staff users unite!

[SamsDisciple]

My next campaign is 3.pf and starting at lvl 21. I am doing the pathfinder sorcerer with the arcane bloodline so I can burn 3 levels of spell slots to use a staff without spending a charge. What staffs are out there that would be fun to do or fun combinations of spells to make into a staff? Obviously we are epic so epic staffs are fair game.

[ryzouken]

You have access to 3.5 material, I assume, else you'd have just said you were playing PF instead of 3.PF

With that assumption in place, why not just take Master Staff (from the srd) and call it day? One spell slot instead of three.

Or a Runestaff, from the MiC. Same thing: sack a spell slot to use staff spell.

There are so many better ways in 3.5 to go about that...


EDIT: ahh, I see. It's 3 LEVELS of spells, not 3 slots... better then.
Eh. Grab a stick with Delayed Blast Fireball and Time Stop. Maybe another one with Time Stop, Reverse Gravity, and Gate. Forcecube and Cloudkill... options are pretty limitless...

[yilduz]

So, you can cast a ninth level spell using three first-level spell slots?

[SamsDisciple]

That is pretty much correct. Its the level 20 ability to do that so it requires that you stick with sorcerer the whole way instead of some cool PrC. The time stop comment just made me realize that I can do some insane battle field control by doing time stop every round and only using three level one spells to do it

[ericgrau]

With epic money you could even afford charged staffs. I mean how many combats do you have per session and how many sessions do campaigns last? Not many. 50 charges is a lot. Basically get any spell that you want to be able to use at any time or something you want to be able to spam. If it is something you want to cast every day and only once or a couple times per day, then put it on your spell list instead. Since staffs use your caster level and charisma it's basically like having more spells known, except as noted. So yeah, go pick your new spells known.

[Mongoose87]

I always love a good staff meeting.

[SamsDisciple]

So... thinking of another tactic that could be fun and only useful when you have lots of high level spells to burn like now ;) I was thinking what the effectiveness of timestop, summon a bunch of low level monsters, the polymorph any object them into massive beasties and buff them further. Can the polymorphic spells bring effective enough creatures at epic levels?

[ericgrau]

The thing with polymorph is that the HD is capped by caster level and the spell itself. And HD increases faster than CR, so that means the creature you polymorph the creature into is going to be behind on CR. You're still using the BAB and HP from the base summoned creature... which might even make things worse.

... assuming you use monsters with HD, BAB and HP that scale normally. There are some splatbook monsters that break polymorph pretty hard. Now all you need are to sift through them and find the ones with the right stats (high summon BAB and HP, low HD vs. CR for polymorph), and a crazy enough DM to allow it. But... casting 9th level spells with 1st level slots, who knows?

Oh ya, ring of wizardry type I, doubles your 1st level spells per day, 20,000 gp. Similar rings for other spell levels. There's also an epic feat to give you an extra ring slot if need be. Just saying...

[Halae]

Oh ya, ring of wizardry type I, doubles your 1st level spells per day, 20,000 gp. Similar rings for other spell levels. There's also an epic feat to give you an extra ring slot if need be. Just saying...

This man, he knows what casters should always have.

[SamsDisciple]

In pathfinder they changed polymorph a little bit and some of them are just buffs which don't really make sense but oh well. I do think I will be adding a sculpted acid fog onto the staff which will be great fun during the time stops, except I am sure at this high of a level most if not all of my opponents will have resistance/immunity to almost everything.

[Halae]

Nah, immunity to an element is really hard to come by for anything other than dragons and elementals. as long as you have enough damage to bypass resistances, or figure out an enemy's vulnerabilities, you should be flying

(speaking of, the feat Energy Substitution is AMAZING, especially since it doesn't cost a higher spell slot, just a full-round action. Especially when you convert the spell into sonic. What in the world has resistance to sonic?)

[kme]

Oh ya, ring of wizardry type I, doubles your 1st level spells per day, 20,000 gp. Similar rings for other spell levels. There's also an epic feat to give you an extra ring slot if need be. Just saying...

Yeah, use the ring of wizardry III. It's not like they are expensive at level 21.

Guidelines for crafting custom staffs exist. Without them, craft staff feat would be pretty bad since default staffs are not that good. See with your DM if he will allow it, but he may want to limit the number of spells the staff holds as it would be abusable with your ability.