Mage Stronghold - The Staff of Power

recklessheart

Hey everybody,

I commissioned the Staff of Power from my apprentices on my current run of SoA as a Mage (lvl9)/Thief. She didn't ask for the responsibility of apprentices and is rather indifferent to their survival. I already have a Ring of Wizardry from Jaheira's storyline, so yeah!

The issue is that whilst all of my apprentices die, none of them are dropping the staff. I have a quicksave right outside the sphere, which I keep reloading to and entering the sphere again in the hope that it will drop. Is that actually going to help me, though? Where is my Staff of Power?

mf2112

When they started on it, did they say it would take "a few days" or specifically 4 or 5 days? I think if it is a specific number then the task fails. If they say a few days then you should get it, although several of them will die with that item I believe.

Kurona

The Staff of Power always kills all three apprentices and the dialogue is identical whether it will succeed or fail. Success chance is calculated when you decide to do it though, so if you don't have a save before that and you can't find it on Morul's corpse you're out of luck.

magisensei

Getting the staff of power is a bit difficult - it usually kills all the apprentices with only a % of actually getting that item. As @Kurona said if you don't have a previous save to try again then most likely you did not succeed in getting it.

You can of course load and try again.

OR

Getting it a different way if you really want it - the almost legal way of getting the staff without an editor or reloading over and over again.

Get it via BP2 - its for sale there if you really want.

Bubbles

@recklessheart
Why bother with the Staff of Power when you can get

Staff of the Magi

Arunsun

@Bubbles
Staff of the Magi and Staff of Power are on par once you have removed the invisibility on SotM, which most of us did for balance reasons.
I'd even say that Staff of Power is better once you did that, since they are essentially the same, with SoP having +2 to saving throws while SotM has on-hit dispel, and the former is more useful on a pure mage most of the time.

Nothing prevents you from having them both as your hotbar weapons, allowing the use of their active component whenever you want.

Bubbles

@Arunsun
Well, basically I am not a good spell strategist, thus Staff of the Magi I tend to use more often for the sake of invisibility and protection from evil thus usually prevent my mage from being targeted as a result of my bad mage play X_X

Tenrecc

Arunsun said:

I'd even say that Staff of Power is better once you did that, since they are essentially the same, with SoP having +2 to saving throws while SotM has on-hit dispel, and the former is more useful on a pure mage most of the time.

No, SotM has +2 to saving throws too. Also you're excluding that it gives you spell trap instead of globe of invulnerability, a 9th level vs 6th level spell. And the on-hit dispel can be useful even for mages, especially since it was buffed in EE, if you're using time stops or tensers. The nuke effect is way better with SoP though.

Essentially, if you have two casters you should definitely try to get both, they're way above any other caster weapon, but I'd say that calling SoP better than SotM even without the invis is a bit of a stretch.

Arunsun

Tenrecc said:

Arunsun said:

I'd even say that Staff of Power is better once you did that, since they are essentially the same, with SoP having +2 to saving throws while SotM has on-hit dispel, and the former is more useful on a pure mage most of the time.

No, SotM has +2 to saving throws too.

True, I had always thought SotM did not have bonus to saving throws.

Tenrecc said:

No I am not:

Arunsun said:

Nothing prevents you from having them both as your hotbar weapons, allowing the use of their active component whenever you want.

Though since they both have saving throws bonus, I guess SotM is better as an equipped weapon even without the invisibility component most of us removed since it also prot. from evil and on-hit dispel.

But definitely, I'd argue SoP is a nice offensive complement to SotM, due to its insane no-save-stun lightning and that both should be your hotbar weapons.

Kurona

The Staff of Power strikes as +2 and the Staff of the Magi as +5. Not game-changing, since they aren't weapons used primarily for melee, but this is still something to keep in mind.

Raduziel

How do we remove the invisibility effect? Always sensed that it was a little gamebreaking.

magisensei

You need a mod (I think there is one a staff mod that allows more staffs in the game that disables staff of the magi's invisibility) to permanently disable the invisibility or you can just equip it once so that your PC is visible (like fighting to break the invisibility) and then never un/re-equip the staff so the invisibility function never activates again.

Abi_Dalzim

Raduziel said:

How do we remove the invisibility effect? Always sensed that it was a little gamebreaking.

If you're shameless enough with it, it's the most broken thing in the game. Want to take a swing at me? DENIED! Just un and re-equipping it while paused makes you untouchable to things that don't have innate see invisibility, which is most things. Hell, even True Sight won't really stop you if you react quickly.

ajwz

I feel it is pretty balanced so long as you restrict it to classic mages (eg edwin, nalia, etc)

Bubbles

Generally, the invisibility effect is useless against most of the bosses in ToB.
They could see any form of invisibility even if it is with non-detection.

Arunsun

Bubbles said:

Generally, the invisibility effect is useless against most of the bosses in ToB.
They could see any form of invisibility even if it is with non-detection.

Well, that's true, but bosses are not generally what's most bothering to a spellcaster, as they are alone most of the time, and thus you'll just have to cast that one spell that will protect you from them for a long time and then get through their resistances.
I find that dealing with numerous enemies such as a pack of fire giants to be much harder as a mage than a boss, because you have to cast a ton of spells to take them down, and as soon as your protections wear off you can die in an instant. But that's when the invisibility of the SotM is game-breaking

gorgonzola

The invisibility of the SotM is game-breaking only if you abuse of it, and there are other abuses that are as breaking. Like using metagame to bomb the enemies from the fog of war or to set traps in a spawning point, and this is just a couple of examples. In all those situations the abuse is intentional, with the SoTM you have to click on the weapon each time your character lands a hit if you want to attack without retaliation, very different from a mislead where you can not avoid to go continuously invisible (and also for that there is at leas a part of intentionality when you decide to hide away the clone instead of trying to protect it leaving it visible...).
As soon as your protections wear off when dealing with numerous enemies such as a pack of fire giants you can die in an instant, use the staff, an invisibility potion or a low level spell with short casting time that grants you the invisibility needed to run away.

recklessheart

To clarify on the whole Staff of Power vs. Staff of the Magi thing, I really don't see the need to complicate the issue. Mages get 2 weapon slots. Just use both! In this instance, I had the Staff of the Magi for Edwin, but I would have rather liked my main character, a dual classed level 9 Mage to be able to wield the other significant staff in the game from time to time when backstabbing was non-essential.

I never did acquire the Staff of Power, but nevertheless my Mage(9)/Thief ascended to Godhood, retaining her seat in the celestial realms with an allegedly brutal and unforgiving hand.