 through to 5th, and they don't use something like these rules either.

So!

Have the rules around recharging staves ever changed from something like my friend has mentioned to the current form, or have they always been that way?

[Haladir]

It's always been that way for PFRPG.

D&D 3.5 and 3.0 did not have specific rules for recharging staves. They were just big wands that held multiple spell effects and could hold spells over 4th level. Like wands, they had 50 charges when created. A few staves had specific spell absorbtion rules that could recharge them.

True 20 rules for magic item creation are much more free-form, similar to rules-light systems such as Fate.

AD&D (1e & 2e) rules for staff recharging varied by the staff type; some were rechargabe and some were not.

The only possible other case might be the open-playtest beta version of the PFRPG rules from 2009. I never played with those rules, and honestly don't know if it worked the way your player describes.

My best guess is that he's thinking of a home rule or another GM's misunderstanding of the rules.

[GinoA]

The oldest Core Rulebook I've got handy is second printing. It has the same text as the current PRD.

Just scrounged up some 2nd edition AD&D rules. Recharging was more complicated and involved specific enchant an item spell.

1st appears to require casting the specific spell being put into the staff and has additional material costs.

[Ckorik]

BuncyTheFrog wrote:

His understanding was:

Quote:

I have played Pathfinder for years and it was always, one charge per day per staff if you had one of its spells to give up. At least that was what was understood between multiple DMs and myself.

So the major differences are that you can charge multiple staves, and you can charge them using the lowest-level spell on the staff.

I've looked at D&D 3.5 through to 5th, and they don't use something like these rules either.

So!

Have the rules around recharging staves ever changed from something like my friend has mentioned to the current form, or have they always been that way?

Hello! What you are seeing here is actually a not uncommon mistake - as other staff threads show that many people miss the second half of the recharge rules. There is an item that you can purchase (assuming your GM allows it) that allows you to recharge *2* charges per day, although I can't remember the name of the item atm.

As you are interested in the history of recharging here is a post from one of the (eventual) Pathfinder Devs talking about recharging before it was ever part of the 3E rules.

http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/misc/rechargingitems.html

[Belafon]

Ckorik wrote:

There is an item that you can purchase (assuming your GM allows it) that allows you to recharge *2* charges per day, although I can't remember the name of the item atm.

It's called (appropriately enough) an Arcane Battery and also turns the max charges up to 11. It's from Magical Marketplace and is quite expensive.

There are various other ways to recharge faster or use less charges. For example a Staff Magus at 10th level can spend arcane pool points to add as many charges to a staff as he wants. (Provided he has enough arcane pool points, and he can only do it to one staff a day.)

I suspect your player has fallen victim to the classic "we've always done it that way" phenomenon. When you learn a game (or part of a game) from other people and there aren't any glaring issues, you tend to accept their explanations. Not that they are changing things on purpose, they often misunderstand the rules or learned it from someone else who used something that wasn't in the rulebook. When I play Rook (the card game) with my wife's family I've given up on trying to use the rules from the rulebook. They all learned to play a certain way playing with her grandmother, and she learned playing with others in her small mountain town who all used the same rules. Which don't entirely match up with the "official" rules.

[Magic Square]

I think Ckorik has it right. House rules, misremembered rules, and misinterpretations all combine this way.

I let my players recharge their staves everytime they land on Free Parking.

[Goth Guru]

Magic Square wrote:

I think Ckorik has it right. House rules, misremembered rules, and misinterpretations all combine this way.

I let my players recharge their staves everytime they land on Free Parking.

I once tried to base a dungeon level on the monopoly board. Never finished putting it together. How about a crater from a magic explosion recharges each such item one charge overnight if you make camp there.

[Garbage-Tier Waifu]

Surprisingly, I had also learned about the lower-level thing from somewhere and assumed that was how that worked. How strange!