A spontaneous spellcaster—such as a bard, oracle, or sorcerer—can reduce the number of charges it takes to Activate a staff by supplementing it with their own energy. When a spontaneous spellcaster Activates a staff, they can expend 1 charge from the staff and one of their spell slots to cast a spell from the staff of the same rank (or lower) as the expended spell slot. This doesn’t change the number of actions it takes to cast the spell. For example, if a sorcerer can cast 3rd-rank spells and prepared a staff, the staff would gain 3 charges. They could expend 1 charge and one of their 3rd-rank spell slots to cast a 3rd-rank spell from the staff, or 1 charge and one of their 2nd-rank spell slots to cast a 2nd-rank spell from the staff. They could still expend 3 charges from the staff to cast a 3rd-rank spell from it without using any of their own slots, just like any other spellcaster.
So, as I first read this, I came to the following conclusion; A spontaneous caster that wants to cast one of the 1st-rank spells on a staff can either:
1. Expend 1 charge to cast a 1st-rank spell listed on the staff.
2. Expend 1 charge AND a spell slot to do the same thing.
Obviously, I can see the benefit of doing so for higher-ranked spells on a staff (being able to cast those higher-rank spells more often during the day), but it just seems like more magical energy is lost the lower the rank of the spell being cast from the staff, which doesn't make any sense and makes this feature worthless on lower-level staves. Why would 2 even be an option? Am I missing something?
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Well, it looks like you already answered your question.
Obviously, I can see the benefit of doing so for higher-ranked spells on a staff (being able to cast those higher-rank spells more often during the day),
That is the point of option #2.
No, that isn't very useful for a Rank 1 spell. But what do you recommend? Remove that option entirely - and make it so that the option can't be used for cases (like the higher Rank spells on the staff) that it is useful for?
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The main advantage of a staff for spontaneous casters is having staff spells that aren't in your repertoire, to expand your options.
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The main advantage of a staff for spontaneous casters is having staff spells that aren't in your repertoire, to expand your options.
True, but it is also true that there is no good reason to expend a charge and a spell slot when you could just expend a charge.
So option 2 isn't useful for casting one-charge spells.
Okay. Good to see that my initial interpretation was correct, though it's a shame that the unique feature of spontaneous casters with a staff is so woefully wasteful at the lower ranks.
Meanwhile the prepared caster staff option is always good by simply exchanging a spell slot for extra charges. There's a conservation of spell energy in the exchange there, while also granting the prepared caster a limited degree of spontaneity.
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so woefully wasteful at the lower ranks.
Lowest rank. Singular. This is effectively an edge case that only affects Rank 1 spells.
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First rank spells are already a good deal on staves- you get at least twice as many castings of them as you do of the second-rank spells. Spontaneous gets more options for what to do with a single charge.
