Draft:Shiren 5 2020:Staff

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Staves (Japanese: 杖) are usable items that appears in Shiren the Wanderer 5 and 5 Plus. There are twenty-four variants of them in total.

Summary

Staves are like magic staves or magic wands in other D&D or other RPG games. Magic bolts aka bullets aka shots travel in a straight line indefinitely until they hit something (if nothing else, then the exterior wall of the floor). They have between 4-7 shots by default, though this can be increased or decreased by various means from 0-99. For most staves, throwing them at a monster and hitting it acts just as if you had shot them, so you can get an extra effect out of the staff if you don't mind destroying it, or just sell it empty for most of its value.

Trying to use a staff drains one shot even if the shot doesn't come out, e.g. if the staff is sealed. Blessed staves typically have double or otherwise improved magic effect. When the number of charges is not identified, the game shows you how many charges you've used or tried to use as a negative number. Thus, if it had a normal range of charges and you've already used 7, it is definitely empty. See Identifying Items for details.

A few staves can be used as rune ingredients, and are equally useful with any number of charges. Hence, it's sometimes a good idea to use all charges in a staff first then save it as a rune ingredient. Not many staves make runes so this information has been added to Additional Notes rather than as a separate column. See Runes for details.

Magic bolts you fire always aggro NPCs, even if the bolt doesn't do any damage. Magic bolts fired by other creatures that hit NPCs do not aggro them, fortunately.

List of Staves

Here are all the items in this category, in Item Book order:

File:Shiren 5 - Staff.png Staves		Shops		In-Game Description	Usage Tips	Finding Tips	Additional Notes
English	Japanese	Cost	Value
Swap Staff	場所がえの杖	600	210	Targets hit by magic bullets will switch positions with you. Throwing this staff will produce the same effect.	If you or the creature land on a tile where you/it can't stand (e.g. water or void), you/it will warp. Can be useful to escape bad situations or swap to unreachable places like 2x2 islands. Very useful in heists.	Common.	A Steady Shield / Unmoving rune negates this effect.
Knockback Staff	吹き飛ばしの杖	600	210	Targets hit by magic bullets will be knocked back. Throwing this staff will produce the same effect.	Target is knocked back up to 10 spaces. If it hits a wall or other obstruction, it will lose 5 HP. If it lands on a tile where it cannot stand, it will warp.	Common.	If you push one monster into another, both take 5 HP damage.
Pinning Staff	飛びつきの杖	600	210	Warp to creature or wall that the magic bullet impacted.	If you land on a tile where you can't stand (e.g. water or void), you'll warp. Pinning out of a dangerous room down an empty hallway can be an excellent way to escape danger, as can deliberately pinning onto water to warp yourself. Very useful in heists.	Common.	A Steady Shield / Unmoving rune negates this effect.
Transient Staff	一時しのぎの杖	900	315	Targets hit by magic bullets will warp to stairways or exits and be given Paralyzed status. Throwing this staff will produce the same effect.	If you use this on multiple creatures, they will pile up near the stairs, all paralyzed. If you have remote monster vision, you can use this to find the stairs.	Common.	An elaborate but very safe heist mechanism is to read an Immunity Scroll or otherwise become immune to status ailments, use a Reflective Pot, then zap any creature with a Transient Staff bolt. The bolt reflects back at you, warping you to the exit, but you don't get parayzed. No known bonus when blessed.
Seal Staff	封印の杖	1,500	525	Targets hit by magic bullets will get Sealed status. Throwing this staff will produce the same effect. (Monsters afflicted with Sealed status cannot use special attacks.)	A sealed monster cannot use special skills, and loses most passive effects. (For example, Cave Mamel and Gitan Cave Mamel lose their insanely-high defense.)	Common.	Useful as a rune ingredient.
Clone Staff	身代わりの杖	1,500	525	Targets hit by magic bullets will be given Cloned status. Throwing this staff will produce the same effect. (Monsters afflicted with Cloned status will be targeted by other monsters first.)	All enemies will try to attack the clone instead of you. Serves as a great distraction to make a getaway, but some other monster will very likely kill the clone and level up. If you use this staff again while there's already a clone, the first clone reverts to original form with Confused status and the second creature becomes a clone.	Common.	This item was called Doppelganger Staff in Shiren 1..
Paralysis Staff	かなしばりの杖	900	315	Targets hit by magic bullets will be given Paralyzed status. Throwing this staff will produce the same effect. (Paralyzed status will cause you to be unable to act until you are attacked, or hit with an item.)	Paralyzing a monster in a doorway or hallway can be a great way to make a perfectly safe room, e.g. if you want to rest for a long period of time to change day/night.	Common.	When blessed, creatures get S-Paralyzed (super paralysis) status instead of regular paralysis, which means they don't wake up from paralysis after being acted upon. [TODO: test and document how can monsters wake up from S-Paralyzed status.] Useful as a rune ingredient; see Runes for details.
Empathy Staff	痛み分けの杖	900	315	Targets hit by magic bullets will be given Empathetic status. Throwing this staff will produce the same effect. (Monsters afflicted with Empathetic status will also take damage you have taken.)	Can help kill or whittle down powerful monsters, though of course it is dangerous.	Common.	Gives the S-Empathetic status if blessed, which does twice as much damage.
Slow Staff	鈍足の杖	600	210	Targets hit by magic bullets will have their speed decreased by 1 level. Throwing this staff will produce the same effect.	Swift (can attack twice) -> Swift -> normal -> Slow Use your speed advantage by alternating between attacking and backing away.	Common.
Swift Staff	加速の杖	600	210	Targets hit by magic bullets will have their speed increased by 1 level. Throwing this staff will produce the same effect.	Slow -> Normal -> Swift -> Swift (can attack twice)	Found in some bonus dungeons.	Useful as a rune ingredient.
Glorious Staff	しあわせの杖	1,800	630	Targets hit by magic bullets will gain 1 level. Throwing this staff will produce the same effect. If you get hit while this is active, you'll gain experience points.	Day creatures change to the next higher form, or gain a suffix if they are already at level 4. Night creatures always gain a suffix / have their suffix increase. The monster is fully healed and has all status ailments removed, but at least it loses its turn. Can be very useful on certain monsters such as Mixers. If you hit an ally or yourself (using Reflection Pot), the ally or you will gain 500 experience points.	Found in some bonus dungeons.	More uses: (1) level up a Swordsman so it can knock off a cursed bracelet, (2) level up a grass-throwing monster because you're not immune to the grass it currently throws but you are immune the grass thrown by the next higher form, (3) level up a Gitan to higher forms which can still be killed with a single rock for a massive XP + gitan boost, (4) level up a monster then clone it so the clone survives longer, giving you a better chance to flee.
Unlucky Staff	不幸の杖	1,800	630	Targets hit by magic bullets will gain 1 level. Throwing this staff will produce the same effect. If you get hit while this is active, you'll gain experience points.	This also fully heals the monster, removes all status ailments, and causes the monster to lose its turn. Lets you kill or otherwise defang a monster that would otherwise be very dangerous.	Found in some bonus dungeons.	Items in Mixer monsters don't change as Mixers level down. (Except maybe when none of the items mixs with each other.)
Mage Staff	魔道の杖	600	210	Targets hit by magic bullets will be stricken with Confused, Asleep, warp, or have their speed decreased. Throwing this staff will produce the same effect.	Hit a creature to do one of 4 effects chosen at random: Confuse, Sleep, Slow, or Warp. All of these help if you're just trying to escape the creature, but they don't all help if you are trying to kill it.	Common.	If you're identifying staves by usage, Confuse, Sleep, and Warp are all unique to this staff and cannot be done by any other staff. (Transient does Warp + Paralyze, but this staff only does Warp, and you can tell the difference by paying attention to the log output.) If the effect is Slow, it could either be the Slow Staff or this staff. In practice, just name it Slow and rename it later if you find out it does multiple different things, or name it Slow? if you prefer. See Identifying Items for more info.
Electric Staff	感電の杖	1,200	420	Targets hit by magic bullets will take electrocution damage. Throwing this staff will produce the same effect. (Electrocution damage will chain to adjacent units, so be careful it doesn't hit you or your allies.)	Does 25 damage in a chain reaction, spreading in all eight directions to any adjacent creatures including Shiren, until all enemies in contact with one another have been hit. Useful for monster houses as well as Cave / Gitan Mamels.	Common.	When blessed, does 50 damage instead.
Trap Del. Staff	ワナ消しの杖	900	315	This will remove traps that the magic bullet passes through.	The magic bolt destroys any traps it travels over, although some traps cannot be removed. If it hits a creature, it does 2 damage.	Common.	When blessed, does 4 damage to creature.
Balance Staff	転ばぬ先の杖	900	315	Carry this to prevent being tripped by a Trip Trap. (if this item is inside a pot, its effect will not trigger.)	The magic bolt has no effect. Every time it prevents you from tripping, it will lose a charge. Useful in difficult post game dungeons where you want to take in multiple Preservation Pots for all your Undo Grasses and Blank Scrolls.	Common.	It can be hard to tell this apart from Ordinary Staff and Nagging Staff.
Boring Staff	トンネルの杖	1,800	630	Shoot a magic bullet at a wall to drill 10 spaces into destructible walls. Hitting a creature with the magic bullets, or throwing the staff at them will cause damage to the creature.	Does 10 damage. The dig effect only applies horizontally or vertically. The tunnel will stop if it hits anything that isn't a diggable wall. Very useful for heists; for example, dig a second exit from a shop, letting you pin with a single shot of a Pinning Staff from inside the shop to right next to the exit.	Found in some bonus dungeons.	When blessed, creatures hit will take 20 damage instead.
Fort. Staff	土塊の杖	1,800	630	Shake this to create a wall in front of you. If there are creatures, items, or traps in front of you, you cannot make a wall. Walls created by this staff can be destroyed by attacking them.	This staff does not shoot magic bolts. If waved horizontally or vertically, it will create a wall tile directly in front of Shiren. The wall will be "collapsible" type, meaning you don't need special equipment to dig through it, but any hit by Shiren will cause it to revert to open floor terrain, and this effect has a chain reaction with all orthogonally-connected collapsible wall tiles.. Very useful for blocking chokepoints to create safe rooms or just give Shiren breathing space, as well as for converting water tiles into open floor tiles e.g. to reach 2x2 islands. If used properly, also very helpful to secure getaway routes before heists.	Found in some bonus dungeons.	No known bonus when blessed. (If it actually does do 2HP damage to creatures, then this is likely doubled when blessed.) There are also rare cases where a "mysterious power" prevents it from creating a wall tile; the cause of this is unknown but it may because a trap is on that tile. [TODO: Can this staff be used to convert void/air tiles into floor? Can you cover traps or other items with walls with this staff? Double check if a bolt flies out diagonally, and what happens when you try to make walls on top of creatures, when blessed and when not blessed.] Useful as a rune ingredient; see Runes for details.
Ordinary Staff	ただの杖	900	315	The magic bullets shot by this staff have no particular effect.	The magic bolt has no effect.	Found in some bonus dungeons.	Useful as a rune ingredient.
Drama Staff	かなしばいの杖	900	315	Wave this staff to see a sad skit. If you throw this staff at someone, the tears that fill their eyes will render them completely blind.	Wave it and a short play will be acted out in dialogue boxes. There are a few different ones to watch. This staff produces no magic bolt and no effect.	Found in some bonus dungeons.	.
Sharing Staff	しわよせの杖	1,800	630	Targets hit by magic bullets will be given Empathetic status. Throwing this staff will produce the same effect. (Empathetic status will cause you to take the same damage as that creature.)	The in-game description is inaccurate: this staff inflicts Empathetic status on yourself, not the monster, even though the part in parentheses is correct. Any damage done to that creature will also be done to Shiren, no matter how far apart.	Found in some bonus dungeons.	Inflicts the S-Empathetic status on yourself if blessed, which makes you take double damage. Useful as a rune ingredient.
Staff of Sacrifice	身伐わりの杖	1,500	525	Shake the staff and the forest god that was sacrificed to make it will inflict divine retribution upon you.	This staff does not shoot magic bolts. Waving it acts as if you triggered a Log Trap, except the log comes from Shiren's left side. This is hard to use well but it can be helpful to escape a bad situation provided you can orient yourself correctly so the log hits you and knocks you away rather than hitting another creature towards you. You could theoretically use it to land on a 2x2 island provided you have a way to travel exactly 10 tiles and land on the island or provided there's a creature on the island you can bump against and still land on the island. Throwing this staff does 2 damage to the target.	Found in some bonus dungeons.	No known effect when blessed, though it's possible it knocks Shiren 20 tiles instead of 10 when blessed.
Shocking Staff	盛電の杖	1,200	420	Use this staff to deal electrocution damage to yourself. Throwing this staff will deal electrocution damage to the target. (Electrocution damage chains to adjacent creatures, including monsters.)	This staff does not shoot magic bolts. Waving it causes a chain reaction of 25 damage to all adjacent creatures, like the Electric Staff, except the chain reaction starts with Shiren. Throwing it at a creature and hitting will cause the chain reaction to start with that creature, though again it will still travel back to you if you're adjacent to any creature in the chain.	Found in some bonus dungeons.	When blessed, does 50 HP damage instead. Because of this staff exists, it is not perfectly safe to test unknown staves in difficult dungeons when Shiren does not have at least 51 HP.
Nagging Staff	転ばぬ先生の杖	900	315	While holding this, if you trip due to Trip Trap or other things, you will hear a lecture. (This effect will not trigger if this staff is inside a pot.)	Joke item that has no effect.	Found in some bonus dungeons.