Weaponwand


Advice

Grand Lodge

One of my players want to have Weaponwand added as a magical propery on his sword. I was thinking of alowing this as another type of enchantment that you can put on a magica wepon that you can change the wand in the morning. My issue is should this count as a +1 enchantment or should this be a straight cost and not a +1. What do you think?


Pathfinder Maps Subscriber

Figure out what an item that can cast weaponwand however many times a day you want would cost. Use that as a basis for the straight cost if you go that way. Putting it in a particular weapon instead of on a separate item makes it somewhat less flexible than an item that could cast it on any weapon presented.

Grand Lodge

You could do that in 3.5 for around 150 GP. It was a mundane weapon upgrade called "wand slot" from Dungeonscape.

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I'm currently working on a 3PP supplement book that deals with this kind of content and went through the same dilemma you have. One such content is a weaponwand property. I ultimately decided to make it a +1. As a spell, weaponwand isn't that good. As a weapon ability, it's pretty good. This reasoning plus the fact that it has a power on level with the conductive ability led me to make it a +1.


Something like this will save a little action economy mid battle, but isn't really a big deal.

Personally I would not price it as a scaling + bonus, but rather as a flat fee.

Going just by the magic item creation rules weaponwand is a 1st level spell which would also have caster level 1, and last 1 minute per level.

Pricing for a continuous effect item is spell level*caster level*2000 gp * 2 for minute/level duration. Since your putting this on a weapon and having it only effect that weapon continuously I would think that 2000 gp, half of the cost to make such an item is reasonable.

It will be of the most use to rangers, paladins, and magi.

Dark Archive

I have to point out what Oncoming_storm said, you could buy this as a mundane feature of a weapon for something like 1 hundred gold. Why do you believe it would be worth so darn much to cost in the thousands? As important as action economy is, do you really think it is worth that much? Are you guys/gals just shutting your eyes to ground already covered by previous editions? Are you insistent that anything from a 3.5 optional book is broken? Look at Paizo's material and you will see they do not make everything perfectly balanced either. They even admit they do not believe everything needs to be balanced either. I agree on that as it prevents everything from being the same with just a different skin. I do not understand so many people complaining about how much they thought was broken in 3.5 days. You still have caster on top all of the martials in PF just like in 3.5. The weakest classes are still on the bottom of the tier system in PF compared to 3.5 tier system.


Because Pathfinder isn't 3.5 and that is vastly undervalued. 2000 gp isn't hugely significant, by the time characters can afford to be using wands all the time they'll also be able to afford 2000 gp for a "wand slot" on their weapon. WBL is a balancing factor, and to me 2000 gp seems like a fair spot. 150 gold just seems far too cheap.


Think of it this way. Who is going to need the wand slot? Is it the full casters, or is it the Magi and Bards and UMD users?

150 is fine.


kyrt-ryder wrote:

Think of it this way. Who is going to need the wand slot? Is it the full casters, or is it the Magi and Bards and UMD users?

150 is fine.

I disagree. Why is the extra 1850 gold breaking it here? By 7th level you'd barely notice it. But it does mean you can't just start wand blasting away at level 3, which seems acceptable to me.


Keep in mind that the 3.5 option didn't give you the capability to attack with the weapon in order to deliver the wand spell's attack, the way weaponwand does.


As someone whose first and main character is still only level 6 I can say that 2000gp doesn't seem like something I'd blow on an upgrade like this. Really if we're calling it a +1 enchant I imagine I'd sooner go with probably half of the other +1s on almost any character over the wand insert at that price.

Though it's true, 2000gp isn't breaking my bank either.

I think we should look at the other types of weapon upgrades on this table because a hollowed pommel or false-bottomed scabbard seems more inline with what the weaponwand actually is.

Sure it should probably cost a fair ammount more than a hollowed pommel given that the wand needs to be safe inside the weapon, but it's much closer to what we're trying to do here than an enchant, in my opinion.

Edit to add: Are makes a good point too, it depends on how the weapon wand performs as an item. If a regular attack can simultaneously fire off a spell that should probably be a +1, but if it's an upgrade that allows you to hold the item and then choose to use a standard action on either the wand or an attack it should be cheap.

Dark Archive

So is this more of a question like what is a magus spell strike worth? Are we talking about combining the damage of both a weapon hit and wand activation on the same standard action? I thought we were talking about action economy only. The choice to strike with a spell(wand) or with a weapon turn to turn without the problem of how many actions we have to swap items in our hands and back again. I would agree getting both weapon damage and wand activation on the same action, or even the same turn would be worth a hell of a lot more than150gp for just havering an action economy free choice between I wand/weapon use each turn.


The difference between the hollow pommel and weapon wand is that you can still use the wand. Just having the wand in a hole in the weapon doesn't do anything. It doesn't allow you to cast using the wand.

You would still have to remove the wand to use it, using up action economy. A hollow pommel is just a spot to hide something your enemy might not check, or that you want to have with you at all time in case you lose everything but your weapon.

And I think your point about how you would probably by other +1 enchants is a good. It shouldn't be so obviously good that you would rather buy the weaponwand enhancement instead of the normal magical + enhancements.

*Please note I don't think it should be a +1 though, merely a flat 2000 gp seems fair to me. Costing a +1 enhancement means successive enhancements such as making the weapon +2 is actually the cost as a +3 weapon, which I would consider too extreme.


My bad. When someone brought up the 3.5 wand chambers I was referencing that, not a pseudo-magus item with which I'm unfamiliar.

Silver Crusade

The 3.5 item also existed in a world without magi using the wand-wielder arcana.

2000 gp sounds fair to me.

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Being able to hold a wand without a free hand is a pretty big deal in Pathfinder. Also note that weaponwand allows you to make ranged spell attacks with a melee weapon and vice versa.

If a +1 is too much, what about also granting it the ability to spend an extra wand charge to channel it through the weapon attack? It would work like the conductive property or the magus's spellstrike without enhancing the critical range.

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