Help Me Create the Horadric Staff from Diablo

[Ramshack]

So Currently I am running a Diablo Campaign for my players. Running them through the Diablo Story Line and were coming up on the part of Diablo II Act II when they have to find the Horadric Staff to open an ancient Tomb. Now this is supposed to be a magical staff from the strongest group of mages that ever lived whos mission was to hunt and destroy fiends and undead. So I want to it to be a pretty strong artifact.

Now the only wizard in our a group is 1 Fighter 7 Wizard and uses a shield and armor. So I want him to want to use the staff and not feel like he doesnt want to give up the shield.

So here is what I've come up with so Far:

Standard:
+1 Horadric Staff - Finessable 2h Staff
The Wielder of this staff gains +1 to damage and attack rolls and also deals an additional 1d6 Force Damage.
Attuned:
While Attuned and holding in 2 hands the wielder gains +2 AC
The bonus of this staff increases to +2
This Staff has 7 Charges and regains 1d6 charges per day.
As an Action the wielder of this staff can detect any fiends, devils or undead within 120 feet. The wielder is aware of the number and types of devils, fiends or undead within the area of effect but does not know their exact location. This costs 1 charge
As an Action the wielder of this staff can cast Protection against Good or Evil on themselves. This Costs 3 charges.

Thoughts? I'm not sure if the bonus force damage is too much but would appreciate any feed back.

[SharkForce]

you could always just not require 2 hands.

I mean, technically, staff does not in D&D. lots of people don't like that it doesn't, but it doesn't.

[Phawksin]

This is awesome and I desperately want to play in this game. I think that what you have works pretty well, but considering that you have a built in reason for the staff to not stick around long I think you could amp up the power. I really like the +1 staff that deals an extra d6 force damage on hits. totally cool. Maybe turn Protection from Good and Evil down to another 1 charge spell, and add a "when you hit a devil, fiend or undead you can spend 1 charge to turn the hit into a critical hit". Then maybe "You can spend 4 charges to cast Banishment as a 4th level spell targeting only a devil, fiend or undead."

I don't know how high magic you are running your game, so this might be a bit much for your game. But again, knowing that they will have to lose the staff to get into the tomb means it won't be too abusable.

Also, did you design the Staff of Kings and the Viper Amulet? What did you do for the cube???

[pwykersotz]

What did you do for the cube???

Obviously it's a cube of holding. :smallbiggrin:

[Keltest]

Are you planning on having the staff be lost when the tomb opens, like in the game? If so, you may want to be careful about how powerful you make it, otherwise the players may very well seek out an alternative way into the tomb, like hiring a team of workers to break down the wall.

Anyway, the staves were designed with the specific intent of sealing Baal in his tomb, so perhaps you could give it various crowd control and CC resistance abilities, to fit in with the theme of containment and opening magic.

[Raphite1]

I also like the idea of a high-cost Banishment. It gives it some cool but situational whiz-bang power.

That's a really great campaign idea! Plenty of great options to the MM to mimic most of the common or iconic enemies. If I ever run a game for some kids that are too young to have experienced Diablo II in its prime, I may give this idea a shot.

Edit: I hope you had Deckard Cain send them on a quest to find a cheapo sword and some chipped gems to transmute the stupid socketed longsword that he seems to think is so useful. My brother used to joke that it would have been hilarious if, in your final confrontation with Diablo, old Deckard had ported in, transmuted a ****ty socketed longsword, and then started smacking Diablo silly with it while laughing manically.

[Jormengand]

In the game, the Horadric staff wasn't actually that great a weapon, IIRC. I remember wearing the Claw Viper amulet and waiting until the last moment to combine it because my staff was better than the Horadric Staff (or the Staff of Kings). So there's that.

[Warlawk]

Standard:
+1 Horadric Staff - Finessable 2h Staff
The Wielder of this staff gains +1 to damage and attack rolls and also deals an additional 1d6 Force Damage.
Attuned:
While Attuned and holding in 2 hands the wielder gains +2 AC
The bonus of this staff increases to +2
This Staff has 7 Charges and regains 1d6 charges per day.
As an Action the wielder of this staff can detect any fiends, devils or undead within 120 feet. The wielder is aware of the number and types of devils, fiends or undead within the area of effect but does not know their exact location. This costs 1 charge
As an Action the wielder of this staff can cast Protection against Good or Evil on themselves. This Costs 3 charges.

Thoughts? I'm not sure if the bonus force damage is too much but would appreciate any feed back.

For a group of level 8 PCs I would drop the charge cost on detection. For something that requires an action, does not pre-emptively warn them and does not reveal the exact location I don't think having it at-will is a problem.

I would allow a recharge of 1d4+2 charges per day instead of d6 just so they will always have at least one use of protection per day.

Force damage... I would be a little leery depending on the character builds in question. If this is in the hands of a polearm master/sentinel type character that could be a problem. If it is in the hands of a 1ftr/7wiz who is more strongly focused on magic than melee, I don't see an issue with it.


you could always just not require 2 hands.

I mean, technically, staff does not in D&D. lots of people don't like that it doesn't, but it doesn't.

This is true. Perhaps Finesse, Versatile 1d8/1d10 would be better? The increased base damage would at least give some benefit since it isn't going to stack up well against casting a cantrip at level 8 and especially when the cantrip gets another die in a couple levels.

It really depends if you want to base if off of the lore of the Horadrim or what the staff was actually used for in the game. Game stats are as follows:
Horadric Staff
Two-Handed Damage: 12 to 20
Durability: 46 of 50
Required Strength: 30
Staff Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
+50% Increased Attack Speed
+10 to Life
+10 to Mana
Cold Resist +10%
Lightning Resist +10%
Fire Resist +10%
Poison Resist +35%
+50% Damage to Undead


If I were going to base if off of what it actually does within D2 and some of the Horadrim lore it might look something like this:
Horadric Staff
Finesse, Versatile (1d6/1d8)
The wielder can cast the Light cantrip at will. If the wielder can cast spells they add the Sacred Flame cantrip to their spells known (This spell is considered to be a Known spell for the casting class of the wielder, IE a wizard would cast using Int). Sacred Flame and melee attacks made by the wielder gain Advantage if the target of the attack is a Fiend, Devil or Undead. Against these targets melee attacks deal an extra weapon damage die (1d6/1d8 depending if wielded in 1 hand or 2) and the target has disadvantage on the saving throw against Sacred Flame.
This staff has 7 charges and gains 1d4+2 charges each day after the wielder has completed a Long Rest.
(The first ability is based on the fact that this staff is a Key to Tal Rasha's prison. I could see either granting knock or dispel magic depending how you want to interpret the events)
The wielder may cast Knock/Dispel Magic as an action while wielding or carrying the Horadric Staff. This ability costs 2/3 charges per use.
The wielder may choose to gain Advantage on a single saving throw, or Resistance to a single source of damage (1 attack or 1 spell) provided the source of the Attack or Effect originates from a source which is a Fiend, Devil or Undead. This ability costs 1 charge per use.

That's just what came to mind for me. It feels really neat and has a number of useful abilities and extra utility that are extra punishing to the chosen enemies but isn't going to drastically alter the balance of power outside those targets.

[Keltest]

In the game, the Horadric staff wasn't actually that great a weapon, IIRC. I remember wearing the Claw Viper amulet and waiting until the last moment to combine it because my staff was better than the Horadric Staff (or the Staff of Kings). So there's that.

The horadric staff had pretty terrible caster stats, and while a melee character might find the buffs tolerable compared to, say, a claymore, the staff as an actual weapon was not great. Once you got past normal difficulty, you wouldn't even look twice at it or its components.

It did look cool though,

[Ramshack]

Thanks for the idea's guys. Yeah I wasn't so much trying to recreate the staff based on the in game stats but more off of the concept of a powerful wizard staff aimed at fighting demons/devils/undead. More lore based than an exact port.

If you guys are interested I have my campaign saved in a google doc. I can post the link once I clean it up some and feel free to use it.

The campaign goes something like this:

Diablo 1: Levels 1-5
Diablo 2: 5-10
Diablo 2 Expansion: 10-12
Diablo 3: 12-17
Diablo 3 Expansion 17+

The events take place over the course of 30 or so years. So I was very specific to my players to write their ages down. Not a big deal for say an Elf or a Gnome, but the Half orc and humans in the party may feel the effects of age by the end of it.

[CyberThread]

Want to know what is really funny, that this stuff is actually already in stats as provided in the diabolic supplement. This is my favorite one



HELL BOVINE
Large Magical Beast
Hit Dice: 11d10+9 (70 hit points)
Initiative: -3 (-1 size, -2 Dex)
Speed: 20 ft.
AC: 15 (+8 nat., -1 size, -2 Dex)
Attacks: Poleaxe +14/+9/+4 melee
Damage: Poleaxe1d10+3/crit x3
Face/Reach: 5 ft. by 5 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: Rage, trample
Special Qualities: Damage reduction 10/-
Saves: F +8, R +4, W +3
Abilities: S17, D6, C15, I7, W10, Ch6
Skills: Intuit Direction +11
Feats: Cleave, Improved Bull Rush,
Power Attack
Climate/Terrain: Hell and the occasional slaughterhouse
Organization: Herd (10-1000)
CR: 9
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Always lawful evil
Advancement: 12-16 HD (Large); 17-29 HD
(Huge)

[KorvinStarmast]

Help Me Create the Horadric Staff from Diablo II:

First find the healer in Lut Gholein.
Second, purchase that little blue pill ... :smallbiggrin:

Use of the Horadric Staff: the attack speed buff with the original Crushing Blow on Goblin Toe, coupled with Holy Freeze, made it a neat niche weapon for a Paladin.

our little group of role playing Diablo II players (we used limited/non optimal/underpowered characters as a habit) got through Hell Diablo with some pretty strange combinations, which included my paladin not ever changing that weapon out. The real bugger was how Monster AR had that 4x multiplier, so we had to use some innovative tactics ... back before patch 1.07, you could in fact make the staff, stick it on a mule, and then use it in act 3 and beyond which eventually got closed as a loophole by Blizz.

Our Singing Barbarian was our support mage, our Amazon was our tank, and our Necromancer used curses and various summons to make life difficult for the enemy.