Re: Staff spell?

So don't use it. It works well in my campaigns though.

From: David Bofinger <bofinger.david@gmail.com>
To: tft@brainiac.com
Sent: Sunday, October 9, 2016 4:49 PM
Subject: Re: Staff spell?

In my experience Staff is already a popular spell. If you make it a strength battery too it becomes a spell that everyone will take.

The most interesting spells and talents are not the ones people learn every time because they're really good, they're the ones that force players to think hard when deciding if they will learn them.

Historically and in neopagam religion lots of magicians carried a sword or dagger as a magical aid, in which context it was called an athame. Perhaps there should be a spell like Staff called Athame that allows a wizard to enchant a sword or dagger so that it doesn't impede spell casting. (Two-handed swords might count as one hand impeded, not sure how sword-plus-main-gauche should work.)

The talent Sword would still need to be purchased separately if you wanted to be effective in melee, so this would be an option that probably cost more in mIQ than IQ.

An issue: This only makes sense if the wizard had a respectable ST so (s)he can wield a sword with respectable damage. In RAW that's common but fST works against it.

Another issue: I don't know of anyone who would use an athame to stab someone.

This would be for all the players who grew up reading about Gandalf and Glamdring.

Any thoughts?

--
David

On 10 Oct 2016 3:44 AM, "Jeffrey Vandine" <jlv61560@yahoo.com> wrote:

I agree. I never saw in the rules where a Wizard needed to do anything special (other than roll to hit), or have any weapon proficiency to use his/her staff as a simple weapon.

I DO agree that the entire concept of "staff" seems a bit weak based solely on damage though. So I also allow Wizards to use it as a ST battery by putting ST into it (it costs them 2 ST to save a single point of ST into the Staff, and they can only save as many ST points as their IQ -- so they need to prep the Staff before they go off into the wild, and once it runs out, it stays out until they take the time to put the ST back into it. Gives 'em something to do during their downtime, though...). This also provides more incentive for Wizards to take the STAFF Spell as an option.

A Staff of Power works the same way, except that they can store 2x their IQ in ST points in one of those.

From: Thomas Fulmer <tfulmer1@gmail.com>
To: tft@brainiac.com
Sent: Sunday, October 9, 2016 9:27 AM
Subject: Re: Staff spell?

I never required wizards to have a weapon talent for their staff. I assumed its damage as entirely magical and none of it had to do with skill or force. So simply touching the enemy with a glancing blow once in 5 seconds of combat would be all that was required, as contrast to a hit with a weapon where in that 5 seconds they had to actually get an opening and land a real blow.

So in my mind the requirement difference for the damage crossed out the lack of talent.

--Thomas

On Sun, Oct 9, 2016, 11:31 Nathan Easton <n.m.easton@gmail.com> wrote:
This has always troubled me.

If a wizard has the Staff spell, can they use it to smack someone for 1d6 without having a weapon proficiency, or do they still take the -4 DX penalty?

It seems like they should be able to attack with it, otherwise what's the point?

-N.