Staves

Version 0.30: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

The Staves skill denotes how proficient your character is wielding all manner of staves. Most of these weapons can deal moderate damage when wielded with two hands, and are easy enough to use that even spriggans can wield them. Casters may find this skill especially appealing, as it improves the usefulness of their magical staves. It crosstrains with the Polearms skill and the Maces & Flails skill.

Note that magical staves fight like +0 staves, though some offer extra damage or other effects.

Aptitudes

At	Ba	Co	DE	Dg	Ds	Dj	Dr	Fe	Fo	Gr	Gh	Gn	Hu	Ko	Mf	Mi	MD	Mu	Na	Op	On	Sp	Te	Tr	Vp	VS
-1	1	-1	0	-1	-1	-1	0	N/A	0	0	-1	8	0	-1	-2	2	1	-2	0	0	0	-3	1	-2	-2	-1

List of Staves

Name	Dam	Hit	Speed	Hands	Size	Cuts Hydras?
Magical staff	5 + Special	5	12	One	Medium+ for 1H	No
Quarterstaff	10	3	13	Two	Any	No
Lajatang	16	-3	14	Two	Any	Yes

Strategy

Both quarterstaves and lajatangs are "skill-friendly"; they offer high damage relative to their base attack delay. A lajatang requires 14 skill to reach mindelay, but a similar damage battleaxe or great mace would require 20 skill. However, they have several downsides:

• They are two-handed, preventing use of a shield.
• Once your character obtains a high skill level, the fact that staves are "skill-friendly" doesn't matter. I.e. if you have 20 weapon skill, you'll do more damage with a great mace than with lajatang.
• Lajatangs are rare. You may be stuck with a quarterstaff for a long time.

On the flip side, staves are one of the few weapons that can spawn with the spectral or speed brands, and as mentioned, work well at low skill. If you find a particularly good lajatang early on, it may be worthwhile to switch to it.

Magical staves are in a completely different ballpark. As melee weapons, they rely on three skills: Staves, Magical skill, and Evocations. Thus, they are impractical as "main" weapons, but casters can use them to defeat weak enemies. They also boost the power of spell magic, and most staves give an elemental resistance.

See Also

• List of staves
• Table of species aptitudes