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Hi all,
I am in the process of running the Razmir Trilogy of modules (Crypt of the Everflame, Masks of the Living God & City of Golden Death) and in the game, a table with rewards is presented to the players.
My Cleric got a Wand of Cure Light Wounds, which was just as well as he had used all of his Positive Channeling and his 1st level spells for CLW.
They had just made level 2, so the Paladin (not the main tank, as that was the Dwarven Fighter) still had Lay on Hands available to him.
Anyways ...
They get into a fight with a handful of skeletons, all of my players are blade users and the 5/bludgeoning of the skeletons is hurting them badly.
A skeleton attacks the Cleric and this is how it goes:
Mika Kaba (aka Mr Kaba or the Cleric):"I'm going to use my Wand of CLW to damage the skeleton"
Me (Almighty and powerful GM ... cough): "Sure, as CLW is a touch spell, you will need to make a touch attack against the skeleton"
Mika Kaba: "I am just going to fire the CLW at him"
GM: "It's a touch spell, so you will need to touch the skellie in order for the spell to go off ..."
... Chaos rules ... but they eventually go with my decision, grumbling a bit about it not really being fair ...
They at this point are only level 2.
Any comments on this (and there are rules that allow level 3 Wizards to use a wand to fire a touch spell off -- but they still have to hit) would be awesome guys ... and the modules are great, they are recommended as "Starter Modules" and I had two of my five players as either "none" or "not much" DnD experience and they both loved it ...
Mika Kaba is a VERY seasoned (old is such a nasty word :)) player, about the same age as me ...
Thanks,
Noobie
He has to touch the undead to make it work since that is how the spell works.
M.Kaba is out of luck unless the GM makes a houserule.
Yep. Nothing about wands changes the range of the spell they carry, so he has to touch the undead and hope it fails its DC 12 Will save.
I mush have been using a house-rule without realizing it. I've always played that when a wand contains a "touch" range spell (not ranged-touch), one has to touch the target WITH the wand. When a wand containing a ray spell is used, you point the wand at the (somewhat distant) target, not the finger of your other (free) hand.
Yep...you have been house ruling without knowing it. You have to hold the wand in one hand (you can have a buckler or a light shield on that hand as both allow you to hold an object with your hand) and touch with the other.
Some GMs rule that for a touch spell from a wand to work, you have to touch the target with the wand.
Heh... didn't read all the answers first. Still I want to add my voice to those who suggest wands deliver touch spells by touching the target with the wand. That not only makes sense, it's exactly the way wands work in legend and fiction.
I don't see why you couldn't just poke them with the wand.
Casting from a wand does not provoke AoO, that's one of the best things about wands.
"To activate a wand, a character must hold it in hand (or whatever passes for a hand, for nonhumanoid creatures) and point it in the general direction of the target or area."
That is the only piece that may "imply" that you can use the wand to deliver the touch (This is how I home game it and how most players expect it to work), but no where does the rules for wands say that they override the rules for the spells they contain. So oddly enough, you can cast CLW from a wand and hold the charge in you hand until you touch someone to deliver it.
There's RAW, and then what makes sense for your game.
The way I have ruled spell trigger items to work is that you're not casting the spell with the item: you're triggering the spell that's contained within the wand, and that the spell comes out of the wand. That's why using a wand doesn't provoke an AOO.
Therefore, with touch spells, you have to touch the opponent with the wand. With ranged touch spells, you have to point the wand at the target: it's basically a magic ray gun. For area spells (e.g. lightning bolt), the spell comes out of the wand.
YMMV, but this interpretation makes the most sense in my game.
Some GMs rule that for a touch spell from a wand to work, you have to touch the target with the wand.
Heh... didn't read all the answers first. Still I want to add my voice to those who suggest wands deliver touch spells by touching the target with the wand. That not only makes sense, it's exactly the way wands work in legend and fiction.
I took it for granted myself that this is how it works.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Setting aside the highly technical and marginally entertaining issue of whether the target must be touched with the wand, with the caster's hand, or with some other part of the caster's body (I recommend the prostate), the answer to the question actually asked is that your ruling was correct.
A spell cast with a wand has the same range as the spell cast normally.
Honestly, I have no idea how one could even begin to argue otherwise. Did your player have any reasoning or logic beyond "that would be convenient for me"?
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I've always allowed creatures to touch the target with the wand (or staff). Otherwise it's needless complexity.
I took it for granted myself that this is how it works.Some GMs rule that for a touch spell from a wand to work, you have to touch the target with the wand.
Heh... didn't read all the answers first. Still I want to add my voice to those who suggest wands deliver touch spells by touching the target with the wand. That not only makes sense, it's exactly the way wands work in legend and fiction.
Same, and as the rules for PF tend to try and emulate most of the classic tropes of fantasy/fiction it seems this has turned into very much a RAW vs. RAI discussion.
As for OP's questions, your ruling makes sense. There is nothing about a wand that gives it the ability to shoot. If it is a ranged spell in the wand then the magic shoots out of the tip, if it is a touch spell the "seeps" out or transfers through the tip.
For spells that are ranged and are not a ray or a cone or something visual to shoot out its different. Assuming all spells of the same level use the same amount of magical energy, powerful spells like this are high level thus powerful magic that can permeate over a distance. Low level spells like this are not very powerful thus most of the magical energy is going into making it work at a distance. This is how i imagine it at any rate.
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To the original poster:
You are correct. The wand works just like the spell. Nothing in the wand rules say "this item turns the spell into a ranged attack." Because casting CLW requires the caster to touch the target, using a wand of CLW requires the bearer to touch the target. This is the case whether they're using the spell to heal a living creature or to harm an undead creature.
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To the original poster:
You are correct. The wand works just like the spell. Nothing in the wand rules say "this item turns the spell into a ranged attack." Because casting CLW requires the caster to touch the target, using a wand of CLW requires the bearer to touch the target. This is the case whether they're using the spell to heal a living creature or to harm an undead creature.
So would I need to poke the target with the wand, or does the spell charge me up and I need to touch them with my hand? (This is important if I miss and therefore have a held charge and then drop the wand for some reason, such as being disarmed.)
So would I need to poke the target with the wand, or does the spell charge me up and I need to touch them with my hand? (This is important if I miss and therefore have a held charge and then drop the wand for some reason, such as being disarmed.)To the original poster:
You are correct. The wand works just like the spell. Nothing in the wand rules say "this item turns the spell into a ranged attack." Because casting CLW requires the caster to touch the target, using a wand of CLW requires the bearer to touch the target. This is the case whether they're using the spell to heal a living creature or to harm an undead creature.
Good question.
See my previous comment.
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I have always ruled that you can hold a wand and touch the enemy with the back of your hand, or elbow, or foot, nose, breats, reproductive organ of choice... it requires a touch, no need to overcomplicate things.
AND my players would immeditely add some spike to the wand^^
EDIT: Don't forget that the will save from a level 1 wand will be anything but bad even against low level undead. So encourage your players to get something more blunt... of show them an executioners axe ^^
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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AND my players would immeditely add some spike to the wand^^
But, at that point, you need to make a regular attack, not a touch attack, to inflict damage. The more common case is the monk/caster, who has a touch spell and wants to deliver it via a foot to the head. If the GM is feeling generous, they might consider an attack that hits touch AC but misses full AC as discharging the spell on the target, but not inflicting any other damage.
But, at that point, you need to make a regular attack, not a touch attack, to inflict damage. The more common case is the monk/caster, who has a touch spell and wants to deliver it via a foot to the head. If the GM is feeling generous, they might consider an attack that hits touch AC but misses full AC as discharging the spell on the target, but not inflicting any other damage.
This would be generous houseruling when comparing to the regular rules that explicitly states that when character uses unarmed strike to deliver held touch spell charge he either hits on a normal melee attack and deals damage and delivers the spell or misses the full AC and neither deals damage nor discharges the spell held.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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This would be generous houseruling when comparing to the regular rules that explicitly states that when character uses unarmed strike to deliver held touch spell charge he either hits on a normal melee attack and deals damage and delivers the spell or misses the full AC and neither deals damage nor discharges the spell held.
Thanks - I remembered reading the ruling (miss on normal attack = no touch spell discharge) way back in the early days of 3.0 in Sage Advice, and didn't know if it had officially been incorporated into the rules or not.
I often forget and look for that rule in magic rules while it is stated in combat section under touch spells in combat in part about holding the charge.
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A spell cast with a wand has the same range as the spell cast normally.
Honestly, I have no idea how one could even begin to argue otherwise. Did your player have any reasoning or logic beyond "that would be convenient for me"?
@Sebastion I think you're on the right track there Sebastion, it would have been convenient for them :)
Players -- you design a game to go to X, and they head to A :)
Well ... I was expecting maybe a couple of responses, but the response has been overwhelming ... thanks all :)
Oh to that bloke Sean K Reynolds -- you seem to know what you're talking about, so I'll pass this onto my players.
Once again, thanks everyone :0
Noobie