Drachasor
2014-02-27, 03:31 AM
Edit: Basically, I'm just curious as to what people think about PF Staves of Limited Wish or Permanency or even Wish (but mostly Limited Wish and Permanency). Balanced? Not? Why?
Below are my thoughts and an overview of what I am talking about:
So in PF Staves are rechargable and hold only 10 charges...
Recharging Staves: Staves hold a maximum of 10 charges. Each spell cast from a staff consumes one or more charges. When a staff runs out of charges, it cannot be used until it is recharged. Each morning, when a spellcaster prepares spells or regains spell slots, he can also imbue one staff with a portion of his power so long as one or more of the spells cast by the staff is on his spell list and he is capable of casting at least one of the spells. Imbuing a staff with this power restores one charge to the staff, but the caster must forgo one prepared spell or spell slot of a level equal to the highest-level spell cast by the staff. For example, a 9th-level wizard with a staff of fire could imbue the staff with one charge per day by using up one of his 4th-level spells. A staff cannot gain more than one charge per day and a caster cannot imbue more than one staff per day.
They cost 400*Spell Level*Caster Level to make, plus 50*Material Component cost. If the spell uses more than one charge, then you divide both costs by the number of charges. (That's for the highest level spell, the next spell reduces the non-material component cost to 75%, and additional ones are 50%).
So a Staff of Limited Wish costs:
7*13*400+1500*50 = 111,400 -- note this price and below prices are the cost to make this staff, not the purchase price.
Now, whenever this gets brought up on the PF forums (which is rare), everyone always acts like this is immensely overpowered. OMG, a Limited Wish supply that never runs out! However, I've noticed the PF forums have a tendency to treat anything nice that isn't explicitly an option as "too good and the DM should stop it." So I'm skeptical of this opinion.
WBL in PF has a 13th level character owning about 140,000 gp woth of stuff. So they can't make the Staff then. At 15th level it's about 240,000 gp, so that's the earliest this seems remotely feasible. Most realistically we're looking at 17th level though, where WBL is 410,000 gp -- the staff is just a bit over 25% of your WBL then.
So by then, have a stockpile of Limited Wish doesn't look nearly as good. You have 8th and 9th level spells. The Staff let's you pick out any 6th level Wizard spell or any 5th level Non-Wizard spell to cast on a whim...but these spells are going to be pretty weak compared to your 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells. Granted, being able to choose one spontaneous is nice.
Further, that's enough money for 42 Scrolls of Limited Wish. That's fairly likely to cover all of your Limited Wish needs and you don't spend any spell slots on it.
Further still, that's enough money for 74 castings of Limited Wish normally. Very similar to the staff in that it uses a spell slot. Though the staff lets stock up and use multiple ones in one day without spending more than one slot.
Further, a Staff of a particular 7th level spell is worth 36,400gp. An 8th level spell is 48,000gp. So a Staff that has three 8th level spells you can pick from is cheaper than the Staff of Limited Wish -- and that's without even trying to do anything to cut costs.
Granted, you can make the Staff of Limited Wish cheaper by having it consume more charges (which is the only way to really reduce the cost much, since most of it comes from material components). But this makes recharging it take long and you have a smaller battery of Limited Wishes, so it is easier to run out.
The story is pretty similar for a Staff of Permanency. This costs a bit more if each charge is worth 2500gp. Yes, it lets you permanency multiple things and replace dispelled permanent effects at no future cost (other than recharge time). But you pay a crap-ton for it up-front. Enough to probably cover all of your permanency needs anyhow, even counting Dispels.
Frankly, I don't see how these are too powerful. I would even think it reasonable for the DM to allow multiple charges to be used to up the Material Component for the spells (so if each charge is worth 2500gp on a Permanency Staff, then you can spend 3 charges to cast Permanency with a 7500gp component for instance). That seems pretty reasonable and not overpowered to me.
A Staff of Wishes is kind of similar to this. Except you can't even afford one at 20th level (it's about 1.25 million gold). You can't even really get one at 2 charges per Wish. It's crazy expensive. And again, if you have a 4 person party, then making the staff is enough money for ~13 Wishes per person, which can be done much quicker than the Staff allows (maybe a week to 10 days compared to 52 days). But I grant this is more powerful in the long run than a Limited Wish Staff or Permanency Staff simply because of the Inherent Bonus aspect. Again though, you can't actually afford it in a normal game.
Anyhow, what do people here think?
Below are my thoughts and an overview of what I am talking about:
So in PF Staves are rechargable and hold only 10 charges...
Recharging Staves: Staves hold a maximum of 10 charges. Each spell cast from a staff consumes one or more charges. When a staff runs out of charges, it cannot be used until it is recharged. Each morning, when a spellcaster prepares spells or regains spell slots, he can also imbue one staff with a portion of his power so long as one or more of the spells cast by the staff is on his spell list and he is capable of casting at least one of the spells. Imbuing a staff with this power restores one charge to the staff, but the caster must forgo one prepared spell or spell slot of a level equal to the highest-level spell cast by the staff. For example, a 9th-level wizard with a staff of fire could imbue the staff with one charge per day by using up one of his 4th-level spells. A staff cannot gain more than one charge per day and a caster cannot imbue more than one staff per day.
They cost 400*Spell Level*Caster Level to make, plus 50*Material Component cost. If the spell uses more than one charge, then you divide both costs by the number of charges. (That's for the highest level spell, the next spell reduces the non-material component cost to 75%, and additional ones are 50%).
So a Staff of Limited Wish costs:
7*13*400+1500*50 = 111,400 -- note this price and below prices are the cost to make this staff, not the purchase price.
Now, whenever this gets brought up on the PF forums (which is rare), everyone always acts like this is immensely overpowered. OMG, a Limited Wish supply that never runs out! However, I've noticed the PF forums have a tendency to treat anything nice that isn't explicitly an option as "too good and the DM should stop it." So I'm skeptical of this opinion.
WBL in PF has a 13th level character owning about 140,000 gp woth of stuff. So they can't make the Staff then. At 15th level it's about 240,000 gp, so that's the earliest this seems remotely feasible. Most realistically we're looking at 17th level though, where WBL is 410,000 gp -- the staff is just a bit over 25% of your WBL then.
So by then, have a stockpile of Limited Wish doesn't look nearly as good. You have 8th and 9th level spells. The Staff let's you pick out any 6th level Wizard spell or any 5th level Non-Wizard spell to cast on a whim...but these spells are going to be pretty weak compared to your 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells. Granted, being able to choose one spontaneous is nice.
Further, that's enough money for 42 Scrolls of Limited Wish. That's fairly likely to cover all of your Limited Wish needs and you don't spend any spell slots on it.
Further still, that's enough money for 74 castings of Limited Wish normally. Very similar to the staff in that it uses a spell slot. Though the staff lets stock up and use multiple ones in one day without spending more than one slot.
Further, a Staff of a particular 7th level spell is worth 36,400gp. An 8th level spell is 48,000gp. So a Staff that has three 8th level spells you can pick from is cheaper than the Staff of Limited Wish -- and that's without even trying to do anything to cut costs.
Granted, you can make the Staff of Limited Wish cheaper by having it consume more charges (which is the only way to really reduce the cost much, since most of it comes from material components). But this makes recharging it take long and you have a smaller battery of Limited Wishes, so it is easier to run out.
The story is pretty similar for a Staff of Permanency. This costs a bit more if each charge is worth 2500gp. Yes, it lets you permanency multiple things and replace dispelled permanent effects at no future cost (other than recharge time). But you pay a crap-ton for it up-front. Enough to probably cover all of your permanency needs anyhow, even counting Dispels.
Frankly, I don't see how these are too powerful. I would even think it reasonable for the DM to allow multiple charges to be used to up the Material Component for the spells (so if each charge is worth 2500gp on a Permanency Staff, then you can spend 3 charges to cast Permanency with a 7500gp component for instance). That seems pretty reasonable and not overpowered to me.
A Staff of Wishes is kind of similar to this. Except you can't even afford one at 20th level (it's about 1.25 million gold). You can't even really get one at 2 charges per Wish. It's crazy expensive. And again, if you have a 4 person party, then making the staff is enough money for ~13 Wishes per person, which can be done much quicker than the Staff allows (maybe a week to 10 days compared to 52 days). But I grant this is more powerful in the long run than a Limited Wish Staff or Permanency Staff simply because of the Inherent Bonus aspect. Again though, you can't actually afford it in a normal game.
Anyhow, what do people here think?