Jason Holt's page

The question was why are non-unique items included on the Chronicle.

There are certain condition in Starfinder Society Play that can limit what items are available to your character (such as gaining Infamy by committing evil acts or being in a region that has no connection to a market).

There are a couple of scenarios where you won't be able to buy gear before heading out because of your location.

However...items on your awarded Chronicle Sheets are ALWAYS available, regardless of where your character is located or what they've done. The other streams/pools/lava-beds of items are just a way to standardizing the items that show up at a GM's table by limiting the tier/level of that they become available.

The biggest advantage of the Chronicle Sheet, as a few others have mentioned, is that the level limit is +2 for the items on your sheet. So you can purchase (if you pool your credits), some higher level gear than what would normally be available. A level 3 character could purchase the Enforcer Armor I (3,100; item level 5; Starfinder Armory 69) if they've completed #1-24 Siege of Enlightenment.

And old topic, but I'd like to chime in:

For a "wand slinger", I'd go with a Wizard (to maximize spells available for wand creation), taking the Wand Creation feat at 5th.

Creating a 50-charge wand at 5th level with 50% cost reduction on the base cost of your wands will be much cheaper than any other item-specific creation/purchase (such as pearls, Ioun stones, metamagic rods, etc).

Adamantindragon mentioned using "pearls of power"; however, these carry the cost of 1k, 4k, 9k, and 16k for one spell recall/day of the appropriate level. You'd need to create a large pool of pearls and they've never be as cost effective as a wand. The advantage of pearls is that you can go above 4th level spells and create pearls that can also do two spells per day. But again, this gets very expensive (35k for two spells).

A 5th level wizard (pre-req for wand creation) should have earned about 10k GP by that level. If they've been judicious on saving a large amount, they could theoretically create several (750gp) 1st level 50-chg wands, and even a 2nd level (1500gp) 50-chg wand.

The Quick Draw feat is helpful for getting the wands into your hands as a free action; or a hidden wand as a move action. Having someone create (or your GM allow for purchase) a bandolier/holster for your wands can help you also maintain many in close proximity as well as up your sleeve.

Then again, and Handy Haversack functions well for providing the exact wand you need in every circumstance.

Other than that, purchasing scrolls and complete spellbooks, and having a lot of downtime in between adventures (if your GM is a stickler for time limitations), is necessary for producing a large library of spells and wands.

Personally, I like Wands of Summon Monster I-IV. They allow you to field an army of creatures to help keep you protected from harm. It's a bit cheesy when you have a bunch of med. stone elementals protecting you in combat; but at higher levels they're mostly just one- or two-hit damage shields (they have a max of 30hp).

When you start looking at all of the supplementary, non-combat spells that most wizards learn but rarely memorize (tiny hut, floating disk, darkvision, detect poison, resistance, etc); wands REALLY come in handy. Wand of Identify is probably one of the handiest wands to have outside a combat scene.