my stick, my stick, my stick is better than bacon!

you're correct that the staff needs material components. It would be stated otherwise if it didn't need it. Usually to the effect of "you can use this staff to cast these spells without material components or expending spellslots"

Hey, just wanted to let you know that RAW,  the opposite is actually true. Yeah, it's funky. As per chapter 7 of the DMG under Magic Items -> Activating an Item (emphasis mine):

Spells

Some magic items allow the user to cast a spell from the item, often by expending charges from it. The spell is cast at the lowest possible spell and caster level, doesn’t expend any of the user’s spell slots, and requires no components unless the item’s description says otherwise. The spell uses its normal casting time, range, and duration, and the user of the item must concentrate if the spell requires concentration. Many items, such as potions, bypass the casting of a spell and confer the spell’s effects with their usual duration. Certain items make exceptions to these rules, changing the casting time, duration, or other parts of a spell.

 Also perhaps even more interestingly, the last line mentions that certain items make exceptions, such as changing the casting time, and that's one of the reasons staff of the woodlands is so bonkers in my opinion. Since it specifically says, "You can use an action to expend 1 or more of the staff's charges to cast one of the following spells from it...", and awaken is listed as one of those spells, RAW, it changes the casting time from 8 hours to just a single action and ignores the 1,000 gp component.

Anyway, I don't mean to be confrontational, and you are perfectly within your right to change the magic item to prevent legitimately worrying shenanigans with it. Just wanted to let you know, if we're going by the rules, magic items would have to instead state when they did require material components or spell slots, as otherwise it's assumed they don't.

Today I just killed a group of 5x full HP Orcs with my level 3 druid with a wall of thorns in a bottleneck fight. They all failed their saves. Rolled 42 on Piercing Damage. Would totally make Orc smoothies in a thorn blender again. 10 out of 10.

On a side note: Can you still cast spells while the staff is in Tree Form? Action: Cast Tree Form; Next Action: Cast awaken? Would this be workable?

I do not think that you can cast spells from it while it is in tree form as “You can use an action to expend 1 or more of the staff's charges” which I take to mean only the staff not the tree.

in my current campaign i have given this item to my villain. he's a malevolent fey who is currently using it to awaken animals in his wake; forcing them to come to grips with the horrors and realities that unless he awakens more of their kind the will forever be alone among other things. like a pack of hyena's that only had the females awakened and them forcing them to do his bidding if they ever wanted the male's to be awakened giving them true companionship.  the other was a large boar that when awakened realized that his people were being hunted/captured and penned up. having lost his mate and children to hunters he now sought vengeance against the humanoid races claiming them to be a parasite on the natural world.  its been a great way to show the bbeg's cruelty mostly because he has no intention of actually helping the beasts he leaves them to suffer with their curse, adds a great marker for the party saying bbeg was here, and on top of it all give the party a little more pause when hunting; like what moral issue am i going to have to face to get dinner. all thanks to this staff

Staff casting is really the only way Awaken becomes viable in game, a 1000 gp agate would be several feet across and the 8 hour casting time without distraction would take at least a day in game to set up and execute. It's definitely OP, but it's also a great weapon to give to an NPC to explain in game situations for rule sticklers. I'm prepping Storm King's Thunder for a group that has already read through every adventure, for the Weevil encounter I'm using an awakened giant weasel as a red herring, the explanation being that the spell was used as battlefield medicine after the now former adventurer got a barkburr to the knee. It's also the only way to rationally explain why an awakened bush would exist.

I play a 5th level Druid in my group's second campaign (ran by another player of the first) that will start up sometime this summer since the campaign's DM finished school, my Druid has this item and dang is it strong after reading through, I originally just got it because in the art piece I had done of the Druid he had a staff that looked almost exactly like this item, so I am gonna have to try and limit his usage of the staff to desperate situations xD Which fits with his character anyway, he only casts spells to help others as that his his personality, so him just summoning a giant thorny wall to eviscerate enemies or forcing a beast to become sentient doesn't fit his moral views lol.

i am very, very tempted to bring up this item with my dm and get my variant feral tiefling rogue arcane trickster 9 one level in druid for the express intent of always getting at least a 24 on my stealth rolls for an entire hour. then again soon i wont be able to fail the roll since i always get at least a 10 on every roll, then a 23 total for an automatic success. although the promise of a +23 to any and all of my stealth checks just sounds like the ultimate flex.

I gave it to a level 2 character who wasn’t a Druid and it changed everything for that player and she reshaped her whole character. I had her unlock the different spells as she gained spells of those levels to keep balance and made for a great arc.

At the end of the first sentence is written “ you have a +2 bonus to spell attack rolls”.

does it mean only for melee spell attack rolls? If not why it doesn’t give me the +2 on chill touch, but it give me the +2 on thorn whip?
Can anyone help me?

see you and thanks

according to the DMG "Some magic items allow the user to cast a spell from the item, often by expending charges from it. The spell is cast at the lowest possible spell and caster level, doesn’t expend any of the user’s spell slots, and requires no components unless the item’s description says otherwise. The spell uses its normal casting time, range, and duration, and the user of the item must concentrate if the spell requires concentration." --- that is under the magic items text. sadly, it still requires the normal casting time xx

there's always a 5% chance you'd break the staff, and you can only do 2 casts of awaken max per day. 

Only if you expend the last charge if I am reading this right:  "If you expend the last charge, roll a d20. On a 1, the staff loses its properties and becomes a nonmagical quarterstaff."

While this staff requires attunement by a Druid to access the spells, Would a Fighter or a ranger be able to equip it and still get the +2 quarterstaff not knowing about the druidic powers until later identified? asking for... story reasons.

Quote from spl00gesurprise >>

according to the DMG "Some magic items allow the user to cast a spell from the item, often by expending charges from it. The spell is cast at the lowest possible spell and caster level, doesn’t expend any of the user’s spell slots, and requires no components unless the item’s description says otherwise. The spell uses its normal casting time, range, and duration, and the user of the item must concentrate if the spell requires concentration." --- that is under the magic items text. sadly, it still requires the normal casting time xx

 

 

Beyond 20

 

 

 

 

 

I think you may have missed something really important in the item's description.

"You can use an action to expend 1 or more of the staff's charges to cast one of the following spells from it, using your spell save DC:"

Right there, is the item's description saying otherwise in regards to the casting time of the spell.

... but is says you use an action to expend a charge - not to cast the spell. Expending the charge allows you the ability to cast the spell surely - but would still need the components and time for the spell to actually be cast.

magic items are" done with the feets" like we say in france. You DM must change the way they work to keep thegame balanced that's all ...

Using the staff to cast Awaken on itself while in tree form is a very fun/broken idea that I hadn't considered before. But no one else seems to have mentioned one of my thoughts for using/breaking this staff.

Step 1, be an 11th level druid. Step 2, give this staff to another druid and tell them to turn it into a tree at point X by time Y. Step 3, cast Transport via Plants to teleport you and all of your buddies to point X.

Basically just combo the staff with Transport via Plants.

The tree form I think can lead to pretty interesting scenarios. Imagine the druid stumbling in the forest and notice that one of the trees are not like the others. Check the tree and boom! a free magic staff!