Sage Advice's ruling on staves

[hong]

Yanno, I gotta wonder about a campaign where this would actually be a frikkin issue.

Threads like this are the equivalent of the "D&D doesn't model LotR" threads in General Discussion.

 

[Delta]

If you play by just the core rules, then you can't invent your own magic items, and this is a nonissue.

If you play using "Variant: New Magic Items", then it's entirely up to your DM. If I was DM I would use published staffs as a model, and require more than one spell.

 

[Mistwell]

You haven't included the description of staffs, only the description for creating a staff.

Would you allow, then, someone to create a potion of a spell with a casting time of more than one minute, since it is only the description of potions, not the description of creating potions, that prohibits it?



Sure. But a Staff of Fireball doesn't have the potential capacity for several spells. It has the potential capacity - which it is utilising fully - for a single spell: Fireball.

Compare a Ring of Spell Storing, which has the potential to store multiple spells even if it isn't doing so right now, with a Ring of Counterspells, which can only contain one. If we postulate that someone might come along and use Forge Ring on the Ring of Counterspells to add the powers of a Ring of Spell Storing, that still doesn't mean that the Ring of Counterspells stores several spells; it stores one.

The Staff of Fireball stores a single spell. If someone came along and Craft Staffed it to make it into a Staff of Fireball and Scorching Ray, it would store more than one... but it's no longer a Staff of Fireball, so that possibility doesn't change that a Staff of Fireball stores and can store but a single spell.

-Hyp.

At this point it seems like your being obtuse.

Not all specific staves have the potential capacity to have several spells. The author is saying that staves, as a general type of item, have the potential to have several spells.

If you accept the analysis that the phrase "stores several" can be a general phrase that is attempting to describe the lack of limitations on capacity for what a creator can do with a magic staff when making them, then it says NOTHING about the minimum the creator must do with the item when creating it.

Come on Hyp, you gotta admit that it's one reasonable way to look at that sentence. Much like the stuff about wood, which is a general description about common types of staves and not a rule that all must be wood.

 

[Hypersmurf]

The author is saying that staves, as a general type of item, have the potential to have several spells.

No, he's saying that a staff, as an instance of the general type of item, stores several spells.

-Hyp.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Threads like this are the equivalent of the "D&D doesn't model LotR" threads in General Discussion.

Hmmm, it's about time to start one of those again ...

 

[Kisanji Arael]

Ummm... cheers to Plane Sailing and mvincent for good puns in a long and repetitive thread.

 

[Someone]

Now I realize that, by the RAW, you can create a staff that can only cast Fireball, as long you engrave in it several things like I-D-I-O-S-Y-N-C-R-A-T-I-C , O-N-O-M-A-T-O-P-O-E-T-I-C , or G-O-V-E-R-N-M-E-N-T-A-L

Though they may be spellings, not spells. Hmmmm...

 

[Legildur]

Ummm... cheers to Plane Sailing and mvincent for good puns in a long and repetitive thread.

Nah, this is nothing. Have a look for threads on 'Monks and Improved Natural Attack' or 'Sunder as an AOO' - now there are two threads that are long and repetitive (500+ replies).

 

[mvincent]

You haven't included the description of staffs, only the description for creating a staff.

Would you allow, then, someone to create a potion of a spell with a casting time of more than one minute, since it is only the description of potions, not the description of creating potions, that prohibits it?

The potion prohibition does not seem subject to interpretation to me. Do you believe that the staff description provides a similar prohibition that is not subject to interpretation?

Do you believe others could not (and should not) reasonably interpret it differently from you?

 

[mvincent]

Nah, this is nothing. Have a look for threads on 'Monks and Improved Natural Attack' or 'Sunder as an AOO' - now there are two threads that are long and repetitive (500+ replies).

Each of those were also answered in the FAQ (a supplement with is supposed to help settle arguments). I'm inclined to believe people deprecate the FAQ here simply to increase their post count.