I'm not a fan of how wands are designed. The 50-then-gone mechanic really bugs me. So, I took it upon myself to try and redesign them.
My new basis? Staves. While I hate how wands work, I love the way staves function. They're a pool of power that can release said power through spells that eat their charges.
Concept: Wands are, essentially, mini-staves. They have a total of 5 charges in them (as opposed to the staff's 10) and 1 or more spells (max. level 4) are built into the wand, each consuming a number of charges to cast. When all charges are gone, the wand is not useless, just inert until it is recharged. The cost to create said wand is 1/2 the cost to create a comparable staff.
Execution:
200 x spell level x caster level gp for highest level spell in wand.
150 x spell level x caster level gp for second-highest level spell in wand.
100 x spell level x caster level gp for all other spells in wand.
Each time a spell is cast from the wand, it eats up a number of charges, chosen in its creation. Divide the spell's price (given above) by the number of charges it consumes.
Wands are recharged the same way as staves. The caster sacrifices 1 spell slot equal to the highest level spell in the wand at the beginning of the day to recharge 1 charge in the wand.
Example: We'll use a simple Cure Light Wounds wand as an example.
A level 1 cure light wounds wand would cost 200 gp to create (200 x 1 x 1), or 400 to purchase. It would have 5 charges, and 1 spell (cure light wounds) that consumes 1 charge each time it is cast, meaning it can be used 5 times before needing to be recharged.
This creates a wand that cannot be used to spam-heal the party at the end of each combat, but can be used throughout the cycle of a campaign, as opposed to a few sessions before it's a stick you toss in the trash.
Feat: In addition to the change, I am lowering the Caster Level requirement on the Craft Wand feat to 3, allowing low-level parties easier access to them.
Thoughts?
-The Beast
Very interesting.
Now you've got me thinking.
If the spellcasting can use your caster level as opposed to the want level than I like the idea.
Although I like the current wand function (50 than gone) for other things. It'd be nice if they had a new item name for the mini-staff that you're looking to make.
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A nice idea. But will it work?
So you can't spam heal?
800 GP and you buy 2 wands for 10 CLW. That is 50 GP extra and how often do you use >10 charges in a single adventure? But now you recharge during downtimes and over the lifetime of an adventurer you safe money.
And if you are higher level? 4000 gp for 10 wands and you are back to square 1. The group is still doing spam healing. If they need that many healing in one go it means they also buy a new wand each adventure with the original wand rules.
So in adventure 6 you have a positive return on Investment. I dint want to discourage you - but players will find ways around what bugs you most.
Thod
I don't see any real purpose for this. Like Thod, I think the only way you can prevent spam healing is by preventing it with a ref diktat. Wands have a function and if you don't like it as ref you can ban it or change it in any way you like. But the magic item creation rules can already break a game, creating a new form of magic item which is highly flexible at comparitively low levels creates a new game breaking risk.
Just saying.
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Is the math correct?
What about a wand of fireballs?
200 * 3 * 5 = 3000 gp for a wand that can cast 5 fireballs (level 5)
Seems a steal at that price.
Now we do spam fireballing.
As comparison: a Neclace of Fireballs type II has 5 beads, 2*2d6, 2*4d6 and 1*6d6.
So for an extra 300 gp I get 25 instead of 18 dice of fireball damage and it's reusable ...
A staff of fire for 18950 can only cast 3 fire balls (and would have one charge left for burning hands). To be fair - these fireballs would get higher in level with my wizard.
Still ...
Thod
You know I don't mind the basic idea -- however to make it something other than simply a 'small staff' why don't we do the following:
Wand:
1 spell of 4th level of less
20 charges
1 charge -- minimum caster level minimum DC
2 charges -- caster level +2 DC +1
3 charges -- caster level +4 DC +2
5 charges -- caster level +6 DC +3
This way it's still a more limited item than the staff but you can choose how much 'juice' you put into each shot.
Having a recharge mechanic on it doesn't really hurt my feelings any.
You know I don't mind the basic idea -- however to make it something other than simply a 'small staff' why don't we do the following:
Wand:
1 spell of 4th level of less
20 charges
1 charge -- minimum caster level minimum DC
2 charges -- caster level +2 DC +1
3 charges -- caster level +4 DC +2
5 charges -- caster level +6 DC +3This way it's still a more limited item than the staff but you can choose how much 'juice' you put into each shot.
Having a recharge mechanic on it doesn't really hurt my feelings any.
I like this, and am totally open to ideas. Basically, I wanted to get away from the 50-then-gone mechanic, and emulating the staff seemed like a simple way to do it.
Maybe integrate a recharge mechanic somewhere along the lines of "Sacrifice 1 spell/spell slot at the beginning of the day, restore a number of charges equal to the level of the spell sacrificed."
Also...I wonder if the 2 charges for +2, 3 for +4, and 5 for +6 aren't a little...I don't want to say arbitrary, but it seems simpler to add in a mechanic that says "You can spend multiple charges in order to increase the caster level and save DC of the spell. For each extra charge spent, increase the caster level of the spell by 1 and the save DC by 1/2 (rounded down). One can only spend a maximum of 5 charges with any given use of a wand."
But I really like this idea. Much more effective than my own which, as Thod pointed out, has some pretty major problems.
-The Beast
EDIT: Maybe adding in a "Maximum Caster Level" mechanic wouldn't be a bad idea, either.
I like it. However, i'd alter it slightly. I've been using dice-based wands for quite some time now; a full wand starts at 1d10, every time you use it you roll a die and on a 1 the dice size is lowered by one. When you roll 1d3 and roll a 1, the wand is finally burnt out.
These two ideas seem to mach well. Why not let wands have a simple charged/uncharged mechanic? Instead of having 5 charges, every time you use a wand you roll 1d6. On a 1, the wand goes out and has to be recharged.
The effects of this are:
- Magic is more unreliable. Sometimes you can get a LOT out of the same wand, sometimes you'll only be able to use it once before it runs out of juice.
- Less bookkeeping. Either a wand is on, or it's off.
- More dice-rolling. Whether you like this or not may depend. As a caster, I like getting to roll sometimes as many things you do are quite uncertain.
Also, as has been noted by others, regardless I'd heighten the price a little bit. 300/200/100 is probably better than 200/150/100.
EDIT: If you wanna go REAL wild 'n' crazy on the dice rolling, here's an idea:
Whenever you use a wand, roll two d6's. If they don't show up the same, the spell works as normal. If they both show the same number, the wand gets inactivated, and the spell is cast at a caster level of -3 + the rolled number. So double 6'es mean the wand is out, cast spell at CL+3. Double wands is wand is out, cast spell at CL-2 (which means standard 1st level wands fail because of CL-1 total).
I too despise machine-gun wands and prefer the more flavorful "staff-like" concepts. I'll read this thread more in-depth once I get home from work but in short, I've planned to do something like this whenever I run a campaign again anyway.
Okay, so this is a new idea, based off of Abraham Spalding's concept.
Concept: A wand carries a single spell of up to 4th level. It also has 20 charges that must be spent to cast the spell.
Thus, charges are spent like:
1 charge: lowest CL and lowest DC
2 charges: +1 CL, +0 DC
3 charges: +2 CL, +1 DC
4 charges: +3 CL, +1 DC
5 charges: +4 CL, +2 DC
You cannot increase the spell's caster level higher than your own caster level. If its minimum caster level is higher than your own, you can still spend 1 charge to use it at its minimum strength.
Additionally, you can recharge a wand once per day by sacrificing a prepared spell or spell slot for that day. This restores a number of charges equal to the level of the spell sacrificed.
Pricing: This is the only area where things get fuzzy. In the standard wand rules, the price is:
Spell Level x Caster Level x 750 gp
In the new version, however, there is no universal caster level. So should it be:
Spell Level x Minimum Caster Level x 750 gp
to keep with standard pricing, and then just let the chips fall where they may as far as dealing with powerful, if more limited wands? Or should there be a new pricing system altogether?
-The Beast
P.S. - I also like Stringburka's idea, and wouldn't mind using it to add flavor. It does feel a little wild magicy, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But I'm not sure if it's what I'm looking for.
I'm loving Stringburka's idea and think we have a great combination staring us in the face:
Wands are 4th level or under.
Use it then roll a d10 if it comes up a 1 then the wand is dead until fixed (aka it gains the broken quality and needs repaired and recharged).
The wand user can up the chances of the wand failing to increase the caster level and DC of the wand.
wand fails on a 1 or 2 you get a +2 on caster level
wand fails on a 1, 2 or 3 you get a +4 on caster level +1 on DC
wand fails on a 1~4 you get a +5 on caster level +2 on DC
Diminishing returns (since there is only so much the wand can manage anyways) but you can choose to take desperate measures if needed.