A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Krazy Kragnar’s Magic Staff Emporium

Krazy Kragnar’s Magic Staff Emporium by Marc Radle and Owen K.C. Stephens is a role playing game supplement published by Rogue Genius Games (originally by Super Genius Games) for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License with some parts considered to be Open Game Content as a result. This supplement introduces new options for staves.

This is a twelve page PDF which is available from RPGNow for $3.99 but which was purchased as part of a special bundle for $0.20. Two thirds of a page are the front cover and one page is the Open Game License and Credits.

It begins with the usual discussion of Krazy Kragnar, mentioned the three previous supplements he appeared in, The Genius Guide to Loot 4 Less Volume 7: Krazy Kragnar’s Used Chariots, Krazy Kragnar’s Surplus Alchemical Surplus Shop and Krazy Kragnar’s Black Market Magic Items. Unlike the previous two ventures, it appears that Kragnar’s black market shop was never shut down or destroyed; instead he moved onto better things. Namely, the manufacturing of magic staves, including the tige vierge, a magic staff that could have any spell impressed upon it.

Next it discusses magic staves, an iconic spellcaster item but one which many cannot afford or create at lower levels. So three types of staff are introduced; lesser, standard and greater, which increase in power. Lesser staves can be upgraded to standard and then standard to greater. Recharging staves comes next, and some of the standard and greater staves have options that can increase the charges.

Creating staves at lower level brings in a new feat, Craft Lesser Staff, which allows 8th level spellcasters to create lesser staffs. Then the previously mentioned tige vierge, a blank staff that is mostly created but has no spells impressed upon it. These can be added in a fraction of the time needed to create a full staff, being largely finished (this does not mean they are cheaper; they are more expensive). This has another new feat, Craft Tige Vierge.

Next are ten new staves. Each comes in three versions, lesser, standard and greater. All have unique, and appropriate, descriptions of their appearances, abilities and costs. More powerful staves have more abilities and commensurately higher costs.

Krazy Kragnar’s Magic Staff Emporium in Review

The PDF lacks bookmarks and, although it is quite short, these would have been useful. With no table of content either, navigation is quite poor.

The PDF is in Super Genius’ common landscape three column format, which is intended to be easier to read on tablets – more so on bigger ones that smaller admittedly. It is less easy to print out. No errors were noticed in the text. There are a couple of colour illustrations and, unusually, each staff comes with an illustration. Only in black and white, but it is quite uncommon to see every magic item in a supplement illustrated.

The new concepts introduced are interesting. They are designed to get magical staves into a game without having to wait for higher level – and without using up more in-game time than many campaigns do (it can also be used to separate players from larger chunks of money, in exchange for something they actually want – something that Bill Webb is in favour of in his Book of Dirty Tricks). This means that a spellcaster can get their hands on an iconic staff much more easily. On the downside, the only lesser staves detailed are the new ones. It would have been nice to see lesser, standard and greater versions of some of the existing staves. That would have taken up a lot more room.

The new magical staves described are interesting. It’s good to have individual descriptions for them, and each is quite different with a different theme. It’s possible that some of the greater staves may be a little on the overpowered side, but they are also expensive and nothing says a GM has make them available. There is no reason why upgrading staves can’t be limited or eliminated, especially in lower magic campaigns.

Krazy Kragnar’s Magic Staff Emporium provides interesting new rules and a nice selection of new magical staves and can be found by clicking here.