A staff with the ability to be recharged

[calypso15]

Hey guys,

If you were going to make a staff that would allow the bearer to add charges to it, without knowing the requisite spells, what would you do?

I keep thinking along the lines of: "The wielder may channel energy into the staff in order to replenish it. For every 10 spell levels that are channeled into the staff, 1 charge is regained."

Except, that's broken. Any ideas on making it less so?

Calypso

 

[tomddlc]

Reloading a magic staff...

A magic staff that can be recharged by just about anyone is a very potent item. I would seriously consider adding some additional requirements - and ones that might add a bit of flavor. For instance if it is a staff with dark powers, I would require it to be recharged using only necromantic spells, cast at midnight - a staff of air to be recharged either while flying or standing on a mountain top. Things like that. That also makes the players feel they have to work a bit for it. And it makes it easier to downplay the actual spell requirements... Depending on the power of the staff, I would say that perhaps any spell of a certain level (4th or 5th comes to mind) channeled into the staff adds a charge.

I don't know if this helps - but at least it got me thinking about creating such a staff for my own campaign....

 

[Mouseferatu]

Here's the thing.

It requires the expenditure of XP to create magic items in 3E. In order to maintain even a semblance of balance, it must require the expenditure of XP to recharge items as well. Otherwise, you suddenly wind up with items that are essentially unlimited use, because there's no cost to create/recharge them.

Honestly, if someone wanted to recharge a staff IMC, it would cost them the same XP as it would to create the staff, modified for number of charges remaining. (I.e., if they wanted to recharge a staff that had 20 charges left, it would cost them 60% of the norm in XP, since 20 is 60% of the total 50 charges.)

The advantage to recharging is that the character need not spend the time or the gold on building a whole new item. But it still keeps things at least somewhat balanced, since they can't just recharge the item willy-nilly.

I'm not sure if I'd require them to have the proper item creation feat or not.

 

[calypso15]

Here's the thing.

It requires the expenditure of XP to create magic items in 3E. In order to maintain even a semblance of balance, it must require the expenditure of XP to recharge items as well. Otherwise, you suddenly wind up with items that are essentially unlimited use, because there's no cost to create/recharge them.

Honestly, if someone wanted to recharge a staff IMC, it would cost them the same XP as it would to create the staff, modified for number of charges remaining. (I.e., if they wanted to recharge a staff that had 20 charges left, it would cost them 60% of the norm in XP, since 20 is 60% of the total 50 charges.)

The advantage to recharging is that the character need not spend the time or the gold on building a whole new item. But it still keeps things at least somewhat balanced, since they can't just recharge the item willy-nilly.

I'm not sure if I'd require them to have the proper item creation feat or not.

For a wand I'd agree. But the thing with staffs is, say a staff has 3 level 5 spells in it. That's (off the top of my head) 38000 gp.

That means that to add a single charge, it would cost ... doh!

Okay, I was forgetting to divide by 50, so I was thinking that adding a single charge would cost them 1520 xp rather than 30 xp.

Phew... okay... I suppose adding an xp requirement wouldn't be too bad then.

And tomddlc, nice ideas It's a necromantic staff, so requiring that charges be added on a full moon would be really cool. Thanks both!

Calypso

 

[calypso15]

Let me know what you guys think of this:

The Twilight Staff

This staff allows use of the following spells:
Doomwail (1 charge)
Grimwald's Greymantle (1 charge)
Magic Jar (2 charges)
Teleport (2 charges)

In addition, the wielder may add charges to the staff under certain circumstances. The night before, during, or after a full moon, the wielder may perform an hour-long ritual to replenish the staff. For each charge to be added, the ritual requires the expenditure of 25 xp, 100 gp worth of moonstone dust, and a drop of the wielder's blood, which causes 1 hp of damage. The moonstone dust and blood are mixed into a glass of wine, which the wielder drinks. The wielder must then channel into the staff a number of necromancy spell levels equal to the number of charges to be added. Any charges that are not added by the end of the hour are lost. The number of charges in the staff may not exceed 50.

 

[Wolf72]

didn't I just see this topic? ... right, you've posted this over at wizards too

what the other guys said ... price/max number of charges=cost of one charge ... that's how much it is to recharge ... maybe more if it's someone else (npc) having to give up that xp.

 

[calypso15]

didn't I just see this topic? ... right, you've posted this over at wizards too

You mean I'm not the only one that looks at both forums?? :\

Heh, I posted at both because I find that people rarely respond to my posts on either. This way I have a slim chance.

And yeah, that's more or less what I did... the XP is 1/50 the cost of the original, per charge, and the gold is a bit less than 1/50. And, it seems limited enough to be not too abusable. Only able to recharge once a month seems reasonable to me.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

As a flavor issue, look at your campaign world. In the FR, for instance, the moon goddess (Selune) is very anti-undead. So, a ritual involving moonstone dust done at the time of the full moon wouldn't necessarily be appropriate.

A better time might be at midnight on a moonless night.

 

[tomddlc]

Now we're talking...

That's a great staff Calypso15 - I just might use it in my campaign. I like the idea of mixing moondust with blood and drinking it... kind of nasty

I agree with Patryn, that if you are playing in the Realms, recharging an evil staff would be more appropriate in the time of Shar - a moonless night.

 

[irdeggman]

Unearthed Arcana has a sidebar (house-rule) concerning recharging magic items. It is pretty good actually.