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How would you feel about a high-magic homebrew rule that lets people make a ranged weapon strike with a staff that's 1d4 and a fixed energy type with a ~30ft range, maybe in the sling weapon group like foxfire?
Kinda like the idea of doing some old school WoW style wand spam, and making it a bit cooler to have a staff handy.
Generally speaking, how is this better/different/equivalent to an attack cantrip?
Will it also scale every few levels to deal additional d4s?
Honestly looking at the cantrip attacks I'm wondering why bother?
Well...I guess because it's a single action activity that is thematically better than using a crossbow.
I would do maybe 1d4 of elemental damage (related to the theme of the staff) at 60ft range. Hand crossbow is 60ft, but we're doing energy damage which is better than physical. And I would allow casters use their spell attack roll. And possibly could have runes applied to it to improve damage via striking rune.
Kind of like merging a hand crossbow with a staff.
I'd be down with it. Are you intending the blasts to key off of Dex, or off of a casting stat?
The other question is, what kinds of damage are you thinking of? I'm assuming the damage type would be related thematically to the staff somehow, but how broad are you thinking of going?
I was picturing using Dex, because it's filling the role of an Air Repeater without the thematic clash. I'd be a bit worried about it being too no-brainer if it used their spellcasting attack.
For damage type, I was thinking it would be a best-fit to the staff theme, with maybe fire as a default fallback.
Well...I guess because it's a single action activity that is thematically better than using a crossbow.
That's the whole reason. I recently watched a video where someone opined that the system assumes low level casters fill third actions with simple weapon attacks, and that clashes with some people's fantasies about casters.
The staff thread in general also made me think about how much I like incentivizing casters to care about having a staff in hand.
i think its cool concept to work on.
Now that you mention substituting it for air repeater I guess it make sense the way you decided to set it, since air repeater is 1d4 damage, 0 reload (but requires reloading a magazine after 6 shots).
I actually agree that thematically it sucks that casters, not just low level casters, will occasionally use simple weapon attacks rather than doing something magical. Although casters will try to find a better third action in a round, and that's rarely going to be a weapon attack because they're not going to invest in runes typically.
I don't like the idea of the attack being dex based, mostly because it's just a weird thing to do in a system of magic attacks that's avoided making magical things rely on dex based attacks.
Maybe you just do spell attack value, and there is no item bonus to be gained. So eventually it lags behind martial attacks. And maybe for a damage upgrade (psuedo-striking rune) you need a higher level staff.
Maybe you just do spell attack value, and there is no item bonus to be gained. So eventually it lags behind martial attacks. And maybe for a damage upgrade (psuedo-striking rune) you need a higher level staff.
Ooh, I've often complained that high level staves don't have all that much to offer if you're mostly after a bunch of casts of a low level spell. While that was more true pre-true-strike-nerf, having another feature that makes high level staves juicy sounds pretty good to me.
How would you feel about a high-magic homebrew rule that lets people make a ranged weapon strike with a staff that's 1d4 and a fixed energy type with a ~30ft range, maybe in the sling weapon group like foxfire?
Kinda like the idea of doing some old school WoW style wand spam, and making it a bit cooler to have a staff handy.
I like it! My typical caster fantasy doesn't involve carrying a bow or whatever around to make a third action strike, even though it makes sense to do so. This solves that and is a nice little staff boost.
Would it scale off runes like weapon attacks do?
Interesting. Is the idea that this is something that is just added, or something that has some kind of buy-in (apart from buying the staff, of course)? If the former, I agree it should be Dex. If the latter, your casting stat is fine.
I don't think Dex is too out there - after all, rays used Dex in PF1, and nobody thought it was too weird. (Or did they?)
Anyway, it seems like you would need to review each staff to give it an appropriate attack. Or at least, every staff anyone in your game is considering buying/keeping (which to be fair might be much smaller number).
DEX would make sense if its a ranged strike since that's the standard for those, and you can already swing the staff in melee using STR.
Honestly, I’d suggest giving the caster the choice of making it as a ranged spell attack, or ranged weapon attack(with a weapon they are treat as simple. Letting them choose the one better for them.
Have each staff have an assigned appropriate damage type, based on the type of spells in it. Normally based on the type of damage the highest rank damaging spell it has, or one of the damages it does. If it doesn’t have damaging spells, then spell types it may specifically defend against. If no spell specifies any particular damage type(not even a physical one) il’ suggest making it d3 force or d4 bludgeoning then.
It is treated as a Capacity equal to the highest rank spell it contains. It can reloaded as a single action, but is automatically considered reloaded by casting any spell from the staff(cantrip or spell slot). Striking and potency runes affect these attacks.
If you want to add further flavor you could have the ranged attack gain a trait either Forceful if the strike represents a pulse, or Backswing if it represents a beam. (Not that they would frequently be doing more than one attack this way)
I like OP's idea, and with a small enough damage die, I think it could be fairly unproblematic even if it keyed off of the caster's spellcasting stat, let alone Dex. I like Loreguard's suggestion to make it a spell attack, as that would naturally key off of the caster's spellcasting attribute, and if you wanted the best of both worlds you could even exceptionally make that attack benefit from the staff's item bonus to attacks. Given how simple this proposal is, it should be fairly straightforward to playtest, even trial with a willing group.
While not central to this topic, I'd also like to see 1st-level staves, as currently you only start getting staves at 3rd level. If those staves only held cantrips, that I think ought to be fine at that level, and if they had the aforementioned attack as well, it would allow casters to immediately start using caster-y items instead of temporarily using bows that then get discarded later on.
Don't wizards in the Harry Potter universe fire simple quick blasts with their wands?
That sounds similar, but with a staff.
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Don't wizards in the Harry Potter universe fire simple quick blasts with their wands?
That sounds similar, but with a staff.
Actually, from what I remember, they are always using their wands to cast what are considered full on spells in that setting.
The Gandalf/Saruman slugfest with staves from the movies might be a closer example from media.
In WoW classic some classes would auto-attack with a wand doing chip damage when they were out of mana, which is probably the closest flavor to what I'm proposing.
Don't wizards in the Harry Potter universe fire simple quick blasts with their wands?
That sounds similar, but with a staff.
Actually, from what I remember, they are always using their wands to cast what are considered full on spells in that setting.
The Gandalf/Saruman slugfest with staves from the movies might be a closer example from media.
In WoW classic some classes would auto-attack with a wand doing chip damage when they were out of mana, which is probably the closest flavor to what I'm proposing.
Nah, beware my melee priest and his staff instead!
Anyway, nice idea.
Personally opinion to keep it simple, is to let to hit be based off spell attack roll, but have no options to improve the attack roll. But let higher level version of the item (maybe we could let this work with wand or staff) increase the damage die.
It will also "feel" more magical if you calculate the attack the way you do for spell attack rolls. If I need to invest in runes and dex, why would I bother with this vs using an air repeater? There's the thematics of it, but at high level I'd probably not bother at all. If ultimately the player is attacking for 1d4 at level 1/2/3 and 4d4 at level 20 vs a cantrip that is doing like 11d4 or something in that range...the only advantage here is that its a 1 action attack that is thematically better than using a "traditional" weapon.
I'm personally not a fan of both making a staff's attacks work like casting a spell and also making runes apply to those attacks; that feels like it's stepping on the toes of martial classes. I would definitely apply runes to the staff's attacks if the attacks keyed off Dex, however, or even if they worked like normal weapon attacks but used the casting stat to hit.
I don't understand what the difference between "work like casting a spell" and "work like normal weapon attacks but used the casting stat to hit" would be, in any practical sense. Why is applying runes to the later OK, but not the former? I don't think anybody is talking about save spells here.
Bonus or not, I definitely think this should be a spellcasting attack, not a ranged weapon attack. Otherwise a Dex fighter who who takes a caster dedication could be better at using these things than a full caster.
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I think I've come down on it definitely needing to scale off standard weapon attack proficiency. The goal is to compete with having an air repeater, not to make a wizard as good at using an air repeater as a fighter, better than most martials.
Conceptually, it's launching an energy attack without building in spellwork to make it accurate. It's not supposed to be anyone's main plan of attack, and making it scale with spell attack is just too no-brainer. You'd never see casters opting to pick up different backup ranged weapons if they liked, since that legendary accuracy is too juicy.
If someone were to try to go all-in to optimize it with goodies that power up attacks, I would want a martial to be the one to be able to do that. So a multiclass fighter with a staff that they're really good at going pew pew with, better than a wizard, sits with me just fine. It might even help them feel more like a multiclassed character since they get more from being able to use staves.
And yeah, I think a level 1 staff is probably called for in this fantasy. I could see making it only available to spellcasting classes at the start, too.
I think I've come down on it definitely needing to scale off standard weapon attack proficiency. The goal is to compete with having an air repeater, not to make a wizard as good at using an air repeater as a fighter, better than most martials.
Although I fully support erring on the side of caution, I think it's worth mentioning here that a lot of the air repeater's power comes from its agile trait. A non-agile staff attack that keyed off of weapon attack proficiency would therefore be a fair bit below the power level of a simple weapon. Given how staves can't have property runes etched, I'd argue that's also a significant further downgrade compared to an air repeater getting damage property runes added on. I can't confirm this without playtesting, but my gut instinct says that you could get away not only with making the attack a spell attack, but making the attack benefit from the staff's item bonus to attack rolls, and it'd still not tread on the toes of a martial class and their damage.
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I did plan on lifting the restriction of property runes, forgot to mention that. I'd love for the staff to be a great way for "i'm a pure caster" type players to engage with the rune system.
Air repeater also has reload, and can't also be used for melee attacks one and two handed, as well as being a source of extra spell slots. I would say it's probably closer to balanced as-is than granting legendary proficiency with it to most full casters would be.
Also air repeater kind of sucks. So being as good as an air repeater is pretty whatever as a benchmark.
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I almost see this as, "how weak would you have to make a cantrip to be a single action spell" so that a spell caster could have a "magical attack" be part of their kit and fill in their turns rather than using a weapon.
I think I've come down on it definitely needing to scale off standard weapon attack proficiency. The goal is to compete with having an air repeater, not to make a wizard as good at using an air repeater as a fighter, better than most martials.
Conceptually, it's launching an energy attack without building in spellwork to make it accurate. It's not supposed to be anyone's main plan of attack, and making it scale with spell attack is just too no-brainer. You'd never see casters opting to pick up different backup ranged weapons if they liked, since that legendary accuracy is too juicy.
If someone were to try to go all-in to optimize it with goodies that power up attacks, I would want a martial to be the one to be able to do that. So a multiclass fighter with a staff that they're really good at going pew pew with, better than a wizard, sits with me just fine. It might even help them feel more like a multiclassed character since they get more from being able to use staves.
OK, when explained that way it makes sense. I guess if it was just gonna be a spell attack, you could simply create a 1 action cantrip.
So how to implement it?
I think maybe a new class of staffs (and maybe some other special items like wands or even energy flinging swords) would make sense than a new rule applied to all existing staffs?
Rather than having a special rule, maybe just have an attack line with a trait that is the "casting stat" equivalent of Finesse / Brutal? That opens up some new possibilities...
And maybe these attacks could also work in melee so that users have an option for an attack that does not provoke / benefits from str on damage?
Would the ranged attacks have a range increment like weapons, or just a max range like spells?
Who can use them? Champions are casters and would love a ranged option that uses Chr, but they don't normally use staves. I don't see anything stopping them from gaining the non-spell benefits from one if they DO wield it, so it seems they could also do this sort of attack? Monks are maybe in the same situation. The maybe seem potentially appropriate for a Thaumaturge as well, perhaps as an optional replacement for the Wand implement?
OK, when explained that way it makes sense. I guess if it was just gonna be a spell attack, you could simply create a 1 action cantrip.
So how to implement it?
I think maybe a new class of staffs (and maybe some other special items like wands or even energy flinging swords) would make sense than a new rule applied to all existing staffs?
Rather than having a special rule, maybe just have an attack line with a trait that is the "casting stat" equivalent of Finesse / Brutal? That opens up some new possibilities...
I think the idea is to have it work with existing staves, so someone can use a staff and also still have that "third attack strike" option without having to use a bow/gun/whatever. It's for folks that want their caster fantasy to be incorporating that instead of adding in weapons.
Who can use them? Champions are casters and would love a ranged option that uses Chr, but they don't normally use staves. I don't see anything stopping them from gaining the non-spell benefits from one if they DO wield it, so it seems they could also do this sort of attack? Monks are maybe in the same situation. The maybe seem potentially appropriate for a Thaumaturge as well, perhaps as an optional replacement for the Wand implement?
Well, two options there:
1. Limit it to characters with a spellcasting class feature who have prepared the staff. That means anyone else is spending an archetype to get it.2. Don't worry about it and if a Champion really wants to use a staff, cool.
This may go a bit beyond the scope of this particular brew, but how about this to increase the synergy between staves and spell attacks:
With this, you could have that particular spell attack make full use of all the staff's runes and also keep spell attacks as accurate as martial Strikes, without exceeding their average accuracy either. With a d4 damage die, that should make staves fairly reasonable for making ranged attacks as a caster.
I don't really feel like letting the staff ranged attack using the standard spell attack modifier really breaks anything from a balance standpoint. It is reasonable to point out it would likely most often be used for a 3rd action and with fewer spell attack spells, it means it being agile or not will matter less often. However, it would almost invariably be behind all the martial classes weapons proficiencies until you managed to get to 19th level where I'm going to say a third action to do 4d4, even if close to accuracy of a fighter is ok with me, even if it is doing an energy damage. (imagining highest potency and striking runes on the staff)
If the downside of this is that the Wizards and Sorcerers, who are the iconic Staff Pew-Pew iconic can shoot low damage energy bolts relatively quickly with the accuracy of a fighter, I think that I'm still ok with that. (ok, I see how if you enable property runes and other things that may change the impact and might re-open the question, but with just potency and fundamental runes, it seems perfectly reasonable.
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Would it count as a Strike, for example for using Haste actions? Currently I find myself advising casters to pick up returning throwing knives just to have something to spend that action on by the time Haste7 starts tagging the whole party.
I don't think it needs to be very powerful/agile, because you're also very free to opt out of MAP. Just use a non-attack cantrip followed by a staff shot.
Using spell attack does sound more flavorful than dexterity. If it used dexterity that'd be another nudge to casters to really focus on Dex to handle their iffy clothie AC. Leaving it at spell attack is a more neutral choice, also still keeps things open for say druids with medium armor, or someone going for a bulwark full plate through feats/dedications.
I do think if you're going to lean heavily on "you're using an item to fire it" that it would make sense for item bonuses to apply to the attack roll. You could balance damage to take that into account.
Question: suppose we had a weapon trait, let's just call it "enchanted", that allowed you to use your spell attack modifier in the place of the normal attack modifier for the Strike, and allowed your attack to be counted as both a Strike and Casting a Spell. How powerful would this trait be compared to, say, the agile trait? Because if we're valuing this hypothetical trait as less than or equal to agile, then adding that to this hypothetical d4 staff attack would put it on par with the air repeater, give or take the power of dealing energy damage. If it's stronger, then either the attack would need fewer of those benefits, or some kind of drawback trait to compensate. Depending on what the intended result is, each of these could be a valid approach.
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I'd rate it a bit stronger than Finesse actually, since you'd be using both a potentially better ability score, and a better proficiency.
This suggests that one obvious drawback would be tying it to a d4 damage die, just like how agile and finesse keep you at the low die sizes.
By now, we've had some time to get used to not adding ability scores to cantrips anymore, and quite a few ranged weapons don't add ability scores either, so just d4s with potential striking runes seems like the obvious path to me.
If the damage comes from striking runes, then what benefit to higher level staves? Aside of course from the staves having some better spells, maybe the range increment also goes up for higher level staves? Combat arenas also tend to get bigger at higher level (consider the fly speed of dragons..)
If the damage comes from striking runes, then what benefit to higher level staves? Aside of course from the staves having some better spells, maybe the range increment also goes up for higher level staves? Combat arenas also tend to get bigger at higher level (consider the fly speed of dragons..)
Assuming this attack benefits from both the staff's fundamental and property runes as WatersLethe mentioned, then the benefits would be the same as for other weapons, and you'd just always have a decent single-action attack as a caster. My guess though is that this kind of effect would make the biggest difference at lower level, rather than high level: at higher levels, casters have so many strong single actions that this kind of attack I think would be more of a last resort, rather than a first option. At lower levels, though, casters don't have all of those great options in those same amounts, which is why many currently equip weapons that they abandon later on. Giving them staves from level 1 that they can use to make more magical attacks would, from what I'm seeing at least, give casters a nice little third action that'd feel properly magical.
I'd suggested before that with a minimum of 1, have the capacity of the staff be equal to the highest rank of slot the staff can cast.
The staff gets reloaded automatically anytime a cantrip or slotted spell is cast from the staff, or the caster can spend an action with a concentration trait to reload it outside of that mechanic.
I don't know if there are any special staff's off the top of my head that can cast focus spells (none, that I recall) but if one does exist, it might be ok to have the reload for one like that to equal half the item's level.
Staff's aren't supposed to be able to have property runes, but if people wanted to provide some additional flavor but avoid some of the strength of property runes, you might be able to invent some weaker variants of property runes.
Runic Epigrams
can only be applied to certain types of weapons objects which were used as symbols of leadership as much if not more than as actual weapons. These include Staffs, Maces, Scepters, Rods.
When determining how many non-fundamental runes an object may hold, add the number Epigrams to the number Property runes to determine if it has been exceeded. Epigrams will deactivate before property runes, if the number is exceeded.
Epigram of Energy
One energy type from the list of (acid, cold, fire, sonic, spirit, poison, vital, void), defined when the rune is created is associated wit the rune. As a free action before making a strike with the weapon, you can change the base type of damage to the rune's associated energy.
Epigram of Protection
Requirement: grants cast a spell which provides an AC bonus, or item has an ability that can activate to grant an AC bonus.
This rune enables the weapon an action just like the Parry trait, granting a +1 circumstance bonus to AC from attacks.
Epigram of Resistance
Selected at run creation: one energy from the list:(acid, cold, fire, sonic, spirit, poison, vital, void)
Requirement: grants cast a spell which can provides an energy resistance of the type selected above.
Grants a reaction action which gives a resistance of 5 for the energy type given vs. one particular attack you are aware of when it it hits you.
Other Epigrams could exist, and would generally be less powerful than Property runes. Frequently not doing extra damage, but providing an alternative instead. Obviously, if you allow property runes on top of staffs, Epigrams would be unnecessary for additional variance.