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The way I understand it now, you can buy a wand as a Pathfinder but only the 50 charge wands. Now I've come across players who ran a scenario or two, where they could by a 10 charge CLW wand for 1/5th of the cost.
So, why aren't these available to all Pathfinders?
The reasoning behind this is that CLW is a great want to hand to your healer or spell caster but at a certain point you want homeboy to use a bigger stick. So, I might need a CLW wand for about 10 charges or 20 charges at best for levels 1-3 and then I'd like a CMW wand for levels 4-6, except I'm stuck with a lvl. 1 want that still needs to be used up.
And really, who will ever need a 50 charge wand of resist elements? Again a 10 charge wand, would really hit the spot.
Can this be changed come August? Is it too much of a hassle? Just wondering if anyone has ever brought it up?
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Wands with limited charges are one of the few things that can be found on Chronicle sheets that make players sit up and take notice of the item list. There are few enough of those items, although Season 4 has been better about putting interesting and unique items on the Chronicles. Even so, people already complain that the items listed on Chronicles are not interesting because they can be purchased under the Fame rules by the time you find them on the Chronicle. What you're asking for is for one of the interesting items to be removed from the Chronicle sheets?
I'd also debate the cost per point of healing of CLW versus CMW wands, but that's not really the question here.
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I'm not asking for 1 charge wands, folks.
I'm asking for 10,15 or 20, charge wands to be made available.
I'm not looking for super cheese but I'd like to have an option to buy a 20 charge wand, instead of a 50 charge wand.
A Holy Sword wand of 10 charges would still cost 6,000gp and a 20 charge one would be 12,000gp. So, still a huge cost. But a lvl. 1 wand with 10 charges for a 150gp is much more manageable to a lvl. 1 PC that a 50 charge 750gp wand.
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I'm not asking for 1 charge wands, folks.
I'm asking for 10,15 or 20, charge wands to be made available.
I'm not looking for super cheese but I'd like to have an option to buy a 20 charge wand, instead of a 50 charge wand.
A Holy Sword wand of 10 charges would still cost 6,000gp and a 20 charge one would be 12,000gp. So, still a huge cost. But a lvl. 1 wand with 10 charges for a 150gp is much more manageable to a lvl. 1 PC that a 50 charge 750gp wand.
Who is making these partially charged wands? How are they making them?
If you can show me a way to make a partially charged wand with the crafting rules, than I may support the purchase of these wands in greater quantities. However, if the only choice while creating a wand is to make it with 50 charges, I'm confused as to where all these 1/5th charged wands are coming from.
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He's looking at it from a game design standpoint more than a lore-based one, so it's difficult to answer a question based on who/how are they being made.
Having said that, it's not unreasonable to say it requires less magic power to make a weaker wand; is there a magic formula that determines that a wand must have exactly 50 charges? Why that number?
Game design, that's why.
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Exactly, why must it be 50 charges? Anyone have a particularly good reason for them being 50 charges? None that I can find.
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As for the 10 charge wands vs. permanent item argument. They remain permanent items. So go ahead with your +2 natural armor charges for 900 gp. If you use it in 10 fights or roughly 3 scenarios. You're out 900gp. Now you have to spend another 900 gp and use it all over again and each time, you do use it, you have to spend a turn doing so.
So, about 20 fights later or about lvl. 3 you've blown through 1,800 gp, while the guy next to you has a permanent item, doesn't have to burn turns while his party is being slaughtered. The idea that wands would take over permanent items in every aspect, is a joke and an attempt at trying to win an argument without a strong point to back it up.
Player: Ooh, look at me, I cast barskin.
DM: Monster 1 attacks fully.
Player: I'm casting shield.
DM: Monster 1 attacks fully.
Player: I'm casting fly.
DM: Monster 1 gets an AoO, you die.
Have fun buying wands for everything and trying to use them mid fight. And if you want to spend GP trying to cast all these spells, have at it. So each fight you're going to cast 800gp worth of spells?
Going to be one poor Pathfinder with no gear to show for it, if you do.
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I find your example disingenuous. Barkskin has a duration of 10 minutes/level, which means a potion, scroll or wand of it would last 30 minutes. Shield, as a first level spell, is a wand purchasable for a very cheap 750 gp (or 2 prestige points), and can therefore be spammed. Fly is not something that you buff up with unless you actually need to fly in an encounter.
Furthermore, if these ARE wands, then you don't provoke any attacks of opportunity using them. Furthermore, who would stand and be full attacked while trying to buff up?
In any case, wands are bought fully charged because the crafting rules require them to be fully charged. Consider wands you found on chronicle sheets logged at the Used Wand Dealer of Absalom. Those are your partially charged ones. However, you can't make them like that. The rules say so.
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Yes, but why do the rules have to set 50 charges on a wand? Why not wands of 20 charges? Also, you want to spam spells, go for it.
Back to the previous response.
Casting the spell won't provoke an AoO, digging around in your backpack of a 1,000 wands to get the one you want, that's a bit different. But even if it doesn't because of a Handy Haversack, I don't know what dungeons you are talking about.
This is the PFS forum and most scenarios don't happen in a dungeon, where you clear the dungeon in 30 minutes or less. I've played over 30 scenarios now and I've had very little dungeon crawling involved. The Devil We Know series was the closest thing to it, everything else, took hours to explore. Check for traps, find a door, go down this dungeon, read the runes, figure them out, listen at the next door.
So sure, if you have a party of Orc Barbarians who want to clear out everyone and kill everything that's great but you never know when you'll meet the bad guys. And if you walk around casting it every 30 minutes, as a GM, I'm going to MAKE you cast it every 30 minutes. You want to cast a barkskin spell every 30 minutes, guess what your wand burned out in the middle of the forest on your way there, take 10 charges off, since it took 5 hours to get there.
I'll draw you a map of a house you got sent to looking for the bad guy, you walk in and you cast your spells before you walk in, oh its the house of the contact that will take you to the house of the guy you're looking for and his house is across town. Have fun burning up your charges, walking in the middle of the night looking for BBEG named Bob, except you failed your knowledge local rolls and I didn't tell you. Have fun doing it all over again, the next day.
So, wands are great, no doubt about it. But I as the GM am under no obligation to tell you which darkness spell was cast. So, now you have to cast dark vision every time or daylight which is more expensive. And each time, you are burning 2 turns while the BBEG are banging on your cleric. Its the GMs job not to allow that sort of 'well aged gouda' and make you feel it.
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Eric: you're ignoring the effect this would have to availability based on Fame, and the impact to game balance.
At the moment, 2nd-level wands (4500gp) are available when a PC reaches 18 Fame, so approx. 4th or 5th level.
A 10-charge wand would cost 900gp, and would be available at 9 fame, so approx. 2nd or 3rd level - significantly earlier than before.
Either that, or you put in some exception to the normal rules, stating that low-charge wands still use the full value of a 50 charge wand for purposes of availability via Fame. Given how confusing some people already find item availability, this would be fraught with problems.
No change to the existing rules, please.
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Can't buy a wand because of fame requirements. What a giant PFS joke.
Yeah, that never sat well with me either. A wand gets made by a spell caster for half the price you pay. 4,000gp wand only costs the caster 2,000gp and you can't buy it because you aren't famous enough.
Sorry, you've got 4,000gp and you can buy it, have at it. You want to buy it from PFS, they should provide a discount for buying from the guild PX. If I have 40,000gp in my bank account, I can buy a Mithral Full-Plate +5 on the open market without being a "Famous Pathfinder." So why is my PC not allowed to go and buy whatever he can afford?
Upgrading an item, I can see that as a different story. But just a straight purchase in Absalom. "Money talks, bs walks," would be my motto. It certainly is the motto of the City of Absalom.
Just one more rule that needs an adjustment but that's for another thread.
And yes, please change existing rules.
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In any case, wands are bought fully charged because the crafting rules require them to be fully charged. Consider wands you found on chronicle sheets logged at the Used Wand Dealer of Absalom. Those are your partially charged ones. However, you can't make them like that. The rules say so.
Mergy already explained it here, but CRB crafting rules say you make wands fully charged. PFS doesn't have a precedent of changing mechanics from the CRB (with minor exceptions) so if what you are advocating is a change to the CRB rules, the PFS forum is probably not the best avenue for them.
Along with Paz, I'm happy leaving short-charge wands as a reward in chronicle sheets. Want only 10 of a spell, get 10 scrolls.
Still, the question remains...
What happens to all these partially charged wands the adventurers find and then sell to MagiMart (for an appropriately lowered price, calculated from the remaining charges)?
Are those sent to magical recycling, or why don't they ever appear to be re-sold to other customers?
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Can't buy a wand because of fame requirements. What a giant PFS joke.
Yeah, that never sat well with me either. A wand gets made by a spell caster for half the price you pay. 4,000gp wand only costs the caster 2,000gp and you can't buy it because you aren't famous enough.
Sorry, you've got 4,000gp and you can buy it, have at it. You want to buy it from PFS, they should provide a discount for buying from the guild PX. If I have 40,000gp in my bank account, I can buy a Mithral Full-Plate +5 on the open market without being a "Famous Pathfinder." So why is my PC not allowed to go and buy whatever he can afford?
Upgrading an item, I can see that as a different story. But just a straight purchase in Absalom. "Money talks, bs walks," would be my motto. It certainly is the motto of the City of Absalom.
Just one more rule that needs an adjustment but that's for another thread.
And yes, please change existing rules.
According to the core rules, you can only buy that 40,000 gp item if it actually exists on the open market. Checking the Gamemastery Guide, I see that the largest settlement possible (Metropolis) is only guaranteed to have items worth 16,000 gp or less. That means that your +5 mithral full plate is actually surprisingly hard to find. If I recall correctly, it would count as a major magical item, of which a metropolis only has 3d4 (randomly rolled of course).
That's what fame is for. You asked for it, and because you're a famous enough Pathfinder, the Society sends its agents out to locate a seller who deals in such powerful armour.
PFS does not exist to serve your whims. The fame rules, the lack of custom item creation, etc. are there for a reason. If you want a rules change, please give a reason beyond "I want this item sooner."
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@Eric: You might as well take the request for the basic charges per wand to be changed from 50 over to the Rules forum, since that is the place for requests for Pathfinder rules changes.
You will probably want to be careful in how you request the change, including actual mechanics reasons for it, so that the regular posters don't call you a min./maxer, and so that you can actually give a good rules-worthy reason for the change.
You might want to look at the post that caused Mike Brock to change his mond about the legality of Magical Knack in PFS as an example of how to approach requesting fundamental rules changes.
@Everyone: Found a way to use a first level wand and a cracked Ioun stone which costs 2000 gp to cause interesting, if unintended, effects on the game.
Spell Storing items allow bypassing some of the spellcasting limitations, like no personal spells in potions. Get a spell storing item which can hold spells of the correct level, a wand of that spell, and all you need is a spellcaster or UMDer to refill the item from the wand for you, and you are golden.
Want True Strike? No problem. How about a Cure Light Wounds? Easy peasy.