Didn't these things come in a spell variety similar to magic wands? It's been 10+ years, but I am slowly starting to remember things. I think I remember these being found on liches and in treasure chests. They could be id'd and had spell properties.
Personally I'd love to see them here but they could be a bit too overpowered. For example, a gnarled staff of vanquishing with lighting charges would be insane in a macers hands. However, I do really miss charged weapons in lieu of Slayers....but I love Slayers.....DAMNIT ALL!!!
Right, my recollection is like Paradigm's. I don't think we're missing much without them, though I will say on other shards I did have a Macer Tank Mage and used Gnarled Staves of Lightning, rather than wands, for the occasional blow I'd land while lightning-ing someone.
I dunno, I'm pretty sure it was possible. They had lightning on all other weapon variants. I mean, halberds of vanquishing and ghoul's touch (paralyze spell) are out there in prior era shards.
You're talking about weapons "of Thunder" (which could come on anything from cleavers to war hammers) and cast on-hit. Paradigm is referring to staves "of Lightning" which cast the spell upon activation like a charged wand.
Yeah, as far as I recall they functioned like that on UOSA. Castable staves were popular with macers because they could still be doing a fair amount of damage while also dropping spells without ever dropping their weapon.
I don't recall them being popular... and frankly, you'd do more damage just swinging say a Vanq War Hammer as opposed to a plain Gnarled Staff that slung lightning bolts. I actually used it for chasing people if they tried to run away. It was 95% for the lightning casting, and 5% just in case they stopped to try to recall, I might get a swing in to disrupt them while I kept casting.
In the era when this was the case, Magic Reflect dropped from any damaging spell, with one cast. Also any instance where you don't have to disarm to cast is a bonus in combat.
