How to never lose a weapon

[Warchon]

So, long story short, my character has been given two cursed staves. They're both balling weapons, but the curse is that if either of them gets too far away from him (twenty FEET) he dies. No save.
I do not expect the DM to pull jerk moves like having them stolen while we sleep, but I'm looking for options to help keep track of them anyway because of course I am.
Our campaign is painfully low-wealth, but we have a crafting-optimized Artificer in the party. The Artificer is level 5, so we have potential access to L4 spells for crafting purposes
.
These staffs are our MacGuffin, and attempting to remove the curses may have apocalyptic results. We also expect to pick up more of them, and we have every reason to believe there will be more of these curses.
Extra dimensional spaces ARE allowed, as long as the locus of the space is within that 20 foot space.
Ideally, these weapons should remain readily accessible because they are excellent magic items as well.
Third party material is permitted. Homebrew may be considered as well but I'd prefer to stick to officially supported material if I can.

Mundane: Locked Gauntlet or simply manacling myself to to staffs is a crude but effective solution, but can be defeated by any STR or DEX character. It's also not optimal to occupy both hands this way as my character is a fullcaster.

Weapon Properties: A modified "returning" property might be an option, but could be unattainably expensive due to the staffs already being high powered. Their effective bonus has not been determined but is likely prodigious.
The Obedient property would also fit the bill, but at a +5 cost it is way out of reach.
Does a flat-cost enhancement exist that allows a weapon to be called to hand?

Spells: I'm a fixed list caster and cannot learn a spell to cast daily. It's also not reasonable to ask the Artificer to make high level scrolls every day and devastate party funds--but level 1, 2, or 3 spells that are available as infusions would be viable.

Other Items: It seems like an extradimensional space might be the best long term solution, but a Haversack is likely still too expensive, and of course the sack itself is still vulnerable to theft. Is there something that can be explicitly bound to a character?

[Segev]

While it wouldn't prevent them from being taken from you if you weren't paying attention, getting the -2 Cursed (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/cursedItems.htm#swordCursed) property on them looks to be roughly 1500 gp, maybe a little less. If you can get it without the -2, even better, but even if you can't, as long as you make a nervous habit of constantly reaching for your weapons, every time you do, you'll be drawing your cursed staves. Hopefully nobody grabs them and runs off faster than you can try to draw them.

Ring Gates would be another apparoach. If you can do true custom items, make them just big enough to fit around the end of your staves, and cap the staves with one from each of a pair, and make the other pair into earrings that have nice metal rings around the wooden core. As long as you're wearing the earrings, part of the staves are hanging from your ears.

Tie them together with rope or chain and run the teather through the arms of your robe/armor/whatever. Make the length of the chain no more than 15 feet. Now they can't pull one more than 10-15 feet from you without the other slamming into your side and dragging you along.

[Warchon]

Tie them together with rope or chain and run the teather through the arms of your robe/armor/whatever. Make the length of the chain no more than 15 feet. Now they can't pull one more than 10-15 feet from you without the other slamming into your side and dragging you along.

This is already my favorite solution just for the hilarity. It still has the issue of occupying both hands, but the image of the consequence is a table breaker.

[Hackulator]

https://youtu.be/E8f7OGD2fI8?t=173

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Acquire a bonzai oak tree and keep it on your person (perhaps grow it from a specially designed hat). Secure the tree so it can't leave your person. Acquire an acorn from your bonzai oak tree. Someone from your party should cast acorn of far travel (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20040710a) on the acorn. Now install it in your staff.

Now the staff counts as being under the branches of your oak tree hat no matter where it is.

Or you could enhance it as a morphing/sizing weapon and wear it as a poison ring. That's not as fun, though.

[Warchon]

Acquire a bonzai oak tree and keep it on your person (perhaps grow it from a specially designed hat). Secure the tree so it can't leave your person. Acquire an acorn from your bonzai oak tree. Someone from your party should cast acorn of far travel (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20040710a) on the acorn. Now install it in your staff.

Now the staff counts as being under the branches of your oak tree hat no matter where it is.


I think I can actually make this work! That's one staff mostly safeguarded.

[DwarvenWarCorgi]

Crystal of Returning (MIC) is cheaper than a returning enchantment in most cases.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Cast sequester on them so nobody knows they're there but you. Then secure them to your person.

[Hackulator]

Acquire a bonzai oak tree and keep it on your person (perhaps grow it from a specially designed hat). Secure the tree so it can't leave your person. Acquire an acorn from your bonzai oak tree. Someone from your party should cast acorn of far travel (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20040710a) on the acorn. Now install it in your staff.

Now the staff counts as being under the branches of your oak tree hat no matter where it is.

Or you could enhance it as a morphing/sizing weapon and wear it as a poison ring. That's not as fun, though.

Pretty sure that doesn't work, though it's an interesting idea.


As long as you carry the acorn (and as long as the acorn is not stored in an extradimensional space like a bag of holding), you are considered to be standing under that oak tree's canopy (and thus within an area of forested terrain).

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Pretty sure that doesn't work, though it's an interesting idea.So, what, the weapons carrying the acorns aren't carrying the acorns? Is this Shroedinger's bonzai oak tree, now?

[Mr Adventurer]

Quiver of Ehlonna is an extradimensional space that can hold staves. Cheapish.

[Malphegor]

Surely it is cheaper to get some wiimote- style wristbands to keep them on you? Everyone else is going magic, I'm thinking just stick straps on them, have them stuck to your wrists.

[Warchon]

Already had a long chat with the table ruleslawyer over the Acorn plan. Our reading is that the acorn itself is considered still attached to the tree it came from.
Going one better though and getting turned into an oak tree once/day so I can BE the thing it's next to.
Obviously this is subject to what the DM does with the obvious misuse of TWO spells.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

For the mundane solution, there's always locked gauntlets.

[Dimers]

Surely you're not so poor that you can't afford a 2000-gp item? /firstworldassumptions

The spell hoard gullet will easily store those staves and several more. Using standard rules for magic item creation, your artificer can make a continual item of hoard gullet with a market price of 2000gp if it takes up a body slot (presumably the face) or 4000 if slotless. And that's market price, not what it costs to make it yourself.

Plus, you get the fun of gobbling down and barfing up staves, so ...

Readily accessible, check.
Safe from everything short of a knowledgeable and coordinated assault, check.
"Can BE the storage method", check.

This plan doesn't ensure the safety of the staves while they're being used, just that they can be thoroughly safe between uses.

[Ashtagon]

This is already my favorite solution just for the hilarity. It still has the issue of occupying both hands, but the image of the consequence is a table breaker.

Also, quarterstaff-chucks!

[Rebel7284]

Using standard rules for magic item creation, your artificer can make a continual item of hoard gullet with a market price of 2000gp if it takes up a body slot (presumably the face) or 4000 if slotless.

This is a personal peeve of mine, but there are no such rules! These are guidelines for the DM to ESTIMATE cost, considering other factors like comparing the cost to other similar items. Framing it as rules is misleading. It's a starting point, not the final cost.

[Segev]

This is a personal peeve of mine, but there are no such rules! These are guidelines for the DM to ESTIMATE cost, considering other factors like comparing the cost to other similar items. Framing it as rules is misleading. It's a starting point, not the final cost.

With very few exceptions (most of which are brokenly inexpensive for what they do, and thus probably made a mistake in calculating the cost rather than being a deliberate judgment call), printed magic items follow these formulae pretty tightly.

You're right: the custom magic item rules are not hard and fast to the point that anything you can make with them must be included in a game run by the RAW. But most things should be. (You're not getting an at-will true strike use-activated item, for instance, for a measly 4000 gp or less.)



With the Acorn of Far Travel idea, you could instead cast ... I think it's liveoak, but whatever spell it is that turns a staff into a tree for the duration - on each staff to turn it into an oak, then harvest an acorn from them both. Cast the spell that makes the acorns into Acorns of Far Travel, and keep the acorns on your person at all times. Now you count as standing under the canopies of the oak trees that are the staves.

[Lapak]

Surely you're not so poor that you can't afford a 2000-gp item? /firstworldassumptions

The spell hoard gullet will easily store those staves and several more. Using standard rules for magic item creation, your artificer can make a continual item of hoard gullet with a market price of 2000gp if it takes up a body slot (presumably the face) or 4000 if slotless. And that's market price, not what it costs to make it yourself.

Plus, you get the fun of gobbling down and barfing up staves, so ...

Readily accessible, check.
Safe from everything short of a knowledgeable and coordinated assault, check.
"Can BE the storage method", check.

This plan doesn't ensure the safety of the staves while they're being used, just that they can be thoroughly safe between uses.See, I was hunting for a version of Shrink Item that worked on magic items and was going to suggest swallowing them, but this probably makes more sense. :D

[Uncle Pine]

Quiver of Ehlonna is an extradimensional space that can hold staves. Cheapish.

Combine it with a possum pouch (Complete Adventurer) as per MIC rules to make it way easier to conceal on yourself.