Staff of spell empowerment

[azkul]

This hard oaken staff is covered with silver and gold wire. The wires on this staff will glow a light blue anytime it is in the hands of an arcane spell caster. This light will illuminate a 3' radius around the wielder. If a detect magic spell is cast on this staff it will glow with a brialliant purple aura. This staff functions as a +1 weapon. However the true power of this staff is revealed when it is used by an arcane spell caster to cast their spells. This staff will raise any damage dice of a spell by 1 die, it can also extend the duration by 1 rd/level or the area of effect by an additional 5 ft/level of caster. However there is a cost for this extra effectiveness. Anytime this spell is used to empower a spell (which is everytime a spell is cast that the caster has the staff in their posession) the spell will draw energy from all those within 10' of the caster to empower these spells. This energy comes in the form of 1D6 points of damage per level of the spell cast. Each person takes the full amount of damage rolled, it is not divided by the number of people in the area. Ref save for 1/2 damage. This staff starts with 100 charges when found. Each use of the staff takes 1 charge/level of spell cast.

[colonialbob]

Interesting, I rather like it. One thing: I would recommend a fort save for half damage, just because it sounds as if it's drawing energy from them, which wouldn't be a physical thing, IMO. And what happens if there is nobody within 10' of the caster? Finally, can you choose not to have the empower effect, and thus no damage?

[azkul]

No you can not choose not to do the empower except by not having the staff in your possession at the time you cast. I went with Reflex save as i was envisioning diving out of the area of effect to avoid being damage, kind of like with fireball. If no one is in the area, then only the caster would take the damage. The caster takes damage in any case when they use the staff however.

[Barrok]

Being a staff it should have charges - then work out how many charges per use of the power. I will keep looking at this item to see how it shapes up.

[azkul]

Have given the staff charges. The purple color would be along side that of the school.

Also, would it increase the HD of creatures summoned/created by the spellcaster?[/b]

In this case it would effect the Duration that the summoned moster would be there, and not his HP as that would make it a different spell.

Finally, for the damage, I think that it should be that it draws a certain amount of HP from people, since it needs only a certain amount of "energy" to function. You might say "Each time the staff/rod is used, it draws energy, in the from of HP, from people around it or the caster. It withdraws 4 points of damage total, & if there are multiple people in a 10ft radius, the caster take at least 1pt damage, and each person (in order of how close they are to the caster) will take 1pt of damage."
You could also use this like "It draws a random amount of hp from each person, and the total hp, divided by 6 (rounded down) equals the bonus you get to spells.[/b]

I did not do this as I wanted the staff to net get overpowered, if it took 4 points from all those around to increase your fireball from 15d6 to 16D6....big deal, but if it takes 3D6 from all those around then it takes a little bit more and is a bigger penalty especially at lower levels, or again at higher levels due to the more dice of damage if you cast a 9th level spell

[azkul]

I am unsure, but since i do not know that, I think I will remove that little tidbit and leave the damage capped at max for each spell.