Personal Staves - Secrets of Magic

[GMScott]

Hello,

I have searched this forum, but found no information about creating a Personal Staff (Secrets of Magic, p166-167)

I cannot figure out how to do this in Herolab Online.

• If this capability exists but I have missed it, please let me know how to do it.
• If this capability does not exist yet, is there a roadmap which includes it?

Thank you all!

[mototom]

I see Personal Staff listed for sale under Magic Items. Are you filtering Warnings or things that require GM permission? Is Secrets of Magic enabled for the character?

[GMScott]

Originally Posted by mototom

...GM permission...

That was it, thanks!

[haibane]

It looks like personal staves are asking for both traits which is not what the rules state.

Choose a magical school for your staff from among the schools the spells on it have. Pick the one that best reflects the spells, usually the one most shared among them. You can optionally give your staff a trait for one magic tradition, instead of the magical trait, if the staff is fully steeped in that tradition and contains spells only from that tradition's spell list.

[mototom]

I read it as still needing both traits. A school trait for the staff and a spells trait that the spells have to share.

The optional part seems to be a third trait option. By default, the staff has the magical trait. But you can choose to limit it to arcane, primal, divine, or occult. That doesn't seem to eliminate the need for the school trait, I think.

[haibane]

I mean it’s in the text that it’s one. Not sure how you’re reading two. Also no other staves are two trait.

[mototom]

You have the theme:

"Thus, a custom staff must always be created around a single trait. For example, an elemental trait (air, earth, fire, or water), energy trait (acid, cold, electricity, fire, sonic, positive, negative, or force), alignment trait, the detection trait, the light trait, and so on. The staff and its spells must have the trait."

The example says "Lini, a 15th-level druid, wants to create a staff to interact with the plants she encounters. She chooses the plant trait to represent that theme."

That's the spells trait.

Then the staff trait:

"Choose a magical school for your staff from among the schools the spells on it have. Pick the one that best reflects the spells, usually the one most shared among them."

The example says:

"Lini selected mostly transmutation spells for her staff, so she chooses the transmutation trait."

So Lini's staff ends up with the Magical, Plant, and Transmutation traits. The spells trait is restrictive—every spell must have the Plant trait. The staff trait is not—she's selected mostly transmutation so chooses that trait but spells can be from any school.

Lastly, "You can optionally give your staff a trait for one magic tradition, instead of the magical trait, if the staff is fully steeped in that tradition and contains spells only from that tradition’s spell list."

So she could choose to give the staff the primal trait, replacing Magical with Primal. But that would restrict the staff to only Primal spells.

So 3 traits, although Magical is a default and there doesn't seem to be an option to select a tradition.

[haibane]

And further on it says this…

Lini selected mostly transmutation spells for her staff, so she chooses the transmutation trait. She could give it the primal trait, but choses to keep it open with the magical trait, much like the verdant staff in the Core Rulebook.


This implies to me that only the school is needed as it says she leaves it open.

[haibane]

Looks like I’m confusing terms. Double checked herolab and it seems fine. Didn’t see magical before for some reason

[mototom]

For the staff trait, yes. Only the school is needed. But there are two parts to that example, and you're only looking at the second half. Every staff must have a theme for the spells. That's the second trait HLO is looking for. The section on choosing the spell theme specifically says that broad traits aren't allowed.

Magical is a default trait. Even if you select nothing for the staff, it has the magical trait. I see two problems in the HLO implementation—first, that when I choose the spells trait for the theme, that trait doesn't get assigned in the stat summary. Second, there's no option to choose a tradition.

It's a bit confusing but the Lini example helps clarify.

She wants a plant-based staff. Every spell will have to have that trait. That's the theme. Since most are transmutation, she chooses that as the staff trait. She ends up with the traits Magical, Plant, and Transmutation. HLO is doing this. There's just no option to swap out Magical for Primal or another tradition, and I don't see the theme trait showing up in the stat summary when I select it.