Hello, gurus!
My question today is a simple one: can you purchase a wand with fewer than 50 charges? If so, is there is a price reduction (i.e., 25 charges = half-price; 10 charges = 20% list price; etc., etc.).
The reason I am asking is that I am going to very soon have the opportunity to a play a HIGH level Sorcerer in a one-off game. He has the Arcane Bloodline, and with Arcane Apothesis he will be able to use a wand by spending three levels of spell slots instead of a charge.
So, and I think you know where I am going with this, I plan on having wands of as many low-level spells as my Heward's Handy Haversack can carry (and I can afford) and won't have to worry about depleting them (as long as I have the spell slots to spend).
Now, if I have to buy the wands with 50 charges, that ain't a big deal. But, if I can buy them with 10 charges, then I can purchase five times as many wands and increase my utility and versatility by an order of magnitude!
What say you?
Master Arminas
Up to your DM. It's not something you usually find in magic stores, but they might have a very small selection of used wands (that other adventurerers found and sold to that store). I repeat, might.
Wands are balanced for their ease to use and the relatively low cost per charge (1/2 of a scroll, 1/4 of a potion) by the fact that you have to buy them in bulk. Otherwise why bother with scrolls if you could just buy a wand with 1 charge instead.
Up to your DM. It's not something you usually find in magic stores, but they might have a very small selection of used wands (that other adventurerers found and sold to that store). I repeat, might.
Wands are balanced for their ease to use and the relatively low cost per charge (1/2 of a scroll, 1/4 of a potion) by the fact that you have to buy them in bulk. Otherwise why bother with scrolls if you could just buy a wand with 1 charge instead.
This is my opinion as well. When you create a wand you have to make it with all 50 charges. Unless you find like the second-hand Magic shoppe, I think buying a less than fully charged wand from the store will be an uncommon experience at best.
Just as a side-thought: so what happens to all of those partially-charged wands that the adventurers sell off? Do they go to like a magic recycling facility or something? lol
Master Arminas
Just as a side-thought: so what happens to all of those partially-charged wands that the adventurers sell off? Do they go to like a magic recycling facility or something? lol
They grind them down for "raw materials" to create more wands!...
I have no idea.
Yes to my knowledge you can buy wands with less charges in fact some wands in the published APs come with less charges and it normally does decrease the price. That said, a gm may ask for just as much gold as a fully charged wand for one that only has 30 charges on it depending on where and who you buy from.
This is entirely up to the GM. I have allowed PCs to buy used wands before. But that's usually in small towns without a lot of trade contact, or from wandering merchants they might meet on the road.
Also, when they find wands, they are rarely fully charged (sometimes because the wand was being used against them by the creature they 'found' it from).
as Quatar said, this is up to your GM. If you go strictly by Rules as Written, then you can not buy a partially charged wand, however it is a very very common house rule (it might even be a house-rule used by the majority of GM's not running Pathfinder Society scenarios.)
|
I'll agree with all of the above and say up to the GM.
My experience may be common, but in the games I play in and run, partial wands are the rule rather than the exception. Whenever I put wands in shops, I always roll for a number of charges.
That said, seeking out wands with specific numbers of charges might be a trickier task.
While the availability of such a device is up to your GM, you can find the cost per charge by dividing the retail cost by 50. Buying one from a used-magic-item shoppe might also mean that you have to pay for the identify spell they had to use to determine its number of remaining charges.
When I price wands with partial charges at a magic shop, I usually make the per charge use higher to encourage the PC to purchase a more expensive wand which has more charges...
Cause, you know, I wanna make some money.
|
I don't follow printed city guidelines for available items. I offer wands available for sale occasionally, and they are also available as treasure. While I do so typically on a straight line prorated basis for simplicity, I agree with the positions above that a wand with 1 charge should be worth more than the difference between a wand with 49 charges and one with 50 charges.
Is this thread the basis for the question?
I don't know what specific rule is being quoted in the 2nd example(Blinn) though
No.
Master Arminas
My first instinct would have been to pro-rate the cost by percentage of charges remaining -- but given that the character in question intends to get more out of the wand than its charges, I would think that there should be some base cost to reflect that. To your character, a wand with one charge is worth a lot more than 2% of a fully charged wand, after all.
My first instinct would have been to pro-rate the cost by percentage of charges remaining -- but given that the character in question intends to get more out of the wand than its charges, I would think that there should be some base cost to reflect that. To your character, a wand with one charge is worth a lot more than 2% of a fully charged wand, after all.
This has some truth, but just because a low-charge wand is worth more to the character in question doesn't mean the merchant selling him the wand knows that... and it seems metagamey to base wand pricing on value because of a particular class feature.
That said, I also can't see a merchant worth his salt letting a wand go too cheaply simply because of low charges. Price break for low charge ought to cut off at somewhere between one-half to one-third of full charge cost, imo.
Was just looking @ Identify, spellcraft, and detect magic... doesn't seem to be a way to determine exact charges, so there isn't really any way to know if a wand has full, half, or one charge... makes price-breaking for low charges problematic.
In my game, there's a chance that the charged item you're buying at a magic shop for full price might be less-than-fully charged. (Likewise, there's a chance that an item purchased at a magic shop will have a limitation, flaw, or other minor curse, just like one you find in a dungeon.) Caveat emptor. It's one way I try to discourage buying magic items and encourage constructing them.
That said, there is a market for partially-charged wands, and, when available, they are available for a smaller price than a fully-charged wand. However, the price-per-charge is always higher on a "used" wand. (e.g. that "used" wand the magic shop is selling for half price might only have 12 charges left.)
Re: figuring out number of charges: Technically, you need to use analyze dweomer to determine the number of charges on a charged item. That's a 6th-level spell!
Re: keeping track of charges: In the past, I tried to keep track of it myself, and not share the number of charges on a wand with the players, so that they never knew if the charge they were about to use was going to be its last. However, I found that added significantly to my own record-keeping and didn't add much to game-play, so now I just tell the players how many charges are on wands, and let them keep track. Less chance for dramatic tension, but easier on game-flow.
I would say no to a one shot character trying to get what amounts to scrolls in bulk at half price.