Will staffs have long range projectile auto attacks or they'll be just blunt weapons and effectively act only as item for boosting stats? And if there will be projectile aa - will they be absolutely cost free or will they still consume minimal ammount of our mana. What about other weapons in the hands of a caster - will "certain edged one-handed weapons" create low dmg, mid range aoe blasts?
Ideally physical weapons will work like ...physical weapons. Usable only at close range.
Any caster damage abilities will have specified ranges, amounts of damage, casting times, mana requirements and the like but unless the particular ability requires a weapon it will be independent of such.
That is not to say that rare and valuable items may not have magical abilities as in the ability to cast magic missle twice a day (quite possibly becoming useless after its charges are used up).