Wizard Staff

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by hcobb

The joys of Staff I:

1. Able to suddenly defend without blocking spell use.
2. A reasonable offensive spell to use against critters immune to weapons or against a weapon expert who is applying some annoying super defend option against you, that can be used after a half-move.

Fair points. For the first point, usually (at least in my games), wizards do a good job of avoiding engagement, but there are certainly times when this can't be reasonably done. (Gargoyles out in the open, for instance, can choose their targets -- though the staff doesn't help in HTH anyway.)

As for the second point, what good does Staff I do against someone defending? An attack is an attack, and as far as I know, there's no explicit rule that one cannot defend against a staff zap. That said, I never considered the possibility of defending against a staff zap for Staff III or higher (even if adjacent to the wielder). Also, the text DOES explicitly say (Staff I), "The staff does not have to touch its target in order to deliver its flare of magical energy," so there may be a point to be made for the claim that one cannot defend against staff zaps, but it's not obvious.

Let me know if I've overlooked something.