FREE Wishes(OK just really cheap)

[drnuncheon]

OK, I missed that one. The other two dont specifically force you to make yours at 50 tho. And on a technicality, that one allows you to create a staff at one charge price and get the other 49 for free...

Only if, to be blunt, you and your DM have both been smoking bad crack. There is absolutely nothing in any of the books that indicates that you can make a staff with less than 50 charges. In fact, there is nothing in any of the books that indicates a 'per charge' price, although many people have house rules regarding it. (But if your house rules break the game, it's your own fault, not the game's...)

J

 

[James McMurray]

But as he said, the guidelines do allow for making staves with 50 charges for a single spell which takes 50 charges to activate. If you make the staff sized for a tiny creature it takes up even less space than a scroll would, uses the activator's caster level and ability scores, and only has a market value of spell level * caster level * 15. That's why the DM has to step in and say "sorry, those are only guidelines. Nice try though."

Marshall: up until that one post you never even hinted that you were looking for a way to fix a perceived problem. Instead you were arguing for it, as if you planned on trying to use the loophole yourself in a game. That and your attempts to make staves that take ten charges per activation are why I quoted Trainz.

Staves should be cheaper than scrolls in the long run because you "buy in bulk." They should not be cheaper (and more powerful) one-shot items. There would rarely ever be any scrolls of 7th level spells if every 13th level caster could have Craft Staff and make staves that were cheaper and more powerful.

 

[drnuncheon]

But as he said, the guidelines do allow for making staves with 50 charges for a single spell which takes 50 charges to activate.

Technically, they don't allow for it - just 1 or 2 charges (check page 287).

Sure, there are staves in the DMG that use 3, 4, or 5 charges per casting, but there are plenty of things in the DMG that you can't get by following the guidelines (price a Holy Avenger sometime).

(That's only if one were to be utterly anal about the letter of the rules, of course - but that's how this whole thing got started, isn't it?)

J

 

[Marshall]

Marshall: up until that one post you never even hinted that you were looking for a way to fix a perceived problem. Instead you were arguing for it, as if you planned on trying to use the loophole yourself in a game. That and your attempts to make staves that take ten charges per activation are why I quoted Trainz.

I didn't need a way to "fix" the problem, as I said its fairly easy to do and should have been the default. I was arguing to point out that the problem does exist. Wish is just the most extreme example of it and if you go back to the second paragraph of my second post in the thread you'll see I point that out, too.

Staves should be cheaper than scrolls in the long run because you "buy in bulk." They should not be cheaper (and more powerful) one-shot items. There would rarely ever be any scrolls of 7th level spells if every 13th level caster could have Craft Staff and make staves that were cheaper and more powerful.

Simply put, not every 13th level caster is going to have Craft Staff and the 40% discount to get scroll-like effects is negligible. OTOH, the premium you have to pay to get second spells is going to make single spell staves the norm, at least until you get to Master Staff and it becomes a less disposable item.

(That's only if one were to be utterly anal about the letter of the rules, of course - but that's how this whole thing got started, isn't it?)

If it took being anal, I wouldnt worry about it. But its a cheap way to bypass a lot of the "cost" of expensive spells that its fairly easy to just stumble into.

 

[Impeesa]

Well, I'm about 800 km from my books right now, but I recall someone saying once that a command word item capable of casting Wish 1/day was within the gp limit of Wish. Your initial investment is a scroll of Wish, and they multiply exponentially.

--Impeesa--

 

[tauton_ikhnos]

From the SRD:
XP Cost: The minimum XP cost for casting wish is 5,000 XP. When a wish duplicates a spell that has an XP cost, you must pay 5,000 XP or that cost, whichever is more. When a wish creates or improves a magic item, you must pay twice the normal XP cost for crafting or improving the item, plus an additional 5,000 XP.

You can not wish for a staff of wishes for free .

As for the rest of it:

I was unable to find the rule that says "When using a charged item for a spell that costs XP, do not pay the XP cost." Is there such a thing? Our group has always played it as "Pay the XP when casting spell". If this rule exists, we'd be interested in it.