ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

While the staff itself is crazily good, the only obstacle to obtain this prodigy had been the abysmal drop rates for all the parts in a single game. The rates are increased in 1.6, however the chance to gather all the parts before the endgame is still not guaranteed.

In a contrast, its melee counterpart (Legacy of the Narolen) is guaranteed and there are a number of builds going around it. So, why can't we revamp the staff prodigy in a same way?

Changes: the prodigy itself can be obtained without requirements.

Crystal part will NOT be dropped anywhere in the game, instead the player will find it in the wilderness soon after taking this prodigy. After combining the crystal with mundane staff, the voice of Telos will tell you the secrets to find the remaining parts of the staff.

Spoilers: the top part will be found in the ancient elven ruins, and the bottom part will be found in the ruins of Telmur (both will be randomly dropped without prodigy, but with it they'll become guaranteed drop)

The complete staff can be assembled without spending the prodigy point.


The voice of Telos is already a powerful item (stats can be found in https://te4.org/wiki/Voice_of_Telos) which is sufficient to serve the character from level 25 to the point where it'll come back to west to visit the ruins of Telmur. A nice boost to the character power in the mid-game.

Other parts of the staff will still be dropped randomly, for the sake of proc builds - As in normal often they are the only t5 short staves found in the entire game.

That's such a good idea, and I am sure an predictable way to get that staff will be a very good news.

However, i am a bit curious about the zone choice.
Lorewise it would be strange that the staff of a powerful human mage in Age of Dusk is hidden in an elven ruin that had been sealed since Age of Allure.
Also, the bottom part is already a guranteed drop in ruins of Telmur in current version, and the top part is also in Telos's hand with 25% chance, so why not directly get it from its master?

I am also not sure about if I can retrieve my Telos's Staff Crystal, after I have already merged it onto a staff. If so, it would not be very promising. Even with that staff however, when comparing with other prodigies that give you a major power spike upon learning, the crystal forged staff is not attractive enough, so people may still won't take that after returning from east.

I would love it if this was a sorta guaranteed drop, or at least not as ridiculously rare to attain as it currently is.

I actually like the idea of getting the Staff Crystal from the prodigy itself, since both it and the item crafted from it are quite strong, especially given how Voice of Telos actually rolls egos in addition to it's base stats, making it powerful indeed.

That being said, i concur with Starsapphire on how we could also just keep the current droplocations for the top and bottom half and be fine with it.

Welp. I was totally confused that Telos was one of the elves who did mummified experiments. As you said the top part should be dropped from himself directly.

Also, for the retrieval - can't it get a same measure with crystal focus/heart? (Became retrievable, breaks original item)

if you could assemble the whole staff without the prodigy the prodigy would be kind of a waste for some characters, like worldly knowledge was before they added 5 generic points to it

The crystal part will only be dropped after taking the prodigy. Thus you'll still need to take the prodigy to get the staff - the only difference is that now all three parts are guaranteed in a single game.