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Both my 11th level Bard and my 6th level Primal Sorcerer in PFS (with Bard dedication) have more cash on them then expected, and I'm wondering if any staves are particularly worth looking at.
Some of the Staves I'm looking at:
Librarian Staff - My bard is pretty scholarly, but I may be biased here because of my own profession as a librarian.
Staff of Providence - My sorceress is a cook.
And I noticed that some of the staves are musical instruments, which are pretty cool. I do like the look of the Pipes of Compulsion or the Seer's Flute.
I am trying to decide if any of these might be a worthy purchase. And if you don't like staves, what are some of your favorite magic items for a caster other than spellhearts?
Hmm
Staves are often a good item for a caster because they allow the casting of additional spells per day (limited to those in the staff).
You should look at which spells you want to cast an extra time or two from the staff/instrument (or add an available cantrip or two for the day) when deciding. Personally, I think the greater seer's flute would suit the bard better than the librarian staff. The staff of providence might work for the sorcerer (if a bit pricy for a 6th level character), although a verdant staff could work as well (with the +2 to identify plants and fungi; need the best ingredients to cook with, right?).
Also, it looks like you used the same link with the librarian staff and the staff of providence.
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One of my PCs is book nerd, and really loves their Librarian Staff.
It helps that it has one of the only unique functions that's useful, even if it's out of combat book storage. So many +1 to heal spells and other guff, but those are still better than the 1A useless action staves.
The Librarian Staff is a rare option that doesn't pretend to be combat-useful, which makes it a much more sensible choice for characterization.
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The main issue with combat staves is that they are very expensive for often just having terrible spell selection. Furthermore, there are just too many issues and complications can all line up to make it an annoying experience to try to keep a staff in hand as your normal combat plan. Even their bulk 1 is significant for many casters.
Staves are just way too rigid in how the item needs each exact spell at each exact R to be usable.
It's a bummer, but the only advice I can offer for a "generic caster" case would be to keep an eye out for a lagging level staff with evergreen utility spells.
If you are buying the staff and not making use of found loot, and want to use it to throw a big high R spell, the system doesn't really like that. You have charges for one max R spell, then you put it in the bag for the rest of the day.
Usually better to buy a wand (or 2).
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If custom staves are on the table thanks to your GM, they become a lot better as combat-viable tools.
Custom staff that maxes at R4 spells: 1400 gp
Wand with a daily R5 spell: 1500 gp
So you really do need to make use of evergreen lower R spells, and the cantrip(s) to make staves worth it, imo.
If you don't try for the highest R staff spells, then you can get a max R3 custom staff for 700 gp, a much easier sell, which is about 2x the R3 wand price.
Now that we are talking about lagging R spells for a caster with more charges, you can get ~2 casts from that staff, making the gp per daily spell look much better.
One neat perk: because all staves are weapons, you can put a spellheart on your staff so you get 1 tradition-matching cantrip from the staff, and 1 from the spellheart.
This works a lot better for custom staves because it can be rather aggravating how bad the scant selections are for the prebuilt options.
Because spellhearts do not need to match tradition, so you can slap a Jolt Coil onto any custom utility staff and be good to go.
Adding Electric Arc to an Occult caster may even be enough of combat merit to justify a book-lover PC walking around w/ their Librarian Staff in hand.
Even if your custom staff is a "one big spell per day" type, being able to dedicate one hand to add 2 cantrips to your possibilities is starting to be a genuinely good value proposition for after that spell has been spent.
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My wife, who plays Jinx Fuun in my Strength of Thousands campaign (Hilary Moon Murphy might recall it from Common Sense Versus The Plot), decided that Jinx would organize a round-robin gift exchange between the party members for Winter Solstice. The gift price was capped at 80 gp unless the gift-giver has an excuse how they got the item cheaper than its list price, such as crafting it themselves or Bargain Hunter. I added temporary NPC party member Virgil Tibbs to the gift exchange to join in the fun.
And I noticed that some of the staves are musical instruments, which are pretty cool. I do like the look of the Pipes of Compulsion or the Seer's Flute.
And I also found the Coda musical instruments that act like staves in the hands of a bard: "Instruments with the coda trait work mostly like staves and have the staff trait. There are two differences: Coda instruments are in the form of musical instruments, and they can be prepared only by bards. Because they're not physically staves, you can't attack with a coda instrument, nor can you etch it with weapon runes." Virgil Tibbs gave a Trickster's Mandolin to the bard Jinx Fuun as a gift. It was a little above the price cap at 90 gp, but Virgil had the excuse that it was auctioned off at a discount by the police station after being confiscated from a trickster criminal.
Entertainer's Lute would have been more appropriate for singer, actor, and playwright Jinx Fuun, but Trickster's Mandolin seemed a little more practical. Prestidigitation is often on a cantrip repertoire for non-combat utility when pulling out a musical instrument would be no trouble, and would free up repertoire space for a combat cantrip. Illusory Disguise and Item Facade would help in stagecraft for a play.
My impression about staves in Pathfinder 1st Edition is that they were handy but terribly high priced. Thus, the party would keep a staff if found, but never buy one. I have not analyzed the price of staves in Pathfinder 2nd Edition, so let me do a quick analysis. Suppose a spellcaster wants to cast 2nd-level Translate. A Wand of 2nd-level Translate, item 5, would cost 160 gp. A Librarian Staff, item 6, can also cast 2nd-level Translate and costs 225 gp. And it has the option of other spells, such as Pocket Library, a favorite among my PCs. Okay, the price is comparable to wands. In contrast, a PF1 Staff of Understanding costs 14,400 PF1 gold pieces and a PF1 bard's Wand of Tongues costs 6,000 PF1 gold pieces and can be used multiple times per day.
An interesting exploit for the 6th-level primal sorcerer with bard dedication is that the sorcerer can cast occult spells only up to 2nd rank via Basic Bard Spellcasting, even when using a staff of occult spells. And a 2nd-rank spell from a staff costs 2 charges. On the other hand, the sorcerer preparing the staff will give the staff 3 charges, because the Preparing a Staff rules don't mention spell tradition and the sorcerer can cast 3rd-rank primal spells. At 7th level the sorcerer would get 4 charges for free each day. A staff or coda would noticeably enhance the Bard Multiclass archetype.
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Librarian staff is fun. Aside from storing books, Translate is a useful thing to have available frequently. It's not exactly an OP awesome staff, but it's fun, is useful somewhat regularly, and the fact that it's library themed is great.
Staves are really handy for a class like Bard to allow you to have spells that aren't in your repertoire. So what you want to do typically is look at the spells on the staves for spells that you'd like to have but don't currently have. Pick that staff. The extra abilities on them usually aren't significant.
That makes the question somewhat dependent on the spells you already know.
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Librarian Staff is pretty cool.
I like a staff with some useful abilities. Good way to expand your spell repertoire.
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The biggest problem with Staves is their spell ranks trail behind their item level, and it only gets worse as you level up further. Blasts and incapacitation effects won't be useful when they are stuck at 3-4 ranks below what you can cast. So you want spells which are useful at any level without heightening. This will also let you maximize your uses per day thanks to how charges work.
My go to picks are Staff of Phantasms and Staff of the Unblinking Eye. Phantasms has some of the best spells in the game in and out of combat, and even the basic version will remain useful at level 20. I like it on prepared casters because I can almost always guarantee I will use multiple castings of the basic illusion spells in a day, so dedicating a single slot ups my versatility significantly. The bonus on disbelieve is nice, too.
Unblinking Eye is great on spontaneous casters. Sure strike isn't as spammable as it used to be, but you can probably find a use for it once an hour. Otherwise it has a ton of utility options to pick from, and a +1 status bonus to initiative which is just absurdly good by itself.
On a bard, Codas are worth consideration. There are some decent spells among them, and the bonus to performance checks can save you a little gold and investiture.
Druid options are less appealing unless you took that illusion feat or multi class. Staff of healing is ok. Spore Shepherd's staff seems like it was misprinted, but there's a PFS note to use it as is. If you can get one through boons or something it is a steal.
The biggest problem with Staves is their spell ranks trail behind their item level, and it only gets worse as you level up further. Blasts and incapacitation effects won't be useful when they are stuck at 3-4 ranks below what you can cast. So you want spells which are useful at any level without heightening. This will also let you maximize your uses per day thanks to how charges work.
That is the main reason why a staff for the 6th-level primal sorcerer with bard dedication seemed the most interesting. The occult spells of the Bard Multiclass already lagged behind the spell ranks of a primary tradition. Spellcasting Archetypes give a 1st-rank spell at 4th level, 2nd-rank at 6th level, 3rd-rank at 8th level, 4th-rank at 12th level, 5th-rank at 14th level, 6th-rank at 16th level, 7th-rank at 18th level, and 8th-rank at 20th level. That is 3 levels behind at best. Staff ranks look good in comparison.
Levels at Which Spell Ranks Become Available
Rank Archtype Staff Wand Class
1 4 3 3 1
2 6 6 5 3
3 8 8 7 5
4 12 10 9 7
5 14 12 11 9
6 16 14 13 11
7 18 16 15 13
8 20 18 17 15
9 __ 20 19 17
Or sorted another way
1st level: spellcaster class has 1st rank, some items have cantrips
2nd level: archetype has cantrips
3rd level: class gains 2nd rank, wands and staves have 1st rank
4th level: archtype gains 1st rank, more 1st-rank staves
5th level: class gains 3rd rank, wands gain 2nd rank
6th level: archetypes and staves gain 2nd rank
7th level: class gains 4th rank, wands gain 3rd rank, more 2nd-rank staves
8th level: archetypes and staves gain 3rd rank
9th level: class gains 5th rank, wands gain 4th rank
10th level: staves gain 4th rank
11th level: class gains 6th rank, wands gain 5th rank, more 4th-rank staves
12th level: staves gain 5th rank, archetype gains 4th rank
13th level: class gains 7th rank, wands gain 6th rank
14th level: staves gain 6th rank, archetype gains 5th rank
15th level: class gains 8th rank, wands gain 7th rank. more 6th-rank staves
16th level: staves gain 7th rank, archetype gains 6th rank
17th level: class gains 9th rank, wands gain 8th rank, more 7th-rank staves
18th level: staves gain 8th rank, archetype gains 7th rank
19th level: class gains 10th rank, wands gain 9th rank
20th level: staves gain 9th rank, archetype gains 8th rank
The current inventory of staves lacks 5th-, 9th-, 13th-, and 19th-level staves.
Incidentally, if you can stop your players from just selling it, and over leveled staff is a really cool loot drop for newer players because it gets stronger as they do and can give them access to some powerful spells they might have otherwise over looked.