Sage Advice's ruling on staves

[Legildur]

My poor old Collins dictionary says:

"Few - hardly any, a small number of,..."

"Several - more than a few...."

Not very helpful, I know.

 

[Mistwell]

Again, 'hold' can refer to potential: "to contain or be capable of containing".

'Store' doesn't... and the hypothetical Staff of Fireball isn't capable of storing more than one spell.

A Staff of Fireball and Scorching Ray is capable of storing more than one spell, but it also stores more than one spell, so the potential vs actual debate doesn't come up. A Staff of Fireball neither stores nor can store more than one spell.

-Hyp.

"Dice bags hold several dice".
I have a dice bag that holds about 8 square inches of dice.
I have a die that is about 8 square inches, and it can fit into my dice bag. However, I cannot fit more than the one die if I put that particular die in it. For the time when that one die is in the bag, the bag is fixed to a one-die capacity. Eventually, once I take my die out, it has a multiple-die capacity again.
Did my dice bag cease to be a dice bag while the one big die was in it?

When you made the magical staff, it could hold as many different kinds of spells as you could afford to place in it. In this case, once you put the spells in it and create the charges, it fixes the staff for a time to being capable of only casting that one spell. But once you run out of those charges and it becomes a non-magical staff again, there is nothing I know of that would stop you from then putting a spell or even spells into it and making it magical again. It will still cost you the money, but the actual staff is always a staff, and when making it magical you always have the option of putting more than one spell into it. Several describes the maximum capacity at creation, not the minimum you must put into it during creation.

 

[Mistwell]

A gaming group contains one DM and several players.

Let's say we have a DM and three players - we've got ourselves a gaming group!

Now the three players move to different cities.

Is the DM, by himself, a gaming group?

-Hyp.

I currently have this situation. Our three moved players still consider themselves part of a gaming group together. We are just on hiatus.

Much like a staff which, when being made magical, could contain several spells. Once you run out of charges, it's still a staff, even though it does not currently contain several spells. But, it could contain several spells (or one spell) again. So, the staff, like the gaming group, is on hiatus between times when it is made magical and given charges. And also much like the magical staff contains several charges, but it doesn't cease to be a magical staff when it is reduced to one charge.

 

[Hypersmurf]

When you made the magical staff, it could hold as many different kinds of spells as you could afford to place in it.

Hmm? No, it could hold the spells of the specific kind of staff you were crafting. If that staff was a hypothetical Staff of Fireball, it could only hold one.

-Hyp.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I currently have this situation. Our three moved players still consider themselves part of a gaming group together. We are just on hiatus.

Let's kill the three players off, then, and repeat the question.

Once you run out of charges, it's still a staff, even though it does not currently contain several spells.

Once you run out of charges, it's a stick. It's no longer magical, therefore it's no longer a magic item, therefore it's no longer a staff (in the Craft Staff sense of the word).

-Hyp.

 

[Mistwell]

Again, 'hold' can refer to potential: "to contain or be capable of containing".

'Store' doesn't...

By the way, that was some bad semantics you just played there.

Fine, my car stores several 10-foot cube boxes. It currently has only one 10-foot cube box stored in it. It's still my friggen car despite it's potential maximum capacity, and "store" and "hold" are not actually different things in this context (other than I usually use hold to talk about humans and store to talk about inanimate objects).

 

[mvincent]

I guess the advantage of a staff containing 0 spells is that it's cheap!

About $0.25

i.e. a 'quarter'-staff,


... or in Europe: A "Royale Staff" with cheese.

 

[Mistwell]

Let's kill the three players off, then, and repeat the question.



Once you run out of charges, it's a stick. It's no longer magical, therefore it's no longer a magic item, therefore it's no longer a staff (in the Craft Staff sense of the word).

-Hyp.

Lets play a game called conversation. You talk, I respond. I talk, you respond.

How about you actually respond to my full response before asking a different question (the killing players off question). Third time you've done it now, and kinda difficult to maintain a conversation if you continue to cherry pick the things you want to talk about that further your side of the debate and not the things that don't.

 

[mvincent]

Did my dice bag cease to be a dice bag while the one big die was in it?

"Die bag"

btw: if I have just one card (i.e. since I hate WotC forcing me to pick up random cards), could I call it a "Deck of Many Thing"?

 

[Hypersmurf]

Fine, my car stores several 10-foot cube boxes.

If it, on occasion, contains several 10-foot cube boxes, I agree with you.

If it never has and never will, but has the capacity to do so, then I don't agree; your car could store several 10-foot cube boxes, but your car does not store several 10-foot cube boxes.

-Hyp.