Creating wands, adding abilities, and bonded object / wand (pg 33, 114, 115)

[Lee Gordon]

I'm reading through the rules for creating wands and adding new abilities, and I wanted to get some other opinions on this to see if I'm reading this correctly.

Looking at the rules as written, it seems there is nothing preventing you from adding another spell to an existing wand. The crafting rules don't stipulate that you start with a non-magical item, and the rules for adding a new ability indicate you can add abilities w/o restrictions.

For example, if you have a wand of fireballs, it appears you can also turn that same stick into a wand of lightning bolt. They are independent, and each have 50 charges for each of their spells. The cost of that is 5625 for the fireballs and 5625 for the lightning bolt.

Normally there isn't a big advantage to doing this, aside from avoiding rummaging through your pack when you need a wand with a different spell.

But, this changes quite a bit in the context of a bonded object that is a wand. In this case, you could have a wand of fireballs and wand of lightning bolt for 5625 for the both.

Is there something in the rules that I'm missing? There is a phrase in the SRD that a wand is a baton that contains a single spell, but I don't know if that description is strong enough to prevent using that stick to function as a separate wand. You'd end up with a wand of fireballs with 50 charges, and a wand of lightning bolt with 50 charges, both sharing the same baton.

Thoughts?

[Benoit Leblanc]

What would differentiate it from a staff then if you can have multiple spells in a wand?

[K]

Yup, this is what happens.

I'm looking forward to the Ring of many Rings. Paying double costs for Feather Falling or Sustenance is a joke, especially when its being halved again, so I'd have a ring with like seven or eight Ring powers.

Heck, at this rate I might just put all my item powers into a ring. The only downside is that its a 12th level plan.

[Lee Gordon]

Benoit Leblanc wrote:

What would differentiate it from a staff then if you can have multiple spells in a wand?

Staves use the wielder's caster level and ability scores for effects, whereas wands use the lowest possible CL and ability scores for its effects. Wands are limited to 4th level spells, but staves are unlimited. The staff charges are shared amongst the spells, but the wand charges are tracked independently per spell. Staves can be recharged.

There is still a big benefit to using a staff over a wand.

[Epic Meepo]

K wrote:

I'm looking forward to the Ring of many Rings. Paying double costs for Feather Falling or Sustenance is a joke, especially when its being halved again, so I'd have a ring with like seven or eight Ring powers.

This has been allowed since 3.0 (DMG p.246, last two paragraphs), so I'm surprised you've been waiting this long to do it. Every group I've played for the past eight years has regularly combined multiple rings into one as a matter of course.

[Heaven's Agent]

Lee Gordon wrote:

Is there something in the rules that I'm missing? There is a phrase in the SRD that a wand is a baton that contains a single spell, but I don't know if that description is strong enough to prevent using that stick to function as a separate wand. You'd end up with a wand of fireballs with 50 charges, and a wand of lightning bolt with 50 charges, both sharing the same baton.

You answered your own question. There are two defining elements given: a wand is a baton that contains a single spell.

In your example it would not be a wand. The baton now contains two spells, which violates the second element. Both elements need to be preserved for it to be a wand.

[Benoit Leblanc]

Lee Gordon wrote:

Benoit Leblanc wrote:

What would differentiate it from a staff then if you can have multiple spells in a wand?

Staves use the wielder's caster level and ability scores for effects, whereas wands use the lowest possible CL and ability scores for its effects. Wands are limited to 4th level spells, but staves are unlimited. The staff charges are shared amongst the spells, but the wand charges are tracked independently per spell. Staves can be recharged.

There is still a big benefit to using a staff over a wand.

Thanks!

[Lee Gordon]

Heaven's Agent wrote:

You answered your own question. There are two defining elements given: a wand is a baton that contains a single spell.

In your example it would not be a wand. The baton now contains two spells, which violates the second element. Both elements need to be preserved for it to be a wand.

After I posted this, I realized it was really more of a question about the SRD, so I sent it to Wotc. Your comments are my general interpretation as well, but I want to verify if they were simply trying to prevent a wand of multiple spells sharing charges, or if the verbage is meant to prevent reusing a single baton for independent "wands". I haven't been able to find anything definitive thus far.

Normally there isn't much benefit to sharing a baton between wands, but that might be different in the context of Pathfinder.