EDIT: BTW, just wanted to mention our house rule on wand charges. Instead of having 50 charges initially, they start at "d20". When you use the wand you roll the dice. If you roll a 1, it's downgraded one step to a d12, and you repeat this until it's a d4 and you roll 1, then the final charge is wrenched at +2 caster level.
On average it ends up being used 60 times before going out, but with the loss of certainity it ends up being a quite even tradeoff, and having it noted in dice instead of charges means you don't have to update your character sheet all the time when you use a charge. Also, most players in our group likes to roll dice. :3
This sounds like a fun variant for wands: makes them feel more like "magic" -- not fully controlled, and unpredictable.
But if I were to assume that, on each die, the player rolls a 1 after going through one-half the possibilities contingent with each die (ten for d20, six for d12, and so on), then that totals to about 30 spent charges, not 60.
Thinking about making Wands function like Staves, with two changes:
1) Wands hold 5 charges
2) The caster level (CL) is a maximum not a minimum
Does this mean you have to recharge them by one charge a day by casting the spell into them? That makes them almost worthless in fast paced campaigns.
Staves are not popular items.
Does this mean you have to recharge them by one charge a day by casting the spell into them? That makes them almost worthless in fast paced campaigns.
Staves are not popular items.
Staves are less popular because they're expensive compared to the Big 6 or wands, not because their utility is bad or because only pack a relatively few charges in PF.
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Thinking about making Wands function like Staves, with two changes:
1) Wands hold 5 charges
2) The caster level (CL) is a maximum not a minimum
Does this mean you have to recharge them by one charge a day by casting the spell into them? That makes them almost worthless in fast paced campaigns.
Staves are not popular items.
I ended up just creating a new category of magic item called "Lesser Staves"
Gunna try this idea(!) for wands actually.
Example, a Lesser Staff of Dark Flame can still be used by a 2nd level character to cast Fireball, but, the fireball will only do 2d6 damage, which will expend 60% of the charge capacity, and recovering a single charge on the item will take that character (who only has 1st level spells) three whole days (3rd level minus 1st level = +2 days) of sacrificing a spell slot to recharge.