Familiar Replacement

[Purzel]

I've made up a replacement for the wizard's familiar. I did this because there are campaigns where familiars are hard to use (like bird familiars in dungeon campaign). I name it the "Wizard Staff".

http://www.heim1.tu-clausthal.de/~purzel/staff.pdf
text-only version of this see my reply below

I tried to make this balanced and not more powerful and useful than a familiar. But there are weaknesses in my concept for sure.
For one thing i dislike the name "Wizard Staff", because that gets mixed up with the usual definition of a staff in D&D.

What do you think about my idea?
Suggestions how to make it better?
Are the rules okay, or is there anything that could be used by a munchkin?

 

[Firzair]

Welcome to the boards Purzel!
I think your idea is quite balanced and practical. Only problem could be the unlimited use of light, but I think the number of available cantrips is much too low by the rules so I would allow it.
It's a nice replacement for a familiar that has a nice touch.
Perhaps you should include rules for changing your staff of choice to another (I sure want to use my staff of the archmage as my personal staff).

Greetings
Firzair

PS: Schoenen Gruß aus Muenchen!

 

[Purzel]

Text-only version

Just in case people cannot use PDF-documents here a text-only version of my "Wizard Staff" idea.

A wizard can exchange the class ability Summon Familiar against this ability. Mak-
ing a wizard staff takes a day and uses up magical materials that cost 100 gp (not
including the price for the staff, which must be a masterwork weapon or better).

If the staff breaks or is destroyed in any other way, the wizard must attempt a For-
titude saving throw (DC 15). If the saving throw fails, the wizard loses 200 experience
points per class level. A successful saving throw reduces the loss to half of that amount.
A destroyed wizard staff cannot be replaced for a year and a day.

A typical staff is like a walking stick, quarterstaff, or cudgel. It has an AC of 7 and 10 hitpoints.

The hardness of the wizard's staff is 5 + Class Level of the wizard. Break DC is
25 + Class Level. The staff has Elemental Resistance of the owner's Class Level. The
hardness, the break DC and the Elemental Resistance are extraordinary abilities and
cannot be dispelled.

Caster Level of the wizard staff (for dispel checks) is the Class Level.

Usually the wizard staff bears an eye-catching gem on the tip.


Class Lvl . . Specials
1 - 2 . . . . . . Light on staff, Empathic Link, Touch
3 - 4 . . . . . . Detect magic on touch
5 - 6 . . . . . . Cantrip Adept 1/day
7 - 8 . . . . . . Shrink and Grow
9 - 10 . . . . . Cantrip Adept 2/day
11 - 12 . . . . Spell Resistance 5 + Class Level (staff only)
13 - 14 . . . . Scry on staff, Cantrip Adept 3/day
15 - 16 . . . . Daylight on staff
17 - 18 . . . . Cantrip Adept 4/day
19 - 20 . . . .



Light: At the will of the owner the gem at the staff tip will glow like a light spell. The
owner needs to touch the staff to use this ability. Casting the light is a standard
action. If she unhands (voluntary or not) the staff the Light will still glow for
Class Level minutes.

Empathic Link: The owner will always know in which direction her staff is. This
ability works within one mile.

Touch: The owner can cast touch spells thru the staff. (notice: the staff can't be thrown
to deliver the spell)

Detect magic: When the owner holds the staff and touches a magic item the gem at
the tip of the staff will glow reddish. This is a standard action.

This ability can't be used to determine the school of a magic item.

Cantrip Adept: The owner of the Wizard Staff can cast additional cantrips he knows
without preparation.

Shrink and Grow: On command the Wizard Staff can shrink down to a length of 1
foot or grow in length by 150%.

Spell Resistance: Starting at Level 11 the staff gets SR.

Scry on Staff: If the owner is 13th level or higher, the owner may scry on the staff (as
if casting the spell scrying) once per day. This is a spell-like ability that requires
no material components or focus.

Daylight: Like the Light ability of the staff, but this cannot be used for dispelling.

 

[DaR]

Welcome to the boards Purzel!
I think your idea is quite balanced and practical. Only problem could be the unlimited use of light, but I think the number of available cantrips is much too low by the rules so I would allow it.

Given it costs a trivial 90 gp to have Continual Flame cast on the object of your choice, and since it doesn't burn you can shutter it trivially, I wouldn't rate that as particularly overbalancing.

It's a nice replacement for a familiar that has a nice touch.
Perhaps you should include rules for changing your staff of choice to another (I sure want to use my staff of the archmage as my personal staff).

I like the idea too, though I'm kinda leary of letting someone use it with any arbitrary staff. Perhaps with a rule similar to regular familiars, where if the staff is broken or lost, it's another year before you have the "spare magic" to make another.

-DaR, whose wizard's staff has a knob on the end...

 

[Purzel]

I like the idea too, though I'm kinda leary of letting someone use it with any arbitrary staff. Perhaps with a rule similar to regular familiars, where if the staff is broken or lost, it's another year before you have the "spare magic" to make another.

Oh, i've already taken that rules into account. People can only take "masterwork weapons or better" as staffs.
And when the staff is destroyed you loose XP and need to wait a year.

-DaR, whose wizard's staff has a knob on the end...

Hehe

A wizard's staff has a knob on the end
It never will buckle, it never will bend
He cherishes it, and he calls it his friend,
and he frequently takes it in hand.

 

[Khorod]

I like this a lot.

Something to consider- taking creatures as a familiary that are more powerful than a small animal generally seems to cost feats and/or XP. So taking an already magical staff for this should require a feat, or simply be impossible. A Staff of the Archmagi in the hands of a 20th level wizard has a frickin powerful object, sort of like making an imp a familiar.

Another cool feat would be the ability to apply 'Craft Wand' to it. (Not repeatable until all charges are used or dismissed.)

 

[Purzel]

Another cool feat would be the ability to apply 'Craft Wand' to it. (Not repeatable until all charges are used or dismissed.)

In which level would you add "Craft Wand (Wizard Staff only)"? What ability would you replace or would it be additional to the original idea?

How about no upper spell level limit for this?

 

[Destil]

In which level would you add "Craft Wand (Wizard Staff only)"? What ability would you replace or would it be additional to the original idea?

How about no upper spell level limit for this?

Or perhaps craft wand from 5th to 11th, and craft staff from 12th on.

I'd say it should get some added benifit, since many of these bonuses arn't as good as a familiar:
a) a staff can't scout, relay information or make any checks (spot / listen)
b) Empathic link with the staff is nice to keep it from getting lost. With a familiar you can accualy get some basic information across it.
c) Touch is nice for flavor, but not any real benifit. With a familiar you can do a lot more.
d) Detect magic: rather nice, though it lacks the identifying ability of the cantrip
e)Scry on staff isn't nearly as useful as scrying on a familiar, since you need to leave it in place to use it
f) Shrink is useful, but not small enugh to really hide in general. Whad advantage does grow give?

So in echange for the benifits of touch attack delivery (quite useful for buffs, for instance), scouting, a usefull form of scry and some other misc. stuff (like making checks, and alertness), you get 4 cantrips / day, and a watered down form of daylight and detect magic.

As far as what I'd add / change:
I'd replace scry with locate object.
I'd allow Darjims[sp?] instand summoning on the staff once per week with no special material component needed at 15h level.
I'd add a bonus hardness progression to mirror the familiar's natral AC bonus progresison, and add the wizard's charachter level to the staff's maximum hit points.

 

[Purzel]

b) Empathic link with the staff is nice to keep it from getting lost. With a familiar you can accualy get some basic information across it.

Hmm, how about the wizard always knows who is touching the staff (name, class, look and near-term intentions)?
I added the Emphatic Link ability, because the item could be stolen (i doubt a wizard would loose it).

c) Touch is nice for flavor, but not any real benifit. With a familiar you can do a lot more.

I added the Touch ability to make it possible to deliver touch spells against creatures, which you normally wouldn't dare to touch with your unprotected hand: i.e. Thoqquas and Oozes.
With the Elemental Resistance the staff is protected against damage here.

d) Detect magic: rather nice, though it lacks the identifying ability of the cantrip

Yes, i restricted it because of its unlimited use. Do you think the school identify should be added?

f) Shrink is useful, but not small enugh to really hide in general. Whad advantage does grow give?

For Shrink i had the Shrink Item spell in mind anyways. I could easily change that, then it should be possible to shrink the staff down to the size of a hairpin.

I'm not sure about the effects of the Grow yet. If the Wizard Staff is a quarterstaff, the grown staff becomes a polearm. Could be a reach weapon then, which you can use to deliver touch spells (-4 to attack, because no profiency).

So in echange for the benifits of touch attack delivery (quite useful for buffs, for instance), scouting, a usefull form of scry and some other misc. stuff (like making checks, and alertness), you get 4 cantrips / day, and a watered down form of daylight and detect magic.

Yessir, because i didn't want to overpower this item. It should still be usable and balanced in most campaigns and not making the non-wizard players complain about its power.

As far as what I'd add / change:
I'd replace scry with locate object.

Why that? Locate Object is even weaker then Scry. Emphatic Link does the same and has a range of one mile.

But you're right, i'd like to give the staff here something different than a scry, something with more flavor.

I'd allow Darjims[sp?] instand summoning on the staff once per week with no special material component needed at 15h level.

Good idea, i will add that to my development list.

I'd add a bonus hardness progression to mirror the familiar's natral AC bonus progresison, and add the wizard's charachter level to the staff's maximum hit points.

The item already has the hardness progression.

Talking about the hitpoints: i wondered giving it 1/2 of the wizards HPs too (see Familiars).

I've been reading some about damage to object in the PHB, i think the staff should be allowed to roll savingthrows (i.e. against a disintegrate).

 

[thullgrim]

This idea is really interesting, how possible would it be to come up a balanced list of staff abilities and then let the wizard choose which one he wants to add at a given level range. Something allowing wizards to customize their individual staves because I can see different wizards wanting different things in a staff. I mean we are basically talking about an item the wizard would conceivably own for his whole career here.

Thullgrim