A Hand of Staves: Options for Players and DMs using the Quarterstaff

[Saintheart]

A Hand of Staves

Options for 3.5 Players and DMs using the Quarterstaff

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Introduction
One of the more iconic images is that of the quarterstaff fighter, or the bo wielder. From Little John to Gandalf to Darth Maul, the image of the man armed with a two-handed stick weapon rather than steel continues to captivate us. And indeed the wizard’s staff itself is just as iconic, a symbol of the wizard’s power and status as well as a repository of arcane might.

While most handbooks or guides tend to focus on classes or styles of combat, the aim of this guide is to list tools and options for people who particularly want to focus on fighting with a quarterstaff as opposed to other weapons, and those magic users who want to look into the possibilities of the stick they otherwise carry around with them. The intent is not to regurgitate the entirety of handbooks for Gishes, Fighters, TWFers, Druids, or Clerics; it's primarily to concentrate on the quarterstaff and draw attention to those feats centred on it and on magic staffs which could conceivably be used in combat.




Features of the Quarterstaff
Let’s start right at the beginning and take a look at some of the weapon’s fundamental aspects -- both its pros and cons.

It’s a simple weapon. That is, you won’t have to dip a level or a feat to be able to use a quarterstaff, which frees up levels or feat slots to do other stuff. Whilst certain prestige classes provide no additional weapon familiarities, I’ve yet to come across any base class that isn’t proficient with the quarterstaff, either via simple weapon proficiency or because it’s one of the named weapons the class gets. And in general, classes proficient with martial weapons are proficient with simple weapons as well.

It’s a two-handed weapon. So right out of the gate, you add 1.5xSTR to the damage rolls ... if you're only attacking with one end, i.e. you're not utilising it as a true double weapon via two-weapon fighting. More significantly, Power Attack can be used on it to get double the normal bonus on damage, unlike light weapons.

It’s also a double weapon. So it can be used for Two-Weapon Fighting, where it starts as if you’re wielding a one-handed weapon and a light weapon in the off hand. Most basic Two-Weapon Fighting feats will apply to it. (But you'll only get 0.5xSTR bonus on the offhand attack, because it's for all intents and purposes a light weapon.) Whilst a generous DM might interpret it as a 1.5xSTR bonus on the 'primary' end because you're wielding a one-handed weapon in two hands, it seems most consensus is that when you're using it this way, it's usually 1xSTR on the primary end and 0.5xSTR on the 'off hand' end. Power Attack partially works with a double weapon -- you can still nerf your attack roll and add it to damage -- but you don't double the addition to damage, because you are not deemed as holding a two-handed weapon when TWFing with it.

It’s a special monk weapon. And therefore can be used during a monk’s Flurry of Blows, albeit each end of the staff counts as a separate weapon for these purposes.

A first level monk's flurry, when combined with the Two Weapon Fighting feat and a quarterstaff is -4/-4/-4. Your primary attack is nerfed when flurrying to -2/-2; two-weapon fighting adds another attack but imposes its own -2 on both the primary hand and the off hand - and thus a -4/-4/-4. Flurry's penalties disappear over time, so at Monk 3 it becomes -2/-2/-2. And at Monk 5, it's +0/+0/+0. At Monk 9, the penalties for flurry disappear. If you're thinking about using Flurry in a large way, for goodness sake get this cleared up with your DM, because it's a massive source of confusion in this space.

What STR bonus do you get for it? Oh, that's where things get even more complicated, because there simply isn't any rule about what the damage is when you're using a double weapon. Just ... none at all. (This might have been an oversight in the upgrade from 3.0 to 3.5, because under 3.0, you simply couldn't flurry with a double weapon at all - it was considered as a weapon in the off hand, which stopped a flurry outright, and a quarterstaff wasn't a special monk weapon anyway.) The interpretation I'd run with, the one that's least likely to induce DMly wrath, is that the strikes which come from the Monk's flurry themselves -- for example, the -2/-2 for a Monk 1 -- gain a 1xSTR, because their source is the flurry, in which a monk can interchangeably use unarmed attacks and special monk weapons, but any attack granted by virtue of an extra attack from two-weapon fighting only gets a 0.5xSTR, because the source of that attack isn't the flurry, but the two-weapon fighting ... which only gives you a 0.5xSTR. So our first level Monk's flurry with TWF and a quarterstaff, at -4/-4/-4 has corresponding STR bonuses of 1xSTR/1xSTR/0.5xSTR.

It’s a wooden weapon. At least in its default form. Which means you can stride around the countryside fearing neither Rust Monsters nor violating your druidly oaths, and certain spells made for it apply to it.

It’s a bludgeoning weapon. So it’s situationally useful against those enemies who have damage resistance to slashing or piercing weapons, and picks up those feats and spells directed to bludgeoning damage.

It’s a melee weapon. Which means it’ll qualify for any option applicable to melee weapons – see more about this under the special materials section.

It costs 0 gp! Cheapest weapon around.

It isn’t a Reach weapon. In real life one of the reasons people use the quarterstaff is because they keep the opponent away from you, but in 3.5, you’re not getting any free AoOs out of the box on people as they run towards you, unfortunately. The real pity of this is that there is another stick-ish weapon that’s also a simple weapon and which does have Reach: the longspear.

It’s not a martial weapon. So you will have to find something else to get you into Abjurant Champion. For what it’s worth, though, monks are proficient with some martial weapons, which is the usual way in.

It has a d6 damage dice. Even though most damage in 3.5 is done in the numbers following the damage dice, there’s no getting around the fact that this is basically two short swords tied together -- though as said above, because it’s two-handed you’ll always be getting higher STR bonuses to damage than a short sword wielder will. And again, at low levels it’s hard to ignore the quarterstaff’s more attractive simple weapon cousin, the longspear, with its d8 damage dice.

It has a 20/ x2 critical hit range and multiplier. Critfishing is a niche path to pursue for martial characters anyway, and less so for bludgeoning weapons given what’s available, and once again – the longspear, with a 20 /x3 range.


Features of the Magic Staff
We're going to analyse this as well since the magic staff often has a significant overlap with the quarterstaff, sometimes advantageously, sometimes not.

It's made of wood. At least on the default SRD version. The SRD goes on to say that most staffs are wood, "but a rare few are bone, metal, or even glass. (These are extremely exotic.)" In mechanical terms, this doesn't mean anything: no magic staff requires Exotic Weapon Proficiency to wield it, and there are to my knowledge no magic staffs that require the object is made of wood.

It's basically a quarterstaff. Per the SRD, "a typical staff is like a walking stick, quarterstaff, or cudgel." Therefore, it can be wielded like a quarterstaff. Therefore, it's a simple weapon and only needs simple weapon proficiency or a quarterstaff proficiency to avoid the -4 nonproficiency penalty.

It's not super-tough. A typical staff has AC 7, 10 hit points, hardness 5, and a break DC of 24. So that means you have to look out for sundering DMs.

A staff has to be in hand to activate a spell from it. So no Dancing weapon qualities on the staff if you want to use its spells.

It's a magic item! Which means certain things such as Item Familiar will work on it, and magic item creation rules can apply to making one.

A staff doesn't have to be magical first. Unlike the typical magic weapon, you don't have to make a magic staff a +1 weapon first. If it's a masterwork staff, that's good enough to make it a magic staff from there. (But adding an enhancement bonus to a magic staff will probably require it - and require the Craft Magic Arms and Armor feat.)

It's a spell trigger activation item. That is, using it takes a standard action, and doesn't attract Attacks of Opportunity, but you'd also need at least a level in an arcane or divine casting class as appropriate to activate it - or a decent Use Magic Device skill check. There are feats that play with these restrictions, but the most important thing is that most feats which apply to spell trigger items like wands or scrolls will also apply to the staff.

It uses the wielder's ability score and feats for the purposes of save DCs against its spells. That's the explicit wording out of the SRD. In this they are unlike a wand which has its DCs set at creation. So if you've got a good offensive spell that you just don't have the slots for, consider sticking it in a staff - it will get stronger as you do. However, per WOTC's own clarification on magic items (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20041123a), you can't apply your metamagic feats to a staff's spells ... except for Metamagic Spell Trigger, mentioned below.

A wielder can use his own caster level in place of the staff's, if the wielder's is higher. Also explicit from the SRD. This is unlike all other forms of magic item. That, in turn, means your buff spells, if keyed to caster level, can also grow with you. Range, duration, spell resistance - this all keys off caster level.

A staff can hold a spell of any kind. Unlike a wand, in particular. Divine and arcane spells can happily co-exist in a staff (and do, in some book examples.) The introductory text of the SRD page is misleading in that it implies a staff can only hold specific spells; nothing could be further from the truth, the SRD a few lines later indicates any spell can go into a staff and the Craft Staff feat itself is explicit about how to make that happen.

A staff operates by charges. Staffs have 50 charges on creation, and a certain number of charges (typically 1-3) generally have to be expended when casting from one. There are feats that get around this requirement, and some specific staffs allow spells to be activated with no use of some charges. In addition, cost savings can be achieved by seeking out 'used' staffs, i.e. those that have less than 50 charges at the time of purchase and which are accordingly worth much less. (This is particularly a good saving for those casters who have feats allowing them to substitute ability damage, action points, turn undead attempts, or spell slots for staff charges.)

The minimum caster level of a staff is 8. This is important mainly for cost implications. When crafting a staff, one calculates the spell materials cost (and therefore the market price, which is double) by the following formula: 375 gp × the level of the highest-level spell × the level of the caster, plus 75% of the value of the next most costly ability (281.25 gp × the level of the spell × the level of the caster), plus one-half of the value of any other abilities (187.5 gp × the level of the spell × the level of the caster). The lowest number you can have in "the level of the caster" is 8. Accordingly, the cheapest staff - one with nothing but 50 charges of the 0-level cantrip Light - will have a spell materials cost of 1,500 gp. This cost can be halved by dictating that 2 charges be used to activate a spell, but ultimately as cheap as you can get a magic staff's market price to go is 1,500 gp.

The prices of the 'book' magic staffs are usually wrong. Never buy one without calculating the actual cost. There are four reasons for this:

Since a staff uses a wielder's ability score, feats, and caster level (if higher) as mentioned above, it is utterly ridiculous for a staff to have a caster level higher than 8, unless the staff contains a spell of 5th level or greater, and even then, the caster level should never go higher than the minimum needed to cast the spell. It's vital to look at the caster level of a staff, because it tells you the multiplier used for its formula - and since it's multiples of 375gp, it's not exactly small change. A staff with a caster level higher than required to cast its strongest spell -- e.g. the Staff of Abjuration, which for no apparent reason has a caster level of 13 when its highest-level spell, Repulsion, is a 6th level Sor/Wiz spell and thus only needs a caster of level of 11 to fire the spell -- is by definition overpriced. Sometimes hideously so. If you seriously want that staff, crunch the formulas above and insist that's the correct price or pick up Craft Staff and build your own.


Most of the magic staffs one sees in the books are from fairly early in 3rd edition. In particular, they were written before fast spell progression prestige classes such as Ur-Priest or Divine Crusader. As such, staff prices do not follow the dictum that a magic item's market price is always priced by the absolute minimum possible caster level that an item can be constructed at. To take the most obvious example, an Ur-Priest caster can construct a magic staff at spell level 8 and caster level 8, resulting in massive cost savings. For this reason alone, it is a waste of money to buy the 'book' staffs, since it would appear virtually every staff has been priced on the assumption that the creator was a wizard or cleric. (And this makes it even more ridiculous for a staff to ever have a caster level greater than 8, absent the sole scenario of a staff that contains a 9th level spell.)


Despite the SRD's assurance that "Staffs follow the formulas closely", there are a lot of screwups in the pricing of magic staffs. The Staff of Abjuration, as said, breaks the rules in that it's impossible to hit its market price of 65,000 gp with a caster level of 13 for all spells contained in it. Neither does it work even if you make all the caster levels the minimum of 8, which would also be impossible because some of its spells need a caster level higher than 8 to calculate even on the assumption that a Wizard made the staff.* I haven't had a chance to go through and check all of them, but searching around on the Net it appears the Staff of Fire, Staff of Transmutation, Staff of Defense, Staff of Life, and Staff of Frost also have inaccurate market prices based on the Craft Staff formula. Don't accept that the staff price named in the book is necessarily the correct one even by the SRD's own formula, and even if the creator was someone with a rapid spell progression.


A vital element of pricing a staff has been withheld from the SRD: the fact that you can cut the price by the number of charges taken to activate one spell from the staff. The SRD refers only to dividing the materials cost by 2 for multiple charges to be provided, but some of the 'book' staffs are literally impossible to make without a higher divisor. And when we delve into WOTC's own articles on how to play the game, particularly when it comes to constructing magic staffs (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20041221a), this charming little bit of text appears: "Further reductions in base price are possible. When a spell requires two or more charges, divide the base price by the number of charges required." The implications of this are profound. Where one would normally only be able to use a divisor of 2 for a particular staff power's cost, we can actually use pretty much anything up to 25 or even 50 if we have a staff we don't intend to actually use much (Eilservs School, or we have a method for restoring charges to our staff.)




*On this one, see the bottom of the thread on 'Random Thoughts'. The Staff of Abjuration in particular has to break one or more rules in the Craft Staff formula to exist - either because all the spells in the staff got the benefit of a divisor of 2 even when some of them don't use 2 charges to activate, or because the Repulsion spell got a divisor of 3 (for 3 charges) and some of the lowest-end spells were cast assuming a caster level of 1 or 3, not the minimum possible of 8.



Weighing all of this up, there's essentially three ways to use the quarterstaff: two-handed Power Attack, two-weapon fighting spamming attacks, or defensively via tripping and AoO optimisation. In the case of two-handed fighting, it's basically not much different to standard ubercharging or Pounce builds; the weapon might not be as optimal as the Greataxe or the Spiked Chain, but it's not that bad, and you can pursue other options as well. In the case of two-weapon fighting, it comes down to getting as many attacks as one reasonably can. In the case of defensively, it tends to be optimising Combat Expertise and other boosts to AC while occasionally pulling out trip attacks, or optimising AoOs by a combination of Combat Reflexes, Robilar's Gambit, and Stormguard Warrior. For gishes, though, it gets at least a little more interesting because of two features I looked at: Eilservs School, which will add a +5 to damage, and the Imbued Staff ACF, which at least allows one to deliver touch spells and normal damage at the same time. For divine-based classes, it's essentially using Weapon of the Deity or other druid-based spells which affect the staff in particular. We can look at some of those below.

One last note: unlike a lot of handbooks and guidebooks, I don't use colours to distinguish which options are fantastic and which ones aren't. The reason for that being that this guide is fundamentally about focusing on the quarterstaff rather than telling you the correct way to build a character; the efficacy of any given feat or option is highly build-dependent and on whether you're (a) going gish, divine, or martial; and (b) going power attack, TWF, or defensive. Some of these feats will work; some of them will be 'meh'; some will be 'never take in a million years'. They're provided to make your experience with a quarterstaff better, but beyond that I can't really make any promises about how they fit into your character's chassis.

[Saintheart]

Feats and ACFs

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Arcane Strike (CWar): Dump a spell for +1 to attack rolls per level of the spell for 1 round, and extra damage equal to 1d4 x level of the spell sacrificed. For gish builds it’s difficult to go past this one no matter whether it’s quarterstaff or anything else. This one is particularly useful for two weapon fighting since the more attacks, the more benefit you get from it.

Craft Staff (PHB): Make a magic staff yourself. Most of the time, don’t bother; by the time you’re making good staffs, you’re also in reality-bending territory and/or have access to traps or other perpetual-motion options and batteries for your spells. (That said, note Artificers get this feat for free.) On the other hand, if you do want to keep useful spells around without having to memorise them, and your DM agrees that staff costs can be cut by the number of charges needed to fire a spell, and you have a way to recharge your staff, the costs could actually be worthwhile.

Master Staff (Epic): Use a spell slot instead of a charge on a magic staff. Might be useful if you’re basically using a staff to store your good spells, or perhaps in combination with Eilservs School.

Channel Charge (LEoF): A non-epic version (if not equivalent) of Master Staff. Requires you to make a Use Magic Device check and you have to blow a spell one level higher than the spell you want to cast from the staff.

Cull Wand Essence (MoE): Basically, blow a charge from a spell trigger device (which a magic Staff is - it is an option specifically called out in the feat) and hit someone with a ray spell that does up to 10d6 damage maximum. It's not the greatest option out there, but if you have a method for recharging your staff it might be more useful. And it might be worth exploring whether, as they're ray spells, they qualify for conversion to delivery via touch spell under Ordained Champion or Enlightened Fist. The prereqs, at least, are easy: 4 ranks in UMD.

Double Wand Wielder (CArc): Prereqs of Craft Wand, which might be a waste, and TWF, which might not be. This one is relevant only if you have Wand Chambers in each end of your quarterstaff. Your DM would have to be convinced that Wand Chamber's specfication that the wands are ready and useable without having to drop the weapon overrides Double Wand Wielder's requirement that you have both hands free. (At least on publication dates, there is a case for it: Complete Arcane was published in 2004, while Dungeonscape postdates it, in 2007. That is, you can argue the writers had Double Wand Wielder in mind when they created the Wand Chamber.)

Wand Surge (MoE): Use an Action Point instead of a charge in a spell-trigger device, i.e. a magic Staff. Easy prerequisites -- i.e. 3rd level caster -- and Action Points at least are renewable.

Rage Casting (Dragon 310): Amongst other stuff you can do while in a barbarian rage, you can activate spell-trigger items, i.e. including magic staffs. This would be pretty niche both on concept and on the prerequisite, which are fairly steep.

Quick Staff (CWar): Your dodge bonus goes 2 points higher if you’re using Combat Expertise. This is one for feat-rich martial classes at best: even though the prereqs include feats you’re likely to pick up anyway, Dodge and Weapon Focus are feat taxes and one should generally aim for more value out of a feat than just a +2 to a feature. On the other hand, if you’re going armour light and just want to annoy the enemy by not getting hit, consider.

Arcane Schooling (PGtF): Regional feat, but it allows you to activate spell trigger items (staffs) as if you had a level in one of Wizard, Bard, or Sorcerer. If you don't need arcane caster levels or UMD but want to use Eilservs School to its full potential, you'll pretty much have to take this or something like it - because Eilservs School doesn't allow you to activate a staff you otherwise couldn't.

Metamagic Spell Trigger (CMage): Provides exceptions to the rule that metamagic can't be applied to spells cast from staves, via burning extra charges from the staff. Takes 15 ranks in UMD, you can only apply one metamagic feat at a time that you know, and if the total spell level goes above 9th, then it doesn't work. Still useful if you're heading down this line.

Consecrate Spell Trigger (BoED): Burn a turn undead to apply Consecrate Spell to a staff's effect. Consecrate Spell basically allows you to burn through evil creatures' energy-based immunity. This could be interesting combined with something like Cull Wand Essence.

Purify Spell Trigger (BoED): Burn a turn undead to apply Purify Spell to a staff's effect. Purify Spell basically makes a spell Good for DR purposes and against evil targets increases the damage dice of the spell in the same progression as you'd increase the damage dice of a weapon. If you've got some sort of touch spell in a staff, a method to keep the charges from depleting, and either Imbued Staff, Enlightened Fist, or Ordained Champion, this could make your melee strikes a lot more effective. But it would need a fairly specialised build.

Initiate of Vecna (Dragon 342): Use scrolls, wands, staffs, and other spell trigger items as a Wizard whose level is equal to your Divine Caster level -- plus any Wizard levels you've got. Let's leave aside the fact this allows you to freely activate arcane magic staffs, this means you're casting off arcane scrolls, freely. It also means you can go buy up wands of True Strike, stick them in your Wand Chambers on your quarterstaff, and go to town. Even better is that Vecna's favoured weapons are daggers and quarterstaves! And lastly, if your DM is generous, it might allow your Imbued Staff to progress as if you had wizard levels when you don't (said wizard levels being needed to advance the weapon).

Forceful Staff Style (Ghostwalk): By RAI, they likely messed this one up. It refers to stunning attacks when the feat doesn’t have a stunning attack as a prerequisite, so by RAW you could get this feat to trigger if you succeed with a Sudden Stunning or Stunning Surge weapon quality as well. Either way, it brings on a free bull rush attack. Could be useful for Combat Brute style builds - especially if you have a DM who rules that the stunned condition means the stunned person can't make attacks of opportunity against you - since a stunned character cannot take actions and therefore cannot make the single melee attack that amounts to an AoO, and which you'd otherwise have to suck up since you likely haven't got the space for the Improved Bull Rush feat.

Eilservs School (DoTU): A very, very good option at the price for the gish focusing on the quarterstaff, and martials also easily access its standout feature. The feat prereqs are most relevant to a TWF-style build, and indeed I would suggest for TWFing with a quarterstaff specifically, this is one of the best ones out there. The benefit of the feat is that if you hit something with a magic staff – the charged kind, not just a +1 quarterstaff – you gain +1 to damage per 10 charges the staff contains. It doesn't have to be in a two-weapon attack sequence, all successful attacks with the staff are given that bonus.

Understand: per the feat's RAW, it doesn’t matter what spells the staff actually contains, it’s a flat +1 to damage per 10 charges. So what if we use a magic staff containing only low level spells? The market price for a Staff of Light (or any 0-level spell), calculated line-by-line by the Magic Item Creation rules, is a measly 1500 gp -- twice the Staff’s magic supplies costs, 375 x 0.5 (Level of spell) x 8 (Minimum possible CL for a Staff) x 0.5 (setting the staff so each casting of Light uses up 2 charges). Per the SRD, staffs are often constructed from a masterwork quarterstaff and have 50 charges at creation. So you now have a masterwork quarterstaff - which carries a +1 attack bonus -- with a +5 untyped damage bonus -- for 500 gp less than a +1 weapon. (Want it to cost even less? Specify that the staff uses more than 2 charges to activate a spell. It can get really hilarious really quickly.) Compare the popular weapon property Collision which offers the same bonus (and don't forget that for proper TWFing, you'd have to apply Collision to both ends of the staff -- a +3 cost, twice over!) You can also cast a spell from the staff as a swift action if you hit with both ends, but since the feat's power is tied to how many charges are left in the staff, you generally won't need to or want to do that. However: if the staff also has a spell which doesn't require a charge to activate, that spell could be fired freely from the staff without affecting the bonuses from this feat - since the feat doesn't specifically require a charge to be used as such, it only requires activation of a spell. One such example: good old Staff of the Magi, an artifact out of the DMG.

Pulverise Foe (CoR): Well worth considering if you're going a TWF build, mainly because it ramps up the additional attacks you get. A quarterstaff is a bludgeoning melee weapon and therefore qualifies, thus, if your second attack in the round -- and mind you, it's in the round, AoOs can trigger the feat too -- hits, you add 1d6 to the damage. Added value on it is that the prerequisites (for once) are pretty low.

Brutal Strike (PHB 2): Works for Power Attack-based builds, mainly because quarterstaff is one of the bludgeoning weapons which specifically qualify for the feat. In essence, impose a Fort save which is DC 10 + extra damage from the Power Attack, or else be sickened for 1 round. (Note the table says that you daze your opponent – and that would be much, much nicer if you can get your DM to agree table trumps text.)

Meditation of War Mastery (OA): Five prereq feats, none of which are staff related, in order to get a +2 to stunning attack DCs and a free Weapon Focus in quarterstaff. Yyyyeah, nah.

Vow of Poverty (BoED): The efficacy of this feat is long-debated, but for quarterstaff users there is one thing to be said about it: the suggested weapon you can use is indeed a (nonmagical) quarterstaff usually used as a walking stick. That being said, your build then has to relentlessly focus on feats and/or spells, since (acknowledging the debate on what you can and can’t use under Vow of Poverty) at least by RAW you don’t use magic items anymore. With divine spellcasters, this option is more doable, although I'd recommend VoP mainly for the challenge than for the mathematical usefulness. Those bonus Exalted feats are a trap, mainly because (a) with the possible exception of Words of Creation for bards and Intuitive Attack for clerics, said Exalted feats are basically just sparkly versions of old +2 feats like Iron Will or Lightning Reflexes, and (b) you have to waste your default feat slots qualifying for their prerequisites. For monk builds which focus on quarterstaff, it's a lot trickier than it might first appear - as, with the notable exception of Enlightened Fist, most monk PrCs don't let you channel monk abilities into monk weapons. (Under VoP, Ki Focus isn't available to you as a weapon quality - unmagical weapons, remember?) And monk PrCs tend to improve unarmed damage without saving anything for the poor old quarterstaff. Shortest houserule that could fix Vow of Poverty or at least make it somewhat less amusing? Let poor little Oliver Twist take any feat for which he otherwise qualifies in those bonus Exalted feat slots.

Sudden Willow Strike (PgtE): You can use your stunning fist feat with your quarterstaff attacks, specifically. Consider in combination with Forceful Staff Style. Probably works best for monks. Utterly obsolete feat if you take the Ki Focus weapon quality on your quarterstaff.

Blade Meditation (Setting Sun) (Bo9S): Quarterstaff is one of the associated weapons to the Setting Sun discipline. Taken this way, it’s a +1 to damage when using a strike maneuver.

Intuitive Attack (BoED): With a simple weapon – which a quarterstaff is -- substitute WIS for STR on attack rolls. Nice for cleric or certain monk builds.

Two Weapon Fighting, Improved Two Weapon Fighting, Two Weapon Defence, etc.: Two Weapon Fighting generally is a bit beyond the scope of this guide, and there is a fairly extensive guide to look at in this regard: Darrin’s Off-Hand Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?279079-3-5-The-TWF-OffHandbook) which exhaustively weighs up two-weapon fighting and the feats involved. Go have a look there for the full story on this (as well as more options than I can feasibly mention here.) One point I will mention for feat-starved builds: Gloves of the Balanced Hand (MIC) for 8,000 gp grant Two Weapon Fighting, or if you have it already, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting.

Crushing Strike (PHB 2): Quarterstaff is a bludgeoning weapon, and so qualifies for this. But it takes Weapon Focus, Mastery, and Specialisation, and a BAB of 14, and likely only works best if you’ve got some additional iterative strikes in there. Wouldn’t recommend.

Power Lunge (Ghostwalk): Works for a Power Attack/charging build: a successful attack roll while charging means your STR bonus to the attack’s damage doubles, regardless of whether you’re using one or two-handed weapons. In conjunction with Pounce this is grand stuff.

Ancestral Relic (BoED): Fundamentally, the attraction here is the cost saving, since it allows you to convert loot coin-for-coin rather than sell at a 25-50% loss and then enchant from there. Also handy for magic-shop-rare campaigns. Also handy - if you need it - to pour charges back into your staff, if your DM agrees to the idea that a partially-charged staff is amenable to being fully charged by application of this feat.

Item Familiar (PHB 2): Arguably the best feat in the whole game, it deserves its own mention here if only because once your magic quarterstaff gets above a +1 value or so, it qualifies. It’s good on its own, but it also synergises mechanically and in flavour with the Imbued Staff ACF further down.

Weapon Focus (PHB): In quarterstaff, duh. Not mentioned here as a positive as such, but only because for a fair number of martial feats this is going to show up as a prerequisite, so be prepared to suck up a feat tax. As always, they make things a little easier for divine casters: a god with the War domain invariably provides proficiency and Weapon Focus in his favoured weapon, and thus I've provided a list of gods who like quarterstaves further down.

Power Attack (PHB): The foundation of most two-handed weapon builds, and not-uncommonly a feat prerequisite for quarterstaff-appropriate feats. One thing to remember if building a character with a lot of multiclassing is that Power Attack draws off and is limited by BAB, not Strength, so your capacity to add to damage is going to be compromised ... unless, of course, you've got some way of catching up like Divine Power.

Dragon Magazine 331 p. 28:
This was an article on polearms, but it very helpfully includes quarterstaff as a polearm for the purposes of the feats below. They are also useful for “proper” polearms, but our focus is the quarterstaff. (Some also made their way into the Dragon Compendium.) So, from that issue:

Braced for Charge: You can ready your quarterstaff to set it against a charge. Deals double damage on a successful hit against a charging character.

Long Strike: As a full attack action, make one attack with a quarterstaff as if it had reach. If you already have reach, this extends it 5 feet further. Low prereqs and the control of a full attack action make it pretty balanced … though a RAW reading could suggest one attack has reach and the other attacks in the full attack go as normal.

Pole Balance: +4 circumstance bonus against bull rush or trip attacks when wielding the quarterstaff in two hands, and +4 to Balance checks to avoid losing your footing. This is a nice utility to have. Doesn’t apply when flatfooted or when in a precarious position (say, on a tightrope or climbing.) No prereqs, this is literally using that six foot pole as a prop – common sense.

Spinning Defense: Get +1 to dodge bonus on top of normal total defense while using a quarterstaff during a total defense action, and can use Deflect Arrows feat any number of times until your next turn rather than just once. This is a nice, flavourful situational benefit and a tiny boost to total defense – not bad for the defence-minded staff wielder, although it’s one for that feat slot you can’t think of anything else to do with.

Vault: When wielding a quarterstaff, long jump DCs are reduced by 5. DC for a high jump is equal to three times the distance to be cleared. Again, a common sense use of that six foot pole as an aid to getting up and over things – not too bad for a spare feat.

Decisive Strike (Alternative Class Feature) (PHB 2): It’s an ACF for monks only and removes Flurry of Blows. Instead, as a full round action, make one attack with a quarterstaff, taking a -2 on the roll. If you hit, double damage – as does any other attack made before the start of your next turn, i.e. AoOs. Not bad at all if you’re concentrating on AoO optimisation and can finagle yourself a decent reach, something that a quarterstaff doesn’t have. Obviously doesn’t synergise perfectly with the TWF approach to quarterstaff use, but the rough equivalent in Fighter feats doesn’t show up for another 16 levels or so.

Domain Granted Power (Alternative Class Feature) (CChamp): If you’re primarily a cleric and dipping a wizard level mainly for the access to Imbued Staff, this might well be worth considering, mainly because it grants you free use of a domain power from one of your deities. Hello War domain and free Weapon Focus (Quarterstaff!) As said, because it’s a dip, giving away the Wizard’s bonus feats at higher levels is no loss. This also gives you a free domain when you hit cleric, because of the wording: “Special: If you take levels in a class that grants you a domain choice (such as cleric), you gain the full benefits of the domain in addition to the other domains available to you from that class.” That is, you get the domain you select under this ACF in addition to the 2 domains you select when you become a cleric. Combined with Cloistered Cleric, that’s possibly four domains at level 2. Best of all? It synergises with the UA Wizard feature which trades the Wizard’s Scribe Scroll for a fighter bonus feat, because this ACF only touches the Wizard’s bonus feats at level 5 and onward.

Domain Power (Alternative Class Feature) (Dragon 328, p. 90): Paladin foregoes their Turn Undead power to pick up a domain feat, in effect. In the case of the Magic domain, it's the ability to use spell completion or spell trigger devices (which include magic staffs) as a wizard of half your paladin level. Actual wizard levels stack with this, and Knowledge (Arcana) and Spellcraft become class skills for you.

Imbued Staff (Alternative Class Feature) (Dragon 338, p. 58-60): Sorcerer or Wizard foregoes a familiar for a staff that gets more powerful as Sorcerer/Wizard levels go by. It only gets an explicit +3 enhancement bonus over 10 levels' progression, but there are a small group of weapon qualities it adds in the course of its progression and further magical enhancements can be added to it at slightly higher cost. For the gish, the most interesting part is the fact it can deliver touch spells from the moment you take it, as well as normal damage. It also appears to combine with both Item Familiar seamlessly and the Legacy Weapon rules often used for gish characters.

The one thing to watch for if looking to combine this with Eilservs School is that an imbued staff can’t be enchanted already when you first take it on, but the magazine indicates it can be so enchanted later – i.e. throw in the staff as part of the materials for a 50-charge Light staff or similar.

There are also a few feats from the same issue that enhance its use as a quarterstaff wielder:

Enchant Staff: Choose a spell you can cast, one level below your highest spell. The staff gains the ability to grant this spell once per day as a (Sp), cast as a standard action. Want another spell, take the feat again. This can be amazingly good depending on the spell you pick, even if you’re not getting 9th level spells this way.

Imbued Defense: While casting a spell on the defensive and in contact with your imbued staff, add WIS modifier to AC until your next action. Not a bad little boost to keep you safer if your Concentration check is good.

Imbued Strength: WIS for STR on damage when you successfully hit with your imbued staff. Only requires a 3rd level caster who can imbue a staff, meaning a Wizard 1/Cleric 2 qualifies for it. Great for making clerics more single-ability dependent. Might even be worth a three-level splash for a WIS-focused monk focusing on quarterstaff; outside of Shiba Protector or five levels in Ordained Champion, there are virtually no other ways to get your WIS bonus to melee damage on the majority of your melee attacks - even Swordsage will only give WIS to damage on maneuvers from one discipline, and Battlesmith requires you be a dwarf and use only a warhammer (and even Ordained Champion forces you to burn turn attempts to do this.)

Invest Spell: Permanently lose an arcane spell slot, gain the ability to cast a spell (max 7th level) 3 times per day as a spell-like ability. Sure, there are PrCs that can probably do this and do it better, but that’s probably why your local DM won’t let you play one.

Recharge Staff: Something to help you pay your staff back after using Siphon to drain it out. 12th level, though, and needs Craft Staff, and you can only recharge your imbued staff, not any one you make.




Class Features, Races, Monsters

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Thrall of Fraz-Urb'luu 5 (Dragon 333, p.31): For gishes it'll be tricky to squeeze this PrC into a build, but the Thrall of F-U gets Staff Mastery (Ex): you can wield any magical staff as if it were a +1 greatclub, it's treated as evil for overcoming DR, and you can use any staff as if its spells were on your class list. The feature's wording makes it clear the nature of the magical staff doesn't change; it's still a magical staff and therefore Eilservs School works with it as well; the staff just takes on a d10 damage dice, in effect, as well as the other features mentioned. Best part for Eilservs School focusers, or indeed anyone who wants to conserve their staves - you can take Con damage in place of using charges from the staff. Naberius as a Binder fixes this, hell, a Wand of Lesser Restoration fixes this.

Yak Folk (MM 2, p. 200): Pretty tough to make a PC out of one at 5 RHD and LA +2, but it gets Use Staff (Ex) which is, well, the ability to use any staff with no chance of UMD failure. The monster also gets Weapon Focus (Quarterstaff) and Power Attack, which are a nice chassis to start building your first Eilservs School bad guy on. Indeed, given the rough theme and fluff for Yak Folk, the deception capabilities and general theme of a Thrall of Fraz-Urb'luu might not be such a bad idea...

Hellfire Warlock 2 (FC 2, p. 89): This PrC gets Hellfire Infusion, by which you add a metamagic feat as a swift action to Empower, Enlarge, Widen, or perform Energy Substitution on a spell being cast from a charged item, including staffs specifically, CHA bonus/day.

(Special thanks to Thurbane for bringing these to my attention!)

Warforged Artificer 5 (RoE): This substitution level specifically for Warforged gives something similar to an Imbued Staff, i.e., a weapon familiar. When this is done to a staff, it provides increases to UMD, Fort saves, Alertness, and the ability to deliver touch infusions. The splatbook doesn't say whether the weapon familiar qualifies as a familiar for things such as the Alienist's pseudonatural template, but it's something perhaps to ask your DM about; if only because the name and progression are similar to that of a familiar, there's probably a stronger case for making them a familiar than there would be for an Imbued Staff.

Shen (Dragon 319): The Shen PrC basically adds some different abilities depending which Shen you take. It advances most monk abilities – the unarmed damage, WIS bonus to AC, and Monk AC – but not flurry of blows in particular (mainly because it's a 3.0 Prestige Class - see the Panther Shen below). Its qualifying BAB -- +5 – was plainly intended to bring in monks at level 7, but a fighter – or more significantly, a Warblade – could qualify at level 5 for Shen since the only prereq is Improved Unarmed Strike (at least to start with - the individual animals have their own prereqs as well). If you have some other source of armor, you may not care about the fact you have to get around unarmored to access the Shen's bonus to AC, and since we’re focusing on quarterstaff damage, we don’t really care about the monk's unarmed progression. The ki strike features – making your unarmed attacks silver and cold iron – can be channelled through a quarterstaff via the Ki Focus weapon quality, and it's arguable that the PrC''s ghost touch and magic attacks while unarmed could be channelled through a quarterstaff as well, since they're founded off ki. As for the relevant Shen animals:



Monkey Shen actually does something for high DEX builds with quarterstaff: namely, Improved Two Weapon Fighting at Shen 4 (thus, 9th level at the earliest for a martial) or Greater Two-Weapon Fighting if he already has Improved TWF. If you can get your DM to agree Improved TWF functions as TWF for prerequisite purposes – Eilservs School – then this might be worth considering if your build is feat-starved. Even more interesting, at Shen 6, both ends of the quarterstaff become useable with Weapon Finesse. And he can also stun through his staff, i.e. a free Sudden Willow Strike feat. Lastly, the Hybrid Form gets a +4 to DEX, which is handy. Weapon Finesse on the quarterstaff is particularly handy for high-Dexterity, low-Strength builds if you choose the weapon quality Aptitude, because this then allows you to use the feat Shadow Blade, allowing your DEX to add to damage as well.


Panther Shen takes some DM adjudication because the PrC dates back to the 3.0 days and was never updated. At Shen 6, a Panther's Flurry of Blows penalty is reduced to -1 per attack. Under 3.0, this was legitimately good: under that system, the Monk always had a -2 penalty to his flurry, so this halved that penalty. But under 3.5, a single-classed monk qualifies for Shen at level 7 when their flurry is already a +4/+4; by Monk 5, their attack roll penalties on a flurry have already disappeared. Simplest houserule fix for this might be that you just get a +1 to flurry strikes instead, which would mathematically come to the same thing. Either way: at Shen 10, a Panther Shen gets the ability to make an immediate AoO if an opponent misses a melee attack, which might be handy for defensive builds spamming AoOs - this is basically Robilar's Gambit 0.5 since it only functions when the opponent misses, but it doesn't make the opponent any better at hitting you. Also consider the comparative availability: a Fighter would qualify for Robilar's Gambit at character level 12, and the earliest the same Fighter could qualify for this ability would be character level 15 (indeed if he wanted it, he'd qualify for Robilar's Gambit at the same time as Shen 10, since the BAB is +12 in both cases.)


Tiger Shen is more for STR-based builds, and at least has Power Attack as one of its prerequisites. Has a touch attack paralysis feature, but it adds useless bonus feats – Endurance and Toughness. It does have a nice 1/day frenzy which doesn’t fatigue the Shen and adds +4 STR.


Crane Shen adds one or two interesting features – mostly around Deflect Arrows and fighting defensively, though it does give you a +2 on DEX and a fly speed in hybrid form.


Martial Monk (Variant Monk, Dragon 310): Mentioned here mainly because of a potential exploit in the RAW. The Martial Monk, by RAW, gains "Fighter bonus feat list to choose monk bonus feats (at 1st, 2nd, and 6th level); Intimidate is class skill." A monk's bonus feats do not require the monk to meet those feats' prerequisites in order to take them: the argument, then, is that you can pick any feat off the Fighter bonus feat list even if you don't meet the prerequisites for it ... say, something prereq-heavy like Melee Weapon Mastery just for argument's sake ... or something more interesting and useful like a Martial Stance. If you can get your DM to agree this, that's three very potent feats available from an early level, presumably on a weapon with which you can still flurry as a monk.

Swordsage 1 (ToB): The swordsage's Discipline Focus, when taken to apply to the Setting Sun discipline, gives the swordsage the benefit of the Weapon Focus feat for Quarterstaff. This could be handy if your DM allows (per Masters of the Wild)) you to use class features identical to Weapon Focus to qualify for stuff that otherwise takes Weapon Focus as a prerequisite.

Kensai (PrC) (CWar): Worth thinking about mainly because of the gp savings on enchanting your weapons, especially if you're going to be running defensively or mixing it up with Swordsage in particular and/or the Diamond Mind school.

[Saintheart]

Spells

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Entangling Staff (SpC) (Drd 3, Sor/Wiz 4): Applies specifically to quarterstaff. Basically grants the Improved Grapple feat on a successful hit, but then gives you a +8 bonus on the grapple checks and the option to either deal constricting damage or entangle the target – with no save on the entangle. Pretty solid.

Brambles (SpC) (Drd 2, Clr 2): Applies to wooden weapons only, adds piercing damage, +1 enhancement bonus on attack, +1 enhancement bonus per 4 caster levels to damage.

Spikes (SpC) (Drd 3, Clr 3): As with Brambles, but the bonus is +2 and the critical threat range doubles (though as always, they deny melee nice things by saying that threat range doesn’t stack with anything mildly useful like Improved Critical.)

Mighty Wallop, Greater Mighty Wallop (Sor/Wiz 1 and Sor/Wiz 3): Increase the damage dice of the quarterstaff by at least one. Damage dice aren’t as impressive as flat bonuses, but this should at least stop your staff-wielder feeling sad when he’s around spearmen.

Enlarge Weapon (Sor/Wiz 2): Increases the size and therefore damage dice of your staff without you taking any penalty for wielding an inappropriately sized weapon. Specifically stacks with Mighty Wallop, since Mighty Wallop does absolutely nothing to the size of the weapon.

Siphon (CSc) (Sor/Wiz 3): Pull charges from a staff to replace spells you’ve already cast. Sadly the spell replaced has to be of a level equal to or lower than the highest level spell the staff holds, so no carrying around a Staff of Mending to replenish your Wish spells, but if you don’t carry Pearls of Power I guess there’s this.

Changestaff (PHB) (Drd 7): Turn your staff into a treant and wait around while it smashes all those wannabe ninja challengers into the ground ...

Spellstaff (PHB) (Drd 6): ... but do make sure you cast that single spell you've stored inside the staff for a rainy day before you do. Note this one works specifically on a wooden quarterstaff, no metal staves I'm afraid.

Blackstaff (MoF) (Sor/Wiz 8): +4 enhancement bonus to attack and damage, the enemy is subjected to a dispel magic and loses a prepared arcane spell on a successful melee attack or melee touch attack. It can be handed to someone more able to smack stuff around, which is probably its best use.

Shillelagh (PHB) (Drd 1): Oldie but a goodie. Mundane quarterstaff gets a +1 enhancement bonus to attack and damage (to both ends) and deals damage as if it were two size categories larger.

Weapon of the Deity (SpC) (Pal 3, Blk 3, Clr 3): If you’re holding your deity’s favoured weapon (a list of those who like quarterstaves is further down), it gets a +1 enhancement bonus to attack and damage and either a spell storing (Boccob) or defending (Fharlanghn or Obad-Hai) special ability. The enhancement bonuses increase with higher caster levels. NB: Some setting-specific versions of this spell have a wider array of special abilities - Magic of Faerun's version, for example, which has a massive list of gods and different effects - Sehanine Moonbow produces a ghost touch quarterstaff under this spell, Shiallia produces a mighty cleaving quarterstaff, Labelas Enoreth a frost effect. (Most amusingly, halfling goddess Sheela Peryroyl, whose favoured weapon is explicitly the sickle, produces a screaming quarterstaff.) That said, the MoF version is a level 4 spell, and SpC, being a later book, therefore overrides it - but since the SpC version tells the DM to assign an appropriate effect to a deity whose name is not listed, these are a few suggestions you can throw at him. Also NBB: this spell applies to only one end of a double weapon, which may or may not suit your purposes.

Weapon of Impact (SpC) (Brd 3, Clr 3, Sor/Wiz 3): Doubles critical threat range for a bludgeoning weapon. Doesn’t stack with any other crit-increasing effect.

Spiritual Weapon (PHB) (Clr 2, War 2): Well, it does create a quarterstaff if that's your deity's favoured weapon, even if you can't really wield it and it goes and hits people in the face on its own. The weapon has "the same threat range and critical multipliers as a real weapon of its form" which might be exploitable in some way, but I'm not sure how.

Decastave (UE) (Sor/Wiz 2): Haven’t got a quarterstaff? Conjure one up made of force and which hits for 1d6 damage on a melee touch attack, has the thundering weapon ability, does 1d8 bonus damage on a critical hit, and imposes a chance to deafen the target.

Bo of Water (OA) (Shu 2): Shugenja only. You get a quarterstaff made of water … which does 1d8 damage +1 per 2 caster levels, and it’s a +1 weapon for DR purposes. Slight improvement on the standard quarterstaff.

Blackrot (CMage) (Drd 2, Wu jen 2): Allows you to deliver a sickening effect (Fort save) if you do damage to something you hit.

Blade Storm (SpC) (Rgr 3): Despite the title, works on all melee weapons, of which a quarterstaff is one. On a swift action, take a full round action to make one attack with each melee weapon against one opponent within reach – double weapons can attack once for each end of the weapon. Until you’ve got enough iterative attacks, this is actually pretty solid if you’ve got a lot of enemies around you – minimum 2 attacks on all creatures in range, which is handy if you can combine it with an increased reach.

The Hamagess' Staffsprout (Web) (Brd 6, Sor/Wiz 6): Magic staff breaks off a branch which becomes a wand with one charge in it!

Metamagic Item (ECS) (Artificer 3): Applies to spell trigger items, and thus, staffs. For a short period, apply a metamagic feat you know to a spell contained in a staff. Not too shabby!




Deities with quarterstaff as their favoured weapon

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Aerdrie Faenya, CG (Air, Animal, Chaos, Elf, Good, Storm)
Aureon, LN (Force, Knowledge, Law, Magic, Mind, Oracle, Spell)
Azuth, LN (Illusion, Knowledge, Law, Magic, Spell)
Belet-ili NG (Animal, Earth, Good, Healing, Plant) - Dragon 329
Boccob N (Balance, Knowledge, Magic, Mind, Oracle, Planning, Trickery)
Bralm N (Animal, Community, Law, Pact, Strength)
Breeka N (Air, Animal, Earth, Plant, Water)
Cegilune NE (Evil, Knowledge, Moon) - Dragon 345
Chaav CG (Chaos, Good, Joy, Trickery)
Cyrrollalee LG (Community, Family, Good, Halfling, Law, Sin-Gluttony, Sin-Sloth)
Daoud N (Magic, Travel)
Death Crone NE (Death, Evil, Magic, Trickery)
Dionysus CN (Chaos, Destruction, Madness)
Eanius NG (Air, Good, Healing)
Elebrin Liothiel CG (Chaos, Good, Plant, Sun)
Erathaol LG (Good, Knowledge, Law)
Fharlanghn N (Balance, Celerity, Luck, Portal, Portal (alt), Protection, Travel, Weather)
Galaedros N (Animal, Earth, Plant)
Geb N (Cavern, Craft, Earth, Protection, Sin-Avarice)
Gilean N (Knowledge, Liberation, Protection)
Hermes CG (Chaos, Good, Luck, Travel, Trickery)
Heward NG (Good, Knowledge, Travel)
Imhotep NG (Artifice, Healing, Knowledge)
Incabulos NE (Death, Destruction, Evil, Pestilence, Sin-Wrath)
Isis NG (Family, Good, Lust, Magic, Protection, Storm, Water) - Favoured weapon of Quarterstaff or Punching Dagger
Joramy N (Competition, Destruction, Fire, Sin-Wrath, War)
Ki N (Animal, Luck, Plant) - Sandstorm
Labelas Enoreth CG (Chaos, Elf, Good, Knowledge, Time)
Lunt-Ater NG (Healing, Knowledge, Magic, Sun)
Mishakal NG (Community, Good, Healing, Protection)
Obad-Hai N (Air, Animal, Balance, Earth, Fate, Fire, Plant, Water, Weather)
Panzuriel NE (Destruction, Evil, War, Water)
Pholtus LG (Good, Inquisition, Knowledge, Law, Sin-Pride, Sun)
Ralishaz CN (Chaos, Destruction, Luck)
Rillifane Rallathil CG (Chaos, Elf, Fey, Good, Plant, Protection)
Rod LN (Healing, Knowledge, Plant, Protection) - Dragon 290
Sehanine Moonbow CG (Chaos, Elf, Good, Illusion, Knowledge, Moon, Travel)
Shiallia NG (Animal, Good, Plant, Renewal)
Solanil NG (Animal, Good, Healing, Protection, Summer, Travel, Water)
Tarmuid LN (Law, Magic, Protection)
The Academy NG (Good, Knowledge)
The Oversoul N (Knowledge, Mind, Luck, Strength) - Dragon 350
The Shadow CE (Chaos, Darkness, Evil, Magic, Mind, Shadow)
Thelmeth the Uniter, God of Dvati N (Knowledge, Magic, Protection)
Thoth N (Craft, Knowledge, Magic, Rune, Spell)
Vecna NE (Destiny, Dream, Evil, Knowledge, Madness, Magic, Mind, Oracle, Planning, Portal, Portal (alt), Sin-Pride, Tyranny) -- favoured weapon is dagger or quarterstaff
Velsharoon NE (Death, Evil, Magic, Sin-Avarice, Sin-Envy, Sin-Pride, Undeath)
Ventila N (Animal, Healing, Plant, Water)
Wee Jas LN (LE) (Death, Domination, Inquisition, Law, Magic, Mind, Patience, Planning, Portal, Portal (alt), Repose, Sin-Pride, Tyranny) -- favoured weapon is dagger or "wizard weapons"
Xan Yae N (Celerity, Knowledge, Mind, Patience, Shadow, Sin-Avarice, Trickery, War) -- Favoured weapon is the Falchion or "Monk weapons", which includes the quarterstaff - Dragon 263
Zivyln N (Insight, Knowledge, Meditation)
Zuoken N (Celerity, Chastity, Knowledge, Mind, Patience, Strength, War) -- Favoured weapon is Unarmed Strike or "Monk weapons", which includes the quarterstaff.



Notable Domains

It’s worth noting that for a bunch of gods who like playing with big sticks, many have a decent array of domains available: Time, Magic, Spell, Travel, Knowledge.

Knowledge domain: Knowledge Devotion in particular for a skill-heavy character is a solid feat, and for a cleric whose god already has the Knowledge domain, Lore of the Gods offers a +10 to all Knowledge checks, making the Devotion bonuses much more reliable

War domain: not as good as you think. A quarterstaff is a simple weapon, i.e. not a martial weapon, so by RAW it takes DM fiant to rule that the War domain grants Weapon Focus in quarterstaff. But if you can get that rule, it helps for feat taxes and Ordained Champion qualification later on.

Magic domain: this domain's power allows a cleric to use spell completion devices -- i.e. magic staffs -- as though they were a Wizard of one-half their cleric level, i.e.e. clerics can freely use staffs of True Strike, or indeed wands of True Strike in chambers on their staffs. The Initiate of Vecna feat upgrades this so it's one-for-one on cleric to wizard levels, but if you don't want to play evil, this is worth considering too. And if you have a generous DM, this might obviate the need to take a level in Wizard to get hold of an Imbued Staff.



Maneuvers and Stance suggestions

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Because Tome of Battle is a game-changer in the martial area, I went into the Book of Nine Swords to see if there were any maneuvers that specifically assisted with quarterstaff fighting.

It’s not been a terribly fruitful expedition. The quarterstaff is an associated weapon of the Setting Sun discipline, but Setting Sun tends to focus on throws or counters. The Tiger Claw discipline focuses on wielding two weapons, but unfortunately most of the powerful maneuvers are premised on holding two weapons, both mechanically and in fluff terms. If you did get a DM who was willing to rule that you’re always holding two weapons for the purposes of Tiger Claw, that school would have a lot more in favour of it.

For those focusing on AoO optimisation, Iron Heart school becomes an essential because Stormguard Warrior takes Iron Heart maneuvers to qualify for. Indeed it's either dip a level of Warblade or suck up three feats to qualify for it (2 Martial Maneuver feats and then Ironheart Aura).

That said, there are some items which are useful even in their orthodox form:

Flashing Sun (Swordsage 2, Desert Wind): That’s the mechanical equivalent of a first level Monk’s Flurry of Blows without being confined to monk weapons. That, in turn, might be useful for qualifying for certain Monk PrCs under Masters of the Wild’s dictum that special abilities which duplicate prerequisite feats can be used to qualify for options that have those prerequisite feats (I still have to run through those that are available.) It’s also the equivalent of the less-suckiness conferred when you have a double weapon and Two-Weapon Fighting, -2 in the primary hand, -2 in the off hand. So again, if you had a kind DM, that might satisfy TWF prerequisites if for some reason you don’t want to actually TWF.

Leaping Flame (Swordsage 5, Desert Wind): This is essentially a teleport by way of countering. This isn’t bad if you’re taking something like the monk ACF Decisive Strike which requires you to stay in place and issue single big blows.

Quicksilver Motion (Swordsage 7, Warblade 7, Diamond Mind): Again, a teleport, but executable as a swift action – i.e. it sets you up for a full attack smack.

Time Stands Still (Swordsage 9, Warblade 9, Diamond Mind): Two full attacks in one round. Do I need to say anything else?

Lightning Recovery (Warblade 4, Diamond Mind): Reroll a missed attack with a +2 bonus. Handy for quarterstaff mainly because if you’re TWFing, you’re invariably rolling at a -2, so this at least counters that penalty for one strike.

Mithril Tornado (Warblade 4, Iron Heart): A melee attack on every target in range. Maybe not as good as the Ranger spell Blade Storm, but it still gives you the benefit of TWF on a full attack against multiple opponents without having to suck up the -2 on each strike, since it bypasses TWF as such.

Scything Blade (Warblade 7, Iron Heart): Free attack on another opponent after you hit someone. As with Mithril Tornado, anything that bypasses the -2 from TWF is great.

Punishing Stance, (Warblade 1, Iron Heart): +1d6 to all attacks, -2 to AC. TWFing generally involves maxing potential damage on multiple strikes rather than going with a single head-caving strike after a Power Attack; this is a TWF parallel given a charge imposes a -2 to AC.

Giant Killing Style (Swordsage 3, Setting Sun): +2 to attack, +4 to damage vs. targets bigger than you. I can see this stance as being very useful to Halfling quarterstaff wielders in particular, especially those who take some combination of Monkey Grip or Strongarm Bracers or some other method to increase a Small quarterstaff’s damage dice. In its present form it at least counters TWF penalties and gives you a decent damage boost.

Giant’s Stance (Swordsage 5, Crusader 5, Warblade 5, Stone Dragon): About the only Stone Dragon discipline that has particular application for quarterstaff. As long as you stand still, do damage as a larger creature. Could be interesting on a Master of Nine with its dual stances, but again it serves the form of the one big whack to damage.

Assassin’s Stance (Swordsage 3, Shadow Hand): Explicitly gives you sneak attack if you don’t already have it, and adds +2d6 damage to boot. Leaving aside the damage boost for TWF, you could also use this to qualify for rogue PrCs depending on the prerequisites, which can be fantastic for saving dip levels.

Shadow Stride (Swordsage 5, Shadow Hand): Move action teleport. Not as strong as Quicksilver Motion, obviously, but movement options are always very useful.

Blood in the Water (Swordsage 1, Warblade 1, Tiger Claw): +1 to attack and damage, which increases as the critical hits come in. Not as great since it’s tricky to pull critical hits with a quarterstaff, but nothing to sniff at for low levels.

Dancing Mongoose (Swordsage 5, Warblade 5, Tiger Claw): This is a pretty good boost to double weapons like the quarterstaff, because it’s at worst an extra attack at your highest attack bonus – i.e. no TWF penalties.

Raging Mongoose (Swordsage 8, Warblade 8, Tiger Claw): More advanced version of Dancing Mongoose, and just as good a boost in the same way.

Wolf Pack Tactics (Swordsage 8, Warblade 8, Tiger Claw): Every time you make a successful melee attack, you can move five feet. Obviously double weapon wielders get more opportunities for a successful melee attack, but this doesn’t force you to commit to a full attack action

[Saintheart]

Weapon Qualities


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For most if not many weapon qualities, you’ve got a similar problem to all TWFers in that the back end of the quarterstaff is considered its own weapon and thus has to be enchanted separately. That said, there are some qualities of particular interest:

-Defending (PHB): At its best where you’re not going with a TWF build and you therefore want to do something useful with that butt end of the staff. Costs a +1, stays good no matter how far you increase that end’s enhancement bonus (by either permanent increases or by spells.)

- Sizing (MIC): Flat +5,000 gp so your quarterstaff sizes up and down with you.

- Sudden Stunning (PHB 2): Great option barely missed by the nerfing of 3.0 to 3.5, for high-CHA quarterstaff users, even if there’s a fair number of creatures in the world immune to stun. And that’s mainly due to the fact it’s a +2,000 gp bonus and not in terms of a +1 or so forth.

- Stunning (MIC): Bonus sonic damage and a chance to stun, for a +1.

- Stunning Surge (MIC): What Sudden Stunning was supposed to be nerfed to. It’s a +1 price that functions very similarly, again CHA-based.

- Torturous (Ghostwalk): DC 12 (+1) or DC 17 (+2) Fort save on a hit or be stunned for a round. This suits TWF a lot better!

- Impact (MIC): It’s keen for bludgeoning weapons.

- Collision (MIC): +5 untyped damage bonus to all blows, for a +2 cost.

- Spell Storing (on both ends) (MIC): Up to 3rd level spells triggered on targets you hit.

- Sweeping (MIC): +2 to trip attacks made with the weapon, for a +1 bonus. The fact you can add this quality to weapons that don’t explicitly allow you to make trip attacks with them might convince your DM that a Sweeping weapon therefore permits you make trip attacks with it, thereby avoiding the AoO that would otherwise be applied in the absence of Improved Trip.

- Wand Chamber (Dscape): You’ve got at least two available wand chambers, one at each end of your quarterstaff. Wands ready and available to activate are absolute gold for either delivery of offensive spells or spells you would otherwise use.

- Perfect Balance (Dragon 358): +1 to AC when on Total Defence, for a modest gp flat addition.

- Morphing (Und): For a +1 bonus, change your quarterstaff into some other two-handed weapon as a standard action. If you're looking to access some of the more interesting exotic weapons for situational versatility, this might be one way to do it (and indeed, consider the +2 Skilful enhancement bonus which might save you an EWP.)

- Ki Focus (DMG): Well hey, here's a weapon quality to at least save yourself taking Sudden Willow Strike. For a +1 bonus, Stunning Fist and all ki strike abilities can be channelled through a melee weapon, i.e. your quarterstaff. That could actually be a cost saving since a monk's various ki strike features -- ki strike (magic), ki strike (lawful), and the various Sanctify Ki Strike or Holy Ki Strike Exalted feats -- all can then be channelled through the quarterstaff. That's a weapon that is, for the cost of a +1, a weapon that overcomes DR/magic, DR/lawful,or a bane vs. evil (Sanctify Ki Strike, Holy Ki Strike) all in the one weapon.

- Extending (Dragon 302, p. 84): You know those problems quarterstaves have with having no Reach? Well, for a +1 bonus, you don't have to worry about that anymore. An extending weapon can alter its length to add or subtract 5 feet of reach. Once per round as a free action, the wielder of an extending weapon can make the weapon assume a length 5 feet longer or shorter than its normal length. The wielder must state, at the beginning of her turn, whether the weapon extends or shortens. Melee weapons can be turned into reach weapons to threaten foes 10 feet away, but when extended, the weapon no longer threatens foes within 5 feet of the wielder. The trickiest part of this is the qualifier for what weapons the quality can be placed on: "The extending property can only be added to Large hafted melee weapons (anything except a sword), flails, chains, whips, and similar weapons." For it to fit a quarterstaff, you'd likely get it in under the "and similar weapons" section.

- Martial Discipline (ToB): If you're intending on taking a single level in Swordsage or Warblade, then for goodness sake at least look at this - because depending on how you pick your stances and maneuvers, it can grant you anywhere between +1 and +7 on your attack rolls.

- Aptitude (ToB): And for goodness' sake, if you want to pick up Shadow Blade on your quarterstaff, but don't like the fact it only applies to Shadow Hand weapons, then apply this insanely cheap +1 bonus to your quarterstaff.

Crystal of Arcane Steel (Greater, Lesser, Least): (MIC p. 64) If you're going with a build that channels spells through your quarterstaff there is no earthly reason not to consider these: for 6,000 gp, +1 to the DC of the spell you're channelling, and a +1 insight bonus on attack and damage.


Special Materials

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In this area, there's a lot of DM adjudication that will be required. Most special materials are able to be used in the construction of “melee weapons”, i.e. including quarterstaves. And there will usually be nothing said about certain wooden armour substances being made into quarterstaves rather than armour. This is probably because in general the writers seem to have been more concerned with people making steel weapons out of wood than vice versa. The SRD itself does say that ‘rarely’, magic staffs are made of metal or other substances, so it seems at least possible if not reasonable to propose making your weapon out of something a bit different. That said, for most special materials worth much offensively in a quarterstaff, you’re going to be looked at askance by DMs when you ask whether your staff can be made out of rock or something. And doing so certainly will lock you out of those divine spells that work on wooden weapons only. If you’ve got a DM willing to stretch on special materials, take a wider look than what is contained here. Most of the time, there isn’t a hell of a lot of use in special materials in the quarterstaff space anyway; they generally alter weight, which is trivial for the average quarterstaff that only weighs 4 lb. Some notable stuff, though:

Aurorum (BoED): It's a metal, but as with most books, the possibility of making a quarterstaff out of one was never considered and therefore never outright forbidden. Either way, the main attraction of this metal is that if it gets broken by sundering, it can be restored to its previous state as a full-round action. This would be handy if you pour a lot of options, money, and feats into your quarterstaff and your DM suddenly starts developing an infatuation with adamantine weapons.

Blood Obsidian (Dragon 319): – this is basically volcanic rock from the Dark Sun mythos. Because the writers of this article were more keen to keep out metal weapons than wooden ones, they provided nothing that says you can’t make a quarterstaff out of this substance. Its main advantage? +1 natural enhancement bonus to damage, which doesn’t stack with magical sources.

Serren (BoED): Now this is a marginal case that might be worth arguing with your DM. It gives the ghost touch property, albeit nonmagical. It only explicitly works on bows and arrows, but there’s the elvencraft longbow ... failing that, maybe try Ghostwall Shellac (Dscape): normally used on wooden walls and whatnot, but there’s nothing that says it can’t be applied as a varnish on your good old quarterstaff. Your DM might be convinced your quarterstaff for the next few hours functions as a ghost touch weapon … and if you then add an Unguent of Timelessness (SRD), it lasts a hell of a lot longer.

Riverine (Stormwrack): Similar argument as with Serren. Riverine does nothing for weapons strictly speaking, but the stuff is a force effect that even blocks Ethereal travel. Make a quarterstaff out of it and there's an argument at least that you've got a Ghost Touch weapon. Or at least you have a weapon that's a lot tougher to sunder than the normal staff would be.

Byeshk (ECS) – Metal, but again, a +1 natural enhancement bonus to damage, doesn’t stack with magical enhancement bonuses.

Livewood (ECS) – As you might guess, it’s wood that’s still sort-of living, and plant-affecting spells have minor effects on it. Animate plants works on it, as does tree stride (from one livewood object to another), and Speak With Plants allows you to talk to your staff, which is kind of cool, though the conversation is likely to be a bit wooden (yes, I went there). Plant growth causes it sprout small leaves and branches, which might be handy if your DM deems you can use it as a source for entangle in a plantless dungeon.

Platinum or Gold (Heavy) weapons (MoF, p. 179): It’s cheesy and depends on a certain reading of the RAW, but a Heavy quarterstaff made from alchemical gold or platinum would have damage dice of 1d8, although an EWP feat to wield it for slightly better damage dice seems a pretty high price (to say nothing of the price of the actual staff).

Pearlsteel (Stormwrack): Steel, yes, but make a weapon out of this and it reduces the damage penalty in underwater combat from half damage down to a -2 for bludgeoning weapons. For aquatic campaigns this seems damn close to essential to me - that or Toothed Blow and then Warblade's Weapon Aptitude.

Unguent of Timelessness (SRD): Decided to give this a separate mention mainly because the quarterstaff is made entirely of wood, i.e. a substance that was once living and therefore a substance to which this unguent applies. Good luck to getting it past a DM because it basically breaks spell durations for your quarterstaff, but by one interpretation, if you add this substance to something that has a spell applicable to that object cast, that spell takes on the same quality as the substance, i.e. just as Unguent of Timelessness makes time for the object pass as though a year were a day, it also makes the spell pass at the same rate. Thus, Shillelagh, Brambles, Spikes, Weapon of the Deity, etc, all gain effective durations of hours rather than moments, because once you put the Unguent on, the object's condition becomes fixed, as though under slow time. This arguably works on whenever you have to touch a weapon to make the spell work. At 150 gp per flask, you could implore the DM to double the price and it'd still be worth it. But as said, it'd take a DM with a certain sense of humour to accept this.

[Saintheart]

Specific Magic Staffs of Interest


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Bowstaff (AEG): +2 quarterstaff that can be changed into a +2 longbow as a move equivalent action. The less silly version of the Elvencraft Longbow, and probably the one staff to recommend out of all these specific items, mainly because, unlike the Elvencraft Longbow, it doesn't provide any restrictions on what happens when you shift from longbow to quarterstaff ... i.e. whether your spells applied once to the longbow apply to both ends of the quarterstaff, and which therefore can be so argued. Saving on spell slots, maybe saving on item enchantment costs with a generous DM.

Staff of Oaken Battle (CDiv): 13,500 gp, 50 charges, an accurate CL 8 for once, casts Brambles and Spikes - which are two of the better spells for quarterstaves. If your druid wants Eilservs School and has a way to replenish charges, this might save a couple of slots.

Staff of Transportation (CArc): 67,500 gp, CL 9, which should tell you right away this thing is wrongly priced. Anyway, it casts Blink, Dimension Door, or Teleport. Blink has certain applications in battle, and Dimension Door could be handy if you've hit with both ends of a staff under Eilservs School and you want to get out the way of the counterpunch right afterwards.

Staff of Entrapment (MoF): Breaks the rules overtly because its CL is 7 - although there is some arguable fluff that this sort of staff was made in Netheril, which basically is, or was, Faerun's in-universe example of a kingdom being run by arcane optimisers and brought to ruin by a theoretical optimisation of spell research. The staff itself only casts Dimensional Anchor and Resilient Sphere, but the arguments about how much it costs could be fun.

Starstaff of Tsaelynos (Web): Even more overtly breaks the rules at CL 5 - which also presumably renders its price (27,500) lower, although who knows, I haven't gone in to calculate it yet. Anyway, its most significant feature is an Energy Substitution (cold) Fireball, along with the fact it has both arcane and divine spells at the same time (its cleric spell is Searing Light).

Staff of Darkness (BoVD): Also breaks the rules overtly at CL 7 and 24,000 gp. Is essentially the staff of Shadowy McShadowface. Damning Darkness, Darkness, Deeper Darkness, and Darkbolt (because why not).

Quarterstaff of Speed (MoF): +3 quarterstaff that grants the Improved Disarm feat with a +4 to the check, some ranged weapon (and ranged spell) deflection powers, and once per day, a strike that doubles (or triples on a crit) damage, imposes a Reflex save to avoid being knocked to the ground and a Fort save to avoid being stunned. Nice suite of abilities, but the frequency is way too small and the price too high.

Staff of Discipline (AEG): A choice for cashed-up monks. +2 lawful quarterstaff. Needs DM adjudication at best, mainly because it's still using 3.0 language to describe the Monk's flurry of blows. The wording is "While wielding the staff of discipline, a monk may make attacks using her better unarmed rate. She can use the staff of discipline as a double weapon and still get the benefit of her increased rate of attacks, but she takes all of the normal penalties while doing so." The likely reason for this clunky language is that under 3.0, a quarterstaff wasn't a special monk weapon and therefore would leave a monk in the position of having to choose two-weapon fighting with the quarterstaff or an unarmed flurry; you couldn't flurry with a weapon in the off hand, and a quarterstaff held in two hands is using the off hand. The Staff of Discipline's language in effect just allowed you could to treat the Staff of Discipline as a special monk weapon but also suck up the -4/-4/-4 if you wanted to flurry and TWF at the same time. Now, of course, we have 3.5 which allows you to do that from the outset as a Monk, so if you're going to shell out tens of thousands of gold on a +2 lawful quarterstaff it had better do something more than just be useable. One suggested houserule upgrade? Let this staff allow a monk to flurry as a standard action rather than as a full attack, but only while using this staff.

Staff of Mighty Sweeping (MoF): +2 sweeping quarterstaff, grants wielder the Improved Trip feat and a +4 on STR checks for trip attacks.

Briar Staff (Dragon 326, p. 76): Godawfully pricey at 139,000 gp, but with one feature that makes it more useable for Eilservs School types: it regenerates charges if you leave it buried for a week in a forest at least a mile wide.

Shaker Staff of the Quondam (Dragon 335, p. 69) Just here because it’s unusual and not too expensive! +1 quarterstaff that lets the dead whisper to you and your allies when its bone decorations jingle, thus receiving a Guidance effect for 5 consecutive rounds.

Nagpa Staff (Dragon 339, p. 62): Explicitly functions as Minor Ring of Spell Storing and a cold iron weapon. Significant if your DM balks at letting you make staves out of metal.

Staff of Abyssal Iron (PH): Well, if you needed proof that a magic staff can be made of something other than wood, here it is. Dunno if I'd spend 40 grand on it, though. Casts various Protection against Good and Law stuff.

Staff of Rapture (BoED): +1 quarterstaff that only does nonlethal damage, for 73,000 gp. Oh well, at least it has a critical range of 17-20 against evil creatures which is considerably better than most quarterstaffs ever get to.

Quarterstaff of Battle (MoF): Has an interesting suite of abilities, but the most significant is that it's immune to damage from a piercing or slashing weapon, i.e. can't be sundered by those forms of weapon. Gives you Improved Disarm with a +4 on the check, 3/day deflects ranged spell attacks. MIC's version probably renders MoF's obsolete and isn't quite as powerful.

Kaiein (SRD, Variant Magic Rules): Legendary Weapons are basically the prototype version of Legacy Weapons, which basically say that if you get a particular weapon, and then take a prestige class more or less married to that weapon, you get a bunch of random abilities from the weapon and some different class features. In the case of Kaiein, the prestige class is the Spell Scion, whose sole redeeming quality is that it continues to advance arcane spellcasting abilities, 10/10, whilst being completely useless for anything else. The weapon presents as a +1 flaming/+1 flaming quarterstaff (market price 24,600 gp) that grants Fire Resistance 5, and the abilities unlocked as you continue up the Spell Scion class are basically all fire-themed -- energy resistance to fire, Empower Spell for free, so long as it's [fire], and a very stupid one-way trip to the Plane of Fire if you wanted it.

Glowstone (MoF): Mentioned here because it's an artifact and not a staff. Why? Because it's basically a recharging dock for your staff. It has its own charges - 1,000 at creation - which are expended as you put charges back in your staff, but anyway, if your DM happens to ask you what sort of small, seemingly-low-powered artifact you'd like for your birthday...



A Word on Legacy Weapons

By this point you'll likely have seen some references to the idea of Legacy Weapons, i.e. weapons that basically grow with you from the book Weapons of Legacy ('WoL'). The consensus on Legacy Weapons is that as written, they are at best ... suboptimal. And where that suboptimal nature comes from is from the ongoing, permanent penalties applied to their wielder as the levels go by, ranging from lost spell slots, lost attack bonuses, lost saving throw bonuses, and lost hitpoints. In gold piece cost terms, they're actually on par or slightly cheaper than default magic items, which is why the other costs for having such an item are considerably larger. And they give you a pretty decent amount of control over what abilities you pick up from the Legacy Weapon as the levels go by.

Now, in arcane gish builds, it's not so much the legacy weapon that is a desirable thing as the prestige class Legacy Champion, which permits Abjurant Champion in particular to progress past its nominal 5th level endpoint and keep improving the gish's abilities. So if you don't want to use a legacy weapon, then fine: pay the cost to unlock the Least Legacy feat for a random legacy weapon and don't do anything more with it from there. Legacy Champion is unlocked at that point.

However: there is an opportunity, if you have an open-minded DM, to create a legacy weapon dynasty, i.e. build a legacy weapon from the ground up. The rules for doing this in WoL do not state that the costs set out in the book are set: as far as the rules go is to say you should work with the DM to find a meaningful cost for having a legacy weapon. As such: there is a completely legitimate RAW rationale to throw out the penalties tables entirely, since -- for what your 'book' Legacy Weapon provides -- they are abysmally expensive. Indeed the 'book' Legacy Weapon quarterstaffs are so bad I'm just not going to refer to them in this guide at all, absent someone digging out an obscure one that actually might make a half-decent quarterstaff.

But I will encourage you to take another look at the Legacy Weapon rules; just close your eyes to the penalties tables and talk to your DM about whether they're needed at all. Also bear in mind the table of abilities is not final, either; there are some rough rules of thumb for bringing on other abilities not already listed in the book. One thing to remember, though, is that once you've got a Legacy Weapon, that's it in terms of adding permanent features to it: you can still cast spells on it, but not much more. It's also possible to make a legacy weapon out of an existing magic item if you can't build it from scratch - again, there are rules of thumb in the book for that too. However, if you're starting from the ground up -- i.e. founding a legacy -- remember the weapon initially can't be any more powerful than a +1 weapon, or more expensive than a 2,000 gp item. I've said before that an Imbued Staff gets around this because it's an ACF which doesn't add a +1 enhancement bonus until Sor/Wiz level 3, which you don't have to go to. Also, buying a magic Staff of Light for Eilservs School shenanigans doesn't contravene this either, because such a staff doesn't breach the 2,000 gp limit either. You have to get the timing right, but they can be all locked together if you're minded to do that.

(And one last point in favour, subject to anyone who's suffered through it and knows otherwise: the writers appear to forget the old rule that you have to separately pay for enchantments on both ends of a double weapon. You seem to be able to whack a +1 on both ends of a legacy weapon without paying for it twice. Large cost saving compared to orthodox magic item creation.)


Alternative, Variant, or Just Plain Interesting Long Sticks


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So let’s say the quarterstaff just isn’t for you, or you just want to do a little more with the stick you’ve got in your hands. The iconic staff isn’t the only long stick out there. Some notable claytons’ quarterstaves:

Longstaff (p. 116, CAdv): An exotic weapon, but it counts as a quarterstaff for the Weapon Focus line of feats, and is explicitly a special monk weapon, i.e. you can Flurry with it. Same stats as a standard quarterstaff, i.e. no Reach, but if you fight defensively, use total defense, or use 2 points of Combat Expertise, you cannot be flanked for the rest of the round. Best contemplated with the Quick Staff feat.

Elvencraft Longbow (p. 166, RoTW): This is one of the sillier things they ever made for elves. It is not an exotic weapon; “when wielded as a melee weapon”, it “functions as a quarterstaff.” So if for some weird reason you don’t have proficiency with a bow, you can happily carry around an elvencraft bow and just use it as a quarterstaff in the meantime. Where the interesting part comes in is in the poorly-worded restrictions the makers tried to put on how magical enhancements work with it: “Magical enhancements to an elvencraft bow only affect its use as a bow. Enhancements to the melee capabilities of the weapon must be added separately.” Which leaves one in an interesting position when you have a magical enhancement such as Blindsighted, Brash, Warning or the like which is worded vaguely enough to suggest its use can cross over between the two states of the weapon – or which affects the wielder but not the weapon.

Rod of Surprises (MIC): Well, this certainly surprised me, because it's a Rod and it's actually handy. 6,000 gp ... but it can become a quarterstaff, javelin, longspear, shortspear, spear, scythe, short sword, or kama. And when it does, it's a +1 weapon. It can also store messages ... and lengthen out to 60 feet long and support up to 800 pounds without bending. Somebody obviously remembered to bring their ten foot pole! As said, that's all for 6,000 gp. A plain old morphing quarterstaff can't turn into some of these things and costs at least 8,000 gp since it has to be a +1 weapon first.

Shadowstaff (p. 227 Dragonlance Campaign Setting): One of the more potentially-abuseable staffs out there, mainly because it's poorly-written. It doesn't even tell you whether it's a two-handed weapon or not, and it doesn't mention being a Reach weapon either. It's an exotic piercing weapon topped with a curved hook that does 1d8, 19-20/x2 damage. Once an opponent Medium size or smaller is hit with it, it's caught on the hook (NO SAVE) and suffers -2 to attack rolls and -4 penalty to DEX. In addition, the target continues to suffer 1d8 damage per round until it makes an Escape Artist check opposed by the wielder's STR to free himself. It can also be used as a tripping weapon and +2 on disarm attempts as well. Let's also note that since there's no indication it's a light weapon, there's no reason you couldn't use it in two hands and pick up x1.5 STR bonuses with it.

Pincer Staff (p. 65, FR Underdark): An exotic weapon, and technically a polearm used by the kuo-toa -- but it does 1d10 damage, two-handed, bludgeoning, it’s a Reach weapon, and then allows you to start a grapple without provoking an AoO. This grapple can be used on a size category up or down on you, so if you’re working on a grappler build, this is a handy addition. (There’s also a Pincer Staff in Savage Species. By contrast, it essentially allows you to trip a target with no attack roll on a successful grapple if the target is Medium or Small.)

Sharktooth Staff (p. 46, SS): An exotic polearm which does similar things to the Pincer Staff, but without the trip or better grappling features.

Notbora (p. 44, SS): A Huge exotic weapon made by desmodu which, and I quote, “looks like a quarterstaff with a crook at one end”. But it’s also a double weapon, and with sheaths in place, does 2d6 damage at each end. When you start removing its sheaths, its crit range goes up by one and trip attacks can be made with it.

Three-Section Staff (p. 74, OA) Large exotic weapon, two-handed, with a x3 critical modifier. Not a double weapon, though, and even the monk has to take EWP to wield it.

Two-Bladed Sword (PHB) Wait, what? Yes, it’s an exotic double weapon, but Double Steel Strike (ECS, p. 52) allows you to treat it as a special monk weapon.

Thunderlance (SpC) (Sor/Wiz 4): A spell, but, boy, what a spell in this context. As a 0 feet range spell, it's Persistable. And it comes with some nice features: 3d6 damage dice, x3 crit, natural reach of 20 feet which can be adjusted freely down to 1 foot, hello threatening adjacent targets! Of most interest to the gish: you use the higher of your INT or CHA on it as the attack and damage roll bonuses instead of STR. Oh, and it also has a chance of dispelling Shield or Mage Armor it comes into contact with. It's still poorly written -- it doesn't specify what damage type it does, doesn't say specifically how it interacts with Power Attack or other martial feats, also doesn't say whether you are actually considered proficient with it, and the language describing it freely shifts between the fluff text ("shimmering force in the general shape of a staff or spear"), the spell description ("a straight lance of force") and the material component ("A small metal spear") ... but hey, as alternatives to some of the stuff mentioned above, it's worth considering.

Runestaffs (MIC, p. 223): In here because it's a slight variation on the standard magic staff. Craft Staff still applies to them, but they do have a couple of differences: first, they are arcane only; second, they aren't charged items like a normal staff; third, you can only fit 2-5 spells in them, and fourth, the formula for creation is different: Spell level squared x 400 gp for the most powerful ability plus spell level squared x 200 gp for any other spells in it. It's a spell trigger device just like a normal staff, i.e. doesn't attract AoOs to activate a spell from it. If you can use it less than 3 times per day, that cuts the price down reasonably. There's nothing in the rules that says a runestaff can't be a quarterstaff, and indeed the only explicit difference between a normal staff and a runestaff is, you guessed it, the runes. As said, it contains no charges, you blow your own spell slots to cast a spell from it, so it really functions as a small library of spells you didn't prepare that morning or which didn't make the cut for inclusion in your sorcerer known spells. That said, it doesn't qualify for Imbued Staff since it's not an unenchanted staff. As for Eilservs School: it would trigger the feat's secondary function that if you hit with both ends, you could activate a spell in it, but you'd probably still have to blow a spell slot. And a runestaff wouldn't offer its wielder a +5 untyped damage, because it's not a charged item.

Domain Staff (C/Champ, p. 143): A divine equivalent to the arcane Runestaff. In essence, it contains all the domain spells of a given domain. If you blow one of your own spell or domain slots, you can cast the equivalent level spell from the staff. The catch, though, is that all of the spells in the staff have to be on your spell list already (including domains). So in essence they're basically at best staffs of domain spells you never have space for in your own slots but which might come in handy for something now and then. The utility of this, for a divine caster, seems reasonably low. At least creating them is simple enough: they all have a CL 17, all cost 36,000 gp as a market price, and all take Craft Staff and access to all spells of the selected domain. Eilservs School won't grant any increases in damage because it's not a charged item ... though Eilservs School's secondary function might by RAW get around the need to spend a spell slot when activating the spell. There is also one class that might garner value out of a Domain Staff, that being the Archivist. An Archivist can cast any divine spell he scribes in his prayerbook, whether or not it's on the cleric list. The same thing goes for domain spells. If a DM is prepared to read this class feature as amounting to the Archivist having all divine spells on his class list, then depending on which spells the Archivist wants, it could result in a cost saving to make Domain Staffs rather than look for scrolls. At a rough calculation, to purchase a scroll of one divine spell, levels 1 to 9, biasing towards the most expensive scrolls by the PHB, would cost an Archivist about 32,000 gp (this isn't including major-cost scrolls like Miracle). Thus, the market price of a domain staff and the scroll cost over the levels are roughly the same ... and at least the Archivist will get something akin to new domain spells each level without having to hunt around for the scrolls, since he uses his own spell slots to cast the spells from the staff. Crafting a domain staff is probably pointless, though, since it takes CL 17.


Note: Obviously most of these items are exotic weapons, which means you’re stuck with a feat at least to take them, or the Skilful weapon quality which is abysmally expensive. However, their efficacy gets a lot more interesting with Exotic Weapon Master, which has various tricks such as trip attacks and longer reach that can be applied to it.

[Saintheart]

Suggested approaches, combinations, builds


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These are very rough stubs, obviously – I will add more material to it as I go. I would love to hear further suggestions and ideas from the community.


Monk 1/Wizard 4/Enlightened Fist 4/Abjurant Champion 5/Enlightened Fist 6
Take the ACFs Decisive Strike at Monk 1, and Imbued Staff at Wizard 3.
Feat suggestions: Carmendine Monk, Combat Casting, Weapon Focus (Quarterstaff), Two-Weapon Fighting, Eilservs School, Sudden Willow Strike, Arcane Strike. Two/three feat taxes in here which are unavoidable but the rest should make you hard to hit and the Imbued Staff, turned into a 50-charge staff and utilised via Eilservs School, should help you keep up. Sudden Willow Strike is a toss-up and obsolete if you take the Ki Focus weapon quality. It gives more efficacy to your staff – i.e. you don’t have to do unarmed attacks to deliver your stuns, you can channel them through the staff – by the levels you get this in your build there’s a lot of stuff you’ll be running into with decent saves or outright immunity to stun.


Swordsage 2/Warblade 1/UA Wizard 1/Warblade +3/Abjurant Champion 5/Legacy Champion 6/Eldritch Knight 2
This one is a bit of an odd build mainly because of how Imbued Staff and Legacy Weapons interact, but they do operate together. Imbued Staff can only go on a masterwork, unenchanted staff. That staff then becomes one of the material components for a Staff of Light, getting us ready for Eilserv School antics. This keeps the value of the item less than 2,000 gp; Imbued Staff only gets more valuable with more Wizard/Sorcerer levels, and it therefore stays a +1 weapon or so at best until we take another Wizard level. This then makes it a candidate weapon for founding a legacy via Least Legacy, which is a prereq for Legacy Champion later. Since we’re focusing on a quarterstaff we might as well make it a Legacy Weapon as well. The idea is to SAD things into WIS: AC bonus, damage, attack bonus are all shoehorned in. We qualify for Eilservs School with Weapon Focus in Setting Sun (Discipline Focus) – this option is permitted by p.20, Masters of the Wild, which was never updated to 3.5. Feat chain assuming a human is: TWF, Combat Casting, Intuitive Attack, Power Attack from UA Wizard, Least Legacy, Eilservs School, Imbued Strength, Arcane Strike, Travel Devotion, Combat Expertise. Imbued Staff is an ACF taken at the point where UA Wizard first comes in. Two levels of Eldritch Knight in at the end there because I couldn’t think of much else. If you could get Kung Fu Genius to apply to Swordsage as it does for Monk, that’d likely be the most obvious improvement I could suggest. Happy to hear suggested improvements!

Monk 2/Fighter 4/Kensai 3/Suel Arcanamarch 2/Exotic Weapon Master 2/Kensai +7

This is actually dervied from a quick stub made by Biffoniacus_Furio in this thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?104449-3-5-Kensai-Build) and is based around the Longstaff mentioned above. Per Biff...

I'd go Monk with a Longstaff (CV), grab some Fighter levels and take one level of Exotic Weapon Master for Exotic Flurry and max out Kensai asap. Get each end enchanted for Speed, then add Wounding and Marrowcrushing (BoVD). Monk Flurry with EWM Flurry with Speed will give you quite a few attacks/round, each hit dealing 2 Con damage. I'd dip 2+ levels into Suel Arcanamach for Wraithstrike just to be able to hit your opponents. Take the feat Quickstaff (CW) and use Combat Expertise for -2 each round for +4 AC and you can't be flanked. Monk even gets Evasion and the right class skills. Use the Passive Way fighting style (UA) to get Combat Expertise and Improved Trip without the Int prerequisite, and use two EWM levels to be able to Trip with your Longstaff. Suel Arcanamach will also add Enlarge Person to the mix.

Probably go something like Monk 2/ Fighter 4/ Kensai 3/ Suel Arcanamach 2+/ Exotic Weapon Master 2/ Kensai+, and make your Longstaff +1 Wounding on each end right away. You could even use the staff two-handed and use unarmed strikes as your offhand TWF attacks. In that case, make the other end of the staff +5 Defending an AC bonus. I have no idea how many feats that build needs or gets, but Fighter gets 3, Monk gets 2, the Otyugh Hole takes care of Iron Will for SA, and there's a few overlapping prerequisites. If you get Quickstaff you may as well dip one level of Dragonslayer since you'll already qualify for it.

I'm going to build this one out properly when I've got time for it.


Druid 20
Feat Suggestions: Vow of Poverty for the challenge. This one would be mostly for flavour, but eminently doable given what spells and feats are out there for quarterstaff or polearms. Rest of it is basically increasing your quarterstaff’s size and going to town with Brambles, Entangling Staff, and the rest of it while under Greater Luminous Armour. Under this build you’re foregoing the more obvious druid ownage for stuff like Intuitive Attack and so forth.


UA Wizard 1/Cloistered Cleric of Zuoken 19
Zuoken is a god who likes quarterstaffs and who has the Knowledge, War, and Strength domains, out of the Greyhawk Gazetteer. A god with Knowledge as one of his domains allows the spell Lore of the Gods to boost all Knowledge checks for Knowledge Devotion by +10 rather than the standard+5, which makes the KD checks much more reliable - and avoids the DM looking at you askance for drawing on Guidance of the Avatar cheese. (Although if you wanted to cheese it up, Lore of the Gods and Guidance of the Avatar stack, providing insight and competence bonuses respectively). Feat suggestions: Knowledge Devotion, DMM Persist (specifically for Weapon of the Deity, yes, yes, and Divine Power), Intuitive Attack, Power Attack. War domain gets us Weapon Focus in Quarterstaff for Eilservs School. Strength domain gets us goodies like Enlarge Person and the domain power of pulling out a pretty damn decent STR enhancement bonus for 1 round.

Why the 1 level of UA Wizard? Because it gives us a fighter bonus feat - and thus, Two-Weapon Fighting for Eilservs School once again. But the real reason we want that one level of Wizard is that it allows us to go even more SAD, because the feat Imbued Strength only requires a third level caster who can imbue a staff. One level in UA Wizard, and there's your imbued staff (and its capacity to deliver touch spells - no distinction there on whether it's arcane or divine spells). When you hit third level (or fourth, maybe), you can take Imbued Strength: WIS in substitution for STR on damage rolls with the staff. Combined with Intuitive Attack, your attack and damage rolls with the staff are now both drawing off WIS. Your STR never need go higher than 13 because that's all that Power Attack requires to operate. And once you qualify for Eilservs School, there's another +5 untyped damage on top of whatever milking you make out of Power Attack, Knowledge Devotion, and a high WIS score.


UA Wizard of Xan Yae 1/Cloistered Cleric of Xan Yae 2/Ordained Champion 3/Rogue 1/Spellwarp Sniper 5/Church Inquisitor 5/Ruathar 3
Feat progression, assuming human: Point Blank Shot, Extend Spell, Two-Weapon Fighting. (Weapon Focus Quarterstaff comes from the Wizard ACF - see below.) Imbued Strength, Intuitive Attack, Power Attack, Eilservs School, Persistent Spell, DMM Persistent Spell). Knowledge Devotion comes from swapping out the Knowledge Domain. Land speed +10 feet, Bluff, Hide, Move Silently are class skills from Trickery domain. I really, really hate the Rogue dip, but Spellwarp Sniper doesn’t let you qualify without sneak attack or sudden strike, and the ACFs for Rogues tend to be at the second or third levels of rogue. If your DM rules that an Assassination weapon duplicates sneak attack and therefore gives you the +1d6 of sneak attack, then for goodness sake slap that on your quarterstaff and get another level of Cloistered Cleric in there. And for what it’s worth at least you’ll have lots of skill points and Trickery domain puts all the sneaky skills on your class list.

UA Wizard as usual is in there to give us an Imbued Staff and thereby access to the Imbued Strength feat. However, there’s also another ACF sitting in here: the War domain’s granted power, which is shoehorned into the Wizard level by the ACF Domain Granted Power out of Complete Champion.

We stop at 3 levels in Ordained Champion because we already get attack and damage to WIS via Intuitive Attack and Imbued Strength, it saves us a caster level, and we want to save our turn undead attempts for DMM Persist. We also lose getting swift-action War domain spells, admittedly, but half that stuff you should be extending or persisting anyway. We also lose Fist of the Gods, which is Arcane Strike 0.5 as it doesn’t affect attack rolls, but for that very reason – it doesn’t match Arcane Strike – it’s probably not worth the lost caster level anyway. Ordained Champion’s Channel Spell feature somewhat duplicates an Imbued Staff’s first feature, but the reason we’re doing this is mainly to get into Spellwarp Sniper. Eilservs School is only well back in the progression because the damn thing doesn’t get +6 BAB until a level or two prior. Power Attack could be switched to earlier in the build in place of Two-Weapon Fighting since this build is going to be about clericzilla more than artful TWFing.

Anyway, this build gives us 18th level divine casting and a level 1 Wizard casting level. Our quarterstaff warrior persists stuff like his Luminous Armour and Divine Power and then uses the following tricks:

Knowledge Devotion + Collector of Stories Skill Trick + Lore of the Gods spell = at least a +15 on your Knowledge checks for KD, i.e. at least a +2 to attack and damage before you start putting skill ranks in there. Around caster level 12, assuming you keep pumping the skill points, that’s a no-roll +5 to attack and damage.
WIS is substituted in for STR on all attack and damage rolls, freely, whenever we strike with the quarterstaff, no daily uses, no need to lose another BAB or spending three damn feats to qualify for Shiba Protector.
Eilservs School adds 5 untyped damage via the Staff of Light trick.
Area-effect spells > Spellwarp Sniper > Ray Spells > Remove Reflex save > Ordained Champion > Touch Spells > Deliver damaging spells via melee weapon with no saving throw on the spell. Ordained Champion can convert Area and Ray spells freely into touch spells, but it doesn’t remove the saving throws from the spell, and it takes a move action to charge up your weapon to do so. Spellwarp Sniper does remove the saving throw, and Imbued Staff allows the spells to be delivered freely, with no move action required.



Vow of Poverty Monk 3/Cleric 2/Shintao Monk 2/Sacred Fist 3/Master of the West Wind 10
This is a divine-flavoured monk with Vow of Poverty as opposed to the arcane gish builds above. Master of the West Wind is a Monk PrC from Dragon 314 which advances divine casting 10/10 (and has an equivalent, Master of the East Wind, which advances arcane casting instead - it sometimes takes the place of some Enlightened Fist levels in gish builds).

Line-by-line breakdown here as Vow of Poverty makes this both more complex and an exercise in why not to take Vow of Poverty in monk-ish builds.

Flaw feat: Weapon Focus (Quarterstaff)
Human.

1 Monk 1 (VOP: +4 AC) (Sacred Vow) (Vow of Poverty) (Monk: Improved Unarmed Strike) (Bonus Feat: Stunning Fist) (Monk ACF: Decisive Strike)
2 Monk 2 (VOP: Bonus Exalted feat: Intuitive Attack) (Monk Bonus feat: Combat Reflexes)
3 Monk 3 (VOP: +1 AC, endure elements) (Power Attack)
4 Cleric 1 (VOP: Exalted Strike +1 (magic), bonus exalted feat: Servant of the Heavens) (Domains: Law, Spell – Law domain traded for Law Devotion)
5 Cleric 2 (VOP: Sustenance)
6 Shintao Monk 1 (VOP: +1 AC, deflection +1, bonus exalted feat: Sanctify Martial Strike) (Combat Casting)
7 Shintao Monk 2 (VOP: Resistance +1, ability score enhancement +2)
8 Sacred Fist 1 (VOP: Natural Armor +1, mind shielding, bonus exalted feat: Exalted Smite)
9 Sacred Fist 2 (VOP: +1 AC) (Awesome Smite)
10 Sacred Fist 3 (VOP: Exalted Strike +2 (good), DR 5/magic, bonus exalted feat: Sanctify Weapon)
11 Master of the West Wind (VOP: Ability Score Enhancement +4/+2)
12 Master of the West Wind (VOP:+1 AC, Deflection +1, greater sustenance, bonus exalted feat: Touch of Golden Ice) (Travel Devotion)
13 Master of the West Wind (VOP: Resistance +1, Energy Resistance 5)
14 Master of the West Wind (VOP: Exalted Strike +3, freedom of movement, Bonus Exalted Feat: Words of Creation)
15 Master of the West Wind (VOP: +1 AC, ability score enhancement +6/+4/+2, DR 5/evil) (Gets Air Domain here) (Power Lunge)
16 Master of the West Wind (VOP: Natural Armor +2, Bonus Exalted Feat: Vow of Obedience)
17 Master of the West Wind (VOP: Exalted Strike +4, resistance +1, regeneration)
18 Master of the West Wind (VOP: +1 AC, +1 Deflection, true seeing, Bonus Exalted Feat: Vow of Chastity) (Imbue Weapon)
19 Master of the West Wind (VOP: ability score enhancement +8/+6/+4/+2, DR 10/evil)
20 Master of the West Wind (VOP: Exalted Strike +5, Energy Resistance 15, bonus exalted feat: Vow of Purity)

The essential approach on this one is the one big smack: Travel Devotion to get you next to the enemy, power a smite to raise the attack accuracy a little, Power Attack that, and just try to smash them as hard as you can with one blow under Decisive Strike. Then dodge and run like hell. That’s the reason we’ve got 2 levels of Shintao Monk in there: the Smite Taint feature is explicitly called out in OA as being Smite Evil in any setting other than Rokugan. We have two turning pools because of the Air Domain power granted at Master of the West Wind 5.

The one aspect of this build that needs adjudication – and admittedly it’s one that would cause a rebuild if knocked back – is that the Vow of Poverty’s Exalted Strike +1 (magic) – which makes any strike the character takes a +1 weapon in effect and overrides DR as though it were magic – satisfies Master of the West Wind’s prerequisite of a Ki strike (magic) class feature. The effect is the same – the character’s strike overrides DR/magic – and under Masters of the Wild’s rule on alternative class abilities qualifying for PrCs, might be enough to swing through. If not, you’re looking at a Monk 4 entry most likely, which isn’t the greatest. Most monk PrCs I’ve run across tend to advance or boost unarmed strike damage specifically, which isn’t a help because we’re focusing on use of the quarterstaff as the primary weapon … and Vow of Poverty means we can’t get the weapon quality Ki Focus on our quarterstaff. This is why we’ve got dips in Shintao Monk and only 3 levels in Sacred Fist: because above that the only major bonuses you get to attack or damage past those points are on unarmed attack specifically: unlike Enlightened Fist, Sacred Fist doesn’t allow you to add energy damage to monk weapons.

Can I also add that Exalted Feats really, really suck?

Vow of Poverty also makes it tricky for god selection, too, since exalted characters are by definition lawful good: most gods with the Travel portfolio tend to be true neutral or chaotic good. I eventually settled on Aureon (LN) since a cleric can go within one step of his deity’s alignment, and therefore also settled on Law and Spell domains for Law Devotion’s modest boost to AC or attack rolls and Spell domain’s priceless Mage Armor and Anyspell line.

Running this sort of build has a certain amount of MAD to it: high CHA to power turn undead (you can’t carry Nightsticks, remember) or a wasted feat slot or two on Extra Turning. STR 13 to get you Power Attack. DEX above 10 to make more than one AoO, which will help with Decisive Strike. WIS to power attack accuracy. But you won’t need Carmendine Monk or Kung Fu Genius as INT is not the priority in this build – no Knowledge Devotion here, you haven’t got the skill points to really max it out.

Imbue Weapon is a feat out of Dragon 343 – blow a turn attempt, get an untyped bonus to attack and damage based on your cleric caster level.

I doubt much would be able to hit you easily with this build. +3 to AC from Monk/Shintao Monk/Master of the West Wind, +1 to AC from Sacred Fist which arguably stacks, WIS to AC, +9 AC from Vow of Poverty (doesn't stack with Armor bonus), +2 to Natural Armor from Vow of Poverty, +3 Deflection from Vow of Poverty, DEX to AC over the levels. Whether you could meaningfully hit anything else is more debatable and probably rests mostly on your spells. Up to fifth level arcane casting from Spell domain, 15th level cleric casting.



Anthropomorphic Ape Pugilist 2/Swordsage 4/Monkey Shen 6/Pugilist +3/Swordsage +3

We’re putting the monk back in monkey! (Except with no Monk levels. And not a lot of monkey, if you want to be technical about it.)

Pugilist is a variant fighter from Dragon 310, the same issue that gave us the Targetteer and other proto-classes like the Exoticist. And it has one thing going for it: it explicitly gives you Improved Unarmed Strike and Endurance – two otherwise useless feats – for free. Yes, collect more fighter feats and use your Pugilist levels for nothing but bonus fighter feats which, frankly, you’re going to need.

I know this one looks a bit odd. I can hear you screaming from here when you notice I’ve taken five levels in a Fighter class, what the hell am I thinking … well, the main reason for the 5 levels in Pugilist is because Swordsage actually starts to stagnate as a class around Swordsage 9-11 or so. More maneuvers, more stances, yes, but apart from that, most of it is stuff you’ve already got, particularly under this build. And BAB in particular has had to suffer through three pauses: Swordsage 1, Monkey Shen 1, and then Swordsage again. If caster levels are the end-all and be-all for casters, BAB is the primary asset for martials, especially ones who want to use Power Attack – like this one does. Also, I was aiming for semi-usefulness across the whole 20 levels, if you’re intending to be stronger at the lower levels and want higher-level maneuvers available, don’t take Swordsage levels until during Monkey Shen; wait until later. 5 levels in Pugilist will easily get you into Shen.

(On that: by my calculation, this build accesses up to 7th level stances and maneuvers, because we’ve got 8 IL in Swordsage, 1 in Shadow Sun Ninja, 3 from Shen, and 2 from Pugilist. By some RAW interpretations, though, all PrCs, not just the ToB ones, attract one-for one initiator levels, in which case this build would pull IL 17 and therefore 9th level. If that's correct, then I'd be even more inclined to ditch a level of Swordsage and/or Shadow Sun Ninja and get one more Pugilist level in there -- remembering that Pugilist by RAW doesn't allow access to all bonus fighter feats, only the ones set out in its description block in Dragon 310.)

(Next point that might require DM adjudication: whether you get WIS to AC twice. Shen allows you to "gain" (that's the RAW) their WIS to AC when unarmored. Swordsage - we are not doing the unarmed Swordsage here, remember - gets to add his WIS to AC, and that when he's no more than lightly armored. They're not the same feature in all respects, so it's arguable if you can find a situation where they both apply, you get the benefit of both, and thus 2xWIS to AC. This is a similar trick that justifies ever taking a level in Shiba Protector, since that PrC says you "add" your WIS to attack and damage rolls and therefore stacks with feats or class features that allow you to substitute WIS for STR on those rolls. If your DM is okay with this, it's great. If not? No great loss, wear light armor and just let this Shen feature disappear, because you're still getting it via Swordsage and Shen's WIS to AC is the only thing shut down by wearing armor. All of his other abilities remain in force.)

Either way, meet Kong.

Kong is an Anthropomorphic Ape, a creature from Savage Species with LA +0 and 2d8 hit dice, thus ECL 2 (and thus 1-2 more in Initiator Level, too, for what it’s worth.) No, I didn't want to name him Caesar. Or Dr. Cornelius.

Anthropomorphic Apes come with Medium size, +2 to STR, +4 WIS, +6 to DEX, +3 to Natural Armor, 30 feet land speed. If that isn’t a good base on which to build a TWF/AoO opportunist, I don’t know what is. (Anthropomorphic Monkeys, sadly, don’t come in anywhere near as impressive, much as I’d like them to. Only thing they really have going for them is a Small size.)

Kong begins his life as a sort of slave, learning to fight in the brawling pits of Teor, where he was born and where he picked up the Battle Jump feat. He also learns a bit of finesse fighting along the way.

One day, kindly old Master Adoy the Typecast Eastern Martial Arts Sage comes and rescues Kong, and spirits him away to a Sublime Way academy, where Kong begins to study the way of the not-monk. He picks up Weapon Focus (Quarterstaff), and after learning a few annoying tricks like Deft Opportunist, Expert Tactican, and whatnot, he begins to explore his simian nature, entering the Shen and choosing the Monkey Shen in particular. He gets good at the quarterstaff. Really good. Especially when he gets given a set of Gloves of the Balanced Hand and skates through to Greater Two Weapon Fighting off the back of TWF, Gloves of the Balanced Hand, and Monkey Shen 4.

And most significantly, he learns to apply Weapon Finesse to both ends of a quarterstaff, possibly resulting (on the DM’s adjudication) in DEX bonus to attack rolls while also using Power Attack. He also gets even more simian with a Hybrid Form he uses that gives him another +4 to DEX as well.

One of the other things he learns as a Monkey Shen is to leap onto inanimate objects equal to or less than his height with no Jump check. Because Kong is a strapping lad, he also uses skill tricks Walk the Walls, Wall Jumper, and the feat Battle Jump, to make jumping charges down on unfortunate foes below him. He also gains Uncanny Dodge, Evasion, stunning through his staff (and picks up Stunning Fist later on), and finally returns to Teor where he smashes every person who was ever mean to him, finally returning to the Sublime Way school of not-monks to continue his training, which includes Robilar’s Gambit and Adaptive Style.

He’s got lots of AoO optimisation – can hit someone twice for every AoO he gets off, via Double Hit -- he can pull off a touch attack hit with Spot the Weak Point skill trick, he adds WIS to damage, and he arguably gets WIS to AC twice – once from Swordsage, once from Monkey Shen. But given he’s pulling AC 16 with DEX bonuses of at least at +3, Natural Armor +3, and then WIS of maybe +2, do you really care?

Weapons? It’s a magic staff, 50 charges of Light, with the weapon quality Fierce, which lets him smash out his DEX bonus from his AC to damage in a round … without actually affecting his Weapon Finesse. Eilservs School (they’re an eclectic school up at the not-monk academy) adds +5 on all his weapon damage rolls. Oh yeah, he also gets to replace STR with WIS. And as said, since he falls in an interesting twilight world of Power Attack interacting with a finessable bludgeoning weapon, he arguably can trade off his BAB to add twice the STR (or WIS) damage to his blows.

Level-by-level summary:

Flaw feats: Weapon Finesse, Battle Jump

Anthropomorphic Ape:
BAB +2

1 Pugilist 1.(Dragon 310) (Free: Improved Unarmed Strike) (Free: Endurance) (Two-Weapon Fighting) (Combat Reflexes) BAB 3
2 Pugilist 2 (Power Attack) BAB 4
3 Swordsage 1 (Expert Tactician) (Discipline Focus: Weapon Focus (Setting Sun - Quarterstaff)) BAB 4
4 Swordsage 2 WIS bonus to AC BAB 5
5 Swordsage 3 BAB 6
6 Swordsage 4 (Insightful Strike – WIS to damage) (Eilservs School) BAB 7
7 Monkey Shen 1: WIS bonus to AC again? BAB 7
8 Monkey Shen 2: Leap onto any inanimate object equal to or less than his height with no Jump check BAB 8, Ki Strike (Silver)
9 Monkey Shen 3: Hybrid Form 1/day (+4 to DEX) (Deft Opportunist) BAB 9
10 Monkey Shen 4: Treated as having Improved TWF (Greater TWF if already has Improved TWF) BAB 10
11 Monkey Shen 5: Hybrid form 2/day, Uncanny Dodge BAB 10
12 Monkey Shen 6: Weapon Finesse with quarterstaff, Evasion, Stun through staff if has Stunning Fist (Double Hit) BAB 11
13 Pugilist 3 BAB 12
14 Pugilist 4 (Stunning Fist) BAB 13
15 Pugilist 5 BAB 14 (Robilar’s Gambit)
16 Swordsage 5 BAB 14 (Quick to Act +2)
17 Swordsage 6 BAB 15 Sense Magic
18 Swordsage 7 BAB 16 Discipline Focus (Defensive Stance) (Adaptive Style)


Skill Tricks: Wall Jumper, Walk the Walls, Spot the Weak Point. (If the Battle Jump + Wall Jumper + Walk the Walls thing doesn't work, I'd settle for Stand Still and/or Elusive Opportunist, or Steadfast Determination if for some funny reason my CON wound up massively higher than my WIS (we got Endurance for free).)

Haven’t sketched out maneuvers or stances, but Swordsage 7 gives you 12 maneuvers known, 7 readied, and 3 stances.

Equipment essentials: Fierce quarterstaff, possibly the Ki Power enchantment. Gloves of the Balanced Hand - almost vital, without this you're blowing another feat slot to get Improved TWF for full value out of Shen 4. Some amulet of Natural Armor (Kong has +3 already from being an ape) to enhance that if you want to go armorless, but strictly speaking the only ability that cuts out if you're wearing light armor in this build is the Shen's WIS to AC.

So Kong at least has a lot of options to play with, but actually seems on paper to work as a quarterstaff specialist. Sure he might have more AoOs than he does BAB-based attacks, but that’s part of his charm: a supremely annoying man-sized monkey.



Other random thoughts

Alienist option?
If you can somehow finagle an Imbued Staff (or indeed an Item Familiar) to count as a familiar for the purposes of the Alienist, the staff would pick up the pseudonatural template, which includes a once-per-day True Strike and an Alternate Form. If that were available it synergises not-indecently with the Enlightened Fist/Abjurant Champion option above, i.e. it replaces the final levels in the build.

Staff Creation Costs, or, They Don't Give You The Whole Formula Because If They Did, You'd Be Saving a Lot Of Money Than You Do
We know the formula for creation of magic staffs, which basically comes down to as follows: your staff's market price is twice the cost of the spell materials, which are calculated in accordance with the following formula:



The cost for the materials is subsumed in the cost for creating the staff—375 gp × the level of the highest-level spell × the level of the caster, plus 75% of the value of the next most costly ability (281.25 gp × the level of the spell × the level of the caster), plus one-half of the value of any other abilities (187.5 gp × the level of the spell × the level of the caster). Staffs are always fully charged (50 charges) when created.

If desired, a spell can be placed into the staff at only half the normal cost, but then activating that particular spell costs 2 charges from the staff. The caster level of all spells in a staff must be the same, and no staff can have a caster level of less than 8th, even if all the spells in the staff are low-level spells.

The problem with this formula is that it doesn't mathematically fit even the very first magic staff provided in the SRD, that being the Staff of Abjuration. As a reminder:


Abjuration
Usually carved from the heartwood of an ancient oak or other large tree, this staff allows use of the following spells:

Shield (1 charge)
Resist energy (1 charge)
Dispel magic (1 charge)
Lesser globe of invulnerability (2 charges)
Dismissal (2 charges)
Repulsion (3 charges)

Strong abjuration; CL 13th; Craft Staff, dismissal, dispel magic, lesser globe of invulnerability, resist energy, repulsion, shield; Price 65,000 gp.

Based off the Craft Staff formula, you'd start with a price list as follows:
Repulsion = Sor/Wiz 6 = 375 x 6 x 13 = 29250
Dismissal = Sor/Wiz 5 = 281.25 x 5 x 13 = 18281.25
Lesser Globe of Invulnerability = Sor/Wiz 4 = 187.5 x 4 x 13 = 9750
Dispel Magic = Sor/Wiz 3 = 187.5 x 3 x 13 = 5062.5
Resist Energy = Sor/Wiz 2 = 187.5 x 2 x 13 = 4875
Shield = Sor/Wiz 1 = 187.5 x 1 x 13 = 2437.5
Total spell materials cost: 69656.25 gp. Market price = 139312.5 gp.

"Ah," I hear you say. "You've just forgotten to provide the cost savings because those top three abilities use up multiple charges, which entitles us to cut the price in half."

Okay, let's do that:
Repulsion = Sor/Wiz 6 = 375 x 6 x 13 = 29250/2 = 14625
Dismissal = Sor/Wiz 5 = 281.25 x 5 x 13 = 18281.25/2 = 9140.625
Lesser Globe of Invulnerability = Sor/Wiz 4 = 187.5 x 4 x 13 = 9750/2 = 4875
Dispel Magic = Sor/Wiz 3 = 187.5 x 3 x 13 = 5062.5
Resist Energy = Sor/Wiz 2 = 187.5 x 2 x 13 = 4875
Shield = Sor/Wiz 1 = 187.5 x 1 x 13 = 2437.5
Total spell materials cost: 38390.625. Market price = 76781.25 gp.

Still overshot the market price by 11,780 gp and change. Given the market price is double the spell materials cost, there's 5890.625 gp floating around in those calculations somewhere.

So what gives? Where's that other nearly six grand coming from?

Cutting all the spells to minimum possible caster level doesn't solve the problem: if you drop Repulsion's CL to 11 (minimum for Sor/Wiz), Dismissal to CL 9, Lesser Globe to CL 7, and so on, you end up with 46781.25 gp as the spell materials cost, i.e. market price of just over 90,000 gp - way too large as well. Not to mention that the staff's caster level is 13 anyway, so you can't actually drop 'em all back to their minimum caster levels.

Also doesn't help if you cut Lesser Globe of Invulnerability, Dispel Magic, Resist Energy, and Shield back to CL 8, the minimum possible for a staff, and leave the others intact at CL 13. In that case, the spell materials cost still overshoots and therefore the market price is too large.

All right then, how about the writers screwed up and applied the /2 to all the spells in the staff, not just the ones which use 2 or more charges?
Let's do that:
Repulsion = Sor/Wiz 6 = 375 x 6 x 13 = 29250/2 = 14625
Dismissal = Sor/Wiz 5 = 281.25 x 5 x 13 = 18281.25/2 = 9140.625
Lesser Globe of Invulnerability = Sor/Wiz 4 = 187.5 x 4 x 13 = 9750/2 = 4875
Dispel Magic = Sor/Wiz 3 = 187.5 x 3 x 13 = 5062.5/2 = 2531.25
Resist Energy = Sor/Wiz 2 = 187.5 x 2 x 13 = 4875/2 = 2437.5
Shield = Sor/Wiz 1 = 187.5 x 1 x 13 = 2437.5/2 = 1218.75
Total spell materials cost: 34828.125. Market price = 69,656.25 gp. Overshoots market price by nearly 5,000 gp.

No, the closest I could get to the book price for the Staff - market price of 65,000, implying a spell materials cost of 32,500 - was this:

Repulsion = Sor/Wiz 6 (3 charges) 375 x 6 x 13 = 29250/3 = 9750
Dismissal = Sor/Wiz 5 (2 charges) 281.25 x 5 x 13 = 18281.25/2 = 9140.625
Lesser Globe of Invulnerability = Sor/Wiz 4 (2 charges) 187.5 x 4 x 13 = 9282/2 = 4641
Dispel Magic = Sor/Wiz 3 (1 charge) 187.5 x 3 x 13 = 7312.5
Resist Energy = Sor/Wiz 2 (1 charge) = 187.5 x 2 x 3 = 1125
Shield = Sor/Wiz 1 (1 charge) = 187.5 x 1 x 1 =187.5

Spell Material costs = 32156.625 gp. Market Price = 64313.25

That is, Resist Energy and Shield are being cast at their minimum possible caster level, not 8, and certianly not 13. But it was that divisor of 3 that seemed to be the most consistent. TFrom here, we still have to find a notional 343 gp or so, the most likely source for which has to be a missing caster level or so among the bottom four abilities.

So what I'm guessing from all of this is the following:
(1) Whilst the explicit rules provide for cutting the price of a spell in half by having 2 charges per spell activation, it is highly likely, based on how the math works out, that the legal calculations contemplate higher denominators for the purposes of that discount -- at least suggesting you can cut the price by a third if you have it use 3 charges at a time. This seems to be how the 'book' magic staffs have been priced where they set out that a spell in a staff uses 3 charges. It gets even more interesting if one extends the analogy: does setting up a staff to blow 4 charges for a spell cut its price to a quarter?
(2) Whilst the explicit wording of the rules says "no staff can have a caster level less than 8," it doesn't seem to be the case that all your spells in the staff have to be set at CL 8. They can be variable.

[Saintheart]

Acknowledgments

I am not a great nor elegant optimiser, as you'd probably see from half the builds above. I couldn't understand what an Incantatrix does if you paid me, I haven't played Epic level characters; life as a PbP DM means my education has been over decades rather than over lots of games played often. As such, I've tried to compensate for that by going for breadth and depth of options. And that's been a hell of an education in itself. As a result, a pretty large proportion of what you see above is built heavily on the work of others, though I have, so far as I possibly can, gone back to verify what others have said in my rangings across Giant, RPGStackExchange, and even reddit. And to those who're looking for the uber staff fighter smashing the hell out of Tier 1 characters, well, martial is never going to fully match caster in 3.5, and that's just the way of the world, that also being the reason why the first reply in a Monk thread is always "Have you considered dumping Monk and playing a wizard instead?" (And even the joke is stolen, thanks Thurbane.) And even after putting the options up I was still finding stuff. I hope that continues.

There are some handbooks I've looked at, but I thought I'd also mention the following random threads that came up across GITP and which either led me onto other options or helped with this guide. By all means read further on these, I make no claim to being original, as said my work is very much based on the work of others who've gone before - though I'd like to think I dug up one or two nuggets people hadn't considered before in this guide. Warning, there's a grab bag of links here not related to quarterstaff directly, sometimes they stray into weird areas.


http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?566279-3-5-Quarterstaff-Monk-Optimization
https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Staff_Tripper_(3.5e_Optimized_Character_Build)
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?328650-3-5-Enchanting-a-quarterstaff
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?335735-D-amp-D-How-to-make-quarterstaff-not-suck
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?485605-3-5-Arcane-Fist-with-Quarterstaff
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?497918-Wandman-All-the-partially-charged-wands
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?330147-3-5-Wand-based-combatant
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-316978.html
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?595641-Ancient-technique-style-feats
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?479435-3-5-Warped-Druid-Handbook-PEACH
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?255141-Cleric-Spellwarp-Sniper-Build
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?279828-Any-good-ideas-to-optimize-Spellwarp-Sniper
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?445117-quot-Spellwarp-Sniper-List-of-Handy-Spells-quot-(from-Wizards-forum)
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?541891-Instantaneous-area-spells-for-a-Spellwarp-Sniper
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?472044-spellwarp-sniper-best-spells-to-spellwarp
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?268745-Craft-Staff-and-possibilities
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?206315-3-X-PF-Things-That-Grant-Feats
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?595364-Alternate-uses-for-non-Turn-Undead-turning
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?594467-Does-Vow-of-Poverty-make-sense-to-take-now&highlight=Vow+of+Poverty
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?215810-What-is-the-General-Consensus-on-Weapons-of-Legacy/page2
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?508639-Alternative-Spell-Trigger-Items
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?425496-Combining-Stealth-Divine
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?125206-Prestige-Class-for-Monk
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-178758.html
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?595189-3-5-Sources-of-Temporary-Feats
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?400840-List-of-Feat-Granting-Items-Locations-Grafts
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?235242-Swordsage-builds
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?386449-Monk-Swordsage-Kung-fu-genius
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?595036-Weapon-Finesse-with-a-polearm
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?272311-The-arcane-swordsage-handbook-a-guide-for-players-and-DMs
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?257592-Swordsage-Kung-Fu-Genius
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?338524-Bekeleven-s-Monkday-Guide-to-Monks
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?383123-Why-do-people-not-like-the-Alienist-PrC&highlight=Item+Familiar+Alienist
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?145043-DnD-3-5-List-of-Deities-by-Favoured-Weapon
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?171135-Compiled-Special-Materials
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?429016-Wizard-wielding-quarterstaff
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?123630-3-X-Person-Man-s-Guide-to-Shields

There were, however, some important handbooks I drew from or looked through in composing this guide. Those are:

The TWF Offhandbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?279079-3-5-The-TWF-OffHandbook)
The Gish Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?321715-The-Gish-Handbook)
X Stat to Y Bonus (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?125732-3-x-X-stat-to-Y-bonus)
Comprehensive List of Deities (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?571607-Comprehensive-Deity-Database&highlight=comprehensive+list+of+deities)

Special thanks to all of you who've contributed to this thread direct, too. Added several interesting options as a result of that, it's muchly appreciated.

[Palanan]

One applauds, sir, one applauds.

I’m especially glad to see a mention of Decastave, which is usually overlooked.

[Zaq]

Nice work, mate! I’m always appreciative of a labor of love like this.

I’ve never before seen the argument that the off-hand side of a double weapon gets 1x STR instead of 0.5x STR. I’ve always interpreted the “just as though the character were wielding a one-handed weapon and a light weapon” clause as indicating that the off-hand part is to be treated as a light weapon while using the TWF option. Can you elaborate a bit on your argument about why you feel that the off-hand part is treated as a light weapon in the off-hand for to-hit penalties but as something other than a light weapon in the off-hand for damage?

[Saintheart]

Nice work, mate! I’m always appreciative of a labor of love like this.

I’ve never before seen the argument that the off-hand side of a double weapon gets 1x STR instead of 0.5x STR. I’ve always interpreted the “just as though the character were wielding a one-handed weapon and a light weapon” clause as indicating that the off-hand part is to be treated as a light weapon while using the TWF option. Can you elaborate a bit on your argument about why you feel that the off-hand part is treated as a light weapon in the off-hand for to-hit penalties but as something other than a light weapon in the off-hand for damage?

I think my reasoning is actually going to be a bit faulty on that one at least, perhaps a little too much lamp-oil as Montaigne once said :) What I was aiming at in there was the wording of a couple of lines in TWF:


You can use a double weapon to make an extra attack with the off-hand end of the weapon as if you were fighting with two weapons. The penalties apply as if the off-hand end of the weapon were a light weapon.

The penalties apply as if the off-hand end of the weapon were a light weapon. Not that the off-hand end of the weapon is a light weapon for any other purpose. The statement is only to show you what the penalties on the attack roll are, not to classify the quarterstaff as a light weapon. By contrast, notice how the SRD explicitly tells us that an unarmed strike is "always considered light". Nowhere is a quarterstaff specified as a light weapon for the purposes of STR bonuses. Ergo: if it ain't a light weapon, normal STR bonuses apply to the damage it dishes out. You're stuck with the to-hit penalties if you fight with it two-handed, but not the nerfed STR bonus to damage. Lower STR damage on a light weapon is not a "penalty" as this line in the SRD proclaims it, it's a feature of a light weapon - which a quarterstaff is not.

EDIT: Having gotten a bit more sleep, I think I'm firmed up a bit on my argument, particularly when we look at what the SRD says about damage:


Strength Bonus
When you hit with a melee or thrown weapon, including a sling, add your Strength modifier to the damage result. A Strength penalty, but not a bonus, applies on attacks made with a bow that is not a composite bow.

Off-Hand Weapon
When you deal damage with a weapon in your off hand, you add only ½ your Strength bonus.

Wielding a Weapon Two-Handed
When you deal damage with a weapon that you are wielding two-handed, you add 1½ times your Strength bonus. However, you don’t get this higher Strength bonus when using a light weapon with two hands.

I would argue to a DM that the second clause overrides the first: when you deal damage with a weapon being wielded two-handed, it's 1.5xSTR. The phrasing of that second sentence -- "you don't get this higher STR bonus when using a light weapon with two hands" -- does not talk about double weapons specifically, and as said, a quarterstaff is not a light weapon, but it sure is being used with two hands.

I would certainly concede to anyone that the RAI was that you only got the 0.5xSTR with the butt end of a quarterstaff, but that's not the RAW. The crucial error by the writers is by using the words "as if" under the clause about two-weapon fighting, and to only refer to the attack roll penalties as being affected - not to the STR bonus. If accepted, that's the hidden advantage of wielding a double weapon as opposed to two single weapons for the purposes of two-weapon fighting.

[Uncle Pine]

<snip>
If your reading of TWF with a double weapon was correct, why would a Valenar elf need 5 levels in the Revenant Blade class to acquire the ability to treat both ends of a double scimitar as two-handed weapons, even when using it as a double weapon?

Legendary Force (Ex): At 5th level, you become a true master of the double scimitar. Through skill and art, you learn to strike with astonishing strength. This ability allows you to treat both ends of the Valenar double scimitar as two-handed weapons, even when you use it as a double weapon. For example, you add 1-1/2 times your Strength bonus on damage rolls with each end of the weapon, and any damage bonus from the Power Attack feat is doubled when used with the weapon.

Also worth noting the following:

Double Weapons
Dire flails, dwarven urgroshes, gnome hooked hammers, orc double axes, quarterstaffs, and two-bladed swords are double weapons. A character can fight with both ends of a double weapon as if fighting with two weapons, but he or she incurs all the normal attack penalties associated with two-weapon combat, just as though the character were wielding a one-handed weapon and a light weapon.

The character can also choose to use a double weapon two handed, attacking with only one end of it. A creature wielding a double weapon in one hand can’t use it as a double weapon—only one end of the weapon can be used in any given round.
You can choose to use a double weapon two handed (and gain the appropriate benefits of doing so), but only if you're attacking with one end of it. Therefore, if you're TWF with both ends of a quarterstaff, you cannot choose to use it two handed.

[Thurbane]

Bit of an obscure source, but Thrall of Fraz-Urb'luu (Dragon 333, p.31) has the Staff Mastery (Ex) ability at 5th level: you can wield any magical staff as a +1 greatclub, it's treated as evil for overcoming DR, you can use any staff as if its spells were on your class list, and the best part - you can take Con damage in place of using charges from the staff. Pretty great if you take 1 level of Binder and grab Naberius. Might combine well with Eilservs School.

Also, not very player friendly (5RHD, LA +2), but the Yak Folk (MM2, p.200) get Use Staff (Ex) which works like UMD for any staff, and automatically succeeds.

[Uncle Pine]

Spellstaff (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/spellstaff.htm) exists and Spiritual Weapon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/spiritualWeapon.htm) (at least in its PHB version) can create a quarterstaff if you worship certain deities. None of the two spells are particularly impressive, but probably worth to mention just to leave no stone unturned.

[Noxangelo]

something on the wording of the Eilservs School feat. it says you activate one of the spells from the staff, it doesn't say the spell has to use charges, so you should be able to give your staff of light shocking grasp or magic missile at will and trigger that. there are staffs that contain spells that consume no charges.

[Saintheart]

If your reading of TWF with a double weapon was correct, why would a Valenar elf need 5 levels in the Revenant Blade class to acquire the ability to treat both ends of a double scimitar as two-handed weapons, even when using it as a double weapon?

Also worth noting the following:

You can choose to use a double weapon two handed (and gain the appropriate benefits of doing so), but only if you're attacking with one end of it. Therefore, if you're TWF with both ends of a quarterstaff, you cannot choose to use it two handed.

Yeah, fair enough - I'll go and make the alterations.


Bit of an obscure source, but Thrall of Fraz-Urb'luu (Dragon 333, p.31) has the Staff Mastery (Ex) ability at 5th level: you can wield any magical staff as a +1 greatclub, it's treated as evil for overcoming DR, you can use any staff as if its spells were on your class list, and the best part - you can take Con damage in place of using charges from the staff. Pretty great if you take 1 level of Binder and grab Naberius. Might combine well with Eilservs School.

Looking at it, I'd agree, it fits right into Eilservs School, because the (Ex) ability has the magic words "as if". As in, it is treated "as if" it were a +1 greatclub, but all other references very clearly identify the weapon as a magic staff, not as something that suddenly morphs into a greatclub. I'd take from that that the magic staff gets a 1d10 /x2 damage dice. Eilservs School fires on use of a magic staff, and given the school's originally of the drow, it makes sense they'd all synergise together. Not sure if Thrall of Fraz-Urb'luu locks in too well with the idea of a staff fighter as such, but since it's (Ex), I guess there's always Factotum...

Either way, special mention for sure; the CON damage aspect makes using a more expensive staff more feasible too. Thanks Thurbane!


Also, not very player friendly (5RHD, LA +2), but the Yak Folk (MM2, p.200) get Use Staff (Ex) which works like UMD for any staff, and automatically succeeds.

And as written they already come with Power Attack and Weapon Focus (Quarterstaff), which is a nice chassis to start building a big bad from that race who hits out with Eilservs School or something similar. Will mention anyway!



Spellstaff (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/spellstaff.htm) exists and Spiritual Weapon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/spiritualWeapon.htm) (at least in its PHB version) can create a quarterstaff if you worship certain deities. None of the two spells are particularly impressive, but probably worth to mention just to leave no stone unturned.

Appreciated for both - I don't know how I missed Spellstaff, I'd thought I'd done a good word search for 'staff', but either way, will add both shortly!


something on the wording of the Eilservs School feat. it says you activate one of the spells from the staff, it doesn't say the spell has to use charges, so you should be able to give your staff of light shocking grasp or magic missile at will and trigger that. there are staffs that contain spells that consume no charges.

Noted and I'll think how to add it - but the main attraction for me in Eilservs School is the very low cost. Magic staffs which have some combination of spells that use charges and those that don't I'd guess would be pretty expensive, though I guess if one thinks the utility is worth it ...

[Thurbane]

Not sure if it's worth a mention, by the alternate system in UA that deals with weapon groups puts quarterstaff in the Weapon Group (Maces and Clubs) feat.

Cull Wand Essence (MoE) works with staffs too. Use up charges to shoot a ray of energy. Limited value, IMHO.

Wand Surge (MoE) again, works with staffs. Use action points instead of charges.

Thunderlance spell (SC) not really a staff, but I guess in a similar category to Decstave?

Hellfire Warlock 2 (FC2) gets Hellfire Infusion, which can add metamagic effects to staff activations.

[Falontani]

Warforged Artificer from Races of Eberron gets a weapon familiar, which when applied to a staff gets:
+3 umd or concentration
+2 fortitude saves
Alertness
Increases to the hardness of the weapon
Deliver touch "infusions"

Artificer also grants craft staff as a bonus feat.

[Saintheart]

Not sure if it's worth a mention, by the alternate system in UA that deals with weapon groups puts quarterstaff in the Weapon Group (Maces and Clubs) feat.

Cull Wand Essence (MoE) works with staffs too. Use up charges to shoot a ray of energy. Limited value, IMHO.

Wand Surge (MoE) again, works with staffs. Use action points instead of charges.

Thunderlance spell (SC) not really a staff, but I guess in a similar category to Decstave?

Hellfire Warlock 2 (FC2) gets Hellfire Infusion, which can add metamagic effects to staff activations.

Appreciated, thanks. I guess I should go looking for feats and features which operate on spell-trigger items, since those will necessarily work with magic staffs (if they're not restricted down to wands).


Warforged Artificer from Races of Eberron gets a weapon familiar, which when applied to a staff gets:
+3 umd or concentration
+2 fortitude saves
Alertness
Increases to the hardness of the weapon
Deliver touch "infusions"

Artificer also grants craft staff as a bonus feat.

Appreciated again - as you can see I didn't focus on races and classes as such. In particular I'll be interested in the weapon familiar for sure.

[Bphill561]

Great thread and so many useful posts have been added I am not if there is anything left I can add that is super good.

Along the lines of metal staves

As far as the staff of abyssal iron, you could potential buy it for less if it did not come with all 50 charges. I know you can run into problems with all the threads on specially made wish staves with only one charge remaining tricks, but this is an actual staff listed in the book and market value does go down with charges used.

Material wise Aurorum maybe of interest in the book of exalted deeds. Maybe sloppy wording, but it does not have the usual statement that only weapons normally made of metal can be made with aurorum (Unless I am missing a general rule someplace that adds that to all metal special materials, please point me in the right direction). It also allows you to put the staff back together if sundered which maybe of use for weapon of legacy, item familiar, and imbue staff type builds. Now that it is metal, Oerthblood alloy from dragon magazine 351 can be added for 6000gp. +1 luck bonus to attack and damage with a stacking -1 penalty to saves verse magic effects for 1 round are interesting (along with it's other effects).

Metalline (+2) in the magic item compendium is not the best, especially with the update of listed metal types it can turn into, but it does not say wooden weapon are excluded from getting this property. One could argue the properties of most of the metal would themselves exclude the transition though. At +3 you would be better with a Truestrike enhancement to bypass DR given that is all the current list of metal types do.

Morphing (+1) from the same book lets you shift a weapon of the same category (two-handed) into another weapon. No comments on special material conservation. This could be useful to add to another double weapon to turn it into a quarterstaff (or a regular weapon into one of the exotic staff options). At the very least, this may open up new specific weapons that have enchantment space to add another +1 to them.

Unfortunately the weapon shift spell (spell compendium) does not allow for the creation of double weapons because this spell does specifically state the weapon maintains its material type. Still this can be applied to the non-double weapons to make one of the exotic staves listed. It would be pretty funny to make a custom set of gloves with unlimited used activated Weapon Shift and Master's touch so every weapon becomes an exotic staff you can wield. Also could be applied to spells that create weapons you wield like the Shadow Dagger spell from Dungeon 115 (range 0 feet, so persistent spell possible).

Just for good measure on spell casting builds, you might as well add Spellblade (6,000 gp) from Player's guide to Faerun. Immunity to targeted dispel spells are useful if you can cover enough of the variants.

[Uncle Pine]

Just for good measure on spell casting builds, you might as well add Spellblade (6,000 gp) from Player's guide to Faerun. Immunity to targeted dispel spells are useful if you can cover enough of the variants.
Alas, PGtF's spellblades are often misinterpreted in that sense. Unlike their 3.0 version, they are in fact one-use only. Handy link on the matter here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23054793&postcount=37).

[Bphill561]

Alas, PGtF's spellblades are often misinterpreted in that sense. Unlike their 3.0 version, they are in fact one-use only. Handy link on the matter here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23054793&postcount=37).

I have seen it argued both ways with the next wording included. I was more hoping for metal special material rules quotes, ha.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Love the guide, there are some pretty flavorful options for staff wielders out there.

While you mention Legacy Items a couple of times (and one of the sample builds features Legacy Champion), I think it would be worth a bit in the feat section going over the benefits/drawbacks of Legacy Weapons. (Or maybe the magic item section, since the rituals give you the feats for free). There's also at least one existing legacy weapon quarterstaff, though I can't remember its name.

For special materials, pearlsteel (Stormwrack) changes the damage penalty for swinging a bludgeoning weapon underwater from 1/2 total damage to -2 damage. (Though you could technically achieve a superior effect by taking the Toothed Blow feat from the same book and using Warblade's Weapon Aptitude to transfer it to quarter staffs.)

Also from Stormwrack, making the quarterstaff out of riverine doesn't have any explicit effects on weapons, but there's an argument to be made that since it's a force effect that can even block ethereal travel it would essentially give the weapon the Ghost Touch property. At the very least, it makes it immune to most ways of destroying the staff.

[Thurbane]

There's also at least one existing legacy weapon quarterstaff, though I can't remember its name.

Frostburn’s Wrath (WoL p.93)
Rod of Trimeg (WoL p.133)
Scales of Balance (WoL p.136)
Treebrother (sorta) (WoL p.169)

[Saintheart]

While you mention Legacy Items a couple of times (and one of the sample builds features Legacy Champion), I think it would be worth a bit in the feat section going over the benefits/drawbacks of Legacy Weapons. (Or maybe the magic item section, since the rituals give you the feats for free). There's also at least one existing legacy weapon quarterstaff, though I can't remember its name..

I will go and talk briefly about it, but for the most part Legacy Champion is in there because it advances Abjurant Champion's abilities - I gather that's the main reason it gets into gish builds in the first place. That said, I will mention it nonetheless.

[Saintheart]

Right, substantive updates have been done, including a couple of builds, and in particular addressing Legacy Weapons and adding an analysis of the features of magic staffs, since this is worth breaking down. I still have to build a much more properly martial quarterstaff user that doesn't have caster levels out the wazoo, but I will be getting to that. As always, really happy to hear builds, suggestions, criticisms.

And I really hate Vow of Poverty. No, scratch that, I love the concept of Vow of Poverty, what I hate is that the only feats you get as bonuses under Vow of Poverty are Exalted Feats. Essentially, once you've got Words of Creation and Intuitive Strike, you've used up every good Exalted feat they've got. The rest of them are basically twinkly Iron Will or Lightning Reflexes. I've yet to try it, but I can think of one houserule that would cure VoP's problems, and that's to just make the bonus feats any feat for which you otherwise meet the prerequisites bar metamagic and Eschew Materials to hold back the casters just a tad.

[Vizzerdrix]

Can a staff be made out of wildwood, or just armors?

[Saintheart]

Can a staff be made out of wildwood, or just armors?

It's really up for DM adjudication. There is nothing to say you can't. As far as I know there is also no general rule that says if an item isn't mentioned as creatable out of a particular special material that it's impossible; indeed, the opposite would seem to be the case since there's plenty of materials where it's specified you can't make bladed weapons with one substance but you can with another.

But without a DM to tell you what the stats of a wildwood staff would be, and how to make one, it really is a null. Wildwood's principal ability seems to be that it self-heals over a period of time, which would be handy if your staff gets hit with an unsuccessful sunder attempt that does damage nonetheless, so speaking personally I wouldn't have a problem with that - but then, I don't have a DM who likes to sunder players' weapons. I'd say it required a Craft (Woodworking) check since all you're doing is getting a straight piece of wood and turning it so it's a straight stick, but whether your DM might want to raise the DC higher a little because it's a special wood, well, that's within the DM's purview as well.

In terms of magic staffs - so far as RAW is concerned, staffs can be made of pretty much anything, notwithstanding that bone, glass, or metal staffs are "rare to the point of exotic".


On the handbook, I've added a section on ToB Maneuvers and Stances, as well as the Shen PrC and in particular the Monkey Shen, which actually isn't that bad for our purposes.

[Saintheart]

Some updates to the handbook. In particular, added a Monkey Shen-themed build that focuses on the quarterstaff, as below:

We’re putting the monk back in monkey! (Except with no Monk levels. And not a lot of monkey, if you want to be technical about it.)

Pugilist is a variant fighter from Dragon 310, the same issue that gave us the Targetteer and other proto-classes like the Exoticist. And it has one thing going for it: it explicitly gives you Improved Unarmed Strike and Endurance – two otherwise useless feats – for free. Yes, collect more fighter feats and use your Pugilist levels for nothing but bonus fighter feats which, frankly, you’re going to need.

I know this one looks a bit odd. I can hear you screaming from here when you notice I’ve taken five levels in a Fighter class, what the hell am I thinking … well, the main reason for the 5 levels in Pugilist is because Swordsage actually starts to stagnate as a class around Swordsage 9-11 or so. More maneuvers, more stances, yes, but apart from that, most of it is stuff you’ve already got, particularly under this build. And BAB in particular has had to suffer through three pauses: Swordsage 1, Monkey Shen 1, and then again at Swordsage 5. If caster levels are the end-all and be-all for casters, BAB is the primary asset for martials, especially ones who want to use Power Attack – like this one does. Also, I was aiming for semi-usefulness across the whole 20 levels, if you’re intending to be stronger at the lower levels and want higher-level maneuvers available, don’t take Swordsage levels until during Monkey Shen; wait until later. 5 levels in Pugilist will easily get you into Shen.

(On that: by my calculation, this build accesses up to 7th level stances and maneuvers, because we’ve got 8 IL in Swordsage, 1 in Shadow Sun Ninja, 3 from Shen, and 2 from Pugilist. By some RAW interpretations, though, all PrCs, not just the ToB ones, attract one-for-one initiator level increases, in which case this build would pull IL 17 and therefore 9th level. If that's correct, then I'd be even more inclined to ditch a level of Swordsage and/or Shadow Sun Ninja and get one more Pugilist level in there -- remembering that Pugilist by RAW doesn't allow access to all bonus fighter feats, only the ones set out in its description block in Dragon 310.)

(Next point that might require DM adjudication: whether you get WIS to AC twice. Shen allows you to "gain" (that's the RAW) their WIS to AC when unarmored. Swordsage - we are not doing the unarmed Swordsage here, remember - gets to add his WIS to AC, and that when he's no more than lightly armored. They're not the same feature in all respects, so it's arguable if you can find a situation where they both apply, you get the benefit of both, and thus 2xWIS to AC. This is a similar trick that justifies ever taking a level in Shiba Protector, since that PrC says you "add" your WIS to attack and damage rolls and therefore stacks with feats or class features that allow you to substitute WIS for STR on those rolls. If your DM is okay with this, it's great. If not? No great loss, wear light armor and just let this Shen feature disappear, because you're still getting it via Swordsage and Shen's WIS to AC is the only thing shut down by wearing armor. All of his other abilities remain in force.)

Either way, meet Kong.

Kong is an Anthropomorphic Ape, a creature from Savage Species with LA +0 and 2d8 hit dice, thus ECL 2 (and thus 1-2 more in Initiator Level, too, for what it’s worth.) No, I didn't want to name him Caesar. Or Dr. Cornelius.

Anthropomorphic Apes come with Medium size, +2 to STR, +4 WIS, +6 to DEX, +3 to Natural Armor, 30 feet land speed. If that isn’t a good base on which to build a TWF/AoO opportunist, I don’t know what is. (Anthropomorphic Monkeys, sadly, don’t come in anywhere near as impressive, much as I’d like them to. Only thing they really have going for them is a Small size.)

Kong begins his life as a sort of slave, learning to fight in the brawling pits of Teor, where he was born and where he picked up the Battle Jump feat. He also learns a bit of finesse fighting along the way.

One day, kindly old Master Adoy the Typecast Eastern Martial Arts Sage comes and rescues Kong, and spirits him away to a Sublime Way academy, where Kong begins to study the way of the not-monk. He picks up Weapon Focus (Quarterstaff), and after learning a few annoying tricks like Deft Opportunist, Expert Tactican, and whatnot, he begins to explore his simian nature, entering the Shen and choosing the Monkey Shen in particular. He gets good at the quarterstaff. Really good. Especially when he gets given a set of Gloves of the Balanced Hand and skates through to Greater Two Weapon Fighting off the back of TWF, Gloves of the Balanced Hand, and Monkey Shen 4.

And most significantly, he learns to apply Weapon Finesse to both ends of a quarterstaff, possibly resulting (on the DM’s adjudication) in DEX bonus to attack rolls while also using Power Attack. He also gets even more simian with a Hybrid Form he uses that gives him another +4 to DEX as well.

One of the other things he learns as a Monkey Shen is to leap onto inanimate objects equal to or less than his height with no Jump check. Because Kong is a strapping lad, he also uses skill tricks Walk the Walls, Wall Jumper, and the feat Battle Jump, to make jumping charges down on unfortunate foes below him. He also gains Uncanny Dodge, Evasion, stunning through his staff (and picks up Stunning Fist later on), and finally returns to Teor where he smashes every person who was ever mean to him, finally returning to the Sublime Way school of not-monks to continue his training, which includes Robilar’s Gambit and Adaptive Style.

He’s got lots of AoO optimisation – can hit someone twice for every AoO he gets off, via Double Hit -- he can pull off a touch attack hit with Spot the Weak Point skill trick, he adds WIS to damage, and he arguably gets WIS to AC twice – once from Swordsage, once from Monkey Shen. But given he’s pulling AC 16 with DEX bonuses of at least at +3, Natural Armor +3, and then WIS of maybe +2, do you really care?

Weapons? It’s a magic staff, 50 charges of Light, with the weapon quality Fierce, which lets him smash out his DEX bonus from his AC to damage in a round … without actually affecting his Weapon Finesse. Eilservs School (they’re an eclectic school up at the not-monk academy) adds +5 on all his weapon damage rolls. Oh yeah, he also gets to replace STR with WIS. And as said, since he falls in an interesting twilight world of Power Attack interacting with a finessable bludgeoning weapon, he arguably can trade off his BAB to add twice the STR (or WIS) damage to his blows.

Level-by-level summary:

Flaw feats: Weapon Finesse, Battle Jump

Anthropomorphic Ape:
BAB +2

1 Pugilist 1.(Dragon 310) (Free: Improved Unarmed Strike) (Free: Endurance) (Two-Weapon Fighting) (Combat Reflexes) BAB 3
2 Pugilist 2 (Power Attack) BAB 4
3 Swordsage 1 (Expert Tactician) (Discipline Focus: Weapon Focus (Setting Sun - Quarterstaff)) BAB 4
4 Swordsage 2 WIS bonus to AC BAB 5
5 Swordsage 3 BAB 6
6 Swordsage 4 (Insightful Strike – WIS to damage) (Eilservs School) BAB 7
7 Monkey Shen 1: WIS bonus to AC again? BAB 7
8 Monkey Shen 2: Leap onto any inanimate object equal to or less than his height with no Jump check BAB 8, Ki Strike (Silver)
9 Monkey Shen 3: Hybrid Form 1/day (+4 to DEX) (Deft Opportunist) BAB 9
10 Monkey Shen 4: Treated as having Improved TWF (Greater TWF if already has Improved TWF) BAB 10
11 Monkey Shen 5: Hybrid form 2/day, Uncanny Dodge BAB 10
12 Monkey Shen 6: Weapon Finesse with quarterstaff, Evasion, Stun through staff if has Stunning Fist (Double Hit) BAB 11
13 Pugilist 3 BAB 12
14 Pugilist 4 (Stunning Fist) BAB 13
15 Pugilist 5 BAB 14 (Robilar’s Gambit)
16 Swordsage 5 BAB 14 (Quick to Act +2)
17 Swordsage 6 BAB 15 Sense Magic
18 Swordsage 7 BAB 16 Discipline Focus (Defensive Stance) (Adaptive Style)


Skill Tricks: Wall Jumper, Walk the Walls, Spot the Weak Point. (If the Battle Jump + Wall Jumper + Walk the Walls thing doesn't work, I'd settle for Stand Still and/or Elusive Opportunist, or Steadfast Determination if for some funny reason my CON wound up massively higher than my WIS (we got Endurance for free).)

Haven’t sketched out maneuvers or stances, but Swordsage 7 gives you 12 maneuvers known, 7 readied, and 3 stances.

Equipment essentials: Fierce quarterstaff, possibly the Ki Power enchantment. Gloves of the Balanced Hand - almost vital, without this you're blowing another feat slot to get Improved TWF for full value out of Shen 4. Some amulet of Natural Armor (Kong has +3 already from being an ape) to enhance that if you want to go armorless, but strictly speaking the only ability that cuts out if you're wearing light armor in this build is the Shen's WIS to AC.

So Kong at least has a lot of options to play with, but actually seems on paper to work as a quarterstaff specialist. Sure he might have more AoOs than he does BAB-based attacks, but that’s part of his charm: a supremely annoying man-sized monkey.

[TheCount]

From Magic of Faerun, page 143 and 144:
Quarterstaff of Battle: +3 quarterstaff of speed, with interesting abilities, but what caught my eye? that its descriptions says it cant be damaged by slashing or piercing weapons! Sunder? yeah, i know whats that, but how many people use it with blunt weapons?

[Saintheart]

From Magic of Faerun, page 143 and 144:
Quarterstaff of Battle: +3 quarterstaff of speed, with interesting abilities, but what caught my eye? that its descriptions says it cant be damaged by slashing or piercing weapons! Sunder? yeah, i know whats that, but how many people use it with blunt weapons?

Noted and will update. :)

Although in most cases, the question isn't how many players use blunt weapons, it's generally ... how many DMs, and how many like to sunder players' weapons?

[Saintheart]

Another update, mainly because I found something hiding among WOTC's archives that I wonder whether it's been missed.

Those of you who've read all my meanderings on magic staff costs will note my suspicion that some staffs are priced on the basis of primary staff powers being discounted by virtue of requiring more than 2 charges to activate a spell (thus, cut price costs to one third if the spell requires 3 charges to activate, and so on.)

Anyway, thinking about Eilservs School, I went looking for some sort of rule somewhere that allows a staff to have more than 50 charges at creation. Haven't found anything like that yet, but I did find, on WOTC's own Rules of the Game articles (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20041221a) on Magic Item Creation, something that was conveniently left out of the SRD on the costs:


Base Price: You can determine the base price for a staff in much the same way that you determine a wand's base price, but there are catches here, too. Because each staff's spell effects draw on the same pool of charges, you don't have to pay the full cost for every one of them. Instead, the staff's highest level spell has the full base price (spell level x caster level x 750 gp).

The staff's next highest-level spell costs only 75% of the usual base price (spell level x caster level x 750 gp x 0.75).

All the remaining spells in the staff cost only 50% of the usual base price (spell level x caster level x 750 gp x 0.5).

Further reductions in base price are possible. When a spell requires two or more charges, divide the base price by the number of charges required.

So you can in fact reduce a staff's costs by more than the 2 the SRD specifically allows you to. And as I suspected, there's now proof that the only way some of the staffs in the book make sense on pricing is if they use this underlined division method.

To illustrate the difference, consider the Staff of Light trick I mentioned above. A Staff of a 0-level spell costs 375 x 0.5 (spell level) x 8 (Minimum CL) x 2 (doubling creation costs to generate market price) = 3,000 gp market price.
Use the SRD's option to halve the costs by dictating each casting of Light uses up 2 charges. 1,500 gp.
Use the WOTC Archive's rules to third the cost by dictating you use 3 charges? 1,000 gp.
Five charges? 600 gp.
Ten charges? 300 gp.
Twenty-five charges, the theoretical minimum? 120 gp.

Eilservs School looks even more economical than it was, and this is important because the partially-charged staff trick doesn't work with Eilservs School: it depends on the number of charges remaining in the staff for its power. But this is also a pretty big saving on conventional staffs. If you assume Ur-Priest cheese and have a staff containing a 9th level spell, the market price for a single-spell staff (leaving aside XP or expensive material components) is 9 (Ur-Priest CL) x 9 (Spell Level) x 375 x 2 = 60,750 gp. I'd much rather an option to restore charges from a staff and a price of 2,430 gp for 9th level spells in a staff. Hell, even if you assume a default Wizard creating a staff with a ninth level spell: 17 (Minimum Wizard CL) x 9 (Spell Level) x 375 x 2 = 114,750 gp market price. Make that a "25 charges per use" staff and the market price is less than 5,000 gp, which isn't too damn bad.

(And indeed the partially-charged staff price trick gets the benefit of this as well, because, per that same article, the price is on how many times the staff could produce the effect, i.e. the number of charges it takes to produce one of the staff's spells cuts its price.)