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Hello all you smart people!
I have a question about magic items and ability scores. In the staves section under using staves it says, "Because they use the wielder's DC for the spell, spells from a staff are often harder to resist than those from other magic items, which use the minimum ability score required to cast the spell."
So from this I take it that a fist level wand is used with a 11 ability score.
Does this mean that a wand of burning hands would have a reflex save of 11? This makes no sense!
What am I missing? I could find no other mention to this any were else in the book.
Here is what it means:
When a magic item is created it uses the lowest ability score possible to cast the as the basis for resisting the item's effect normally, but staves don't.
Example.
As an example the Necklace of Fireballs have a DC of 14. Note that fireball is the base spell for fireballs
The DC for a spell is DC 10+spell level+attribute modifier.
10+3(spell level)+1(13 is the minimum score for fireball which grants a +1 modifier)=14
If the fireball was cast from a staff the ability score would come from the minimum score needed to cast the spell or the user, whichever is higher.
As an example if you had a staff, and the caster you were playing had 20 modifier then the DC would be a 18 since 20 gives you a +5 modifier to the DC to resist your spells.
yes, all spell trigger (and spell completion) items beyond staves are assumed to use the lowest possible caster level unless otherwise stated with the lowest possible casting stat bonus required for casting the spell
So yes, as it only takes an 11 int to create a first level wand, you have a DC 11. 10+1 from the spell, +0 from stat bonus. As if a first level wizard with 11 int made the wand.
you can get wands with higher DCs, they are just more expensive. wands use the formula (Caster Level x Spell Level x750)
So if you wanted a wand with a higher DC instead, you could buy a wand of heightened burning hands. As a level 2 spell, it would be a DC13 check. (spell level 2, plus Int 12 required to cast the spell for +1 stat bonus)
That would raise the cost of the wand though, to 3x2x750, or a total of 4500.