Reverse Engineering the Staff of Power

2007-08-14T08:26:00Z

The staff of power is the most powerful non-artifact staff in Dungeons and Dragons®. Earlier editions of the game implied that not all such staffs had the same spells enchanted into them.

So what if you want a different set of spells? How does that change the cost?

Well, first of all, the staff is a +2 quarterstaff all by itself, and like all magic weapons, it has to be masterwork. The staff itself is just a long stick, so it has no cost in itself.

Next, the staff grants a +2 luck bonus to Armor Class. Table 7-33 on page 285 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide shows that non-deflection bonuses to Armor Class have a market value of the square of the bonus times 2500, so a +2 luck bonus to AC costs 2 × 2 × 2500 or 10000 gold pieces.

The staff grants a +2 luck bonus to all saving throws. Table 7-33 shows that non-resistance bonuses to saves have a market value of the square of the bonus times 2000, so a +2 luck bonus to AC costs 2 × 2 × 2000 or 8000 gold pieces.

Combining these bonuses increases the costs all but the least expensive single enchantment—in this case, the +2 enhancement bonus as a weapon—by 50%. These figures give us the base market price for the staff as shown in Table A below:

*Table A: Staff of Power* Base Market Value**
Price Component	Price in Gold Pieces
Masterwork	300
+2 weapon enhancement	4000
+2 luck bonus to AC	15000
+2 luck bonus to saves	12000
Total	31300

Next, we determine the price of the spells enchanted into it. In this article, Lvl^CA means caster level and Lvl^SP means spell level. All of the spells enchanted into a staff must have the same caster level. The gold piece market value of the highest level spell on a staff is 750 × Lvl^CA × Lvl^SP. If a spell takes two charges from the staff to cast rather than one, its market value is halved. The highest level spell on a staff of power is globe of invulnerability, a 6th-level spell, and the caster level for the staff is 15th. Cast that spell from the staff takes two charges, so the cost of the first spell on the staff costs 750 × 15 × 6 ÷ 2 or 33750 gold pieces.

The gold piece market value of the next highest level spell on the staff costs only 75% as much as it would be if it was the highest level spell. In the case of the staff of power, the next highest level spell is either cone of cold or wall of force. Each costs two charges to cast, so the value is the same whichever is chosen for the second spell. Let’s just use cone of cold for that second spell. The value for that is 750 × 0.75 × 15 × 5 ÷ 2, or 21093.75 gold pieces.

All other staff spells have a gold piece market value of 50% as much as it would be if it was the highest level spell. These costs are summarized in Table B below. (Remember, all of these spells have to be priced as if cast by a 15th level caster.)

*Table B: Staff of Power* Spell Market Values**
Spell	Price in Gold Pieces
Globe of invulnerability	33750.00
Cone of cold	21093.75
Wall of force	14062.50
Magic missile	5625.00
Ray of enfeeblement	5625.00
Continual flame	11250.00
Levitate	11250.00
Lightning bolt	16875.00
Fireball	16875.00
Hold monster	16875.00
Total	153281.25

The sum of the totals from Table A and B are 184581.25 gold pieces, yet page 245 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide lists the price of a staff of power as 211000 gold pieces. What accounts for the extra 26418.25 gold pieces in value?

The answer, of course, is an arbitrary adjustment for the retributive strike ability of the staff of power. My guess is that the designers thought that such a power should add 26000 to the price, or a certain percentage increase over the staff as a whole, or just the spells on the staff, with the staff’s whole value rounded up to the nearest 1000 gold pieces.

The Runestaff of Power

Well, then, what about a runestaff of power? (See page 181 of the Maigc Item Compendium.)

The base costs would be the same, so we can use the figures in Table A for those. The spell costs are simpler: The highest-level spell on a runestaff has a gold piece market value of Lvl^SP× Lvl^SP × (1 + daily uses of spell) x 100. All other spells on a runestaff have a gold piece market value of Lvl^SP× Lvl^SP × (1 + daily uses of spell) x 50. No spell on a runestaff may be enchanted to be used less than once daily or more than thrice daily. The description of the runestaff of power states that each spell on it may be used once per day. Unlike the staff of power, the runestaff of power gets no retributive strike ability.

With that in mind, a table of spell market values for the runestaff of power can be calculated as it was for the staff of power:

*Table C: Runestaff of Power* Spell Market Values**
Spell	Price in Gold Pieces
Globe of invulnerability	7200
Cone of cold	2500
Wall of force	2500
Magic missile	100
Ray of enfeeblement	100
Continual flame	400
Levitate	400
Lightning bolt	900
Fireball	900
Hold monster	900
Total	15900

The sum of the totals from Table A and Table C yields 47200 gold pieces, 8900 gold pieces more than the runestaff is listed for in the Magic Item Compendium. Why the difference? I don’t know. The nearest I can determine is that they forgot to add 50% for the increased values of the luck and AC bonuses, which would account for 9000, then added one more first level spell cost than was actually there. Alternatively, the market value may have been arbitrarily set by the designer.

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Reverse Engineering the Staff of Power