Staff of near-useless spells?

[Euclidodese]

Hi gang!

I'm wanting to make a magic item for my group which has a few charges and can cast a selection of spells that never come up and are extremely situational.

What would you guys put in such a staff? I'm currently thinking:

-Jump
-Skywright
-Catnap
-Crown of Madness
-Truestrike
-Feign Death
-Maybe Ray of Sickness?

[Man_Over_Game]

Catapult (can only target itself)
Blade Ward
Sleep on the location of the staff.
Magic Weapon on itself.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Be sure to include Witch Bolt.

[noob]

Hi gang!

I'm wanting to make a magic item for my group which has a few charges and can cast a selection of spells that never come up and are extremely situational.

What would you guys put in such a staff? I'm currently thinking:

-Jump
-Skywright
-Catnap
-Crown of Madness
-Truestrike
-Feign Death
-Maybe Ray of Sickness?
Jump is actually a great spell for escaping non flying opponents (unless you are in the flat featureless plain of the fighting optimisation theorycrafters).

[Zhorn]

Sleep on the location of the staff.
I could use one of those right now :smallfrown:

[Contrast]

-Skywright

*Skywrite


-Catnap

I think you may be being slightly unfair here. I think Catnap is actually pretty good if you have short rest based classes in the party and are of sufficiently high level that a 3rd level spell slot isn't that big of a deal. The main issue is that the vast majority of D&D is played at a level where a 3rd level spell slot is a big deal at which point its probably not a worthwhole trade off. If you're getting it for free thats pretty much pure upside. It's obviously DM dependant but my experience is that its much easier to convince your DM that you can hide for 10 mins in hostile territory than an hour without being discovered though admittedly YMMV on that one.

As to my suggestions:

I don't think I've ever had a situation where I've seen Tenser's Floating Disk cast or a situation where I've wished we had it available to cast personally.
Purify Food and Drink
Sleep (this is great at low levels but pretty quickly falls into uselessness - it would be nice to keep access to it just so you can Sleep the occasional commoner though)
Snare
Beast Sense
Depends on the campaign but I don't think I've ever had a moment where the party would have benefitted from Nystuls Magic Aura (bonus points if someone has previously cast this on the staff to make it seem to have some hugely powerful aura)
Flame Arrows (depends on level - again, might be nice at low level but at higher levels taking an action an using up your concentration means in practice this will never get cast)
Remove Curse (might be useful but very niche)

I would be tempted to have the staff say it can cast Fireball if not identified using the spell but whenever you try and use it, it instead casts Pyrotechnics with the DM rolling to choose between smoke or fireworks effect in the target square. That is potentially actually useful in its own right though to be fair.

[noob]

*Skywrite



I think you may be being slightly unfair here. I think Catnap is actually pretty good if you have short rest based classes in the party and are of sufficiently high level that a 3rd level spell slot isn't that big of a deal. The main issue is that the vast majority of D&D is played at a level where a 3rd level spell slot is a big deal at which point its probably not a worthwhole trade off. If you're getting it for free thats pretty much pure upside. It's obviously DM dependant but my experience is that its much easier to convince your DM that you can hide for 10 mins in hostile territory than an hour without being discovered though admittedly YMMV on that one.

As to my suggestions:

I don't think I've ever had a situation where I've seen Tenser's Floating Disk cast or a situation where I've wished we had it available to cast personally.
Purify Food and Drink
Sleep (this is great at low levels but pretty quickly falls into uselessness - it would be nice to keep access to it just so you can Sleep the occasional commoner though)
Snare
Beast Sense
Depends on the campaign but I don't think I've ever had a moment where the party would have benefitted from Nystuls Magic Aura (bonus points if someone has previously cast this on the staff to make it seem to have some hugely powerful aura)
Flame Arrows (depends on level - again, might be nice at low level but at higher levels taking an action an using up your concentration means in practice this will never get cast)
Remove Curse (might be useful but very niche)
You suffer from a critical lack of loot if you never had to cast tenser's floating disk.
Nystuls Magic aura is useful for a lot of infiltration shenanigans for example if you are in a cloak and dagger campaign but it is cruelly lacking for the fighting side of dnd except for situationally for area dispel protection (buy at a local wizard a whole bunch of items that have been auraified for 30 days each).
Purify food and drink would be useful if adventurers did not have a few levels later things such as create food.

[Contrast]

You suffer from a critical lack of loot if you never had to cast tenser's floating disk.

I've always wondered - do you just assume things don't fall off the Disk once placed on it? That's always been what I've seen people say its used for but it always seemed to me that a perfectly flat plane that stops and starts as you move along would just constantly have stuff fall off it as you stopped and started moving, neccessitating stopping and walking back 20ft to fix it again.

You could keep a chest with you to put stuff in perhaps and the weight would keep it stable...but then you have figure out how you're carrying this stuff for the other 23 hours of the day after the spell wears out (given that the staff doesn't let you cast it as a ritual).

Generally speaking by the time we're potentially acquiring huge amounts of loot more than the party strongman can carry I've typically either had a Bag of Holding or someone in the party has taken it upon themselves to buy a cart with some peasants to man it. *shrugs*


Nystuls Magic aura is useful for a lot of infiltration shenanigans for example if you are in a cloak and dagger campaign but it is cruelly lacking for the fighting side of dnd except for situationally for area dispel protection (buy at a local wizard a whole bunch of items that have been auraified for 30 days each).

Maybe I'm missing something obvious but...what infiltration shenanigans? It lets you pretend to be a devil or whatever if someone is specifically casting to detect that but...is that common? It only effects a single target and only lasts for 1 day so you can't get the whole party covered.


Purify food and drink would be useful if adventurers did not have a few levels later things such as create food.

Or the level 1 Goodberry. But I don't think I've ever played with a DM who used food spoilage rules for rations or seen poisoned/diseased food in a situation that wasn't either a plot point that the spell wouldn't have been able to resolve or undertaken covertly/in a circumstance where the PCs would have been unable socially to cast the spell even if they were concerned.

[Man_Over_Game]

I've always wondered - do you just assume things don't fall off the Disk once placed on it?

Best not to start asking questions related to momentum.

Doesn't end well in 5e. Doesn't start well, either. Kinda like momentum in 5e.

[ForeverFlame]

You gotta pay an ode to Wild Magic and include Fireball centered on self.
Otherwise, Reverse Blink. Only disappear on your turn :smalltongue:

[Greywander]

Don't forget Find Traps, Truestrike, and Illusory Script.

Maybe Detect Poison and Disease. That's one of those spells that does have situational use, but depending on your DM, you might never be in such a situation.

[Contrast]

Don't forget Find Traps

I was going to include Find Traps but in fairness it's one of those spells that it much better when its not actually using up a spell slot.

Still not really good admittedly but you will probably at least cast it a reasonable amount.

[noob]

I've always wondered - do you just assume things don't fall off the Disk once placed on it? That's always been what I've seen people say its used for but it always seemed to me that a perfectly flat plane that stops and starts as you move along would just constantly have stuff fall off it as you stopped and started moving, neccessitating stopping and walking back 20ft to fix it again.

You could keep a chest with you to put stuff in perhaps and the weight would keep it stable...but then you have figure out how you're carrying this stuff for the other 23 hours of the day after the spell wears out (given that the staff doesn't let you cast it as a ritual).

Generally speaking by the time we're potentially acquiring huge amounts of loot more than the party strongman can carry I've typically either had a Bag of Holding or someone in the party has taken it upon themselves to buy a cart with some peasants to man it. *shrugs*



Maybe I'm missing something obvious but...what infiltration shenanigans? It lets you pretend to be a devil or whatever if someone is specifically casting to detect that but...is that common? It only effects a single target and only lasts for 1 day so you can't get the whole party covered.



Or the level 1 Goodberry. But I don't think I've ever played with a DM who used food spoilage rules for rations or seen poisoned/diseased food in a situation that wasn't either a plot point that the spell wouldn't have been able to resolve or undertaken covertly/in a circumstance where the PCs would have been unable socially to cast the spell even if they were concerned.




False Aura. You change the way the target appears to spells and magical effects, such as Detect Magic, that detect magical auras. You can make a nonmagical object appear magical, a magical object appear nonmagical, or change the object’s magical aura so that it appears to belong to a specific school of magic that you choose. When you use this effect on an object, you can make the false magic apparent to any creature that handles the item.
Classical example: you want to sneak in a fortress where people use detect magic so you will absolutely unconditionally need to make everything you carry appear non-magical and make yourself appear non-magical(if you are magical) in order to be harder to detect.

Mask. You change the way the target appears to spells and magical effects that detect creature types, such as a paladin’s Divine Sense or the trigger of a sym bol spell. You choose a creature type and other spells and magical effects treat the target as if it were a creature of that type or of that alignment.
You can also stack on it the mask option to make varied divination think you are a true neutral rat.
So in fact most sneaking rogues would be super ultra happy on receiving an item allowing to cast nystul magic aura 5 times a day if they think about the possible counters to sneaking (that works automatically which is borderline bad design) there is.

Or for example you are invited in a civil event where weapons are forbidden and you have a magical weapon that have a property helping to hide it but since it is a magic item it will be detected by detect magic so you hide its magical aura.

In fact in dnd 3.5 I used very massively that spell for tons of infiltration sheanighans: it makes many counters to infiltration much harder to use: the guards would need unlimited dispel magic use in order to be sure that each "rat" or "bug" is really one.

[Contrast]

Classical example: you want to sneak in a fortress where people use detect magic so you will absolutely unconditionally need to make everything you carry appear non-magical and make yourself appear non-magical(if you are magical) in order to be harder to detect.

This probably explains the discrepancy in our experiences to be honest. I have literally never once encountered a fortress or guard post or anything where there was constant spamming of Detect Magic as a matter of course. Not enough experience playing Eberron perhaps :smallbiggrin:


You can also stack on it the mask option to make varied divination think you are a true neutral rat.

I mean you could make divination think you were a true neutral beast. I don't remember the last time someone tried to detect my creature type - I don't even know off the top of my head what spells/abilities even detect this outside of paladin/ranger. Not much good unless you are already disguised as a rat and then they may as well just attack you if they're suspicious rather than cast at you.

[Telok]

DM dependent but I'd think it should also apply to magic mouth and the alarm spell. If your DM is one of the "only what's in the spell text" then you're out of luck.

[Satori01]

(unless you are in the flat featureless plain of the fighting optimisation theorycrafters).

In honor of Edwin Abbott's great novella, can we make the official name of theorycraft: Flatland?🥳

[Samayu]

Skywrite... I almost cast it once.

[Jerrykhor]

Enthrall, and niche 'DM spells' such as Nystul Magic Aura, Magic Mouth and Nondetection.

[MaxWilson]

You gotta pay an ode to Wild Magic and include Fireball centered on self.

Sounds awesome for a monk.

[noob]

Enthrall, and niche 'DM spells' such as Nystul Magic Aura, Magic Mouth and Nondetection.

Nystul magic aura and nondetection are awesome at countering dms that uses player tools(divination in this case) massively.
But yes enthrall is not useful except as a distraction at which point you could also use fireballs on the villagers instead of enthralling them (because who cares about villager lives?).
Magic mouth is useful both as a dispel buffer(you use it to protect against area dispels) and as a way to transmit messages secretly.

[BeefGood]

Or the level 1 Goodberry.

Goodberry doesn’t get you water. I’m currently casting Purify Food and Drink daily to meet water needs. Assuming access to the raw materials, Purify Food and Drink does what Goodberry plus Create or Destroy Water would do.

[JackPhoenix]

Magic mouth is useful both as a dispel buffer(you use it to protect against area dispels) and as a way to transmit messages secretly.

A what dispel? No such thing.

[noob]

A what dispel? No such thing.

Oh I did not see there was a removal of the area option of dispel.

[Snownine]

I think this is the kind of thing that would be really cool in a campaign where the player characters are extremely strapped for resources and need to scrape together anything at their disposal to survive and achieve their aims, like some sort of survival campaign perhaps. Or maybe a campaign were the pcs are commoners or something. I think it would be fun to craft a scenario where these usually overlooked or downright terrible spells are actually an important part of the pcs' tool kit. Finding ways to make them work because they do not have much else.

[Lupine]

There’s the classic “staff of invisibility.” It turns the staff invisible. Not you though.

[Euclidodese]

I ended up giving my party a Wand of Skywrite... and it actually proved quite useful for them. Not indispensable, but quite useful, which is really cool because it's not a spell any of them would have bothered to learn, but they got some good uses out of it.

[LudicSavant]

Be sure to include Witch Bolt.

Does it even count as situation if there is no situation where'd you would want to use it? :smalltongue:

[Torpin]

i used to think truestrike was useless, until a player bought a catapult, not its only mostly useless

[Luccan]

i used to think truestrike was useless, until a player bought a catapult, not its only mostly useless

I feel like if your catapult is being aimed at things 30 ft or less away (and can be adjusted for such near targets) you probably don't need True Strike.

[Man_Over_Game]

I feel like if your catapult is being aimed at things 30 ft or less away (and can be adjusted for such near targets) you probably don't need True Strike.

I feel like most DMs would probably treat a catapult shot as a Dex-save. I think they should, since it's hard to replicate an AoE effect otherwise, and I'd rather have a catapult that did splash damage than made an attack against a single target with Advantage.


Now, a BALLISTA? That'd be fun.

[Luccan]

I feel like most DMs would probably treat a catapult shot as a Dex-save. I think they should, since it's hard to replicate an AoE effect otherwise, and I'd rather have a catapult that did splash damage than made an attack against a single target with Advantage.


Now, a BALLISTA? That'd be fun.

My point was more that True Strike isn't really useful for catapults because it doesn't extend to ranges you'd expect to use siege weapons at. That includes Ballista.