Crafting Staves

[dutorn]

I notices the base cost to craft a wand includes XP along with the gold cost on the located in the DMG and here: http://www.geocities.com/sovelior/srd/magicItemsCreation.html

My question is about making a staff with spells imbued in it. The Creating Staff description has me confused, is there an XP cost in making a staff if the spell doesnt require XP to cast? and am I able to imbue:

Spell 1 : 25 charges
Spell 2: 25 charges

Or do all the 50 charges have to be the same spell? I'm really confused on how to determine the cost of making a staff, anyone have any pointers or explanation?

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

First, staves are unique items. There exist Staves of Healing, Staves of Fire, etc. Therefore, any created staff follows the rules for a particular staff.

[EDIT]
Creating new staves is possible. As Saev says, talking about such things here will raise the ire of those who believe that such things belong in house rules. Personally, I think that if you can talk about PrCs here, you can talk about the magic item formulae.

Saev thoughtfully provided the formulae for determining how much a given staff costs.
[/EDIT]

A newly-minted staff has 50 charges. Casting any given spell from a staff requires a certain number of charges, which is variable depending on the staff and the spell. All spells pull from the same pool of charges.

Creating a staff costs 1/2 the standard price in GP and 1/25 of the standard price in XP, much the same as any other magic item. Some staves, because of the spells they contain, cost more (i.e., including a spell with an XP or expensive material component increases the cost of a staff).

For instance:

Abjuration: Usually carved from the heartwood of an ancient oak or other large tree, this staff allows use of the following spells:
• Shield (1 charge)
• Resist energy (1 charge)
• Dispel magic (1 charge)
• Lesser globe of invulnerability (2 charges)
• Dismissal (2 charges)
• Repulsion (3 charges)
Strong abjuration; CL 13th; Craft Staff, dismissal, dispel magic, lesser globe of invulnerability, resist energy, repulsion, shield; Price 65,000 gp.

If you were to Craft such a staff, it would cost you 32,500 gp and 2,600 xp.

 

[Saeviomagy]

My question is about making a staff with spells imbued in it. The Creating Staff description has me confused, is there an XP cost in making a staff if the spell doesnt require XP to cast? and am I able to imbue:

First, expect dcollins to show up and tell you that you can't choose what spells go in your staff. It's a pet peeve of his.

Next - the XP cost for crafting a staff is exactly the same as every other magic item. For every 25gp of the staff's base price, it costs you one experience point. Experience costs for pre-generated staffs are already listed.

Or do all the 50 charges have to be the same spell? I'm really confused on how to determine the cost of making a staff, anyone have any pointers or explanation?

The staff has 50 charges.

Those 50 charges can be used to cast ANY of the staff's spells.

So, a staff with 50 charges and the spells fireball and flamestrike could be used to cast 10 fireballs and 40 flamestrikes, or 25 of each, or 50 fireballs, or 50 flamestrikes, or anything in between.

When a staff description lists

fireball (1 charge)
flamestrike (2 charges)

That doesn't mean that it has one charge of fireball and two charges of flamestrike. It means that each casting of fireball from the staff takes one charge, and each casting of flamestrike takes two charges.

In this case, you could use the staff to cast 25 flamestrikes or 50 fireballs, or 10 fireballs and 20 flamestrikes, or 40 fireballs and 5 flamestrikes, or any other combination.

If you design a staff yourself, then putting a spell in it that consumes multiple charges costs less (you divide the cost of adding that spell to the staff by however many charges it consumes).

Determining the crafting price of a staff:

Look at the highest level spell. This costs
(caster level x spell level x 375gp)/number of charges to cast

The next highest level spell costs
(caster level x spell level x 218.25gp)/number of charges to cast

All the rest of the spells cost
(caster level x spell level x 187.5gp)/number of charges to cast
each

Does that answer your questions?

edit: Oh, it was Patryn, not dcollins. Glad I didn't put money on that.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Heh - don't be so quick to take back your money, Saev. I forgot to add that part. Edited and corrected above.

 

[Staffan]

Next - the XP cost for crafting a staff is exactly the same as every other magic item. For every 25gp of the staff's market price, it costs you one experience point.

Base price, not market price. Spells with expensive components just increase the monetary cost, not the XP cost.

Determining the price of a staff:

Look at the highest level spell. This costs
(caster level x spell level x 375gp)/number of charges to cast

Those are for creation cost. The base price is double that.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Creating new staves is possible. As Saev says, talking about such things here will raise the ire of those who believe that such things belong in house rules. Personally, I think that if you can talk about PrCs here, you can talk about the magic item formulae.

Note that as the moderators decided in reference to this thread (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=103527), pricing new magic items specifically does belong in Rules. Why people keep gettin' ire-raised about it, I dunno. When the rules go out of their way to provide charts and guidelines on creating new magic items, not recognizing application of those charts and guidelines as Rules discussions seems kinda strange to me.

 

[dutorn]

Saeviomagy your post was exactly the help I was looking for.
Thank you very much

 

[Saeviomagy]

Base price, not market price. Spells with expensive components just increase the monetary cost, not the XP cost.


Those are for creation cost. The base price is double that.

*Doh!* Thanks staffan. I'll go and correct it.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Note that as the moderators decided in reference to this thread (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=103527), pricing new magic items specifically does belong in Rules. Why people keep gettin' ire-raised about it, I dunno.

I think because that ruling has been inconsistantly applied, and, especially lately, most "New Magic Item" threads have gotten moved anyway.