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The rules for Personal staves say that you must picks spells along a common theme, as defined by the traits that they possess.
But what about spells that have no legally selectable traits, such as warding aggression? Surely it's not intended that such spells be completely omitted as a possible option. Right?
If that was not intended, then by what criteria should we classify them? I'm certain that going to the opposite extreme and having a bunch of disparate traitless spells devoid of any theme at all on the same staff wasn't intended either.
As this is a discussion about intent, rather than the rules, I'm placing it in General. Please feel free to move it to Rules Discussion if that is a better fit.
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Yeah, the intent is to avoid having an eclectic assortment of the best spells a particular caster would want. It isn't thematic, it isn't flavorful, it isn't fun. It would just be another point to minmax.
For Warding Aggression, perhaps a staff theme of 'offensive protection'. Spells that target an enemy, but don't do damage. They instead hinder them from attacking your or your allies.
Cantrip: Forbidding Ward
1st: Agitate, Command
2nd: Telekinetic Maneuver, Calm Emotions
3rd: Warding Aggression, Blindness
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The rules for Personal staves say that you must picks spells along a common theme, as defined by the traits that they possess.
But what about spells that have no legally selectable traits, such as warding aggression? Surely it's not intended that such spells be completely omitted as a possible option. Right?
If that was not intended, then by what criteria should we classify them? I'm certain that going to the opposite extreme and having a bunch of disparate traitless spells devoid of any theme at all on the same staff wasn't intended either.
As this is a discussion about intent, rather than the rules, I'm placing it in General. Please feel free to move it to Rules Discussion if that is a better fit.
If you want a Staff of Warding Agression, I think you'll be happy with a Wand of Warding Agression, it's less expensive.
Also, Staves having the same trait don't have the same "use". Fire links both offensive and defensive spells, but all related to Fire. Taking a theme like "defense" and stacking all the best defensive spells in the game is clearly not the intent.In my opinion, Traitless spells are not meant to end up in a personal staff, as there are no other spell sharing anything with them.
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Or "Wards" could be the theme.
Forbidding Ward, Glyph of Warding, Warding Aggression.
It's not a trait, but it would be a theme if you could get enough.
I'd likely allow Alarm & Lock, maybe Wall of Force or other "pure magic barriers" too.
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As a GM, I would certainly allow theming in lieu of spells that don't have a theme. There are spells centered on gravity and magnetism doesn't have an associated trait.
Of course, this is purely fiat. Raw says no.
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I'd view the line of "The GM might add others to this list" as an indication that the GM can have final say on if a staff is themed or not - especially for spells that clearly have a thematic relation despite not having a specific associated trait.
For example, spells like Magnetic Acceleration, Magnetic Attraction, and Magnetic Repulsion clearly have a common theme, but do not have a common trait outside the evocation school. If enough spells themed around magnetism were added to build a staff around, I'd certainly allow a Staff of Magnetism despite not having a "magnetic" trait included on the spells.
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If you want a Staff of Warding Agression, I think you'll be happy with a Wand of Warding Agression, it's less expensive.
I was thinking of a staff with at least warding aggression and true strike, since they combo well.
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I don't think the intent of requiring a central trait was to specifically pick on traitless spells. Rather, the point was to prevent players from cherrypicking the best but totally unrelated spells.
I would certainly be willing to work with a player to find a central theme that's as good as using a trait to build a staff around. We have a decent system now to compare things against.
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If you want a Staff of Warding Agression, I think you'll be happy with a Wand of Warding Agression, it's less expensive.I was thinking of a staff with at least warding aggression and true strike, since they combo well.
I think we both agree, making staves based on whatever "trait" the player finds would lead to such kind of abuses. I think the system's already pretty open.
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If you want a Staff of Warding Agression, I think you'll be happy with a Wand of Warding Agression, it's less expensive.I was thinking of a staff with at least warding aggression and true strike, since they combo well.
While I see the tactical connection, I see no thematic connection.
Do you?
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If you want a Staff of Warding Agression, I think you'll be happy with a Wand of Warding Agression, it's less expensive.I was thinking of a staff with at least warding aggression and true strike, since they combo well.While I see the tactical connection, I see no thematic connection.
Do you?
"This is my Staff of the Munchkin. Its shared spell trait is Cheese."
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Personal staves are quite restrictive - many traits have very few spells underneath them, something to the tune of 5-8 of disparate levels. If you try making a staff of positive, or fortune, or whatever you will find it very difficult to fill up those levels.
This could be futureproofing as eventually those traits will probably have enough spells to make a staff, but currently it is very difficult unless you go with a common trait and most “personal” staves will end up looking the exact same in terms of spells.
Seeing as the whole thing requires GM approval anyway (and as such can’f simply be bought off the shelf or used in org play) I would let someone pick 2 minor traits/thenes (ones with approx 15 or less spells) or 1 major trait/theme (no school/tradition) to build their staff. I don’t really think getting all the best spells on your staff is going to be too much of a problem. The difference between having 1-2 spells on your staff that are very strong and all of them is mostly just a bit of flexibility.
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If you want a Staff of Warding Agression, I think you'll be happy with a Wand of Warding Agression, it's less expensive.I was thinking of a staff with at least warding aggression and true strike, since they combo well.
Seems like just the sort of thing that staves shouldn't do. Even if you don't exactly follow the "shared trait" rule, published staves pretty much always have a strong theme to them- and generally one where spells overlap a bit in terms of functionality, rather than pieces of a combo.
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This could be futureproofing as eventually those traits will probably have enough spells to make a staff, but currently it is very difficult unless you go with a common trait and most “personal” staves will end up looking the exact same in terms of spells.
Things will stay like this for a long time it seems. Highly doubt we will get a good chunk of spells like this one in a long time.
If you want a Staff of Warding Agression, I think you'll be happy with a Wand of Warding Agression, it's less expensive.I was thinking of a staff with at least warding aggression and true strike, since they combo well.While I see the tactical connection, I see no thematic connection.
Do you?
I'm still working on the theme.
Things will stay like this for a long time it seems. Highly doubt we will get a good chunk of spells like this one in a long time.This could be futureproofing as eventually those traits will probably have enough spells to make a staff, but currently it is very difficult unless you go with a common trait and most “personal” staves will end up looking the exact same in terms of spells.
My thoughts exactly. Any traits that didn't get filled out by THE BIG BOOK OF MAGIC likely isn't going to fill out any time soon, if ever.
Some traits that aren't specifically called out but probably should be added by the GM to the "can't use" list because they are too broad(as suggested by the rules)
-attack
-cantrip
- possibly mental
- possibly visual and auditory
- the common trait
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- the common trait
Common trait too broad? Whaaat? ;P
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Some traits that aren't specifically called out but probably should be added by the GM to the "can't use" list because they are too broad(as suggested by the rules)
-attack
-cantrip
- possibly mental
- possibly visual and auditory
- the common trait
The attack trait isn't that broad, it has about the same number of spells as fire does - approx 20.
Cantrip is in no way too broad. Yeah there's like 25 cantrips but you can only put 1 on your staff anyway so unless you want a staff with just one cantrip there's no point.
Mental has like half of the occult spell list, it's a huge amount of spells, so definitely shouldn't be viable for a custom staff under these rules.
Visual and auditory each have about 20-30 spells, not really that broad.
Common isn't a trait (IIRC), the lack of a trait means common.
Some traits that aren't specifically called out but probably should be added by the GM to the "can't use" list because they are too broad(as suggested by the rules)
-attack
-cantrip
- possibly mental
- possibly visual and auditory
- the common trait
The attack trait isn't that broad, it has about the same number of spells as fire does - approx 20.
Cantrip is in no way too broad. Yeah there's like 25 cantrips but you can only put 1 on your staff anyway so unless you want a staff with just one cantrip there's no point.
Mental has like half of the occult spell list, it's a huge amount of spells, so definitely shouldn't be viable for a custom staff under these rules.
Visual and auditory each have about 20-30 spells, not really that broad.
Common isn't a trait (IIRC), the lack of a trait means common.
Anything that doesn't list another rarity trait (uncommon, rare, or unique) automatically has the common trait.
I'd still allow mental if there was an overarching theme (that was more specific than mental alone).
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I'd still allow mental if there was an overarching theme (that was more specific than mental).
What mental needs is more traits like the fear trait for other mental spells (courage? confusion? etc)
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I'd still allow mental if there was an overarching theme (that was more specific than mental).What mental needs is more traits like the fear trait for other mental spells (courage? confusion? etc)
That's quite the rabbit hole.
Mental could spawn numerous sub-traits. I think it risks getting a bit too pedantic.
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If anyone is interested, I've updated my listing of spells by trait with the new spells from SoM.
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If anyone is interested, I've updated my listing of spells by trait with the new spells from SoM.
Thank you again for doing this!
Mental is as broad as it is so creatures can be immune to it.
Even though allowing it as a staff is a GM call, my biggest problem with it is that the Mentalist Staff already exist.
If allowed it is a really strong personal staff for an occult caster, that said.
if disallowing traits because a relevant staff already exists is the right thing to do, then there aren’t really any good traits left (unless you are on board with “commoner’s staff” type traits).Mental is as broad as it is so creatures can be immune to it.
Even though allowing it as a staff is a GM call, my biggest problem with it is that the Mentalist Staff already exist.
If allowed it is a really strong personal staff for an occult caster, that said.
It is not about allowing it or not (as a GM I would personally allow it, Staves are low impact in the overall power level of the game), it is about the staff having no reason to exist thematically as there is an existing staff that is almost the same.
The only reason I see to disallow it is that Mental may fall in the "Too Broad" category.
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The custom staff rules feel so needlessly restrictive. I get balance, but at my table, I just allow players to pick a theme and I adjudicate whether the request fits or if it's cheese. Like, the "Trickster's Crook" could have the classic illusions and charm type spells,the "Staff of Elements" could slot in spells with elemental traits and stuff like resist energy, the "Battlemaster's Rod" would have stuff like Ture Strike, Stoneskin, Weapon Storm, etc.
If players want something that COULD make sense, but feels like a reach or a bit sus I might allow it with a limit; Illusory Creature on the Battlemaster's Rod, for example, would work, but have the limitation that it has to appear as a battle ready soldier, etc
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The custom staff rules feel so needlessly restrictive. I get balance, but at my table, I just allow players to pick a theme and I adjudicate whether the request fits or if it's cheese.
I mean, that kind of seems like the intention. The base rules don't support much but there's a big 'ask your GM' clause baked right into it.
Thank you again for doing this!If anyone is interested, I've updated my listing of spells by trait with the new spells from SoM.
You're welcome!
If anyone is interested, I've updated my listing of spells by trait with the new spells from SoM.
You appear to be missing the shadow trait - probably because on AoN it is only listed among the planar traits which isn't a super obvious place to look for spell traits.
The custom staff rules feel so needlessly restrictive.Consider this:
For players it feels better to have a rule that perhaps the GM can loosen up a bit and everything works out alright than it does to have the book present you an option that the GM says no to you using.
For GMs it feels better to have a rule that is definitely not going to break your game if you include it that you can be lenient with if you want to than it does to have a rule you have to tweak if you ever implement it at all.
To me it comes off as "heres the possibly pfs friendly way, but you can adjust as nessesary". Which I like, pf 2e being so easy to houserule is one of my favorite aspects of it.
I just don't get why they are so restricted that a custom "Staff of Illusions" that slots out a few illusions in exchange for other illusions can't be made
The custom staff rules feel so needlessly restrictive.Consider this:
For players it feels better to have a rule that perhaps the GM can loosen up a bit and everything works out alright than it does to have the book present you an option that the GM says no to you using.
For GMs it feels better to have a rule that is definitely not going to break your game if you include it that you can be lenient with if you want to than it does to have a rule you have to tweak if you ever implement it at all.
Pathfinder was always about putting power in the hands of the players. We shouldn't be shunting it back to the GM. There are plenty of other systems out there if you want that.
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Pathfinder was always about putting power in the hands of the players. We shouldn't be shunting it back to the GM. There are plenty of other systems out there if you want that.The custom staff rules feel so needlessly restrictive.Consider this:
For players it feels better to have a rule that perhaps the GM can loosen up a bit and everything works out alright than it does to have the book present you an option that the GM says no to you using.
For GMs it feels better to have a rule that is definitely not going to break your game if you include it that you can be lenient with if you want to than it does to have a rule you have to tweak if you ever implement it at all.
PF2 has been pretty explicit about handing power back to the GM with the Rarity system.