Sage Advice's ruling on staves

[Legildur]

Quiver of Ehlonna. Carry a staff for every occasion.

Good one!

 

[mvincent]

Below are the rules for creating a staff:
"Creating Staffs

To create a magic staff, a character needs a supply of materials, the most obvious being a staff or the pieces of the staff to be assembled.

The cost for the materials is subsumed in the cost for creating the staff—375 gp × the level of the highest-level spell × the level of the caster, plus 75% of the value of the next most costly ability (281.25 gp × the level of the spell × the level of the caster), plus one-half of the value of any other abilities (187.5 gp × the level of the spell × the level of the caster). Staffs are always fully charged (50 charges) when created.

If desired, a spell can be placed into the staff at only half the normal cost, but then activating that particular spell costs 2 charges from the staff. 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.

The creator must have prepared the spells to be stored (or must know the spell, in the case of a sorcerer or bard) and must provide any focus the spells require as well as material and XP component costs sufficient to activate the spell a maximum number of times (50 divided by the number of charges one use of the spell expends). This is in addition to the XP cost for making the staff itself. Material components are consumed when he begins working, but focuses are not. (A focus used in creating a staff can be reused.) The act of working on the staff triggers the prepared spells, making them unavailable for casting during each day of the staff’s creation. (That is, those spell slots are expended from his currently prepared spells, just as if they had been cast.)

Creating a few staffs may entail other prerequisites beyond spellcasting. See the individual descriptions for details.

Crafting a staff requires one day for each 1,000 gp of the base price."

The method does not appear to ban making a staff with only one spell (and, as a blanket, actually allows it). It seems that it would require a specific ban to rescind the above general blanket allowance. Is there a suitable one in the rules? (actual question here... I'm genuinely curious).

 

[Hypersmurf]

The method does not appear to ban making a staff with only one spell (and, as a blanket, actually allows it). It seems that it would require a specific ban to rescind the above general blanket allowance. Is there a suitable one in the rules? (actual question here... I'm genuinely curious).

Can someone create Oil of Secret Page?

(Actually, I'm somewhat puzzled as to where Oil of Bless Weapon and Oil of Shillelagh come from. The Brew Potion feat can't create them, and they aren't Wondrous Items... :\ )

-Hyp.

 

[Bad Paper]

They're paying the wand price (and sometimes lower!) for the staff--it's as simple as that. Why would any high-level caster looking for a support wand in case of running out of spells ever buy a Wand of Fireball (10th caster level to get the most out of damage) for 22500 when she can just buy a Staff of Fireball (8th caster level, but she's 10th+ anyway so it doesn't matter) for 18000 and get around +4 or +5 to the DC?

Assuming that wands are correctly priced for their utility (and maybe that assumption is wrong, but I believe in it), single-spell staves are underpriced and manipulative of the rules.

Rystil Arden nailed it. There must be some reason, somehow, that a staff is more expensive than an "equivalent" wand. (because they aren't equivalent)

As a house rule, I might allow single-spell staves (of any spell level) to be created by someone with both Craft Staff and Craft Wand, but that is certainly not RAW, and neither is the Sage's poor advice.

But hey, that's the nature of free advice.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Wondrous items do. Rings do. Rods do.

There's a rule saying "you can't make up more wondrous items by taking a masterwork item and shoving a spell on it, along with the appropriate feat?" Because that's what the current staff magic item description suggests.

Heck, versatility is explicitly thrown wide open for some of the creation feats, like Brew Potion, which results in some potions in 3.5 that I never would have imagined in previous editions.

The wand/rod/staff division was created to maintain a sacred cow that didn't need maintaining, IMO, and did it imperfectly: The wand of wonder was changed to a rod of wonder, which mostly sounds like a D&D gay porno.

The entire set-up should be scrapped and there should be a single set of balanced rules that work for wands, rods and staffs that are all balanced against one another in utility and cost. Personally, my inclination is to just throw out old school staffs altogether and go with just runestaffs when MIC comes out.

 

[Psimancer]

It never even occurred to me that their might be a rule against a staff having only one spell.

Nope. I always assumed it was legal, and saw--and still see--no reason why it should not be.

Seconded, Thirded, whatever... same here, no issue with it what so ever...

(Actually, I'm somewhat puzzled as to where Oil of Bless Weapon and Oil of Shillelagh come from. The Brew Potion feat can't create them, and they aren't Wondrous Items... :\ )

Interesting! Never really thought about it before, I had always just assumed it would be made with the Brew Potion IC Feat... We did have Oil of Repair Light Damage in one of our Eberron games though... never thought to ask where they came from...



* * *

 

[Starglim]

If it really needs repeating, the Craft Staff feat allows you to create one of the staffs listed in the DMG. Any other design of staff, its price and its prerequisites must be approved by the DM regardless of what some formula says it 'should' cost. Having said that, I agree with Customer Service and Nute.

 

[Bagpuss]

I suppose that I'm willing to define it, in this context, as "one or more" for the sake of my own games, but now I understand Bad Paper's point.

Dictionary's tend to define it as more than three, but not many.

One is one.
A couple is two.
A few is three.

 

[billd91]

(Actually, I'm somewhat puzzled as to where Oil of Bless Weapon and Oil of Shillelagh come from. The Brew Potion feat can't create them, and they aren't Wondrous Items... :\ )

I'm not following this. The only restrictions I'm seeing on the spells are:
3rd level max (bless weapon and shillelagh are both 1st level)
no range = personal (neither bless weapon nor shillelagh are personal range)
no nonsensical results as with shield other (neither bless weapon nor shillelagh involve that)

So I'm not seeing the problem. The feat may say that you can make a potion of a spell that targets one or more creatures, but since the feat also references the DMG for rules on potions, and the potions section of the magic items explicitly includes references to non-creature targets and oils, I don't think there's a problem.

 

[Wish]

Why, exactly, must a staff cost more than a wand just because it's "better"? (And it's not better in every circumstance.)

A caster level 8 staff is pretty cool for a 1st level wizard with a 12 Int. It's way cooler for a 15th level wizard with a 24 Int.

A caster level 10 wand is about equally cool for each, though the 1st level dude will get a lot more milage out of it (the 15th level guy should get smacked up side the head for trying to use something with a DC 14 save and only +10 on spell penetration). Note, however, that it's actually more useful for the 1st level guy than the staff is (2 extra dice of damage per fireball).