The new Wizard thesis from the Advanced Player's Guide confuses me as to what the benefit is.
Seems to me... you are getting an external widget that can only hold spells that you know... then you lose a spell slot in order to give charges to the staff.... why didn’t you just keep your spell slot in the first place...?
I feel like I must be missing something key here, it seems like it doesn’t do anything valuable for you...
At level 1 it doesn't do much for you, except give you an extra cantrip.
The feat gains value when you upgrade it into another staff, at which point it's the staff you made + those starting spells you picked. Then it gains more value at higher levels when you gain the ability to charge your staff more than a normal wizard can.
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It's sort of like the inverse of Spell Blending. Instead of sacrificing most of your lower level slots for a few extra high level ones, you sacrifice some of your higher level slots for a lot of castings of some low level spells through your staff.
There are a couple first level spells that are pretty spammable, True Strike being the most obvious choice.
Apart from true strike what would be a nice choice?
Command, Jump, Thoughtful Gift, basically anything you might want to use frequently through the day, then prepare niche spells in your low level slots. It would be nice if it allowed you to make a custom staff with all custom spells though. Kind of iconic for a Wizard to create their own staff/implement.
I think True Strike is the best one though.
If you want to go full on Gish you can pretty easily get 16+ True Strikes a day by 8th level by expending your two highest slots and filling your 1st level slots with True Strike. Then add a shifting rune to the staff, grab the Mauler Dedication and you have a Bastard Sword that you can cast True Strike with which makes you able to do an attack a turn that is about as accurate as a Fighter's.
Bespell weapon almost makes up for lacking Weapon Specialization.
Ps: I see that true strike says " The next time you make an attack roll".
So, does it count for either a physical strike or a magical strike?
Anything with the attack trait is an attack roll. All Phyiscal and magical Strikes as well as Athletic checks to do combat meneuvers like Grab and Trip. You could even cast it before trying a check to Escape.
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It's sort of like the inverse of Spell Blending. Instead of sacrificing most of your lower level slots for a few extra high level ones, you sacrifice some of your higher level slots for a lot of castings of some low level spells through your staff.
There are a couple first level spells that are pretty spammable, True Strike being the most obvious choice.
You can go the other way with it too. Like sacrificing two fourth level slots to gain eight charges, which you can turn into an eighth level spell, which is two levels higher than a blender gets doing the same thing, though blenders can do it multiple times.
Ps: I see that true strike says " The next time you make an attack roll".
So, does it count for either a physical strike or a magical strike?
Anything that's an attack (that you roll) should work.
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@Djinn71: are you sure you can shift a wooden weapon into a metal one?
Staff description
This long piece of wood can aid in walking and deliver a mighty blow.Rune of shifting description
Or eventually, is there a way to make a staff out of metal?With a moment of manipulation, you can shift this weapon into a different weapon with a similar form.
Activate Single Action Interact; Effect 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.
If you are referring to the "any precious material it’s made of" section, precious materials are those that have the "Precious" trait.
So far those only include:
Adamantine, Cold Iron, Darkwood, Dragonhide, Mithral, Orichalcum, Silver, Sovereign Steel
So things like wood or normal steel don't count as precious metals and don't have any trait interactions with them.
Apart from that there isn't anything stopping you from making a staff out of any material you wish, just as long as you meet the crafting and material requirements for it. For example, both the Staff of Sieges and Staff of the Black Desert are both made of metal.
Staff-Shifting has been discussed in a couple of other threads already and, by & large, you're good to use it how you like. Just stick to the 1-handed requirement.
Cool, thanks for breaking that down. That does seem fairly versatile!
True Strike is useless if you use it on a normal attack (True Strike + Strike does the same average damage than Strike + Strike).
So, the only moments where True Strike shines is if you are using some special attacks, most of the time taking 2 actions (Power Attack, Channel Smite, etc...). Which should happen so rarely that you will not need to cast it that often. So you won't need Staff Nexus to cast True Strike as much as you need.
Staff Nexus is mostly useless unless your DM is hyper nice and gives you staves of a higher level than yours (more than 2 levels above yours). Then, it's awesome and can compete with Spell Blending.
Actually, it works perfectly with haste.
True strike
Strike + bespellweapon, or even a maneuver if you needHigh level spell with saving throw ( or electric arc).
Definitely good.
Which does exactly the same amount of damage against a same level enemy than High level spell with Saving throw + Strike + Strike (you can check on Citricking's tool).
True Strike is only useful if you use it on a very high action/resource cost attack. Which means that you need your 3 actions for attacking, which means that you need to be next to an enemy and blablabla. Roughly, once per fight.At level 8, with a basic Staff of Divination, you have 4 casts of True Strike + 4 casts of True Strike if you insist on spending a 4th level spell during your daily prep + 4 casts of True Strike through your own spell slot = 12 True Strike = twice what you'll need in a long adventuring day.
A low level Staff of Divination already gives you as many casts of True Strike as you'll ever need. Being able to cast True Strike 42 times per day is just ridiculous.
There are ranged spells. For instance, reliable True Strikes on your Disintegrates is wildly good.
There are ranged spells. For instance, reliable True Strikes on your Disintegrates is wildly good.
You often prepare 42 Disintegrates?
A simple Staff of Divination on a very normal Wizard gives you already so many uses of True Strike that you'll never ever be able to need more. I mean, has anyone ever used more than 20 True Strikes in a single adventuring day?
It gives more options, so its good
Well, the difference between more than you will ever need and at will is very close to 0.
If your Wizard thesis allows you to cast a first level spell once or twice per adventuring carreer, I tend to find that's quite a waste of an important class feature. And I'm extremely optimistic when stating once or twice per adventuring carreer as I'm pretty sure for most Wizard it won't be even once.
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Staff Nexus is to increase versatility, because staff is basically a mini spontaneous repertoire, you select the spell at the time instead of having to prepare it beforehand by just having charges. Nexus let you put one lvl 1 spell of your choice in that repertoire and put more charges for you to use more often.
My question is once you craft your makeshift staff into another staff, like a staff of fire, it then gains charges normally right? Or does it still only gain charges from spending extra spell slots?