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During your daily preparations, you can prepare a staff to add charges to it for free. When you do so, that staff gains a number of charges equal to the highest-level spell slot you have. You don’t need to expend any spells to add charges in this way. No one can prepare more than one staff per day, nor can a staff be prepared by more than one person per day. If the charges aren’t used within 24 hours, they’re lost, and preparing the staff anew removes any charges previously stored in it. You can prepare a staff only if you have at least one of the staff’s spells on your spell list.
Prepared Spellcasters
A prepared spellcaster—such as a cleric, druid, or wizard—can place some of their own magic in a staff to increase its number of charges. When a prepared spellcaster prepares a staff, they can expend a spell slot to add a number of charges to the staff equal to the level of the spell. They can’t expend more than one spell in this way each day. For example, if Ezren can cast 3rd-level spells and prepared a staff, the staff would gain 3 charges, but Ezren could increase this to 6 by expending one of his 3rd-level spells, 5 by expending a 2nd-level spell, or 4 by expending a 1st-level spell.
Spontaneous Spellcasters
A spontaneous spellcaster, such as a bard or sorcerer, can reduce the number of charges it takes to Activate a staff by supplementing with their own energy. When a spontaneous spellcaster Activates a staff, they can expend 1 charge from the staff and one of their spell slots to cast a spell from the staff of the same level (or lower) as the expended spell slot. This doesn’t change the number of actions it takes to cast the spell. For example, if Seoni can cast 3rd-level spells and prepared a staff, the staff would gain 3 charges. She could expend 1 charge and one of her 3rd-level spell slots to cast a 3rd-level spell from the staff, or 1 charge and one of her 2nd-level spell slots to cast a 2nd-level spell from the staff. She could still expend 3 charges from the staff to cast a 3rd-level spell from it without using any of her own slots, just like any other spellcaster.
Can a character who is both a prepared spellcaster AND a spontaneous spellcaster get the best of both worlds when Preparing a Staff?
For example, say I am playing a 13th-level sorcerer with Expert Wizard Spellcasting. As a sorcerer, I would normally be limited to 7 charges, and could spend them on a 1-for-1 charge/level rate to cast a spell from the staff, like all casters, or I could expend my own slots with 1 charge to cast a spell from the staff. Can I ALSO drop my 4th-level wizard spell to add an additional 4 charges during my daily preparations on top of that as well?
Nothing in the rules saying you can't as it stands. The interesting limitation is that your spell attack and DCs will be based on whichever list the spell appears on. I.e. You're a Wizard/Sorcerer (Primal), and you want to cast a heal spell off the Staff of healing, your DCs will be based on primal casting stats.
That's a very nice trick, especially for halcyon casters!
That's a very nice trick, especially for halcyon casters!
Ooh. *makes googly eyes*