Rod to add Spell Known

[ThirdWizard]

In a couple of my campaigns, I've given out magic items with an additional pre-set Spell Known imbued into it. In each case it was a spell the character would not normally spend a precious Spell Known slot to purchase, but thematically appropriate to the character or the object in some way. I did not bother working out the price for these items, as they were unique creations of the angels who granted the casters their power.

Haven

In my case, its because the sorcerer has multiclassed in some rogue levels, and needs a bit of a push to catch up to the others.

I like your idea, especially if you make it a Rod (just because Rods are still few), but I think that it is easier to price it if there are different versions each of which allows to store a specific max level of spells.

Thanks, I'm a huge fan of Rods. Rods do unique and interesting things that don't emulate spells or abilities already present, which I think makes them more "magical" somehow. Admittedly, I might make it a rod in my campaign knowing its more powerful, but keep the "official" version of it a ring. It's one of the curses of obsessive compulsive disorder. Heh.

Eventually, I'll make the normal and greater versions, but not until my PCs are higher level. They're barely able to fit this into their wealth as is at the moment. I'm fairly generous with wealth, but I try not to allow that to influence the stuff I design.

From the SRD section on creating staves: "The caster level of all spells in a staff must be the same, and no staff can have a caster level of less than 8th, even if all the spells in the staff are low-level spells." Should be the same in the DMG.

I think this is a 3.5 change, put there to sort-of increase the cost of a staff since you now use your own stats and caster level if those are higher than the staff's.

Found it in the DMG now. Wow. 8th seems kind of arbitrary, but I guess not any more arbitrary than anything else. Learn something new every day.

 

[Staffan]

Found it in the DMG now. Wow. 8th seems kind of arbitrary, but I guess not any more arbitrary than anything else. Learn something new every day.

An off-hand guess is that they chose 8 because wands are limited to 4th-level spells. This means you'll rarely find a wand with a caster level above 7 (sure, you can make one, but they're rare), so they had staves take over from there.

 

[ThirdWizard]

An off-hand guess is that they chose 8 because wands are limited to 4th-level spells. This means you'll rarely find a wand with a caster level above 7 (sure, you can make one, but they're rare), so they had staves take over from there.

Yep, and without it, there would actually be little use for Craft Wand (except the lower level requirement), since a Wand of Magic Missile (for example) and a Staff of Magic Missile would cost the same while the Staff would be much much better. What puzzles me, though, is that they did this through minimum caster level instead of the constant used (375 gp). A Staff of Fireball (CL 5) costs less than a Wand of Fireball (CL 10), but is much better assuming you are either 10th level or have really high spell DCs.