So I'm about to start a campaign that my party knows (in character) will take place entirely underground, perpetual darkness, most creatures will be evil (neutral at best), and will take place over MONTHS. We are also expecting to need ways to revive dead members.
I'm planning on taking a Cleric with Support/Archery build as our front line is already pretty full with a melee Inquisitor+Animal Companion, and a Beat-face Nonlethal-Rogue. We have one more player unsure of his class but is leaning towards Paladin (fighting style undecided). I figure a back-line support/archer with access to the high level heals and spells like Breath of Life and Raise Dead would be very handy.
Thing is it's looking like we are not going to have a Sorcerer/Wizard type character ready to cast any utility/situational spells we might need in a pinch (Like Teleport, etc).
I looked into buying Staves with the wanted spells and using UMD to activate them but it's EXPENSIVE as they are all on different staves with spells I DON'T need. Would it be worth using a feat to take Craft Staff and making my own one or two staves with a bunch of these spells (plus a cleric spell to make sure I can recharge them)?
Alternatively, I could maybe play an Arcane Archer build and UMD the high-level cleric spells to save dying allies on the Staff?
It could be worth it, if the GM allows you to. General rule is that staves aren't just a grab bag of spells.
Have you considered crafting the staff, then retraining the feat to something more useful afterward?
Val'bryn2 wrote: It could be worth it, if the GM allows you to. General rule is that staves aren't just a grab bag of spells. Key things to remember: - If you want an item that isn't in the books, you are looking at creating a custom magic item (or CMI).
- Custom Magic Items exist ONLY if the GM wants them to.
- Generally speaking, GMs are more likely to reject a proposed CMI than approve it for a variety of reasons (safer/easier to keep to published items only, difficulty judging a CMI's impact, or just having the feeling that the players are trying to pull a 'fast one'). Obviously, this will vary greatly by GM.
- As Val noted, a Staff is generally supposed to have a theme. If you are looking for a 'Staff of Four Wizard Spells I Want, Plus A Cleric Spell So I Can Recharge It' you should ready yourself for disappointment (the Staff of Power is a bit of an exception to this rule, but that dates back to the earliest versions of this game).
So, you might want run your specific ideas past your GM before making any plans.
Trying to introduce brand spanking new custom made items into a campaign is really a bad idea. Also horribly expensive.
A much cheaper alternative would be to pick up the Leadership feat at 7th level. Even with a low charisma you'll get a cohort that gains xp when you do. Even if they start 4 levels behind you they will quickly get to their max of 2 below you.
While the cohort won't have the top tier spells you could be casting, do they really need to? If nothing else, you could buy an item that they can use. Also that cohort can sink feats into crafting items if you want.
Equipping your cohort to survive the encounters you're party is on will be expensive, but way cheaper than buying powerful staffs and a lot more versatile.
So the main question is, do you think you can level to 7 before you have an arcane caster around?
It might also be possible to get the required wizard spells via domains. Travel has teleport, for example. What do you reckon you need exactly?
Have you considered a witch? Pick the right patron (and archetype if it suits you) and you’ll have a mix of healing/support magic and arcane utility magic. Ok so your healing magic won’t be on par with a cleric and your utility options will not be as wide as a wizard but you get a mix of the two plus hexes and the witch’s considerable debuff power.
I second the Leadership suggestion. A witch with a witchguard (ranger archetype) cohort make a nice thematic combination and would provide your party with healing, support, battlefield control, summoning, debuffing and ranged attacks. If you’re set on the cleric your cohort could be a sorcerer or wizard thus covering arcane utility spells. It’s certainly more interesting than a staff.
Keep in mind that as a cleric you get the summon monster and planar ally spells so you might find some of your utility options are covered. Avr makes a good point, domain choice could be enough to get what you want; for example the darkness domain will net you the flexible shadow conjunction spells and the useful shadow walk spell.
Okay so I've actually gamed out a Spell Sage Wizard that with access to Bard, Druid, and Cleric spells and can cast the spells like Raise Dead and Heal and craft a staff with Breath of Life and Teleport (two spells that I want to be able to cast on moments notice should they be needed. I'll use UMD to cast the BoL spell should it come up. With Spell Sage it's also something I could craft myself, no issue.
Craft Staff also gives the build access to Staff-like Wand which makes some otherwise poor wands very useful (Barkskin and Shield of Faith for example).
As far as what my GM allows, he is of the opinion that the published staves are themed as more what is marketable in the world but really none are very good. To get a custom one you must make it yourself or commission a crafter to make it for you.
Also, no GM I've ever played with was willing to deal with the hassle of the Leadership feat and as an occasional GM I don't blame them.
If your allowed to cheese the craft rules to reduce costs, yes it would be worth it. Otherwise just grab some scrolls.
Leadership gets a lot easier if you remember that as an NPC, the GM gets to decide what they have... and it's okay to have a minion who stays at your base and takes care of things like crafting. XD
That said, are you sure you want to craft a staff for spells like that? If you want them to be an emergency backup, it might be more effective to buy a pair of Wrist Sheaths (1 GP each) and get scrolls of them. That ensures you can get them as a move action at pretty much any time. Of course, if your game is such that you expect to be using spells like that often, the staff may be a good choice. XD Overall, though, staves are best for spells you plan to use on a frequent basis. There are cheaper and similarly-effective options for spells you want to have available but wouldn't use quite as often.
It's "a several month campaign into the Underdark" my GM said the PCs know ahead of time. Also stated, this module in known for killing characters a lot.
The staff with Breath of Life is what I'm hoping to be able to use immediately if one of my party actually dies. At level 13 we have a Paladin and an Inquisitor for general healing but I don't think either of them is capable of bringing a PC back to life (the Paladin can save his or the Inquisitor's companions with Raise Animal Companion). I have a scroll of Raise Dead that as a Spell Sage I could save a little money on and scribe more if needed but the material cost obviously made it pricey (I have it as a scroll in case I am the one that dies and the Rogue can UMD the scroll). Also they bestow permanent negative levels that would take two Restorations over 2 weeks or a Greater Restoration which all told would cost 7k-10k in materials. The cost for Breath of Life on the staff was 9k before adding on 2 more spells (all of which are 5th level at CL 9 and require 2 charges). This may seem like it's not that great of a deal but BoL can be used simply as a massive cure if someone is simply getting low and Paladin or Inquisitor are unable to make the heal/run out.
As far as drawing the staff I will either always be holding it or will simply draw it from my Efficient Quiver (which says "the quiver can quickly produce any item she wishes that is within the quiver, as if from a regular quiver or scabbard").
Also, I don't see custom staves as cheesing the craft rules. I'm not making up a whole new wondrous item (which there are guidelines for). In fact I see this staff as still fairly well themed with my wizard who is kind or Mystic Theurge-ish (with a definite favor of the arcane but a dabbling and understanding of at least the principles and mechanics of bards, clerics, and druids.)
Crap, now I'm thinking about a Mystic Theurge build that will seem less cheesy. Just in case my GM finds the build a hard pill to swallow, even with his leniency on crafting staves.
Eh, as long as the spell selection is reasonable, staves are one of the least-cheesy items you could make. Wands are the least cheesy of all, I think, but anything that's a spell-in-a-can like that is fairly straightforward. XD
As spell trigger items, I don't think you can craft a staff without access to all the spells you're putting in it. So you'd need some legit way to cast the spells in the first place before you can even try to UMD them out of a staff.
You may want to point your paladin at the Ultimate Mercy feat. Burn a bunch of lay on hands and get a free raise dead. Can't link right now but I believe it was in ultimate magic.
Right here.
Quote: Ultimate Mercy
Prerequisites: Cha 19, Greater Mercy, lay on hands, mercy class feature.
Benefit: You can expend 10 uses of lay on hands to bring a single dead creature you touch back to life as a raise dead spell with a caster level equal to your paladin level. You must provide the material component for raise dead or choose to accept 1 temporary negative level; this level automatically goes away after 24 hours, never becomes a permanent negative level, and cannot be overcome in any way except by waiting for the duration to expire.
I would be somewhat surprised at a GM allowing a custom staff to only be crafted by a PC with the feat. In other words, if a GM is willing to approve staff of X, Y and Z I would expect it to be approved for every character that can craft staves, not just PC characters that can craft staves. So I would expect the feat to save gold, not create additional options. You obviously should clarify this with your GM first.
Personally, I think the spell sage is a mistake. Either a traditional cleric or wizard can actually handle most of the problems you are looking at (sure, you might need some UMD to cover a few missing spots, but consumables can probably hand that. I'd be looking strongly at an evangelist cleric for your party (skip the archery.) I'd be thinking pretty strongly about making my casting focus be summon monsters for battlefield control and as a method of damage prevention. Getting standard action summons would mean that at level 8 you could inspire courage as a move and cast a summons to block enemy charge lanes, provide flanking or at least give the bad guys other targets to swing at.
I think you are so focused on being prepared for when things go wrong (which isn't in and of itself a bad thing) that you are neglecting to build a character that can effectively keep things from going wrong in the first place. Having a character that can cast breath of life several times a day is cool, but if the cost of that is that your character will NEED to cast breath of life several times a day, because your party is ineffective at defeating their opponents it isn't so great.
It's not that only PCs can make custom staves but they must be made or specifically commissioned from an NPC (or NPCs if it'll take 2+ classes to make all the spells). Like my friend asking for a pineapple and anchovies on her pizza slices (BLAGH). It's not that the combo CAN'T be done, but rather that it's not within the general norm of what people are looking for that it must be requested and cooked instead of being ready to go when she walks in off the street like you would find a pepperoni/veggie slice.
As far as Spell Sage not being worth it, the more I build and look at it the more I dislike losing both my familiar and my school specialization (even if the benefits are kinda cool). I see the point of tunneling too much on saving a life after the fact rather than just being the guy that makes sure it never happens. I still had all those summon monster spells, haste, etc but I just don't have enough spell slots even with +8 INT.
I may also suggest the blossoming light cleric? Seems made for this game.
Channel focused, so you could get things like bless equipment feats or quicken channel feats and really keep them from death, negating a rez
If you want to roll a wizard and you really are going to depend on the inquisitor and paladin to heal during combat then you could make sure you take Blood Money (1st level spell), and Limited Wish. In exchange for taking 3 points of strength damage you can limited wish a 5th level cleric spell as long as it isn't from an opposition school. If you need to raise the dead you could take 8 strength damage to cast raise dead for free. Considering that others can cast lesser restoration for free you'd recover in a few days.
Also wish and limited wish are like the biggest utility spells ever. Blood Money makes them cheap to access as long as you don't make strength a dump stat.
You see there's a funny thing about how I build my wizards when it comes to STR since my group always does point buy... It's always 7.
But maybe I'll change that around for once.
*Coughs*
Blood Money is a rare, special spell that's not supposed to be widely available in the world. It's basically a unique reward for completing a certain adventure, and taking it like it's just any other spell really isn't balanced. It may only be first level, but it's basically an endgame reward, meant to be obtained by very high-level characters.
Thanks for the info on that Rednal I'll run it's allowance by my GM as we are 13th level.
That said, IF I use Blood Money for a Limited Wish->Raise Dead I need to provide one of the two diamonds ahead of time since Blood Money only let's you make a single material component. Say I choose to make the 5k diamond for Raise Dead with Blood Money that's (by my understanding of the spell) 11 points of Strength. Putting 12 STR into my build is quite a lot for just this one trick. If I cast Bull's Strength when I have say a STR of 10 to temporarily buff myself to 14 with I remain conscious after taking 11 STR damage or does the temporary nature of the Bull's Strength not save me?
GM Rednal wrote: Leadership gets a lot easier if you remember that as an NPC, the GM gets to decide what they have... and it's okay to have a minion who stays at your base and takes care of things like crafting. XD Cohorts that don't adventure with you don't advance.
@Hydra:
Get the First-aid Gloves for the emergency Breath of Life. It needs Craft Wondrous, which is one of the best craft feats.
The Staff of Travel lets you teleport for 2 charges. Getting a skill of +19 on UMD is not that hard. At level 14, I have +26. By the time Teleport is usually available, you are 9th level. Nine ranks, the Circlet of Persuasion, Class skill, and no stat mod gets you 15. Add in a Four Leaf Clover for another +2. Now you need a 3 or better to get it. If your domain includes Teleport, you don't need to make the UMD. If you dip in a class with it, you don't need UMD. The hard part is recharging the staff.
Simplest fix to modding the staff so you can recharge is to add Breath of Life to the spells on the staff. Going from the base staff, and adding Breath Of Life for two charges, ups the price from 54,400 to 62,500.
/cevah
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