Recharging Staff (3.5e Equipment)

Recharging Staff
A recharging staff seems much like a normal magical staff, but has fewer charges, separates its charges by level, and has the unique ability to be recharged. As a full-round action you may focus upon the staff, expending a prepared spell slot to restore a charge of the appropriate spell level within the staff. Unlike a normal staff, a recharging staff separates the charges to each spell level. Only 1st level charges can be used for 1st level spells, and only 9th level charges may be used for 9th level spells. Likewise, only 9th level spells can recharge a 9th level charge, though you may use a 1st level or higher spell to recharge a 1st level charge in the recharging staff. The maximum number of charges a recharging staff can hold per level is show on the table below.

You may add as many spells to the staff as you can afford, but the number of charges remains the same.

Recharging staffs use the wielder’s ability score and relevant feats to set the DC for saves against their spells. Unlike with other sorts of magic items, the wielder can use his caster level when activating the power of a recharging staff if it’s higher than the caster level of the staff. This means that staffs are far more potent in the hands of a powerful spellcaster. Because they use the wielder’s ability score to set the save DC for the spell, spells from a recharging staff are often harder to resist than ones from other magic items, which use the minimum ability score required to cast the spell. Not only are aspects of the spell dependent on caster level (range, duration, and so on) potentially higher, but spells from a recharging staff are harder to dispel and have a better chance of overcoming a target’s spell resistance.

Furthermore, a recharging staff can hold a spell of any level, unlike a wand, which is limited to spells of 4th level or lower. The minimum caster level of a recharging staff is 8th. The Craft Staff feat can create recharging staffs.

Physical Description

A typical recharging staff is 4 feet to 7 feet long and 2 inches to 3 inches thick, weighing about 5 pounds. Most recharging staffs are wood, but a rare few are bone, metal, or even glass. Staffs often have a gem or some device at their tip or are shod in metal at one or both ends. Staffs are often decorated with carvings or runes. A typical staff is like a walking stick, quarterstaff, or cudgel. It has AC 7, 10 hit points, hardness 5, and a break DC of 24. It is actually identical to a normal staff, but it glows with arcane lines of energy when being recharged.

Activation

Recharging Staffs use the spell trigger activation method, so casting a spell from a staff is usually a standard action that doesn’t provoke attacks of opportunity. (If the spell being cast, however, has a longer or shorter casting time than 1 standard action, it takes that long to cast the spell from a staff.) To activate a staff, a character must hold it forth in at least one hand (or whatever passes for a hand, for non-humanoid creatures).

Special Qualities

Roll d%. A 01-30 result indicates that something (a design, inscription, or the like) provides some clue to the staff’s function, and 31-100 indicates no special qualities.

Crafting

Recharging staffs cost the same amount as a normal staff of its kind, trading a high number of charges out for the ability to restore your lost charges. The cost for the materials is subsumed in the cost for creating the recharging 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). Recharging staffs are always fully charged (as detailed on the table above) 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 recharging staff. The caster level of all spells in a recharging staff must be the same, and no recharging staff can have a caster level of less than 8th, even if all the spells in the recharging staff are low-level spells.

The creator must have prepared the spells to be stored (or must know the spell, in the case of a sorcerer or bard) but unlike normal staffs you do not require the material and XP component costs, as these must be provided by the user of the staff upon casting. The act of working on the staff triggers the prepared spells, making them unavailable for casting during each day of the staff’s creation. (That is, those spell slots are expended from his currently prepared spells, just as if they had been cast.)

Creating a few recharging staffs may entail other prerequisites beyond spellcasting. See the individual descriptions for details.

Crafting a recharging staff requires one day for each 1,000 gp of the base price.

Various schools; CL 8th minimum; Craft Staff, various component spells; Price Cost::Varies.