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I thought about a nice little change to how wands work, making them a little more "random", and also reducing how often how much you can/have to count charges. Also, it's another use of the d12!
Remove charges, replace by a dice. A newly crafted wand starts as a d12; whenever you use the wand, roll the dice. If you roll a 1, the dice gets down-sized one step (to d10, d8, d6, d4). When it's at a d4 and you roll 1, the wand is out.
The average number of uses of the wand is reduced to 40. To compensate, you could go with that a roll of the maximum on the wand casts the spell at caster level +1. That way, the wand is most reliable when it's newly crafted - but the more it's used, the more unstable it gets, increasing chances both of it failing and of it releasing more power than intended.
Mr. Fishy approves. He will try that a little and see how it works. Mr. Fishy's Torllop likes to play sorcerers [infernal].
Huh cool idea. I'd be fine with this for wands captured/taken, but I would have to set some minimum for player created wands, just so they don't a 6 charge wand at full price, ya know?
Huh cool idea. I'd be fine with this for wands captured/taken, but I would have to set some minimum for player created wands, just so they don't a 6 charge wand at full price, ya know?
The chance of that happening though, is 1/23000, not really an issue I think.
But yes, I can see your point - it'd be irritating to have it go up after 10 or 15 uses.
Actually, I would go the other way around.
When you roll a 1, the spell is cast at CL +1, empowered, or maximized or something, and the wand is reduced in power as a result of the extra released energy.
Actually, I would go the other way around.
When you roll a 1, the spell is cast at CL +1, empowered, or maximized or something, and the wand is reduced in power as a result of the extra released energy.
Yeah, that's a good idea.
As for the exact effect when you roll a 1, I make that decided when the wand is crafted.
Because
For a level 10 wand of fireball, +1 caster level isn't really that helpful, but empower spell would be great.
For a level 3 wand of invisibility, empower spell would be worthless, but extend spell would be good.
I would make a short list of effects
+1 caster level
empower spell
extend spell
heighten spell(increase the DC by 2)
enlarge spell
widen spell
The effect is decided at craft time.
I would love to put the widen spell effect on a level 5 wand of fireball treasure. The wizard who is used to landing AoE spells right next to allies suddenly fries some of his friends maybe even himself.
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As for the exact effect when you roll a 1, I make that decided when the wand is crafted.
Because
For a level 10 wand of fireball, +1 caster level isn't really that helpful, but empower spell would be great.
For a level 3 wand of invisibility, empower spell would be worthless, but extend spell would be good.
I would make a short list of effects
+1 caster level
empower spell
extend spell
heighten spell(increase the DC by 2)
enlarge spell
widen spellThe effect is decided at craft time.
I like! I think I will introduce it on a wand found as loot and see how the players like it. I know the party Sorcerer will be scratching her head from the moment she casts identify and finds it does not have charges.
As for the exact effect when you roll a 1, I make that decided when the wand is crafted.
I wouldn't let the crafter choose. I see the "increased power" as a side effect that may be beneficial from a balance viewpoint, but ingame it should be seen as a bit dangerous.
This is a really interesting idea. Have you tried using it in play yet?
Either way, I'm intrigued and would like to give them a try in one of my games. :)
That's a really cool idea. I'm hoping to try it out. It makes more sense to me than having a flat 50 charges.
Ooh, this is really cool! Feels like wild magic, except not as flat-out crazy.
Easy conversion for partially-depleted wands in modules, etc. --
Charges left:
1-4 = d4
5-10 = d6
11-18 = d8
19-28 = d10
29+ = d12
A surge should always be a positive effect (and relevant to the spell)... what's relevant varies enough that no single chart will work, but I do think it should be something the player can't know until it happens (even if they created it), maybe even different with each surge. Also, it should be pretty damn cool. ;) So my basic list would be:
PICK ANY TWO
+2 caster level (can be picked twice)
Heightened +1 (can be picked twice)
Enlarged
Extended
Widened
Empowered (counts as two picks)
I so wish you'd suggested this during the beta test period. :)
I completely agree that a die roll of 1 should give a bonus while it reduces the wand's reliability.
My suggestion:
Quicken Spell, plus Extended Spell (for duration based castings) and Empowered Spell (for damage related/healing castings.)
This is just fantastic!
Our group in particular doesn't have much issue with tracking charges, but this makes wands more fun anyhow. More dice rolling, and less stat tracking sounds good to me.
+1 from me for what its worth :)
This is a really interesting idea. Have you tried using it in play yet?
Either way, I'm intrigued and would like to give them a try in one of my games. :)
Monte Cook introduced a similar system in his Dungeon A Day series which we adopted as a house rule. I think his variant started wands at a 2% chance on 1d100, then down to a 1 on 1d20 (5%), and finally 1 on 1d10 (10%). I personally like this variant both as a GM and as a player because tracking charges is far less of a pain, but it does have consequences.
The first and most obvious of these is that the efficacy of your wands now comes down to luck. Some of my players got really lucky with this system - the party managed to make it through some tough situations without a healer, for example, because both the party's ranger and bard could use a Cure Moderate Wounds wand, and the Ranger player always seemed to roll high on his checks (though that luck ran out after one really bad combat!). But for people who chronically roll poorly, this system sucks. There is nothing worse than spending full price on a wand and seeing it fizzle out after three rolls just because of bad luck.
My only complaint with this rule variant, as a player, is that I don't want to spend full price (market OR creation) on a wand that could potentially fizzle with three bad die rolls. I think the system is great for dealing with wands found as treasure, though.
Some ideas for reducing the impact of this house rule on play:
1. Wizards who choose a wand as their bonded object should be exempt from this rule. I think it's fine to penalize classes such as rangers, bards, and paladins who aren't primarily casters with a wand failure chance, and thematically I even see grounds for making sorcerers roll it out since they eschew material-based magic as an inherent class feature.
2. Allow a character who spends a move action readying his wand blast a Spellcraft check to avoid the deterioration effect. A DC of 15 + double the spell level strikes me as appropriate.
Good you necro'ed this, I hadn't read it.
I'm going to try this out in my game.
As for the exact effect when you roll a 1, I make that decided when the wand is crafted.
Because
For a level 10 wand of fireball, +1 caster level isn't really that helpful, but empower spell would be great.
For a level 3 wand of invisibility, empower spell would be worthless, but extend spell would be good.
I would make a short list of effects
+1 caster level
empower spell
extend spell
heighten spell(increase the DC by 2)
enlarge spell
widen spellThe effect is decided at craft time.
I would love to put the widen spell effect on a level 5 wand of fireball treasure. The wizard who is used to landing AoE spells right next to allies suddenly fries some of his friends maybe even himself.
+1 CL, or a Metamagic effect that increases a Spell's level by 1 slot (including Heightening by only 1) costs the same as normal. Multiply the cost of crafting the wand by 1.5 for each level of Metamagic effect chosen above 1.
For example:A wand that creates an Empowered effect on a natural 1 costs 50% more than a standard wand, as would a +2 to caster level, or Heightening the spell 2 slots higher than normal. Meanwhile, a wand that creates a Quickened effect on a natural 1 costs 200% more than a standard wand, as would a +4 to caster level, or Heightening the spell 4 slots higher than normal.
Perhaps increase the 'Level' of the wand by the same amount as the Metamagic feat?
No. I would never trust the lifespan of my magic items to a die roll. In my last session alone I rolled 3 1s for healing with a CLW wand, and over my alchemist's lifespan I never rolled higher than a 3 on health. It sounds cool, but with my ridiculous bad luck I'd never get anything done.