Magical staff

Version 0.19: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Name	Magical staff (type varies)
Skill	Staves
Damage	5
Accuracy	+5
Base delay (%)	12 (120%)
Min delay	6 at skill 12
Hands	1H
Size	Large
Ranged?	No

A staff improved with arcane powers of unknown nature.

A magical staff is a device which enhances your spells in one of a variety of different ways. It occupies your weapon slot and can be used as a +0 staff in combat if need be. Unlike normal weapons, they cannot be enchanted in any way. Instead, some magical staves deal additional elemental damage based on your skill in Evocations and the corresponding school of magic, or provide other effects such as resistances.

Magical staves can be cursed, like other weapons.

Enhancer Staves

The following staves all serve as spell power multipliers for spells of their respective spell school. Some may also add elemental damage or other effects when used in melee:

Damage Dealt: 0 to 1.25×(School+[Evocations/2])
Chance to Activate: (Evocations+School/2)×6.66% per hit

• Staff of fire: Fire damage, 1 rank of fire resistance.
• Staff of cold: Cold damage, 1 rank of cold resistance.
• Staff of earth: Physical damage.
• Staff of air: Electricity damage, electricity resistance.
• Staff of poison: (50+Poison Magic×12.5)% chance to poison the target (can even affect poison-resistant living targets, but has to pass a Poison/16 chance), poison resistance.
• Staff of death: (12.5+Necromancy×12.5)% chance of negative energy damage (does not affect targets with negative energy resistance), 1 rank of negative energy resistance. Does not inflict draining on the target.
• Staff of conjuration: No bonus.
• Staff of summoning: No bonus.

Other Staves

The following staves have effects independent of spell schools:

• Staff of wizardry: Much like a ring of wizardry, it improves your spell success rate.
• Staff of energy: Eliminates spell hunger and may be evoked to gain MP, with a success rate based on Evocations. Costs 50 nutrition.
• Staff of power: +15 max MP.

None of the above staves grant any melee bonuses.

There are also a number of artefact staves, but they are technically classified as weapons rather than magical staves. Click here for more details.

Images

History

in 0.19, staves no longer penalize casting the opposite elemental school of magic.

In 0.17, the Staff of summoning lost the ability to abjure targets, and in 0.18 warding was removed.

In 0.13, the Staff of channeling was removed and the staves of energy were changed to allow the player to channel energy.

In 0.12, the Staff of enchantment was removed.

Prior to 0.8, the chance of a magical staff auto-identifying when wielded depended on the skill of the wielder in its corresponding school (or Spellcasting if none applied).

See Also

• Staves
• Rods and List of rods
• Evocable staves
• Unrandart staves