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I've been playing around with using Wizard Dedication to make 'Eldritch Knight' builds and 'Arcane Trickster' builds, and I just noticed this fact about Magical Staves.
Staves are also staff weapons (page 280), included in their Price. They can be etched with runes as normal for a staff. This doesn’t alter any of their spellcasting abilities.
This got me thinking about the Shifting Rune which would let the Staff become any other one-handed melee weapon.
The weapon takes the shape of another melee weapon that requires the same number of hands to wield. The weapon’s runes and any precious material it’s made of apply to the weapon’s new shape. Any property runes that can’t apply to the new form are suppressed until the item takes a shape to which they can apply.
I can think of a lot of cool options for this. For example, a thief-based 'Arcane Trickster' might have a Staff of Abjuration and shift it into a rapier. That gives them a weapon that can take advantage of their Dexterity-based offensive abilities while also providing a range of defensive options like shield, feather fall, and resist energy. They could also turn the Staff into a dagger for easy storage or concealment.
Does anyone knows of any rule that would prevent the Staff's spellcasting powers from functioning while it is in an alternate form?
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It should work just fine, and it's a really good idea since staves are so useful for multiclasses with few spell slots.
However, I would ask the GM first if they would allow a weapon of another type to be crafted with staff powers, just to avoid the extra cost of that rune slot. I would be very open to that idea.
I don't see why this would not work either. Actually I think this can be applied in other weapons like Storm Flash and Flame Tongue as well.
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I don't see why this would not work either. Actually I think this can be applied in other weapons like Storm Flash and Flame Tongue as well.
Except you cannot etch property runes on specific magic weapons.
could you get a shifting weapon, get greater doubling rings to share/over write flame tongue's magic, change flame tongue's shape and then profit? Seems like that could work.
Sadly, the greater doubling rings specifically exclude transferring property runes to specific weapons.
The rings also replicate property runes from the weapon in the gold-ringed hand, so long as the weapon in the iron-ringed hand meets all the prerequisites for a given rune and is not a specific weapon.
So they dont work, but what about blade ally? at 1st level it gains the effect of the shifting rune.
I'm not really familiar with the rules for Champions, but glancing at Blade Ally makes me think it would work.