help price staff's powers- Staff of the Mournland [Eberron]

[Kol Korran]

Tomer, Guy, Alon and Ariel, please keep out.

Edit: i posted this thread some days ago, asking for power suggestions for a special staff, but got little response. however, i'd like to incorporate the ideas i got with some further ideas of my own. problem is- i don't know how powerful these are comparing to other items. so i was hoping someone who is a bit better with this aspect of the system could help me. please scroll down to the post beginning with power descriptions and tell me what you think of the power, how much it would cost, and if you're making alterations- how much it'd cost then... (WBL power wise)

hello folks, i need your help.
in my Eberron game (that i DM), the party is just about to reach the Mournland. for those who don't know- it's Eberron's bizarro land, twilight zone, an area blasted by magic in which all weird things happen, an open grave where bodies never rot, a place of metal grass that explodes, unexpected crying that haunts you, only to turn to laughter, and other nightmarish or just weird things.

one of my character, a female Kalashatar (beautiful psycich looking human with an otherworldly soul sharing the same body) wizardes/ sorceress/ ultimate magus (total level 8, casts 3rd level spells) has been researching the area for her entire life. it is her obsession.

plus the player has been always saying that a wizard is never complete without his staff. so i thought to conjure a special staff, a custom made Item- the Staff of the Mournland.

I haven't yet decided how she'll get the staff, i have two ideas running in my head, but i need help creating the staff.

thoughts concerning the staff:
1) it should be a unique item, not just a glorified multi wand. i want it to partialy follow the normal rules of a staff, but to also have a few special abilities, thematic of course. it should be usefull outside the mournlands as well.
2) it's themes should be the following: horrors of the mournland (mind affecting powers, or physically spell altering powers), souls trapped in the mournland (i have no idea here. perhaps drawing on their knowledge, skills, or feats?), and the restoring power of nature. (druidic powers?)
3) charges: it can't be recharged outside the mournland, but in the morunland it recharges naturaly in the rate of 1d8-3 charges a day (yes, it can lose charges)
4) healing is problematic inside my version of the mournland. as one of the powers i thought to let it heal without complication? a CMW spell?
as you see, this idea is far from complete. help please?

[Forged Fury]

My favorite Mournland-associated ability is granted via the Mistling template in Forge of War. The template gives Fey creatures a series of new SLAs based on hit dice. Futhermore, the template allows the Mistling to turn one of its SLAs into a Living Spell (ECS) once/day. The Living Spell hangs around for hours/HD, IIRC. The staff could allow your kalashtar to turn one of her spells into a Living Spell under her control for X/charges.

[Kol Korran]

hhmmm... that is actually quite a cool idea! maybe the number of charges will depend on the level of the spell, or how long it's alive... interesting. thanks!

[Cog]

It could possibly incorporate metamagic rod effects - choose four or six you like, and each day roll a d4 or d6 to see which you get access to on that day, so you get some variety out of it - get a little of that chaotic, shifting weirdness. Perhaps you can take the preferred of two rolls when you're in the Mournland itself.

[Kol Korran]

hhhmmm... interesting idea, probably to due with shape of spells or or the like. thanks!

an idea that sprang to mind- i want the staff to be impressive, but i don't want it to break the wealkth by level too much. i thought that perhaps a side affect of "bonding" with the staff, will be the inability to use most other magic items... i will replace the character's current total wealth into the staff (the staff will suck their power and the staff will grow in power and abilities as the character gains experience, instead of other magic items...

what are your thoughts? would this be interesting? cool? obnoxious? bad?

[Kol Korran]

Power descriptions

- Misty Staff of the soul: the staff is actually part of the character. she can draw it into herself, gaining misty looking eyes. or she can have it reform in her hand, as a translucent misty staff, that cannot be disarmed or sundered. lastly, she may withdraw herself into the staff, which then gain a more solid appearance, but is quite hard to break (not fully sure about this yet). drawing the staff into herself or her hand takes a move action, into the staff takes a full round action.

- time of the mournland:the character need not eat, need not sleep (though she needs to rest to gain spells, like a warforged), and doesn't seem to age (the campaign won't last long for it to matter, and the player won't abuse it)

-Altered Magic use: the power of the staff is incompatible with most constant magic items. the character can use wands, potions, scrolls and other expendable items (not x uses/day), but the staff interferes with other items. in order to help the character gain WBL, the staff will gain powers as she advances.

-Influence of the Mournland: the character gains a +2 to all mental abilities, but gets a -2 to a different physical ability score (determined randomly each day). this ability replaces the character's current magic items.

- knowledge of the Mournland: the character can draw on the knowledge of the souls in the staff by expending a charge. she can make any knowledge check (even untrained) with a +12 modifier.

- Mastery of Theory: each day the character rolls 3 random rolls on the following table. the first 2 gain her a feat of that name, the last one gets her a "negative" effect of that name. two positives on the same feat get it's greater version, while a negative and a positive cancel each other. for each of the rolls the character may expend a charge to reroll again once.

1- spell penetration
2-9 scholl focus for each of the schools
10- no change

- mastery of practice: each day the character rolls 1 roll on the "lower feats" table. she is considered to have access to that feat for the day, and can prepare or cast spells accordingly. more over- the staff can power spells with this feat by expending the appropriate amount of charges equal to the spell levels it would have taken to upgrade a spell. this is done as if casting spontaneously, with all that implies (longer casting time)

the character can expend a charge to roll again on the table, gaining access to another feat. the character can expend two charges to roll on the "higher feats"/ only one extra feat from a table can be gained this way.

"lower feats"
enlarge 1-2
extend 3-4
reach 5
trans dimensional 6-7
explosive 8
empower 9
sculpt 10-11
split ray 12

"Higher feats"
widen 1
chain 2
delay 3
repeat 4
twin 5
maxmimize 6

- "the living Mournland: the character can make one spell at a time be alive by expending charges equal to it's spell level, for 1 min/ CL.

- charging the staff: (would love better ideas here...): the character can each day allocate some of her spell slots to charge the staff. (this should be pricy enough- i'm considering 10-15 spell levels for a charge). this has a randomized success rate, as everything with the staff...
drawing the staff into the self might lower the cost (haven't figured out exactly how yet), but then you can't use the staff's spells.
being in the mournland doubles the staff's recharging time. and i mean IN the mournland, not skimming the mists.

Spells: availabale only in "Staff in hand" form(just some ideas)
- 1 charge: fog cloud, summon monster 2 (with psedunatural template), hypnotic pattern, all ability boosting spells (not stacking with the staff's power), displacement, dispel magic, gentle ripose
- 2 charges: summon monster 4, solid fog, crushing despair.

your thoughts? :smalleek::smalltongue:

[ericgrau]

Unfortunately level 8 is a bit early to get a staff that isn't heavily gimped. This might need to wait until at least level 12.

2) Mind affecting powers and physically affecting powers can be done with enchantment and transmutation spells. The druid spells are a bit more problematic, as wizards don't have many of those. If the party has a druid you could add druid spells so that both PCs share the staff; that would also help get around cost/level issues since the two PCs would split the staff WBL. The other option is to give it X/day powers for the druid stuff, in which case the cost is 360 x spell level x caster level x uses per day. This is independent of the staff caster level and price; just add it to the staff's price.

3) This is a slow recharge, averaging 1.5 per day. It's a significant ad hoc price bump but fortunately it shouldn't be crazy. Maybe add 5-10% to the price.

4) You could allow CMW with a large price bump, maybe double the cost of a 4th level spell for being both arcane and in the mournlands. Or CLW at double the cost of a 3rd level spell. Or to avoid such high costs I think a 1/day CLW (independent of charges avaialable) could be reasonably fair at a much lower ad hoc cost.