[3.5] Fighting with a Magic Staff: How feasable is it?

[HaikenEdge]

Hypothetically, how feasible is it to fight with a magic staff which can also be used to cast spells? Assuming the player finds a way to Take 10 on UMD checks, is it worth using a staff in combat, both for its spell-trigger function as well as it's physical weapon function, and if it was so desired, how would one go about it?

[Dusk Eclipse]

Check the Eilservs school feat from Drows of the Underdark, it gets you +1 attack/damage for every 10 charges you have on the staff. It also allows you to cast a spell from the staff as a swift action if you hit an enemy twice with the staff. Really good feat, though it becomes quite expensive since you will probably use the charges quite quickly.

I kinda want to build an artifer who focuses on crafting staves for combat and uses said feat.

[OldTrees1]

The "Improved Domain Power"[Dragon Magazine] of the Magic Domain allows a cleric to use up to Class level/2 charges per day without expending them.

[Phelix-Mu]

There was a very interesting set of ACFs for Wiz/Sor or anyone with a familiar that traded the familiar for a magical staff. Imbue Staff I think is what it was called. Anyway, it was part of a nice feat tree that all went together in a very interesting fashion.

The one that really caught my eye was one that let your character add Wis Mod to damage when fighting with the Imbued Staff. Not easy to work that into a build, but I was trying to figure a way to jam it into an Arcane Hierophant build. Not that an AH should be fighting with a staff...but magical staves are pretty damn awesome.

[Grod_The_Giant]

A Staff of Power is both a staff and a +2 quarterstaff, so the precedent seems sound.

[Inuzuka]

You could also get a quarterstaff, make it an item familiar (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/itemFamiliars.htm) and give it all sorts of different magic stuff.

[HaikenEdge]

You could also get a quarterstaff, make it an item familiar (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/itemFamiliars.htm) and give it all sorts of different magic stuff.

Item familiar requires a magic item, so you'd probably better off with a magical stave rather than a flat quarterstaff.

[ericgrau]

A spell staff is well worth it. A monk-flurry staff is well worth it. So sure the strategy works. Probably an enlightened fist. Or a gestalt or UMD/wizard dip works too. You The tricky part is budgeting your actions.

As a baseline I'd use a +1 spell storing / +1 spell storing staff that can cast wall of force costing 2 charges per use. If the build can't cast 3rd level spells, then a good 3rd level spell to charge the staff with would be nice. That's about 33,000 gp so the build needs to wait for level 11 or higher IMO. Maybe sooner if you're allowed to get wall of force to cost 3 charges or more. That's just the baseline IMO you could put more spells or abilities on this staff. Or a different battlefield control spell. Ki focus would probably be one of my first upgrades on the weapon side of the staff. Forcecage is beyond awesome on staffs too. Expensive but not unreachable and well worth it.

Round 1 you battlefield control the enemies in half and move in close. Round two you release 2 stored spells and a ray spell in your flurry to bring ultimate doom to 1-2 of the stragglers who wasn't battlefield controlled. Round 3 do whatever because the battle is practically won already. Swift and immediate spells are good too, so you can do them at the same time as these things. Swift fly is especially good to get into melee. You also want a little defense to survive to round 2. 24 hour greater mage armor and false life / heart of earth are a given. Stoneskin goes great on staffs not only for you but the whole party; spam at every dungeon entrance. Plus get the basics like AC and so on. But don't use any defense that costs a standard action in combat; you need round 1 to win and removing half the foes is a far better "defense".

Without flurry you can TWF & UMD on many other builds too. TWF + flurry is nice too.

[The Trickster]

I'm not sure if Pathfinder is available, but the there is a varient of the Magus that uses magic staves as weapons (staff magus). They even get bonuses to their attack and damage, depending of the spell level of the staff. I think it's pretty nifty.