Wands of cure wounds


Savage Tide Adventure Path


Currently I'm running a PC in a STAP game, but once SWW finishes I'll be taking over.
The party cleric has two wands of CLW. The party wizard took Weapon Specialization (greatsword) and focussed his build towards being a fighter/mage type.
Something I've noticed since the first wand has appeared is this:
Aside from detect magic (and possibly read magic, I can't recall), the party wizard has cast spells only twice (not the same spell multiple times, just one spell): magic missile and color spray.
The party cleric has occasionally cast a few spells, but usually only to convert prepared spells into more powerful healing spells). After each battle, out trot the wands; the player doesn't seem to mind doing this.

In the first few sessions of the campaign, those PCs used their spells more fully each day, so I'm wondering: Is the use of C(L)W wands retarding those characters' use of spellcasting? If so, what suggestions do people have so that the players can use their characters more fully?
Perhaps I'm worrying about nothing.


ericthecleric wrote:

...so I'm wondering: Is the use of C(L)W wands retarding those characters' use of spellcasting? If so, what suggestions do people have so that the players can use their characters more fully?

Perhaps I'm worrying about nothing.

As a DM, the main thing I have noticed since the introduction a CLW wand in the party, is that the rhythm between encounter is faster since there is no need for the party to wait after the cleric’s spell renewal. As how to help your PCs to use their characters abilities, you can teach by giving examples. Use your NPC allies or enemies alike as kind of teacher how to use their spells and abilities. PCs learn fast!

Liberty's Edge

I have a cleric with a clw wand in Aubrey's online campaign. We've been blasting with the spells though in my opinion. I don't know.
But I mean, if I get done with a combat, you better believe I'm gonna pull it out and heal everybody.
And it's not really (during combat) a major breaking factor; I still have to touch someone to use it, so I can get jacked up...
I also (purposely) didn't make my cleric much of a frontline combatant. Since I joined in, we went through a major brouhaha with a bunch of gnolls and an ogre, and I never personally damaged any enemy.

Sovereign Court Contributor

One of my first 3.5 campaigns, we pooled our starting money and bought a wand of CLW, so that we could push on more often, rather than stopping to rest all of the time. Since then, every game we play, we get one as soon as we can afford it. We burn through those things like crazy.

I find it allows the clerics to use their other spells more, and be more creative in spellcasting. They don't need to hold them for healing so much.

Does make it harder on the arcane caster, who is more likely to be out of spells sooner than everyone else wants to rest.


ericthecleric wrote:

I'm wondering: Is the use of C(L)W wands retarding those characters' use of spellcasting? If so, what suggestions do people have so that the players can use their characters more fully?

Perhaps I'm worrying about nothing.

I'd say you're worrying about nothing.

Spellcasting is a means to the ends (the ends being "successfully complete the scenario" (for whatever definition of success) and "have fun"). If the PCs are doing the former, and the players are doing the latter, there is no problem.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

ericthecleric wrote:

The party wizard took Weapon Specialization (greatsword) and focussed his build towards being a fighter/mage type.

Sorry to jack the thread, but... Weap. Spec? Are you guys above fifth level? Because if so, then the wizard not casting spells is understandable, him being a first level wizard/fourth level fighter. First caster level spells aren't very good at that time.


Sect, that should have been Weapon Proficiency (red face).


Well a wizard that goes for a weapon proficiency feat is rather, umm, unorthodox, I don't actually see a problem with it. Fighter Mage is a reasonable build - though in that case why not just multi-class into a fighter and get a whole bunch of feats free.

The one real issue is, well this is Savage Tide. How long before the lack of a focused mage comes back to bite them in the butt?


Jeremy Mac Donald wrote:
The one real issue is, well this is Savage Tide. How long before the lack of a focused mage comes back to bite them in the butt?

This may be a problem in the game I'm running. The group of four has one arcane spellcaster, a sorceress who's taken a level of fighter in preparation for switching over to eldritch knight. (We're using only the three core books.)

The downside, from the players' perspective, is that once she's into her eldritch knight progression, she'll be three levels behind a wizard of similar character level in terms of spell access. I.e. a pure wizard gets her first 5th-level spell at 9th level, but this eldritch knight won't get it until 12th character level (sorceress 6/fighter 1/eldritch knight 5), and she'll only cast it at a caster level of 10. Risky.

(On a similar note, the party's only divine caster is a ranger, but that's another story.)

Spoiler:
(At least he found the strand of prayer beads in the Tamoachan ruins.)


I have found the spellcasters in my group seem to want to hang onto their spells for big encounters. First few sessions they burnt through their alloted spells and felt useless for the rest of the session I guess. Funny thing is the Favored Soul/Sorcerer in the party seems to hardly ever cast spells. I am sure things will change however once things get a little higher level. Right now my group has just finished up The Bullywug Gambit.


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens Subscriber

My group needed one at the beginning of SCAP as they didn't have any class that could heal except a paladin. It was their first major purchase as soon as they could afford it.

It hurt that the paladin was our only main front-line fighter too, the only other melee character was a rogue (was, cause he died). Therefor most of our healing was done after a fight was over with the wand.

Luckily the other two characters were a warlock and a warmage and we blasted the crap out of things before they could do too much damage (often before the paladin got to swing his sword).

At least the warlock can use wands now too without them blowing up in his face.

As well the rogue was replaced with a druid, so healing is not an issue, traps are. :(


I am using recharge magic. My players STILL use wands of CLW. They are that good.


CLW wands are the first thing every party we have buys. It does speed the game up quite a bit. imho it also often reduces the risk and hence the fun (but not enough to stop me *grin* ) Any mages that feel useless after running out of spells should get a wand of their own. Blur, bull's/cat's/boar's bonuses, silence, magic missile and haste make excellent choices for party funds.


Carl Cramér wrote:
I am using recharge magic. My players STILL use wands of CLW. They are that good.

Recharge Magic? Where do you find that?


Sben wrote:
Jeremy Mac Donald wrote:
The one real issue is, well this is Savage Tide. How long before the lack of a focused mage comes back to bite them in the butt?
This may be a problem in the game I'm running. The group of four has one arcane spellcaster, a sorceress who's taken a level of fighter in preparation for switching over to eldritch knight. (We're using only the three core books.)

I'd think that another issue with this will be that the sorcerer really should not be spending time swing a sword. There is no time - especially in the Savage Tide with its high CR monsters. It should be a spell every round.

That said I'm not sure how much I consider this a really bad decision. I was talking to my mage player a few days ago and idly asked him how many hps his mage had. I was dumbfounded when he said he had 46 as a 10th level mage. Seems he is not really that unusual in terms of hps for a mage either. High in fact.

I was shocked. a measly 46 hps? I pretty much told him point blank at that point to make a back up character. One of these days the party is going to be wandering through the dungeon when they get ambushed by a dragon who hops down from a ledge and breathes on them for 60 hps. One failed save later the mage is past -10 and dead.

I honestly think my mage player will one day die in a situation just like this. He'll have full hps and something will go off and he'll be dead before he even gets a chance to take an action.

With that sort of thing in mind I can sort of see why one might want to pick up a few levels of fighter just to get ones hps up into something where 1 bad hit is not death. Although whether you have raise dead type magic might be a significant factor in this. In my campaign dead is dead - no tap backs so a player in my campaign has more incentives to make characters with sub optimal choices if it otherwise increases their chances of never ever dropping past -10.


Jeremy Mac Donald wrote:

I was dumbfounded when he said he had 46 as a 10th level mage. Seems he is not really that unusual in terms of hps for a mage either. High in fact.

I was shocked. a measly 46 hps? I pretty much told him point blank at that point to make a back up character.

With only 1d4 hps per level, that would be high. Perhaps with a +2 Con, he could have a max 60 hps, which is still 2 lucky (made their save) dragon breaths from unconscious.

Even if he took two levels of fighter, that would make it 72 hps, which is 2 partially lucky (made only one save) dragon breaths from unconscious.

And two wizard levels is a loss of a spell level. My player's wizard took a level in rogue, and was missing a necessary fireball for many an encounter in Sea Wyvern's Wake.

So I don't know if a pure wizard is a suboptimal choice. It's the problem of being a wizard. Soft and squishy unless you plan your spells and encounters very carefully.

But on topic, my party lives or dies with Wands of Cure Light Wounds. There is always at least two Wands in the party at any given time, and a wand burns out at least once per module.


Sharoth wrote:
Recharge Magic? Where do you find that?

It's an optional spell casting rule from Unearthed Arcana. It's also OGL. Look at how it works here.


to teh OP, it doesn't seem like the wand is retarding the spellcasting, it seems much more like the character concepts have nudged them away from spellcasting.

the Fighter/Wizard sounds much more focused on Fighter, so looking at his options of 2d6+1.5xstr per swing or 2d4 flame from burning hands, he's going to pick the greatsword.

the cleric sounds like he may be suffering from divine magic overload though... divine casters have access to EVERY divine spell not limited by their alignment, so occasionally memorize things they think are thematic or will be useful, only to find that they are not effective at all in the current encounter. at that point, there is nothing to do but convert "useless spells" to healing and play backup fighter

One thing that should help alot is the Reserve Feats in Complete Mage. these give you nifty abilities to use when you have a spell to power the feat, like Firey Blast's 5'radius burst of fire to a target in 30" long as you have a 3rd level or higher fire spell memorized. Sure it only does 3d6 if you have a 3rd level spell available, but it can do it every round until you cast that 3rd level spell. Most if not all of the Reserve feats also give you +1CL for casting spells of that type, which is always handy.

Another option for the cleric who loves their domain spells is to take the feat (whose name i can't remember) that lets you convert prepared spells into a selected domain's spells.


Wands of Cure Light Wounds are a great money sink for the party imo, especially at low levels when the schwag haul is not so great. They also, as the OP and several others pointed out, permit a faster pace of events in game time before the characters simply have to hole up and rest.

In an undead-heavy campaign, wands of curing can also be used to mix it up with corporeal undead and zap them to a faretheewell. Especially if the wielder lacks, or just is not very capable, at turning.

Now, to get really sick, get a Wand of Transdimensional Cure Serious Wounds at a caster level of 15. If it's undead (or otherwise susceptible to positive energy), you can zap it. If your buddies are somehow rendered incorporeal, you can zap them too. Fairly expensive granted, but ... 50 free cures at 3d8+15 hp a pop is a lot of cured hit points/damage inflicted on all varies of undead.

Although the wizard packing a greatsword - presuming at least a 14 STR to get the better advantage in terms of damage output per hit - might well be anticipating the heady carnage of the Arcane Strike feat as well as the Tenser's Transformation spell...

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