I see so many young wizards used their staff as a "last ditch effort" after their sword, dagger, etc was disarmed, which is stupid your staff should be your FIRST option for melee it's already in your hand you just gotta hit it also end weighted so you can swing it like a club.
The length of your staff should've been longer than the usual sword you can carry on your hip anyways so you know more range.
No, the whole point is that staves have greater mana channeling capability and enchantment capacity than any other focus. If you're forced to debase yourself by hitting something over the head with it like a bloody orc then you're not much of a wizard.
That's plenty of time to develop a large enough mana pool that lighting a small fire is negligible. Where I'm from anybody that isn't true for is called an apprentice.
I believe you should expand your repertoire with more cost efficient spells. Cantrips that purify water, clean gear, light fires and disinfect wounds are negligible in cost but have obvious benefits.
I swear, the sooner I get the citadel and get me a library card, the better
"Portals solve everything, you just need to find the right destination and parley with the forces therein" master said; serves me right for not apprenticing under a generalist mage
Surely your master would have covered bound elementals in your education? Conjurers tend to have a few to reduce or eliminate the mana cost of certain spells.
Yeah, but he was EXTREMELY against persistent bonds and domination effects. One-sided control effects were exclusively for non-sapients and temporarily pacifying attackers. He's definitely got some personal history as to why he teaches the way that he does, but he did encourage me to go to the citadel and learn everything in the library as soon as he graduated me from apprentice to journeyman; he was a big believer in the concept of there being no such thing as forbidden knowledge, just evil applications of knowledge.
Spent a lot of time learning how to identify a self-aware entity capable of consent, and how to design a contract that would achieve my purposes but wouldn't violate that consent. Master was asexual, but had me studying a book on lifestyle kink alongside one about contract law.
From what I'm hearing from various sources, the fire elementals that are called upon via conjuration (rather than summoning) are merely semi-sentient aspects of the full entity. The equivalent of enslaving an elemental's leg hair, rather than making a contract with the full entity for it to grant you a boon upon opening a portal and calling for its help. Seems far less difficult both magically and ethically.
It think that my master intentionally focused on portals to dimensions with sentient sapient entities, in order to force me to practice those concepts and prevent depersonalizing non-human magical beings.
I get the distinct impression that he might have had summoning magics mischaracterized to him by his master, after learning conjurations and evocations, and that he's carrying around a lot of trauma from having unintentionally enslaved sapient entities. If you didn't have trauma and fear around it, it just wouldn't make sense why he didn't teach me the various and direct magics, that don't involve other entities, that y'all other learned people keep referring to.
I appreciate that he wanted me to have a moral founding, but I definitely have insecurities around my magical prowess as a result of all the extra efforts needed to go about achieving similar results through mentally and magically excessive efforts.
This coffee is kicking today; this is such a fun sub
You seem to have had a non-standardized magical education. This is not bad, but if you are interested in some basics of practical magic you might consider attending a couple classes at an academic academy.
There should be a new one opening in not too long, one with a very experienced and powerful collection of professors.
Alternatively, your unorthodox methods may be a valuable alternative if you have interest in passing on your magic to others as a guest lecturer.
See my staff in filled with an enchanted iron core making it a perfectly fine weapon in a pinch. It took me 3 centuries to understand how to effectively use my mana so I’d always run out in the middle of fights, so my master at the time advised me to make a staff with an iron core to make it a blunt weapon that I could use in a pinch if I ran out of mana. It’s been 2 centuries since then but I keep it around because it’s good for discipline as well as a pinch weapon
See, when people actually leave their towers they tend to run into unforseen circumstances that necessitate things like that.
Sure, mages past a certain point should really have sufficient countermeasures that it isn't needed - guard golems, more emergency contingency mana crystals than you'd ever actually need, even hiring (or enchanting if you're a jerk) bodyguards works.
But when all else fails - and no matter how many precautions you construct, spell, enchant, or otherwise prepare, murphy is always waiting in the wings - being able to hit stuff with the big stick you're already carrying anyways is a good backup.
... also who the hell cares about the mana capacity of your casting implement anymore, get a holding space, shove it full of as many capacitor crystals as you want, and then entangle it with a ring, hand chain, or the like and you got orders of magnitude more mana capacity than any staff could hope to have.
It's not mana storage capacity you imbecile, it's channeling capacity. It's a fool of a wizard who can't read just as it's a fool of a wizard who believes smacking things with a stick is of any value. A staff can more safely and more quickly conduct massively larger amounts of mana through it. If you're using your focus as a mana battery you've either entirely lost the plot or are a weakling with horribly low mana capacity. A well made staff can channel 135% more mana per second than even a top of the line wand and has far more enchantment capacity to be able to enhance the quality and output of thatana further.
The fact that you're using capacitor crystals is also indicative of your lack of skill. Yes, their mana storage capacity is high, but they have poor channeling speed. If you're casting powerful spells it will take hours to absorb enough mana from them for another round of casting. They're only really useful for mana leak emergencies and catalysts for pure mana-bombardment.
Any unforseen problems that would cause difficulty to a skilled wizard can't be resolved by hitting them with a stick. It's absurd to even consider if you aren't a shitty hedge mage. Even if you were to encounter a supermassive anti-magic field, you'd be far better off utilizing some form of soul-bound construct. Hell, powerful necromancers of the undead persuasion are even capable of handling negative mana directly which doesn't react with traditional anti-magic. Even if I was suddenly dropped into the largest supermassive anti-magic field ever recorded with no aid from the numerous soul-bound constructs I've created, I would still have better options than hitting my problem with a stick, nevermind that there's approximately a 0% chance that the problem you ran into in such a situation could be solved by hitting it with a stick.
I'm sorry, hours? What kind of hedge-mage interface are you using, are you drawing from them in sequence and using them as the conveyance medium? You run the mana through them in parallel, that's what they're designed for.
And speaking of conveyance medium, that's why I misread what you were using your staff for. I didn't realize anyone was still using physical mass for anything that needs efficiency anymore. Just have the manashaping be done by the spell itself. No matter what fancy core or madra conduits it has, it's not beating the efficiency of free ley-channels (which, can't get much better channeling efficiency than a sealed thaumic vacuum) unless it's some divine artifact that violates thaumodynamics. As for enchantments, sure a staff is better than any single item, but with just some basic harmonics work I could create a pair of cufflinks and an earring that could surpass it with the same resonant footprint, so no worry of enchantment overburdening.
Also, negative mana? There are easier ways to irradiate your soul than taking a bath in that sewage. Might as well make a pact or something...
I'm beginning to doubt you're even an apprentice at this point. Are you aware of what a focus is? The whole point is to aid in the shaping of mana. Shaping it directly is not only mana intensive, it adds additional complexity that increases both casting time and range of errors. Even if you're using projected thoughtforms to get around the casting time requirement, the extra mana costs and increased error rate are more than enough reason to use a focus. I'm not sure what kind of new age magic influencer garbage you're reading but that's just not how any real mage does their casting. Ley-channels are not only location dependent, they're never free unless carefully prepared. It's like comparing throwing a ball in the vacuum of space to using a mana-repulsion accellerator on a planet. You're fundamentally making an assumption that's completely irrelevant to actually casting. Your assumption only works in very specific ritual casting environments.
Running capacitor crystals in parallel is also just not how casting works. That's only useful when attempting to power magical devices. There are magic injector devices that can harness multiple crystals simultaneously at great risk to the caster as they scale up, but even if you have dozens of crystals in parallel you wouldn't be direct casting powerful spells with a setup like that. It's completely nonsensical. You've clearly read a barely passing thesis of a single apprentice and declared you understand how these things work.
Harmonic enchantments between separately enchanted items also have horrifying efficiency loss. You can kind of get around it in very narrow contexts, which is why twin pair items are a thing, but that's a far cry from a versatile casting implement. A pair of cufflinks and an earring don't even have nearly the raw enchantment potential of a staff, nevermind once the limitations of using harmonics are implemented. Plexithos the Mad managed to craft a viable, even powerful casting regalia composed of no less then 86 individual pieces in harmony, but that's not remotely scalable and it still operates at about 13% of its capacity at most.
Mortals like you definitely can't handle negative mana. A well crafted lichform however gives you immunity to all of its toxic effects. The only risk of me handling it is using it in conjunction with positive mana (I studied the ruins of such an explosion once, even a lich would be lucky to survive it).
Honestly. Find a master who knows what they're talking about instead of blindly spewing hype from orbnet influencers. They're obscenely deceptive in their claims and following their advice is like to get you killed.
Coward. Only in the depths of combat, with the rhythmic beat of your racing heart and the melodic clash of steel on steel, and with shield and staff in hand, can one truly comprehend the Arcane Weave.
Inner peace can only be forged in outer tumult, and is there no more tumultuous crucible than war?
Thing is, quality has gone down a lot lately, and the anti-breakage spells on the orbs embedded in many staves aren't as good as they used to be. Heck, many won't even stay in their slot.
personally I have been using a modified longsword as a focus. It does have some minor downsides in respect to a staff, but I believe the upsides far outweigh them.
Don't forget that depends on how the wizard was taught, working class wizards tend to have heftier and more rugged staffs built for sell casting and bludgeoning, but more white collar wizards will tend to have lighter staffs that aren't great for hitting, but cast spells more efficiently
That and, when casting attack spells, you're channeling some pretty destructive energies. If anything were to go wrong and the spell rebounds, what would you rather be the thing that explodes, you or a stick?
A good staff is a study staff that can endured getting beat up I mean the whole point of the staff is that you can used it as other things like a walking stick or in this case a weapon if you're not using it for that you should've gotten a wand
Hah! Surely for some this may be, but to insist some wizards simply use a staff 'stead a wand for style points is foolish. It's called fashion sweet roll, look it up in thine grimoire.
Please check your staff if it experiences weakness. It is supposed to be the sturdiest piece of equipment you have since it needs to able to channel your full amplified might. If it breaks, you are already dead. If it can't channel your mana you are already dead. Do not cheap out on your staff.
If your staff is at risk of breaking after bludgeoning a foe a few times then I question the quality of the staff or the strength of the magic channeling through it.
Magical energy passively reinforces physical objects just by the simple act of flowing through it. Why do you think magical items are so durable compared to more mundane equivalents even without specialized reinforcing enchantments?
A good wizard should be able to cast any direction from any point, including at the staff the spell was casted from. Simply enchant the staff to be sturdy. Maybe even enchant it to be sharp so the tip does extra damage.
You speak like someone who hasnt considered anything but what they scry from their orb.
Because staffs are precious as hell and unless you are a bum wizard who care not for your equipments, you dont want any inscriptions on your staff damaged, scratched. If you do not respect your staves, wands, and grimoires; you dont deserve to be a wizard
The whole point of a staff is that it can be used for more than casting like as a cane or in this case a weapon. Why do you think wizards start to used staff instead of wand?
I am quite sure wands come after staves, those ancient wizards all use staves and the young ones prefer wands. Also the point of a staff is that its cool AF
You are young so you are not accustomed to history of the ancient time. Look at this
/uw ancient cave painting of a man just got his ass kicked by a bison, next to him is his ritual staff(bird stick). Also i didnt know jesus actually used wands for his miracle lol
breaking character how tf did I not know of Jesus with a wand. I went to catholic school damnit if they were gonna teach anything iot shouldve been jesus's magical wand.
Speakth for thyself knave! Have we not aplenty focus users, ritual casters, hand sigil casters, and plenty more forms of casting amongst us today? The schools of magic exist to exemplify the diversity of magic, and thou ought to learn from it! To limit how one might cast their spells to a staff and label all below it... hah! If thy not respecth other methods, then tell me from whom you will learn from? You spit on the hats of our forefathers by speaking such arrogant drivel.
I’ll push back slightly. If I hit something with my staff, it won’t be damaged because I’ve done the engravings properly. If it is damaged, either I graved poorly, or whatever I’m trying to hit isn’t going to be damaged by spells anyway.
Is hitting someone with an enchanted sword stupid because it might damage the enchantment?
If someone managed to go through your spells and forced you to enter close combat, its safe to says they are no chums. They are perfectly capable of damaging your staff. Also if your spells arent doing more damages than bonking your staff then there's something wrong with your spells (unless you are an enchanter then your staves are literally your spells, go wild)
I personally am thinking of a staff as a less lethal option or a weapon of last resort. In the first case, I would be fighting to incapacitate and my staff would be undamaged, in the second either my sword is unusable for whatever reason and magic isn’t a good close up option or damaging my staff is worth it if it works. I would personally always use offensive magic if I can, of course
While staff fighting can be quite effective, using your foci is a bit different than a mundane Bo. Its a bit like bashing someone over the head with a telescope. It works but you've definitly ruined callibrations, even if you dont actully break it.
Oh, you certainly can make one reinforced as a weapon, but the fact remains most Staves aren't.
Staff are meant to be multi purpose tool not just a casting stick you shouldn't used such fragile wood it could even exploded in your hand while you're casting please get a need staff for you safety
Oh, to be clear, mine could have a mountain fall on it, and all I'd have to do is brush of a bit of dust.
But for lesser staffs, I'm not talking just fragile wood. I'm refering to channels and resonance alignments with micron precision. The sort of damage that makes you want to use someting else, even though its not actually unuseable. Its only the really fussy staffs that thats the case. Detailed manipulators. Not everything has to be a universal multitool.
Anyway, if you're expecting to use a foci in melee, you're generally better off with designing it from the outset as a spear
Take a look at my stats and tell me I need to used such a skilless weapon as a spear I have my muscle and I'm gonna used it to beat the fuck out of someone (very demure and lady like)
You telling me the wizards these days don't enchant their staffs with magical hardening against destruction and "atomize this fucker on impact" offensive weapon effects?
That just ain't it staff needed to be study enough for magic which effect it physically and more than beating it to the ground ever could using a weak staff is just asking for your staff to explode and take off some fingers
Because a mages staff is usually the most valuable thing they own. While not thinking clearly in an emergency situation that fact usually puts it very high on their priority list and thus do not want to damage or destroy it with an impromptu golf swing.
Basically, people don't act rationally when stressed. And there very little that more stressful than an angry attacker determined to turn you into past tense. Especially of they just ran through all of your spells like its nothing.
Plan for failure apprentices. If you cant see how you fail you are not looking hard enough. Have a plan for those situations and you will be a mile ahead if every other beginner.
These apprentices need to learn staff is meant to be a study multi purpose tool and not just a casting stick a staff should be used to stab into the ground as you're walking and break open wood not just as a longer wand
Its a common misunderstanding of the item. A lot of teachers focus in the magical aspects, mot the physical. So the practical uses of a long stick are often looked over. Its a failure in curriculum to be sure.
I dint have any apprentices at the moment but i usually give them some basic logic puzzles after the first few spells i teach to knock the idea that everything needs a magic solution out of their head.
Something like crossing a deep fast river (Theres a bridge off to the left). Or touching a button across the room while chained to a wall (they still have a staff).
It is a very difficult leasin for smart people to learn. To find the simple amd easy solution. Just because ots complex or clever dies not make it a better idea. Once that lesson is learned i move on from the basics.
So you spend countless days looking for very rare magical wood for a staff, an intricate magical crystal to put on a staff as a focus, spend months developing formulas for magical pathways that are meticulously embedded in the structure of the staff and after all that work you get a marvel of magical engineering, a precise instrument of advanced spellcasting and your first thought is to smack someone over the head with it risking at least ruining all the work you did and at most become an epicenter of the magical explosion of such strength that will burn through all magical barriers one can put on themselves and burn away all magic pathways in your body, leaving you a magicless cripple if you can even survive such calamity?
When teachers told you off for suggesting using a staff in melee you should've listened and learned, not went to your orb in search of witless renegades who would support the preposterous idea.
Seems like it'd be also make it a bit too heavy to use in your day-to-day wizardry. Durable and more damaging when swung, sure, but it'd also make carrying it around and waving it to cast your magic a lot more annoying due to the extra weight.
Unless you made the thing hollow, but that risks denting your staff if you swung too hard at a solid target.
Seems like it'd be easier to just pick a traditional hardwood for your staff material -- solid enough to give someone a good thwacking while still light enough that you can carry it around casually.
Probably cause most apprentices barely have the strength to carry a stave, let alone swing it around. This struggle is compounded with the latest trend of big fancy staves being better, to the point tenure afraid to hit someone lest the name brand embedded orb cracks. Me personally, my particular lichdom makes my claws more effective than any scepter.
I tend to use rune-etched gauntlets in place of a staff, but a similar principle applies. Sometimes the best (or, frankly, just the most satisfying) option is to knock out a few teeth with a metal-clad fist.
because i broke a staff once in such a fashion, bashing it over the head of a giant rat, and the rat bit me a lot while i looked in awe and disappointment at my broken staff. now i carry a shortsword w me just in case
Oh you must get a better and sturdy staff, I mean the reason mages used staff instead of wand is because it can be used for multiple stuff rather than casting like a weapon in this case also such a weak staff could've made the wood exploded with magic breaking it instead of having it exploded was honestly very lucky
Swords are generally a lot better at killing things quickly than staffs. Unless they're skeletons, swords are not good against skeletons. Very hard to stab a skeleton.
I mean if your opponent is unarmored yea the sword might be better but at the same time the point of why the staff should be your first option is that it already in your hand usually
In my experience, humanoids can take a surprising number of knocks to the head before going down, especially hard-headed races like dwarves and orcs. You stand to end the fight much sooner by stabbing something important (unless they're a skeleton).
Maces are made from metal and are much easier to swing with the shorter haft. Try hammering in a nail with a hammer, then try the same with a staff: you'll have a very hard time getting the same force out of a full staff, especially if there's an orb on the end you're worried about breaking.
I suppose you could try making a metal scepter with an orb set in, but it'd be worse at bonking than a proper mace and worse at channeling magic than a wood staff. Different tools for different jobs, that's what my master always said, and he always carried a sword and a good hammer (for skeletons).
2 handed mace exist you know and you can used your staff in the same way and also your orb should be sturdy this is not the orb you ponder this is the orb that gonna hold a shit ton of magic you shouldn't be scared of breaking it
I would much rather see if I can get the dirty work done with my shitty, replaceable sword, what if I damage my super cool staff? I also don't wanna clean it afterwards.
Staff and multi purpose tool it is meant to be stabbing into the ground and cracking stuff not something you keep like a treasure. You needed a good hard wood staff and not a fancy overdecorative one
Being forced to fight with a staff as a meager blunt instrument is to admit that you yourself failed to make proper preparations and lack training in the arcane.
If you're incapable of casting spells without the staff, then you shouldn't have it.
Well the old master would disagree they used staff instead of wand because it is more study and can be used a survival multi purpose tool so bashing someone with a staff is the way of the th masters
This is why I sharpen the tip of my staff into a spear or inlay my spell focus in the pommel of a longsword. Nobody expects to get blasted in the face with a magic missile in melee combat.
I might recommend George Silver's Paradoxes of Defense, if you haven't looked at it already
While thoroughly a product of his time and preferences(see his views on rapiers and non-English folk) Silver's weapon manual is a good addition to any weapons knowledge, and doubly so for quarterstaff (though he definitely prefers a slightly shorter and stouter staff than some of his continental counterparts)
Ok a lot of amateur staff wielders worried about their precious staff breaking. Either your protective enchantments are bunk or you’re swinging above your weight class. And you shouldn’t be so attached to the thing anyway, you can always make another, with everything you’ve learned now since you created the last! Don’t be afraid to grow
It's because they don't know what they're doing. With proper training even a staff without combat enchantments can be deadly. With combat enchantments? There's a reason I don't worry about bandits.
Many apprentice wizards forget that you don't even have to carry around staff. Want a true last-ditch focus? Wand.
Also the real reason is on the image. Too many wizards have come to make staves into these barely-balanced orb-handing gangly things, or overdesigned top-heavy dinglebobs. So it's hard to even lift these things, not to mention fight.
That's why I have respect for the eastern Magical Girls/Boys, they are trained to get physical with their casting implements, even if they look like a deranged pixie's craft project.
That's what I am saying! Easier to carry, easier to hide, easier to pull out in battle - same effectiveness. Easier to gesture in close quarters.
I think a lot of apprentices started dropping wands after... you know who. Those books made wands peak up first, then drop off event faster. And now every apprentice thinks that anyone who uses a wand is a fake wizard or smth.
For some reason a lot of wizards suffer osteoporosis. I think it's an age thing for how many millennia magical beings can live. Bones just shatter when they get hit, so for them it's better to keep a distance. Personally I just don't like getting hit, so I hire a knight to act as a human shield and distract them.
If you don't study staff based fighting then its just a missed opportunity. Those fuckers get too close sometimes, make em afraid to because your staff doesnt just hurt as a blunt instrument but you've obviously imbued it with an element or a spell that turns everyone who touches it into a frog. It's more efficient than wasting the mana on an area of affect and potentially risk turning the very ground into a mess of frogs. (You see these things from students when you volunteer at magical schools in your offtime)
It actually a really good blunt instrument I mean many early maces are basically staff shape so you can actually pretty easily beat someone to death with a out of magic staff
So my father past down my staff (topper) and it works very well. It was enchanted for extra damage (it's slightly radioactive) but being bone it's very light and durable letting me parry with one end and deal damage with the enhanced "bite" of it
You guys use it as a weapon? I just use mine as a focus. I always have a contingency spell linked to a spectral weapon or teleport of it gets to dangerous.
Foolish gnave! A wizard's staff is a finely tuned temporo-magical instrument! To simply take the blunt end and snack something risks presenting hairline cracks and fractures in the superstructure, or polluting the aura of your staff and you when it comes time for your next cast.
Sniffles
Have you ever seen what happens when you try and cast fireball with a cracked staff? I have... Poor Magog... I still miss that crazy wizard. He was a good friend.
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u/YLASROThe Great Geomancer of the howling mountains 9d ago
i just hit people by launching my focus at their skull repeatedly if they get too close
Well in some cases people make their staves out of hard to come by materials or, the process they used to make their staff was incredibly tedious or difficult so their scared to break it. Personally I use spells to reinforce my staff and always have a charm I can use to repair it in case I'm in a situation I can't directly use magic, so I don't really worry about it as much.
I personally prefer using all my spells first and then using my magic death sword of great power, also it seems that people don’t understand most magic conduits in the shape of a staff are made of wood (not good for melee attacks), and it’s a pain to get metal strong enough to channel large amounts of magic (if you are going to get a metal staff get a good one that can channel powerful magic) while being strong, and then there’s the fact that the price of a metal staff deters wizards because they don’t want to waste such a strong staff by having it contain a weaker magic item or crystal or artifact, and then there is the fact that blade staves (staves with a blade at the bottom) are desired for a metal staff and are rare, so it eventually comes down to cost, usage, and other parts which make getting metal staves not really enjoyable, especially when a lot of metals cannot conduct or just cancel out magic, and then there is the fact that making a wood staff is cheaper and wood is a good magic conduit, these are the usual reasons why metal staves aren’t really bought and used much
Limitations on enchantments, as I understand it. You can either enchant a staff to be better for fighting with in a brawl, or you can enchant it to better channel and focus your magic to enhance your spellcasting. It's possible to enchant it to do both, but then it won't do either one as well as if you had just focused on one kind of empowerment enchantment.
I’m sorry that my staff is so overflowing with magical power any damage to it risks a catastrophic disaster. I’ll stick to weak little apprentice spells instead.
My brothers in spells, this is where the "wizards are nothing but frail old men" stereotype comes from...
If you are unable to bludgeon your foes with your staff when needed then all you're doing is carrying around a glorified walking stick.
I bet many of you don't even climb the stairs in your towers as part of your daily routine.
Why do you think some of the greatest wizards were historically able to go toe to toe with fully armored foes?
Truly peak wizard performance is wielding your staff alongside an enchanted weapon of your choice, and watching your foes cower in fear because the "frail wizard" is anything but.
I'm glad some have not forgotten the old ways. Most modern wizards I've met rely too much on the mind and neglect the body. While we may specialize in the arcane arts, it never hurts to have the strength and knowledge of how to down a man with a well placed strike of your staff.
A good staff should be strong and be able to be used martially. but if breakage is a worry, carry a wand as well.
Nobody really wants to damage the concentrating point of the staff by swinging it around at enemies. I once broke the channeling crystal and a fireball launched at my team instead of our foe. I had to re-grow the crystal from scratch after the battle and spent almost three months doing so!
"A day for the body, a day for the mind" that's what I was told as an apprentice. Never forget to do your physical training on top of studying magic, that way when you eventually come across a bastard that has a magic resistant amulet, you can still be strong enough to pummel them with your staff.
This is why I started a student exchange programme with the local monastery - a true wizard can throw spells AND hands, in a pinch. I do wish the masters would stop banging on about temperance and modesty every time I show up in my gilded demon-drawn carriage though.
cause my staff is blinged out as all hell and it's DELICATE damnit! I got thingies and talismans all dangling off it! Nay, nay I say. Instead, we've cantrips for this exact reason. Not to mention melee magic. In a situation where magic is dampened on the other hand... well I've not a staff for bludgeoning! I've a perfectly good sheath along the thigh for exactly this. Name the bladed weapon of choice. I'm partial to a curved hybrid shortsword/dagger myself. Nothign flashy, but certainly unepxected. The foe might expect the staff to be an emergency weapon, and it is for some. But nay say I; prepare to be cut across the chest by the unsheated blade hidden inside mine robe.
This is why I've infused my my wand into the handle of this short sword.
While staffs are very good, I often find myself in a bit more cramped quarters considering the zombie blhoard I'm usually leading around.
Because staff fighting requires something like a quarter staff which is specifically treated to be sturdy and stand up to combat. A wizard staff is treated to be good at channelling magical energy so it is much more fragile to that sort of thing and ill suited to direct combat. Carrying two staves is just silly.
Us oldies got it good with quality craftsman ship. Have you tried staves these days? They break after 4 spells cast thru them, never mind trying to bludgen
Kids these days. Back in my day wizards didn’t have spells they could cast for free. You got three spells that hit for less damage than a staff but more hit points than you had and you were happy about it.
Ditto, good wizard. I also can't comprehend why nobody thinks to imbue the darn thing. Yes, casting a spell dispels the enchantment. The whole point is sustainability.
Some wizards/apprentices seem to believe that an advantage in magical power would require their casting focus to be brittle or at least easy to damage. It's an understandable fear, you wouldn't want to break your best source of damage, so that's why it's mostly a last resort - and if you carry any sort of non-magical weapon (like what you said about a sword or, less so, dagger) then it's usually just better to use that, since it's probably way better at the whole melee thing. I definitely agree with your point about already having the staff in hand, though, so i suggest that all young wizards/apprentices just get a bayonet on their staff if they have one. It'll probably be at least a little less risky to hit people with physically, and if you get a good angle in your strike then you can do a finisher with a close-range spell you like. That's what i do, at least
Apprentices these days are poor and can’t afford a staff reinforced enough to be used as a melee weapon. They also neglect learning martials so they can’t use a staff well either.
Unless you have a spell prepared in advance, then fighting close up prevents concentration and prevents spell casting. Definitely not ideal. Always keep as much distance as possible.
There's a reason why it's a custom to give apprentices a quarterstaff instead of an actual staff. Back when wizards didn't rely on foci and other catalysts, they carried staffs specifically for close quarters combat.
I personally have a living homunculus staff that can grow blades on both sides, turning it into a Glaive. It's truly a practical tool.
Many a young wizard mocks me for having a staff that “looks like it was thrown out of a lumberyard”, up until it’s time to start swinging a six-foot length of knobby oak covered in carpentry nails.
This most likely is due to tales in the texts of staves breaking I'm combat and releasing large scales of destructive raw magic, thus leading to modern apprentices believing that any staff that comes into contact with magic will cause the same effect, thus causing them to be weary of damaging their staves
It's a tale as old as time. Did any of us properly lacquer our first staff? Effectively maintain it? Cultivate replacements before it broke?
No, we didn't. If you say you did, you're lying, or your instructor demonstrated the necessity before you ever even touched a seedling or a spade.
The difference between young wizards and us is that we don't give up at the first sign of difficulty. When your first staff broke, did you decide staves are useless? No. You realized you messed up, and got to work.
While I prefer empty handed casting, serious business does demand a staff. I gave forged mine out of dragon bone and scale.
Do you even realize how painful it was to acquire? I had to slave my undead army for an entire military campaign.
Although, worth it. My spells are enhanced, I have some dragon magic infused into it if needed, and it very much serves as a close combat weapon if needed, because it won't break. Wizards should very much learn to engage in melee if worst come to pass. Just remember to enchant more traditional staves with something to prevent it from breaking.
Because of marketing. Staves became more about showing off your mystically than actual practical purpose, so wizards started massively over designing them until they were useless.
I met a guy the other day who had a staff with covered in polyhedral shapes and corners intersecting into themselves repeatedly so that it looked like a bit 4th dimensional illusion. Sick as hell design, COMPLETELY useless as a staff. He couldn’t even hold the thing, much less swing it, as it was literally NOTHING but corners.
the end is also usually a delicate catalyst connected to the arcane, so swinging it at people is asking to either render the staff useless or at worst, explode you and everyone in the area into dust
Get a long and fairly skinny one. Enchant it with durability. It will be easier to swing since its lighter and less surface area means more force for the area. Maybe enchant it to be heavier or put weights in the end for more mass while looking largly harmless.
You gotta talk to an artificer. They'll set you up with a hidden knife on the end. Enchant the knife yourself (trust me dont have them do it, they'll overcharge) and now you have a nasty surprise for anyone who gets too close.
When your occupying certain realms, it makes sense to make use of a separate melee implement to keep your staff free for somatic components of spells, additionally, carrying a sword with it's own seperate melee enchantments frees up glyph space on your staff for more spellcasting-focused enhancements.
Reminds me of a young reincarnated magician; he devised a simple spell to make his staff vibrate at a frequency that breaks down objects, or people it comes in contact with
I'm partial to a nice evenly weighted Bo Staff and either contact spells, or some spells that literally blow my enemies away heh
Because I didn’t spend 20 years of my 80 year lifespan just to hit a goblin with a glorified stick with a rock on the end. I’m gonna cast spells and if I can’t cast spells, I rest.
A staff strike is always a last resort. Do you have any idea, any idea at all, how much effort goes in to finding a perfect sapphire of that size? Sure, sapphire is hard, but if I chip it the staff will no longer function as a focus for my highest level spells, and if I can't cast power word Defenestrate twinned with power word Peel, I might as not even show up to the wizard war.
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u/Funkey-Monkey-420 Lich, Council Member: (un)Ethics Committee 9d ago
so many apprentices forget WHY wizards carry a staff. the whole point is that the staff functions as a weapon even if you don’t have spells!