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I was planning on rewarding a sorcerer player with a 20th level Staff of Arcane Might at level 13 for reasons. Then I looked it up and...
1. Their level 6 staff of divination has Sure Strike on it, which they use a lot, so their most common use case is downgraded by the switch
2. The high level spells on the staff aren't accessible until they can cast them, so having the staff early is meaningless there. They were already using charges mostly on level 1 spells anyway.
3. The +3 greater striking feature makes it legitimately more likely to be handed off to the fighter for a backup bludgeoning weapon. They have never made a staff strike, despite me even letting them put property runes on theirs.
4. The only benefit that might appeal is being able to destroy the staff to one-shot a boss, which is a cool feature as a last ditch save-the-day thing but not the primary purpose of the loot I'm trying to give out.
Should I make all staves Relics just to get some excitement going?
1. Their level 6 staff of divination has Sure Strike on it, which they use a lot, so their most common use case is downgraded by the switch
Well, that is a different staff entirely, so it does make sense that the spells on it are different. I don't think that is inherently a problem with high level staves.
2. The high level spells on the staff aren't accessible until they can cast them, so having the staff early is meaningless there.
Yes. That is true. And a disconnect when compared to scrolls and wands that can be cast early.
They were already using charges mostly on level 1 spells anyway.
That is a gameplay decision made by the player, so there isn't much to do with the rules here.
3. The +3 greater striking feature makes it legitimately more likely to be handed off to the fighter for a backup bludgeoning weapon. They have never made a staff strike, despite me even letting them put property runes on theirs.
That is more of a character build type of thing. But yes, it is not very common for full spellcasters to be making melee Strikes. One of the reasons why Witch's Armaments still feels like a trap option.
4. The only benefit that might appeal is being able to destroy the staff to one-shot a boss, which is a cool feature as a last ditch save-the-day thing but not the primary purpose of the loot I'm trying to give out.
Agreed.
Should I make all staves Relics just to get some excitement going?
Absolutely. That would be fantastic.
Alternatively, custom staff rules could be employed here. You as the GM may be the one creating the staff and deciding on its spells, so I guess it would be more of a Homebrew staff rather than a custom staff.
The staves in PF1 were terribly overpriced, so the only way a PC would acquire a staff was as loot. When I converted Ironfang Invasion to PF2 rules in 2019-2023, I decided to give the party druid a staff to see what PF2 staves were like. That was a 4th-level Animal Staff obtained at 4th level. The druid used it once, to summon an eagle to slow down an enemy soldier running away, and then forgot about it. PF2 staves are appropriately priced for their level, but they feel underpowered for that price. I think that this is by design, so that a PCs cannot purchase great power by spending a windfall at a magic shop.
I then ignored staves for the next 12 levels.
At 16th level, I found a use for custom staves. The 5th module, Prisoners of the Blight, had the party reassemble the five pieces--four rings and a scepter--of a minor artifact called the Dryad's Song. The individual pieces had been useful, so I had to make the intact artifact at least as useful, despite the module making Dryad's Song quite specialized. Thus, I started with a 20th-level True Staff of Providence and then added the specialized abilities to it. That worked out nicely.
The gleaming, gold scepter bears elegant boughs and leaves, blooming into a miniature, flowered treetop at one end. The scepter’s rod branches out into four large rings of golden leaves that each can be removed or replaced in an Interact action. Each ring is engraved with a phrase in Sylvan.
Ring 1: “Daughters of the Fangwood green.”
Ring 2: “Hear my ardent call.”
Ring 3: “Discharge now to oaths long sworn.”
Ring 4: “For Accressiel glory, live or fall.”
Dryad’s Song grants anyone holding it a +2 item bonus on all Diplomacy and Intimidate skill checks against fey
that live within Fangwood Forest. It also acts like a staff of True Staff of Providence (https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=750), including the +1 item bonus on Survival checks to Sense Direction or Subsist, and to Religion checks to Recall Knowledge, except that any divine or primal caster can invest it, daily preparations restore it to 12 charges regardless of the investor's highest spell level, and has the following spells added to its repertoire.
Cantrip: tanglefoot https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=330
1st: verdant sprout https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=641
2nd: summon fey (2nd) https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=322
3rd: remove disease https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=251
4th: fey form https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=910
5th: tree stride https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=343
6th: summon fey (6th) https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=322
7th: unfettered pack https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=350
8th: moment of renewal https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=201
9th: upheaval https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=660
10th: nature incarnate https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=204
The investor may store a spell and enough charges to cast the spell into a ring. When a ring with a spell is detached, a character holding the ring can cast the spell by reciting the phrase written on it.
Once a day Dryad's Song can cast locate (https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=173) to find a detached ring from it.
The party's fey sorcerer grew quite attached to the Dryad's Song. When the goddess Gendowyn asked for its return, because she needed it to efficiently clear blight from the Fangwood Forest, I had her offer another custom staff in exchange, a 16th-level staff that I named Staff of Gendowyn's Return.
Unique, Conjuration, Magical, Staff, Plant Teleportation, Transmutation.
Based on Staff of Nature's Cunning
Usage held in 1 hand; Bulk 1
Fragments of colorful magic items are imbedded in the gnarled hawthorn wood of this staff like jewels in a specter. The demigod Gendowyn shaped this staff out of her throne in exile to aid her return to the Fangwood.
When you cast Tree Stride, including by activating the spell from this staff, you may bring up to fourteen other creatures along with you. You can also carry extradimensional spaces with you during Tree Stride, but each extradimensional space reduces the maximum number of creatures brought along by one.
Activate Cast a Spell; Effect You expend a number of charges from the staff to cast a spell from its list.
Cantrip tanglefoot (arcane, primal) https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=330
1st protector tree (conjuration - primal) https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=976
shillelagh (transmutation - primal) https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=282
2nd entangle (transmutation - primal) https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=103
shape wood (transmutation - primal) https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=277
3rd tree shape (transmutation - primal) https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=342
wall of thorns (conjuration - primal) https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=366
4th murderous vine (conjuration - primal) https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=953
speak with plants (divination - primal) https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=294
5th plant form (transformation - primal) https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=223
tree stride (conjuration - primal) https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=343
6th nature's reprisal (transmutation - primal) https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=954
tangling creepers (conjuration - primal) https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=331
7th ethereal jaunt as a primal spell (conjuration - primal) https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=105
unfettered pack (abjuration - primal) https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=350
8th tree stride (conjuration - primal) https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=343
It is balanced as a 16th-level staff, but it also solved a problem of the party. The PF2 transportation spells, such as Teleport and Wind Walk, were limited to six or fewer people. They could not transport a seven-member party with three animal companions. And many forms of teleporation would not transport Bags of Holding. Since the party was traveling through the Fangwood Forest, delivering looted weapons and armor to villagers, they needed their Bags of Holding. The Staff of Gendowyn's Return was a downgrade from the Dryad's Song, but it offered the transportation that the party needed.
I don't remember the sorcerer using any spell on the Staff of Gendowyn's Return besides the multiperson Tree Stride. They once left their Bags of Holding in the hands of an NPC friend to transport themselves and four observers from a war council to a town under attack by the Ironfang Legion. They saved the town.
Thus, the staves in the rulebook are lackluster, but custom staves can be made exciting by building them around the party's needs.
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Conversely, scrolls of Sure Strike are, what, three gold? That should be nothing to a level thirteen character; just point out they could sell their old staff and have all the scrolls they could ever need while getting the spells from this newer staff. Honestly the thing that bugs me most about the Staff of Arcane Might is that its cantrip is easily picked up from other sources, and it hasn't got three cantrips like the Staff of the Magi, which it's based off of, does.
Then they need to juggle the actions and hands of drawing the scrolls though, which is a pretty big problem if you actually want True Strike >> two action spell to be a common gameplay loop for you.
I might just put the effects of a high level wand of manifold missiles on a staff, let them pick out the spell list, and call it a day.
It kind of sucks that the primary benefit of a 20th level staff could be given out for free at level 1 and not make a blip on the balance radar due to built in limitations. And they could sell a 20th level staff and have a whole lot more fun with the money. If a fighter got a level 20 sword at level 1, they'd be having the time of their lives.
I get that higher level staves give you more flexibility, but a low level staff with some useful rank 1 or 2 spells can easily compete with a high level staff with a poor selection at those ranks.
Seems to me that you could highly simplify the staff list by having them all get their max level spell list, then use the space you gained to have some staves with cool effects at higher levels.
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Anyway, WatersLeshe, I think you're asking the wrong question. It should be "why are damage dealing staves such a let down?" And the answer is because "on-level" staves usually give spells 1-2 ranks below what you can cast yourself and (formerly) evocation spells are reliant on heightening to keep up in damage. Your higher level staffs ameliorates the issue considerably because it lets you get 1 or 2 maxed level castings out of it. An extra spell top ranked slot a day is a nice boon, as is giving your caster additional options for spending their existing slots... If those options are spells you actually want to cast, of course.
The other problem is True Strike is helluva drug, and since your charges per day aren't limited by your staves level, you're giving up X castings of True Strike to use that single top rank casting. The Staff of the Unblinking Eye (Divination) is a really good purchase. The other Core stand out is Staff of Phantasms (illusions) because the illusory staples (object, creature, disguise) scale great too and you never know when you'll want one more casting. Phantasms also rewards the higher level staff, though, because heightened illusories are also great.
The simplest solution is to give your player a higher level staff that has True Strike. Higher level divination spells are actually great options to have on demand without needing to commit slots or repertoire spots to, so Staff of the Unblinking Eye will continue to put in work. Spellstriker Staff pairs sure strike with heightened acid arrow, which is nice synergy. But it also gets haste, true target, and blink charge for mobility. It is also a shifting +2 greater striking staff, and that shifting means it can be tossed to the fighter to hit a different damage type or something.
If that doesn't please and sparkle... Yeah, go relics or custom staves. My GM gave me a "soul staff" where each rank of spells represented a different phase of my character's life. It whipped ass thematically AND had sure strike + a bunch of nice utility spells. 10/10 move on his part.
I don't think it is just staves. Magic items overall are pretty "Meh" in PF2. My players barely care about them other than weapons and armor with a few specific magic items like cloak and boots of elvenkind of invis.
Forgettable magic items seems to be the norm in PF2.
I think the issue is that a staff for a caster does not fill any of the same rolls that a weapon does for a martial, so ithe higher level staff isn’t the same kind of reward. A high level wand would be a lot bigger boon, as would something like a capstone attribute booster.
I think the issue is that a staff for a caster does not fill any of the same rolls that a weapon does for a martial, so ithe higher level staff isn’t the same kind of reward. A high level wand would be a lot bigger boon, as would something like a capstone attribute booster.
Would be cool if they made some caster weapon equivalent that you could have as a staff, ring, or wand or something that let you do something cool with your spells. Though not so necessary like a weapon is to a fighter. Maybe boosting cantrips or some other smaller, but still useful and cool effect besides just additional spells.
Why are high level staves such a letdown?
They're not though.
Why are high level staves such a letdown?They're not though.
I hope that this means that you found a proper use for them. Could you please explain it?
I hope that this means that you found a proper use for them. Could you please explain it?Why are high level staves such a letdown?They're not though.
Though they can be expensive, they are also fun! And they also serve to expand my versatility and range, often with a cool theme to boot!
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I primarily play prepared casters. A staff with decent spells on it is a useful utility tool for a prepared caster, because it is a number of flexible extra spells you can cast in the day, that have multiple potential uses.
The staff of protection is a staff I like on a wizard, for example. The OP was looking at a staff for a level 13 caster, so let’s look at a greater staff of protection.
At level 13 I get 7 charges for free. I like my top slots, so I might put a rank 5 in the staff as well, so now I have 12 charges. That could be 2 extra repulsion’s in a day (a great spell against tanky brute monsters with no ranged attacks, or a rank 6 dispel magic or two, all without having to commit to either one for the day. But it also gives me options on safe passage and resist energy and even alarm if the day is ending and I haven’t needed anything else that day.
It will never really lift your spell casting power ceiling, but it can give you a good pocket of flexible utility with the right staff. That is why the “higher level staff as a big reward” isn’t as good of an idea as a higher tier wand, or even some massively over ranked (like 9th Rank or even a 10th ranked) scrolls.
I don't find staves completely useless as a caster myself. They could use more, but some have uses as Unicore said as a flexible way to add spells.
For prepared casters, some spontaneous flexibility.
For spontaneous casters, some spell repertoire flexibility.
I also found the healing staff useful as it adds some additional healing free of charge as well as extra healing power.
You have to pick a staff that has some spells you will use as they are mainly there to expand casting.
I would like something more in them for fun. Right now they are basically an upgrade from a wand or scroll in that they renew daily, have charges, and can be used more than once with no overcharge and do have some additional utility function with spell slots I've never really used because I don't see the need.
A staff is a more interesting item for a caster than most items, so I can't complain too much. Not super exciting, but at least more interesting than wands and scrolls if they have a spell you will use.
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I don't find staves completely useless, but I'm decidedly underwhelmed.
Let's think first about what a staff could be good for;
- rounding out versatility on a spontaneous caster
- rounding out versatility getting back lower level slots on a "wave" caster (magus)
- lots of extra castings of low level slots (true strike)
- extra castings of "sometimes you need a lot of these, usually you don't" spells for prepared castings. Like, some days you have three encounters with invisible enemies.
Stave spell ranks tend to lag a bit behind your own maximum rank. A level 6 staff will have rank 1-2 spells in it. Overall the rank of a staff's spells seems to lag 3 levels behind the max rank of a full caster.
Finally, there's a soft requirement that a staff has a coherent theme. "Fire" is a coherent theme. "Archmage with lots of classic spells" is also a theme apparently, but I don't quite know why.
Keeping all that in mind, what kind of spells do we want in a staff? I think the big theme is: not blast spells. Blast spells whose rank lags 3 levels below yours are not what we get excited about. A fire-themed sorcerer who finds a staff of fire is not going to get excited about the staff throwing fireballs either, the sorcerer can already do that.
Also not: incapacitation spells. Since the rank of the spells in the stag lags behind you, these are pointless.
Also not: counteract spells. The lagging spell rank makes these not quite pointless, but not very pointy.
What we want is is spells that tend to stay good even when they're not at your highest level. For example:
- Slow
- Haste
- Jump
- Sure Strike
- See the Unseen
- Fly
- Laughing Fit
- Translate
- Enlarge
- Acid Grip (for its control effects)
- Revealing Light
- Invisibility
- Wall of Wind
- Gust of Wind
- Fear (rank 3)
- Unfettered Movement
- Resist Energy
- Stupefy
- Enfeeble
- Ghostly Weapon
- Tailwind (rank 2)
- Darkvision
- Shape Wood
- Water Breathing
- Water Walk
- Speak with Animals
- Speak with Plants
- Shape Stone
- Speak with Stones
- Entangling Flora
- Mist
- Aqueous Orb
- Enervation (because of the Drained effect)
- Telekinetic Maneuver
- Cantrips (since they auto scale)
So there really are plenty of spells that would be good on a staff, and enough to choose from that you can give the staff a coherent theme. But most staves are filled with dud choices.
I'd even rather that high levels staves just add more and more low rank utility spells than more poorly-aging mid and high rank blast spells.a
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It would be cool if a staves could have a "signature spell" that could be cast at any rank from the lowest appropriate for said spell to a rank equal to the highest rank spell in the staff.
That way you could make blast spells, counteract spells, and incapacitation spells a little more worthwhile on staves.
It would also save page space by eliminating redundant spells in the staff entries.
I do think it is important to point out that calling a staff useless for blasting because the spell slots might be a rank or two behind your top slot is hyperbole.
Lets say a staff has lightning bolt only at level 3, is that really a useless spell to have on a staff when you can cast rank 7 spells? The DC scaling on spells makes it so that having decent options for doing different damage types is useful for a very long time on spells in PF2. A dragon prism staff, for example, could give an otherwise limited sorcerer or elementalist caster a bunch of different damage options for exploiting weaknesses without otherwise occupying space in the build.
I still think the issue is players thinking that a magical staff is an item that is supposed to represent making a caster more powerful or be a focus for their casting when items like that just don't exist in the game at all. PF2 is not a game where the Fire sorcerer gets the fire robes + fire staff + fire sandal item kit and becomes the most powerful fire caster there is.
There is a slight imbalance where there are some builds where there are very useful staves to have (like the staff of healing) and other builds where it feels like the staves you want are filled with spells that are not even on your spell list that can get frustrating, but the player wanting a staff to be the same as a magic weapon for a martial is bound to be disappointed, probably just because PF2 doesn't have magic weapon equivalents for casters of any kind.
Well, I think breadth plus some of the neat boosts staves already give are fun, they just don’t cover every build. Players and GMs are probably best off building custom staves to cover specific builds because PF2 enables too many different builds for 5 or even 20 staves to cover all of them.
Perhaps, in a future Magic book (rules or setting) more staves can serve as more examples. But I think there will always be players who are looking for “the lightning staff that makes me the ultimate caster of lightning bolt at every rank” not realizing PF2 is intentionally built to make “the lightning bolt mage” a bad build idea from the start. I think anything like “this staff adds +1 fire damage to spells cast with the fire trait” would be a bad addition to the game because it would encourage a very popular concept that doesn’t play well into PF2 mechanics. Minimally, the hyper focused damage type caster in PF2 is a kineticist who can get around resistance and immunity, but even then you still want more than 1 damage type.
I must admit I rarely buy Staves and in general low level ones. And the ones I find while adventuring are sold before being used most of the time. So, I'd answer yes, Staves are rather weak and not really a must-have for spellcasters.
I think it is true that there is almost nothing a caster can have more fun with as Magic items than scrolls, and I think some players will always balk at consumables being the fun thing.
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To be clear, staves themselves are not a letdown. A low level staff is a boatload of spell slots that let you go a bit nutty with your spell economy. If you weren't able to get staves at all until high level, a new high-level staff would be a tantalizing treasure FAR, FAR more fun than a high level scroll.
It's the fact that you can get 90% of the value of a 90k gold, level 20 staff from a 225 gold, level 6 staff and a handful of scrolls.
If high level staves had more lower level spells on their list, or some Wand functionality built in, or had more neat effects, they might start justifying their huge price tag.
I think for myself a staff allowing heightening would be nice. It sucks to have a healing staff with Remove Disease and you're fighting stuff so tough the remove disease level in the staff has no chance of working.
One of the advantages of the staff is picking up spells you may not want to prepare or take in your repertoire that come up occasionally. But that function is hampered by not being able to heighten them up to a level needed.
I'd gladly blow all my charges for the day to heighten a remove curse or cleanse affliction to the level I need it at and would find the staff far more useful for letting me do so. Then it has more utility value than a one off casting of a heal or blast spell.
It's not super fun to slot a cleanse affliction or such type of counteract spell, then use a precious high level spell slot to make it effective. I could see a staff being useful in that type of role if they allowed heightening up to your level or something. Then having a group of not often used spells in a staff would prove a great deal more useful in a variety of niche situations.