Which staff do you think might be better for a game in which I'm using a stave wielding meleer Wild Mage and a party very weak in the tank department?* Firebeard +3 or Poisonkiss +3?

* Wild Mage, undualed Imoen, Xzar, Minsc (Drew's Berserker mini-mod), Tiax, Finch

Both of those weapons have their advantages. It depends on your tactic which one you should choose. Poisonkiss +3 can cause a lot of damage, but only if the target creature fails its saving throw. Firebeard causes high fire damage.

Since your protagonist is a wild mage, and I see no other character in your party who could be proficient in staves in a higher level, I suppose you want the staff for the protagonist.

If you prefer the hit and run tactic (also because your party is weak "tank-wise"), I could recommend the Poisonkiss. However, the poison needs time to take effect, so in case of more dangerous enemies, you might want to retreat after poisoning them.

When your protagonist is out of spells or just want to attack an enemy between casting two spells, these staves can be good weapons. Fiery damage is effective on several creatures, but so is poison. Choose whichever you like better or suits your style.

Thanks for starting a new topic with this, I should have seen to do so myself, apologies.

The Wild Mage will be using Jouma's enchanted staff, whichever one I end up selecting.

The THACO for a mage isn't very good to begin with. So I don't have to worry about either weapon being overpowered in this case. I would think I'll probably deliver the most damage overall with Firebeard since there's no saving throw against it. Although Poisonkiss's total 32 poison damage looks pretty devastating when it does hit and the victim fails the saving throw. Seems like a coin toss which one to use.

In terms of character concept, Poisonkiss might be more appealing to the PC because it seems to offer a higher risk-reward ratio. As a wild mage the PC (Wis 8) operates from a nutty theory about Chaos and risktaking creating opportunity. But in terms of gameplay I also want to use whichever weapon will actually be most fun.

In order to try something offbeat and challenging, my meleers are Minsc, Tiax, and the PC. Tiax and the Wild Mage both do a combination of spellcasting and meleeing (with staffs). Both the PC and Tiax spellbuff before major battles. Depending on the encounter, the PC may cast quite a few spells first before entering melee. Once I get my hands on a scroll of Ghoul Touch I'll have the PC using that spell a lot (wonderful spell for a meleeing mage).

To increase the challenge even more I'm playing with Sword Coast Stategems installed, and sure enough it has been very tough going--especially with the wild surges. But still very satisfying gameplay. The low level battles that you normally don't break a sweat on with a standard party with more tanks require some real effort to win.

As an addendum to this, I chose Poisonkiss because the higher risk-reward ratio (saving throw vs. poison damage but does severe damage when save fails) fits the character concept. But in terms of fun value, it was a mistake. It's still rather early in the game, having just returned from the Nashkel mines and now map clearing the wilderness. But a mage's THACO may never be good enough for this weapon to be hit more than once in a blue moon. Oh well, heh!

If you fight enemies who often make their save vs. death, Firebeard is a better weapon because when you manage to hit sometimes, high damage is guaranteed. Is this why you think the fiery staff would have been more fun?

Yeah, it's always fun to feel powerful in these games. There's a kind of a sweet spot for that, as we know. On the one hand you don't want to be overpowered, but neither do you want to feel like the character isn't contributing enough. Anyway, unfailingly dealing out an additional 8-19 fire damage on successful hits would work more in that direction. However, the character is a risktaker, so the prospect of occasionally doling out 32 additional damage was more appealing from a roleplaying perspective. Hopefully as the game progresses I might be able to get the THACO low enough to see that poison damage occuring once in a while.

Addendum: I went ahead and switched the Firebeard via Shadowkeeper. Chalk it up to a wild surge.

So how does Firebeard function?