More than one spell on a wand?


Rules Questions

Liberty's Edge

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Can a wand hold more than one spell? RAI I presume not since I have never seen one published but RAW is it legitimate? Would it be broken to allow?


RAW only allows a single spell to be in a wand.

Having multiple spells in a wand might be seen by some as encroaching into the staff's territory.

I'm not a big fan of the current wand/staff/wondrous item mechanic and I have no problem with modifying them where it makes sense. But that is house rules territory.


RAW, not allowed.

Allowing a wand to be crafted with two seperate stacks of charges for different spells, I could be convined to allow.

Allowing a wand to hold two different spells and cast them together with one standard action, NO WAY!

Subverting the action economy is a big no-no IMO.

Liberty's Edge

Claxon wrote:
Allowing a wand to hold two different spells and cast them together with one standard action, NO WAY!

I would never suggest that, thinking more along the lines of a swiss army wand that I could charge up with different spells like knock and grease and keep as a bonded item.

Edit: " Fortunately, it is possible to enhance or build upon an existing magic item. Only time, gold, and the various prerequisites required of the new ability to be added to the magic item restrict the type of additional powers one can place."

why woukd wands be excluded from this?


Yes, because I believe that quote applies specifically to wondrous items only.

Also, you seem to be a bit confused about how wands work. You do not "charge up" wands barring some special ability I don't know of. When it runs out of the initial 50 charges it's as worthless as a stick. Literally.

Quote:
A wand is a thin baton that contains a single spell of 4th level or lower. A wand has 50 charges when created—each charge allows the use of the wand's spell one time. A wand that runs out of charges is just a stick. The price of a wand is equal to the level of the spell × the creator's caster level × 750 gp. If the wand has a material component cost, it is added to the base price and cost to create once for each charge (50 × material component cost). Table: Wands gives sample prices for wands created at the lowest possible caster level for each spellcasting class. Note that some spells appear at different levels for different casters. The level of such spells depends on the caster crafting the wand.

Liberty's Edge

Claxon wrote:

Yes, because I believe that quote applies specifically to wondrous items only.

Also, you seem to be a bit confused about how wands work. You do not "charge up" wands barring some special ability I don't know of. When it runs out of the initial 50 charges it's as worthless as a stick. Literally.

Quote:
A wand is a thin baton that contains a single spell of 4th level or lower. A wand has 50 charges when created—each charge allows the use of the wand's spell one time. A wand that runs out of charges is just a stick. The price of a wand is equal to the level of the spell × the creator's caster level × 750 gp. If the wand has a material component cost, it is added to the base price and cost to create once for each charge (50 × material component cost). Table: Wands gives sample prices for wands created at the lowest possible caster level for each spellcasting class. Note that some spells appear at different levels for different casters. The level of such spells depends on the caster crafting the wand.

you spend the gold and time and recraft it, you can use the same stick. This mostly comes into play for a wizard who uses a wand for his arcane bond.


Right, but you're going to be waiting until you use up all the charges in the wand before you can craft it into a new one. And you must always have the wand in your hand to cast a spell.

And now I understand why you want to allow wands to have multiple spells held in it.

Now that I understand the reasoning, I would actually have to say no. I wouldn't allow this and RAW doesn't support it.

Liberty's Edge

My issue comes with the fact that someone could just pick an amulet as their bonded item and do exactly what I want to do, but two levels earlier and without having to hold it in their hands because it is wondrous.

Addendum: The passage I quoted was not just for wondrous, it was under the general heading and used a weapon as an example.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Coridan wrote:
My issue comes with the fact that someone could just pick an amulet as their bonded item and do exactly what I want to do, but two levels earlier and without having to hold it in their hands because it is wondrous.

That's not true. Wondrous items fall under that wonderful area known as GM purview. A good GM will not allow a wondrous item to encroach into areas that would staves, wands, and scrolls useless.


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Seeing that there doesn't appear to be a specific bonus for the type of item used, it would appear that choosing a wand over an item that isn't held is mechanically a sub-par. That is not necessarily a problem. Not all choices in this game are made to be equal.


As a GM I have a fundamental problem with the whole idea that "encroaching into areas that would make staves, wands and scrolls useless" is the "right" way to address magic item creation. In fact I'd call that pure metagaming.

The issue to deal with is balance. That's all. If you end up with a rechargable wand able to cast three different spells, I don't even care if it replaces a staff, so long as the investment and impact of the wand is balanced.

But again, we are in "house rules" territory now, not Rules.


RAW only allow a single spell per wand, but I don't think having a wand that can cast multiple spells would alter the game balance much.

If one of my players asked I would probably tack on some kind of cost increase for the convenience of having multiple spells in the same wand.

(Cost of Wand with Spell A + Cost of Wand with Spell B) * 1.1 = Final Cost

I'd probably tack on another 10% per spell so a wand that could hold 4 spells would be the total of the individual wands * 1.4. That way it would be progressively more expensive the more spells you shove in a single wand. Of course you could adjust the additional cost to your liking for your game until you felt it was balanced.

This also assumes that each spell has its own separate charges, if they are going to share the same 50 charges then I would price it out as the most expensive individual wand * the multiplier.

Staves and scrolls are still significantly different enough for me that I wouldn't have an issue with this.


Why not just use a staff? It does what you're talking about. The only part thats not as good is you don't have as many charges and you would need to recharge it every day to keep it topped off.

Liberty's Edge

Claxon wrote:
Why not just use a staff? It does what you're talking about. The only part thats not as good is you don't have as many charges and you would need to recharge it every day to keep it topped off.

You can not craft one until level 11 for one.

I am pretty much convinced that you can only create a wand woth one spell on it, but can add other effects to it like any other magic item, including a spell trigger fifty charges effect.

Silver Crusade

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A wand only contains one spell. If it doesn't then it's not a wand in terms of magic item rules.

Swiss Army Wand = Staff

Changing the appearance/form of a magic item is okay. So you could make a staff that looks like a wand, just so long as it obeys every single game mechanic that applies to staffs:

Starts with 10 charges
Uses the spell trigger activation method
To activate it, a character must hold it forth in at least one hand
Uses the wielder's ability score and relevant feats to set the DC for saves against their spells. Unlike with other sorts of magic items, the wielder can use his caster level when activating the powers
Can recharge like a staff
Most importantly, is priced as a magic staff, both to create and to buy

Since a Bonded Item can be a staff, I see no problem in making look like a wand as long as it still uses the rules of a magic staff.

Liberty's Edge

Malachi Silverclaw wrote:


Since a Bonded Item can be a staff, I see no problem in making look like a wand as long as it still uses the rules of a magic staff.

The fact you can't do anything magical with it the first ten levels is a bit of a dealbreaker.

Silver Crusade

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Coridan wrote:
Malachi Silverclaw wrote:


Since a Bonded Item can be a staff, I see no problem in making look like a wand as long as it still uses the rules of a magic staff.
The fact you can't do anything magical with it the first ten levels is a bit of a dealbreaker.

It's a factor, sure, but Bonded Items can already be things that can't be enchanted until higher levels, like a ring (7th) or, indeed, a staff.

Is it really the case that wizards never choose a staff or a ring as their Bonded Object, on the grounds that they have to wait until later to enchant it?

Can't wizards change Bonded Objects at a minimal cost (for a 7th or 11th level PC)? They could easily swap to a staff-like wand when they hit 11th level, while still benefitting from actual wand rules (single spell only) from 5th to 10th.


My wizards choose rings all the time. They're hard to lose or sunder and I can only wear two magic rings, so i'd hate to blow a feat just to make them.

Whereas Craft wand/Staff is worth it because you can have and use multiple of those.

With a bonded ring I can make 1/2 my ring slot's without burning a feat. At low levels you effectively just act like a wizard without a bond.


The usual rule for items with multiple similar abilities is that a second ability costs 50% more than normal, in addition to the cost of the first ability. There is no exception made for wands, so by RAW, you can have a wand with multiple spells, but all but one of them cost extra.

If we enter house rule territory, I would probably rule that it would cost the same as buying/crafting separate wands. Wands don't take up a "slot" the way other items do, so having several spells on one wand isn't really an advantage.


Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

the problem with adding abilities to a wand is the wand gets special pricing rules (i.e. cheap!). A single use activated item costs spell level x caster level x 50, but a wand is 50 of these items in one that only costs 750 x spell level x caster level. This is a price of 15gp per use as oppsed to 25gp for a scroll or a 50gp for anything else. Oh and a wand is easier to use with UMD, being a flat DC 20 instead of DC 20+CL.


Lost Empires of Faerun had the Craft Sceptre Feat.

Magical sceptres were essentially wands that could hold any spell of 7th level or lower.

Unlike a magic wand, a scepter could contain up to two spells, each of which had a cost in charges to use. Both spell effects drew from a common pool of charges, so they could be used in any combination

Silver Crusade

137ben wrote:

The usual rule for items with multiple similar abilities is that a second ability costs 50% more than normal, in addition to the cost of the first ability. There is no exception made for wands, so by RAW, you can have a wand with multiple spells, but all but one of them cost extra.

If we enter house rule territory, I would probably rule that it would cost the same as buying/crafting separate wands. Wands don't take up a "slot" the way other items do, so having several spells on one wand isn't really an advantage.

Not true. A wand is defined in the magic item rules. Among other things:-

Quote:
A wand is a thin baton that contains a single spell of 4th level or lower

Therefore, if it contains more than a single spell, it's not a wand (in terms of the PF magic item rules)!

Likewise, if it contains a spell of higher than 4th level, it's not a wand.

Wands are not wondrous items, so if they have different rules then they follow the rules for wands. If they don't then they aren't wands.

Specific > general, so if the general magic item rules allow multiple abilities but the wand rules stipulate a single spell, then a wand is limited to a single spell. If it doesn't, it's not a wand.

If you want a wand-like object that has more than one spell then create it as a staff or as a wondrous item. But if you do you must follow the appropriate rules. For example, a wondrous item is not a spell trigger item and follows a different pricing formula from either a wand or a staff.

Liberty's Edge

j b 200 wrote:
the problem with adding abilities to a wand is the wand gets special pricing rules (i.e. cheap!). A single use activated item costs spell level x caster level x 50, but a wand is 50 of these items in one that only costs 750 x spell level x caster level. This is a price of 15gp per use as oppsed to 25gp for a scroll or a 50gp for anything else. Oh and a wand is easier to use with UMD, being a flat DC 20 instead of DC 20+CL.

A single use item is not a spell trigger item though. You don't have to have it on your spell list.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Blue_Drake wrote:

RAW only allow a single spell per wand, but I don't think having a wand that can cast multiple spells would alter the game balance much.

Why the hell would anyone take Craft Staff then?


LazarX wrote:
Blue_Drake wrote:

RAW only allow a single spell per wand, but I don't think having a wand that can cast multiple spells would alter the game balance much.

Why the hell would anyone take Craft Staff then?

For spells above fourth level.


Get two different wands.
Invent duct tape.
Apply.

You now have a wand with two different spells in it.


I dont really understand. Why cant wands be recharged? The actual fact of
creating a wand should make them WAY more expensive than they are.
Creating Wands on page 553 of the Core Rulebook says on one hand,
"Creating a wand requires 1 day per each 1000 GP of the base price"
But on the other hand it says " The act of working on the wand, triggers
the prepared spell, making it unavailable for casting during each day
devoted to the wand's creation".
I dont see any wizard spending 50 days at one charge a day to make a wand
that cant be recharged and just to sell for 750 gp for a CL 1 Wand of
Magic Missiles.


Staves still can be recharged, allow for your caster level to be used and can have meta magic feats applied to the use of the spells therein. A wand with multiple spells wouldn't be game breaking IMO but RAW would be one spell per wand. In my home game I'd allow it though.

Also. Duct tape does exist in pathfinder. See sovereign glue. :P


zarconww wrote:

I dont really understand. Why cant wands be recharged? The actual fact of

creating a wand should make them WAY more expensive than they are.
Creating Wands on page 553 of the Core Rulebook says on one hand,
"Creating a wand requires 1 day per each 1000 GP of the base price"
But on the other hand it says " The act of working on the wand, triggers
the prepared spell, making it unavailable for casting during each day
devoted to the wand's creation".
I dont see any wizard spending 50 days at one charge a day to make a wand
that cant be recharged and just to sell for 750 gp for a CL 1 Wand of
Magic Missiles.

You don't spend 50 days for putting in the magical energy for a Magic Missile CL1 wand. You spend one day, and use one casting of the prepared spell. It is the nature of wands that they use the energy from the spell and the magical doodads (material cost) to gain the 50 charges. I've never seen in the RAW that you have to expend a prepared spell for each charge you are placing in a wand or a staff. Note that if you are writing a scroll of a 5th level or higher, you are expending more than one day of prepared spell to create a single spell on a scroll, not a scroll with two charges.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

zarconww wrote:

I dont really understand. Why cant wands be recharged? The actual fact of

creating a wand should make them WAY more expensive than they are.
Creating Wands on page 553 of the Core Rulebook says on one hand,
"Creating a wand requires 1 day per each 1000 GP of the base price"
But on the other hand it says " The act of working on the wand, triggers
the prepared spell, making it unavailable for casting during each day
devoted to the wand's creation".
I dont see any wizard spending 50 days at one charge a day to make a wand
that cant be recharged and just to sell for 750 gp for a CL 1 Wand of
Magic Missiles.

It's not one casting per charge, it's one per day. So that 750gp wand of magic missile takes one day, and discharges the spell exactly once from the creator's memory. You do have to provide 50 charges worth of material components, however, for spells that need them. That doesn't mean that the creator is casting the spell 50 times.

I'd probably be okay with allowing multiple "wands" to be imbued into the same item simultaneously, likely at the standard "highest+150% of cheaper" cost scheme. Each spell would have its own set of 50 charges. The secondary effects would merit the surcharge due to the convenience of not having to spend actions switching wands. Overall, a wizard trying to game the system doing this with his bonded item will end up spending a lot more money than one who just took Craft Wand to get the same effect. Having a bonded item that is easily seen and simple to disarm or sunder is also a penalty in itself.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

A wand does not need to be "charged" over 50 days. The crafting spellcaster only expends the spell once a day based on base cost of the wand. So a regular 1st level spell CL 1 wand will only take one day to make (750gp base price), coming out with a full set of 50 charges. Now, a 4th level spell at 20th caster level is going to take 60 days (60,000 base price). The 50 charges are irrelevant to the amount of time it takes to make a wand.

Staves are extremely useful in Pathfinder, they essentially become the primary magical item of many caster builds. The thing to keep in mind is that in Pathfinder, wands are cheap bundles of easier to use scrolls, while a staff is a reusable expansion of spell slots and spells known. Staves are no longer super wands as they have less charges but do not burn out in the same way.

Personally I do not see an issue with double loading a wand enchant with the price surcharge for double loading items of limited slots. Personally I treat wielded items as the wielded set of slots. It keeps the economy balanced and has some precedent in how extra abilities on weapons sometimes work. Doing so is still limited to 4th level or lower spells, and would be more costly than an equivalent 3.x staff as staves receive a discount on secondary and tertiary spells because they use the same pool of charges. This was true even when staves were basically super wands.

I also don't see an issue with making wand-like alternative items, but as said above doing so would not get the discount of crafting a wand. There are advantages and disadvantages to taking up a worn item slot instead of taking up a wielding slot, but overall wands would still generally be better and cheaper.

As mentioned before, a nice bridge item might be a scepter from Lost Empires of Faerun in 3.5. Scepters allowed two spells of up to 7th level, giving the tertiary spell discount for the second spell and using the same pool of 50 charges. Ultimately though, a staff is only two levels away at that point and in most cases much much better over the long haul.

Lastly, they added to the FAQ that you can dismiss familiars if you want to replace them. I see no issue with "unbonding" so that you may form a new bond. At worse, you can use the retraining rules from Ultimate Campaign, which would take 5 days, gp 50xLevel and the help of a someone with Arcane Bond at 1 level higher than you. I think waiting 1 week, taking 8 hours and 200xLevel without help is good enough on its own.


2nd edition also had an example in the beluth (an eleven item, I know) that had a higher charge cost for one of the spells. It was still incapable of being recharged, if it's really about saving that "change wands action" and flavor, just talk your DM. If its for PFS, there's plenty of other ways to "break" the system and they're posted all over the forums.


I'll see your sovereign gluing 2 wands together and raise you sovereign gluing 3 wands together. Put that all in a spring loaded wrist sheath (make sure glue has dried) then you have an immediate action retrieval of a 3-in-1 wand. Genius!


Avianfoo wrote:
I'll see your sovereign gluing 2 wands together and raise you sovereign gluing 3 wands together. Put that all in a spring loaded wrist sheath (make sure glue has dried) then you have an immediate action retrieval of a 3-in-1 wand. Genius!

Do this twice, and sovereign glue the bottom ends of the wand bundles together. Double-ended hexa-wand!


SenahBirdR wrote:

A wand does not need to be "charged" over 50 days. The crafting spellcaster only expends the spell once a day based on base cost of the wand. So a regular 1st level spell CL 1 wand will only take one day to make (750gp base price), coming out with a full set of 50 charges. Now, a 4th level spell at 20th caster level is going to take 60 days (60,000 base price). The 50 charges are irrelevant to the amount of time it takes to make a wand.

Staves are extremely useful in Pathfinder, they essentially become the primary magical item of many caster builds. The thing to keep in mind is that in Pathfinder, wands are cheap bundles of easier to use scrolls, while a staff is a reusable expansion of spell slots and spells known. Staves are no longer super wands as they have less charges but do not burn out in the same way.

Personally I do not see an issue with double loading a wand enchant with the price surcharge for double loading items of limited slots. Personally I treat wielded items as the wielded set of slots. It keeps the economy balanced and has some precedent in how extra abilities on weapons sometimes work. Doing so is still limited to 4th level or lower spells, and would be more costly than an equivalent 3.x staff as staves receive a discount on secondary and tertiary spells because they use the same pool of charges. This was true even when staves were basically super wands.

I also don't see an issue with making wand-like alternative items, but as said above doing so would not get the discount of crafting a wand. There are advantages and disadvantages to taking up a worn item slot instead of taking up a wielding slot, but overall wands would still generally be better and cheaper.

As mentioned before, a nice bridge item might be a scepter from Lost Empires of Faerun in 3.5. Scepters allowed two spells of up to 7th level, giving the tertiary spell discount for the second spell and using the same pool of 50 charges. Ultimately though, a staff is only two levels away at that point and in most cases much...

Hmmm I did not read it that way.... thanks and still awful cheap cost.


Ah, heck, let's just go all out and get a wooden ball and glue a couple dozen wands to the ball.


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Oooh, we could attach a handle to the ball and make a morning star-wand—a morning wand!

Wait...


Get ten non-magical rings and put them on. Measure distance of ring to knuckle. Cut what will be a wand to that size, enchat it, the glue them to the rings.

Voila! Ten rings literally 'on hand' at anytime!


Adamantine Dragon wrote:
RAW only allows a single spell to be in a wand.

I'd be interested to see where this is written. As far as I can tell, the relevant rules are:

Quote:


Sometimes, lack of funds or time make it impossible for a magic item crafter to create the desired item from scratch. Fortunately, it is possible to enhance or build upon an existing magic item. Only time, gold, and the various prerequisites required of the new ability to be added to the magic item restrict the type of additional powers one can place.

The cost to add additional abilities to an item is the same as if the item was not magical, less the value of the original item. Thus, a +1 longsword can be made into a +2 vorpal longsword, with the cost to create it being equal to that of a +2 vorpal sword minus the cost of a +1 longsword.

If the item is one that occupies a specific place on a character's body, the cost of adding any additional ability to that item increases by 50%. For example, if a character adds the power to confer invisibility to her ring of protection 2, the cost of adding this ability is the same as for creating a ring of invisibility multiplied by 1.5.

In particular, type of magic item doesn't appear to be an issue, and it's specifically not restricted to wondrous items, weapons, armor, rings, and so forth. By the paragraph above, I appear to be able to make a potion of mage armor, haste, and magic fang all in one that I can feed to Popeye and make him a combat monster. Probably in a can labeled "Spinach."


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Geez, Orfamay, did you read the whole thread, or just look for one of my posts to nitpick?

As Claxon pointed out way, way above, the very DEFINITION of a wand is:

Wand wrote:
A wand is a thin baton that contains a single spell of 4th level or lower. A wand has 50 charges when created—each charge allows the use of the wand's spell one time.

So sure, if you want to ignore the definition of wand, and treat the magic item rules describing weapons, armor and wondrous items to anything, then you can do all the things you propose.

Things I did not object to by they way, and even encouraged, but this is the Rules forum, not the House Rules forum.

Silver Crusade

So you can definately use the magic item creation rules to get a stick that has 50 charges and has two spells/spell-like abilities, but that item won't be a wand as described in the section on wands.

It will not be priced as a wand, will not (necessarily) be a spell trigger item, might take up a magic item slot, won't be limited to a single spel or to 4th level spells....

In short, not a wand.


Adamantine Dragon wrote:

Geez, Orfamay, did you read the whole thread, or just look for one of my posts to nitpick?

As Claxon pointed out way, way above, the very DEFINITION of a wand is:

Wand wrote:
A wand is a thin baton that contains a single spell of 4th level or lower. A wand has 50 charges when created—each charge allows the use of the wand's spell one time.

So sure, if you want to ignore the definition of wand, and treat the magic item rules describing weapons, armor and wondrous items to anything, then you can do all the things you propose.

Things I did not object to by they way, and even encouraged, but this is the Rules forum, not the House Rules forum.

\

Well...
TECHNICALLY a wand with multiple spells does contain "a single spell", it just also contains other stuff (which happen to be spells)...sort of like how a prerequisite of BAB +6 is still met by having BAB +8.

Quote:

So you can definately use the magic item creation rules to get a stick that has 50 charges and has two spells/spell-like abilities, but that item won't be a wand as described in the section on wands.

It will not be priced as a wand, will not (necessarily) be a spell trigger item, might take up a magic item slot, won't be limited to a single spel or to 4th level spells....

In short, not a wand.

Or you could make exactly the same choices as are made for a wand, except that it would contain multiple spells. Call your new item a "wawnd" (pronounced "wand"), and you have a "wand with multiple spells" in everything except spelling.

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