What is your wisdom re: prohibiting the ability to use magic items as a method of spamming spells? The classic example is the Wand of Cure Light Wounds. By around level 5, they become a cost-efficient method for the PCs to heal themselves back to full health after every fight, which diminishes the endurance run aspect of dungeon delving.
Other examples include:
A wand of fireballs, which - if acquired at a reasonably low level - can turn many encounters into "I cast fireball; everything dies". The same goes for Sleep. And yes, creatures will eventually regularly meet the DCs; and there are creatures that are immune to Sleep; and situations where casting Fireball is bad - but they do put a cramp on the concept of the spell budget, which seems important to the balance of classes (and the resource management of dungeon delves).
Carrying wands that just have stat buffs: they don't really add anything interesting to the adventure. They just let the party run around with extra buffs to their Attributes and/or Saving Throws for several encounters; or, in the case of Haste, give everybody an extra action and several other benefits beside (and, say what you will about other buffs, Haste is the sort that most classes would want on a regular basis).
Although wands are the "worst offenders", you might get a similar effect if players carry scrolls with several castings of the same spell (or even just scribe a large collection of scrolls, particularly those where DCs or duration aren't important); or a large number of potions (with the extras carried in an extradimensional space, once that becomes reasonable). Also, I have learned that some wondrous items apparently have infinite castings of spells: for example, the Horn of Fog, which produces both Obscuring Mist and Fog Cloud, an infinite number of times per day - has recently fallen into the possession of my players, who are actually concerned that its infinite usage makes it overpowered.
This issue has come up because I am running a dungeon delve: the Emerald Spire Superdungeon. Dungeon delves are (in part) a matter of endurance, logistics, and resource management: I find consumables to be a problem in that regard because they run against that, and some of them can seriously throw off one or more of those themes.
I would like your opinion on whether my concerns are well-founded. If you need clarification of my concerns, I'll be happy to expound. If my concerns are well-founded, what would you suggest to remedy the issue?
I have considered several possibilities...
One: Prohibiting certain wands (or certain consumables in general), such as any wand that provides healing.
Two: Make consumables "single use only"; or introduce other complications (such as the classic "potion miscibility")
Three: Remove consumables entirely, and instead make them all Wondrous Items, which have a certain number of charges that may be used per day.
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If you really want a gritty survivalist feel to your dungeon you could use One. I don't like Two or Three much at all.
I would highly suggest you house rule natural healing per night if you do limit healing consumables. 1 HP per level per day with 8 hours of rest. Especially in a lower level game, that is simply not going to cut it. The party will be stuck in bed rest for many days at a time after 1 good roll from a monster. They would almost autofail time-sensitive missions at that point.
Trying to take away healing wands sounds kind of oppressive. Taking away potions, which cost a ton of gold, sounds downright cruel. Wands cost gold. If they seem like a "free" boost maybe the PCs have too much gold.
I'm not sure why the Horn of Fog would be a problem, but if it is then you might consider finding a way to get it out of the game. Maybe a nasty enemy sunders it. Maybe an NPC demands it as payment for some service or information the PCs need. Maybe somebody just offers to buy it from them.
If you want the PCs to really feel the effects of resource drain you could consider putting fights closer together with "waves" of enemies who arrive after giving the PCs only a few rounds to recover. If the PCs are fairly low level you also might be able to wear them down with ability damage and negative levels.
Healing wands seem overpowered to me, too. But the rules allow them, so you need to resort to other DM tactics to limit their use... unless you declare that wands only work with arcane spells (not RAW, but not conceptually invalid either).
For example, there might be no local clerics who specialize in "craft wand". If the players are crafters, there could be a whole host of reasons to limit downtime between sessions.
Scrolls and potions are less of a problem, given their higher cost, and the fact that they are *supposed* to work that way. But you can still limit their supply, by declaring that a given temple only has 1d6 potions of healing available for sale on a given week.
Fireball wands eventually run out. Sleep wands too, and only affect low-HD critters.
The only real answer to these ressources is controlling their availability. That means time and money.
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I have run a couple delves into megadungeons recently and for me, I don't see an issue with consumables. My PCs are only 2nd level, but they still have had access to many scrolls and a couple wands. Some guidelines I go through when handing out the consumables:
1. in found treasure, go random - random spells in the scrolls, wands and potions and random # of charges in said wands.
2. when shopping in smaller settlements, enforce the magic item quantities - if they don't ask to have specific wands or potions made, or are looking for something like a wand of fireballs in a hamlet or village, really stick to the settlement guidelines of random minor items being available.
Essentially this forces my players to get to know the consumable item makers in settlements they visit or become crafters themselves. In play their wand of CLW and other stuff hasn't really been an issue.
My one buddy put it perfectly. He reminded me that a wand is never going to have a powerful enough spell to bring someone back to life. As the PCs get higher in level, they'll want to get deeper into the dungeon. Consumables will be used up on the way in; now they have to get back out.
See if you take my guys at level 2, they can make it say about 4 encounters in on their own powers. With a full want of CLW they could only count on adding another, say, 10 encounters max. My players then have to be counting up the # of encounters and noting their surroundings to make sure they don't get 8 or 9 encounters in and realize they've suddenly slipped down a level into tougher monsters and have to claw their way back up to the exit.
There are a lot of ways a GM can get around consumables in a dungeon crawl without resorting to restrictions.
The important thing to remember is to keep the gold of the PCs - which in turn enables most stuff - under control. Don't hand out too much (check the DMG)and stick with the rules for what is available where, as Mark posted.
The consumable stuff is expensive and it costs feats to be able to craft. The latter is the reason why no player in my game has picked up crafting, btw, except for writing scrolls.
If your players already have too much, i.e. way more than the rules recommend, the time has come for you to do your job :)
I prefer upping the challenge vastly to nerfing anything. So if they have too much healing, don't take their wands away, just increase the toughness of encounters, so they need to use it up much faster. And then do not re-supply them, of course.
Increasing toughness is easy, even without upping the CR. Giving your ogres - or other musclebound thugs - +4 STR and CON will do wonders. Especially as it has only to be one such tribe, which you could package into a background story, too...handing them a reason to go where their extra healing is going to get needed.
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"Dungeon delves are (in part) a matter of endurance, logistics, and resource management"
Exactly. Which is why a well prepared party purchases and intelligently uses consumables.
Basically you have a couple of choices. One is force at least one player to be nothing more than a walking first aid station. Another is to embrace the 15 minute adventuring day and have the party rest after every encounter, and the third is to allow consumables, and yes, even provide them some in treasure from time to time.
I personally find the last option to be a whole lot more fun to run and play in, but in the end it is up to you.
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I don't understand the problem. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Roll up that random treasure before the fights. One of the things I love the most as a GM is the look on the players faces when the ogres drink the potions of invisibility in the treasure and use them to ambush the party. That only happens when you roll treasure before initiative.
I love it when my players are efficient and get up to mid level quickly and easily. I much prefer running frost giants to ogres. If you don't like the sprint to level 7 perhaps the slow advancement track or an E6 game might be better for your style.
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All my collected wisdom says the answer is….maybe.
Keeping players behind WBL and/or limiting consumables is fine if you keep two things in mind.
1. Make sure the players want an adventure based game isntead of an encounter based game. Your players will hate it if they are not on board with combat as war. Some folks just want to "kill things and take their loot" For others, combat isnt just a challenege, it's a desirable part of the game. Some players want at least half a tank of gas going into each challenge.
2. Make sure you take care to balance the adventure and not simply the encounters. One of the big reasons combat as war has gone out of style is its difficult to run a well planned adventure. The players need difficult yet possible challeneges laid out before them. Challeneges that have different levels of success based on how the players engage them. This requires a level of trust between GM and player.
There is another option out there now. 5E is kind of a hybrid right now of many play styles. Its being sold on the idea that 5E is modular. I cant speak to its success yet as I havent gotten to do more than kick the tires. 5E might be a better system for the type of game you are looking for. Though 3E/PF isnt the perfect fit for adventure based design I think its definetly riggable to support it. It is a lot of work so make sure your players are on board first.
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Limit the gold not the items. They can only buy what they can afford and can only find what you allow to drop. If they have an over abundance of items then scale back a bit. But first few levels are the roughest and they will need to survive so you can throw real challenges at them opposed to the typical goblins and Bugbears.
If the problem is one of availability, i.e. the MagicMart syndrome, then take their toys away. Steal them. You have to figure that at some point, some group of dungeon denizens have learned how much of a force multiplier these things are, so they've worked out methods to relieve the party of this stuff -- possibly even going so far as figuring out how to use these things for their benefit against the party!
So here's what you want: a large room near the start of the dungeon with good places along the side to hide or escape. A great hall or courtroom is perfect for this sort of thing. Hide some spellcasters or alchemists along the side, put some artillery in the back and put some tanky skirmishers in the front. When the party comes in, the skirmishers come up to distract them, and then the spellcasters/alchemists drop strength-reducing spells like Ray of Enfeeblement on the weaker members of the party (the ones not in heavy armor -- they're probably the ones with consumable magic items). Or some STR-draining poison. Then the monsters withdraw, to protect the artillery.
The party, now a few points of Strength down, will probably divest themselves of heavy packs so they can move closer to the artillery. That's when the stealthed monsters swoop in, grab the packs and run like hell.
Even if they've only grabbed the mundane stuff like rope, rations, etc., from the party, they've still cost the party resources. And the rest of the monsters will learn where those consumables are, because those rogues will be trying again. And again. And again.
I think this is an overall problem with the game in itself. Balance gets thrown out of the window because of consumables - and to a lesser extent, magic items.
I enforce a 3 magic items (equipment) maximum for players, and all wands in my games only have 4 charges.
I've heard of a house rule whereby divine magic cannot be made into scrolls/wands/potions, etc. It has the double benefit of removing things like CLW Wand recharge, AND making having a healer in the party actually important.
I also think it thematically makes a lot of sense.
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@Rudy2 - I think that forcing somebody to play a Cleric or other "healer" when they don't want to could be a bad idea. That's doubly true if you're going to force the PC to use a lot of his or her daily powers just keeping the party's hit points up. There are probably a thousand threads on how suboptimal healing is. Making it worse and rubbing some player's nose in it doesn't sound like much fun to me.
Wands help set players free. I wish there were more reasonably affordable healing methods available right from 1st level. Scrolls of Infernal Healing aren't bad if they're available, but they often aren't, and some PCs won't want to use them due to the Evil aura.
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Healing ceases to be "suboptimal" as soon as healing items are no longer available.
I'm not saying I'd use this in every game, but it is a way to reduce endurance of parties, as the OP wants to do.
Depending on the campaign, it may be desirable to not making healing so hum-drum as well. "Ah, I lost half my hit points during this battle; get the wand!" It removes all of the actual drama of wounds; they become a minor and very, very temporary inconvenience. Having to depend on direct divine intervention, in the form of earthly agents, creates compelling themes in certain settings.
A single cast of cure light wounds costs 15gp
A single cast of lesser restoration costs 90gp
A single cast of Fireball costs 225gp
A single cast of Haste costs 420gp
Assuming during an encounter they lead with Fireball (225) and haste (420) and need a little bit of healing 5x (15) they're now -810gp, you would have to be paying them a lot of money per encounter for that to be cost effective.
This is ignoring the extraordinary costs of making the wands in the first place.
If they are able to afford this sort of outlay per fight every fight then you either need to dial down your treasure or increase the difficultly of fights. Any battle won with a single spell, should be won with a single spell OR not exist in the first place.
Also remember that wands are always cast at the lowest level possible. That's the lowest dc, damage and duration.
Unless of course we're talking a mid-high level campaign, and a wizard with Staff-Like Wand. In which case the wizard becomes even more godlike than they already were, now free from the shackles of limited spells per day at their full caster level.
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@Rudy2 - The complaint about healing being suboptimal is generally focused on in combat healing. If you have access to wands or similar expendables for out of combat healing then the PCs can choose whether or not to bother with in combat healing. If you don't then it seems like it could become almost mandatory for somebody to play a "healer".
OP here. My apologies for the late reply. I needed time to digest everything.
First, I will make some general comments that address recurring themes I have seen in several posts. Then I will go down the list with my responses to more specific replies. If you think I missed your reply; my apologies, please restate the observation or question.
This will be a lengthy post; I will probably write a follow-up post later on.
Most of the advice I am seeking is preparatory: we've only had three sessions of the game so far; the party is only level 2.
The Emerald Spire Superdungeon is an official Pathfinder module. Every level of the dungeon is mapped out; every room detailed; and all treasure and gold already placed. The only random elements are random encounters that characters might encounter on the six mile trek to and from the dungeon; and on the occasionally lengthy walks between floors (a teleporter allows them to easily return to the top of the dungeon after they get a few levels down, and the big walks aren't until later in the dungeon).
There are two small towns within reasonable travel distance of the Emerald Spire. I am using the random magic item rules to generate the items the players might find there; which did end up creating a few wands (although I picked what kind of wands they are). The items are scattered around town, so the players will need to know who to ask to acquire them.
That said, keep in mind that, by the rules, the PCs have a 75% chance of finding anything below the base value of the town: in this case, 1300 gold.
I honestly have no idea how much gold the PCs will have to toss around. They're level 2, and could probably rack up somewhere between 2000 and 4000 gold if they'd bothered to kill everything they came across instead of using diplomacy; as it stands, they would have maybe 1250 gold if they liquidated their magic items, and they have not found any actual gold yet.
This is my first time running Pathfinder; and I have not even played in a campaign in three years. All of my DM intuitions about the PCs gold economy comes from Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, where treasure troves of gold and magic items are mandatory in order to keep up with the game's constantly increasing power level. I understand that Pathfinder is stingier, but I do not yet have an intuition of how much the PCs will be able to afford. From your guys' posts, I'm getting the impression they won't be buying six different wands by level 4 to cast with, while all the lightly armored members chug potions of Mage Armor before every combat, and the wizard runs around with three copies of every spell in his spellbook written down in scroll form, while the party is debating what to spend their excess gold on.
That said, my understanding is that there will come a point at which the players simply do have enough gold to stock up on Wands of Cure Light Wounds. Maybe it's level 5; maybe 7; maybe higher. The point is that, whenever they have the wand, it breaks part of the game's resource management; and when they become able to afford an endless supply of them, it's permanently broken.
The problem with Wands of Cure Light Wounds (and arguably Scrolls; but likely not Potions) is that they effectively remove hit points as a dungeon delving resource, by replacing it with gold. This isn't a big deal with potions - apparently - because potions are incredibly cost-inefficient (so I'm told). If the PCs have easy access to CLW wand, then hit points are one less thing the players need to worry about in planning out the logistics of their dungeon delve. This, in turn, rubs against the point of running a dungeon delve (if you adhere to the philosophy mentioned in my first post): the ability to proceed deeper into the dungeon should be dependent on the players' ability to manage their various resources. Gold apparently scales quickly enough that eventually the cost of a wand of cure light wounds is beneficial in light of the party's total hit point count.
You see problems like this with other spells. I'm fortunate that I don't have to worry about players checking the local stores for Wands of Knock, Invisibility or Find Traps - they're Level 2 spells, which puts them above the base value of the local towns - but in a game set near a major city, the rogue very well might wonder what his purpose is other than stabbing people in the back once the party effectively finds a "Rogue in a Box" in a metropolis. Those are examples of spells where save DCs aren't a big issue, they have a lot of utility, and the players aren't likely to burn through them quickly. In any case, "I'm sorry, but the metropolis does not have a Wand of Cure Light Wounds" will ring false to players. "They have +3 armor, but no wands of cure light wounds? Really?"
Several posters suggested disallowing divine magic, but I'm not sure how that would make a difference: bards can cast Cure Light Wounds as an arcane spell, so it would still exist. What I think you mean is prohibit "conjuration (healing)" spells.
I would highly suggest you house rule natural healing per night if you do limit healing consumables. 1 HP per level per day with 8 hours of rest. Especially in a lower level game, that is simply not going to cut it. The party will be stuck in bed rest for many days at a time after 1 good roll from a monster. They would almost autofail time-sensitive missions at that point.
I am comfortable with characters being "in bed" for several days. It's a dungeon in the classic sense; there isn't much about it - if anything - that is time-sensitive. Even if there were time-sensitive missions, part of the dungeon experience is resource management: learning to be creative in handling monsters to minimize the occasions when they need to return to town, and for how long.
This depends on what kind of game you want.By around level 5, they become a cost-efficient method for the PCs to heal themselves back to full health after every fight, which diminishes the endurance run aspect of dungeon delving.Not every fight: the wand "only" have 50 charges. To heal an entire group after challenging fights it would only last 5-10 fights. And if they, without any problem, can get a new one: why are you handing out magic items?
These are easily replaceable, and easy to stockpile; see below.
Sleep can only be effective the first levels, after that the HD limit is'nt enough. And why would you hand your lvl1-4 players a wand of Sleep?
How does your players get their items? Crafting? Buying? Finding? There are restrictions to all methods: It takes time to craft. It costs to buy AND you may not always find what you want.
75% chance of finding anything below the base value of the two nearest towns: which is 1300 gold. Wands of Sleep and Cure Light Wounds are only 750 gold. Therefore, they have a good chance of getting either. If one town doesn't have it, the other might; unless I wanted to restrict it to 75% chance of finding it in the whole region, which helps, but it's still 75%.
And if they prepair by scribing scrolls, they're doing it right, it's not a problem.
It would be a problem if the ability to obtain scrolls broke the resource management of the game.
As for the Horn of Fog, what's so overpowered with fog? I know what it does, but it won't break anything unless you let it happen.
One: It's a found item that is perhaps found too early. Spell Level 1 x Caster Level 3 x 2,000 GP = 6000 GP just to create. Should have a purchase value, therefore, of 12,000 GP. Instead, it costs 2,000 GP, and my Level 2 players just got a hold of it as an easy preplaced find in the dungeon. It's simply too inexpensive and obtained too early for an item that has infinite usage.
Two: The utility may be overwhelming. This is perfect for any encounter in which the PCs are outnumbered (as the blinding effect is mathematically worse for whichever side is making more attacks per round); and the ability is endless, and travels out continuously for so long as you blow into it. Depending on how you interpret this (such as if you put a limit based on Constitution), the PCs could arguably sow mass confusion by holing up in a safe spot, sending out mist to blind everything in the dungeon level, and then hunting down groups of enemies - after which they retreat to their safe spot.
Some posters mentioned "the 15 minute adventuring day". I don't consider that a problem in a dungeon delve because the philosophy has risks: whenever the PCs leave the dungeon, that is an opportunity for the monsters to change their strategies, new monsters to join in the dungeon, and random encounters to pop up. If characters keep brute-forcing the situation, they won't get far. Mind you, I'm basing that off the way things worked in OD&D; Pathfinder gives PCs more hit points, more options, and full XP for every monster killed (even random encounters); plus the Emerald Spire isn't that big, all things considered. So, maybe it just doesn't work in 3.x games; but it sounds like that's a contentious issue, instead of a settled one.
I have not played or run Emerald Spire so I do not know the specifics. Is the place a sealed biosphere or an adventurer hotel california (you can check out anytime you like but you can never leave...)? Reading the general description implies it is a super (possibly killer) dungeon.
The PCs can enter and leave the Emerald Spire whenever they want; nothing about the dungeon itself forces them to remain inside. In fact, there are actually several ways in and out of the dungeon (as monsters from the Darklands and other planes find their way into the lower levels).
If the PCs can get out of the dungeon any time they want it sounds like denying them between combat healing capabilities might just result in the party leaving the dungeon to go rest more often. That seems like less resource management instead of more. Making it tougher to get out of the dungeon once you're in would probably do a lot to make it a more harrowing experience.
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I think you need to Home brew it, write it all down and put it forth to your players.
Your not going to get the answers you want on here because 3.x/PF is vastly different from the MMO like nature of 4e. If you want the per day likeness of 4e look at the "eternal" wands from Eberron, they only function x number of times per day. Use those instead of a 3.x/PF CLW wand.
Maybe PF isn't for you?
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Reading this over I see where you are coming from OP. However, I think that in this particular case you might want to just restrict access to CLW wands. As you said there are two small towns near the dungeon. These small towns will have access to ~75% of items below 1300 gp. That however does not mean that they will have an infinite number of these items. Most likely the villages are getting these items delivered once or twice every couple of months. They could very easily sell out. Especially, if other adventurers are rolling through town on occasion.
Heck I live in a city of 3 million people and there are times when I find myself unable to purchase specialty goods (like clw wands or Densite plaster) because they are simply out of stock in every store I go to.
I would not limit the characters like that. This just forces them to build better characters so they can survive which may work against you.
Thought about this for a few days... this is a mega-dungeon expedition, right? All you need to do is entice them deeper & deeper into the depths, to the extent that they simply use up those consumables. At some point there could be a cave-in (or grisly trap, or magic portal...) that prevents them from going back out the way they came in. The beauty with "consumables" is that sooner or later they are... consumed.
Even if it takes a few sessions to get there, the horror comes once those consumables are exhausted and they can't just pop round to the corner magic shoppe for more. The underdark (or whatever) can be a big place.
And when they start finding "A.S." scratched into the cavern walls...
And when they start finding "A.S." scratched into the cavern walls...
"the wandermeal is a lie"
A single cast of cure light wounds costs 15gp
A single cast of lesser restoration costs 90gp
A single cast of Fireball costs 225gp
A single cast of Haste costs 420gpAssuming during an encounter they lead with Fireball (225) and haste (420) and need a little bit of healing 5x (15) they're now -810gp, you would have to be paying them a lot of money per encounter for that to be cost effective.
This is ignoring the extraordinary costs of making the wands in the first place.
If they are able to afford this sort of outlay per fight every fight then you either need to dial down your treasure or increase the difficultly of fights. Any battle won with a single spell, should be won with a single spell OR not exist in the first place.
Also remember that wands are always cast at the lowest level possible. That's the lowest dc, damage and duration.
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This.Gold is just as much a resource to manage as spells and arrows.
If they choose to go this route the may perform better in early encounters, but if you are following the WBL guide lines they will short them selves at later level.
The expenditure of resources will control all but the most aggressive PCs, as long as you, as the GM, monitor the wealth and do not let it get out of hand.
Also, keep in mind, the adventures are written withe the default assumption that the PCs will win.
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So my suggestion is to just never let them have full 50 charge wands. you will never find a wand of fire ball with more than 3 charges at level 3. the same goes for making wands.
roll randomly to see how many charges wands they make have.
This adds a little more resource management to the game for them and in emerald spire they are going to need it for sure that place is a hell hole hahahah.
Several posters discussed wands as though they were something which the DM rolls randomly. However, that is only half-true. Yes, you roll randomly to determine whether a wand is present: however, the tables do not tell you what kind of wand it is. The DM needs to decide for himself. Therefore, players never actually receive a wand of cure light wounds or pilfering hand by chance. On a related issue that's tangentially related to the scope of this thread: I realize that some spells would never be put in wands, and some spells everybody would put in wands, but I often struggle to figure out which make good sense as wands.
Reading this over I see where you are coming from OP. However, I think that in this particular case you might want to just restrict access to CLW wands. As you said there are two small towns near the dungeon. These small towns will have access to ~75% of items below 1300 gp. That however does not mean that they will have an infinite number of these items. Most likely the villages are getting these items delivered once or twice every couple of months. They could very easily sell out. Especially, if other adventurers are rolling through town on occasion.
I think I'll have an "annual restock" rule. Players have a 75% chance of finding an item; until they fail the roll. In that case, they cannot check again until next Spring.
Also, I don't like the 75% figure. I think availability would depend on the gold piece value of the item in question - but the other side of me says that this is too nit-picky.
If the PCs can get out of the dungeon any time they want it sounds like denying them between combat healing capabilities might just result in the party leaving the dungeon to go rest more often. That seems like less resource management instead of more. Making it tougher to get out of the dungeon once you're in would probably do a lot to make it a more harrowing experience.
It's normal for PCs to be able to leave a dungeon in a dungeon delve. The issue is that they often need to spend significant time backtracking. You do remind me, though, that the Emerald Spire has a shortcut: basically, on every level there is an "elevator" the PCs can use to instantly teleport to any level of the dungeon (usually only ones to which they have already been). That's bad game design from a dungeon delve perspective. Unfortunately, it's also an inherent aspect of the module; several parts would need to be rewritten if the elevator were removed. Still, I'll take it under advisement: think about ways to make the trek difficult.
And when they start finding "A.S." scratched into the cavern walls...
...S.
Here is where I am currently at in regards to consumable magic items, based on your guys' feedback.
Consumables are an expensive investment because they are exhaustible. Players who invest heavily in consumables will usually short-change themselves in the long-run because they will struggle to put together the GP necessary to purchase better equipment. This paradigm will hold true if I enforce random treasure drops (or, presumably, go with the treasure found in the module), instead of going for wealthy by level. The PCs will simply not have enough gold to stockpile consumables and purchase other equipment.
Usefulness isn't a bad thing - and players shouldn't be punished just because they found a good deal; that's the whole point of wands, really. However, certain wands may be too useful. Wands are the cheapest of the three consumables: potions are prohibitively expensive to stockpile; scrolls are questionable; but buying a wand is like getting a discount for buying in bulk. If you know you're going to use every charge, you're getting a deal. If a wand has a save DC, chances are the PCs will scale out of it before they can burn through all of the charges. However, some wands are always useful: those which simply provide buffs (Darkvision; Haste), or "conjuration (healing)" effects, tend to get a lot of use.
A Wand of Cure Light Wounds is an inexpensive means of healing up the characters after every fight; by around level 5, a wand of CLW is a minor investment for characters; and stockpiling them becomes increasingly easy and attractive. This is a problem in a dungeon delve game because part of the challenge is resource management. Hit points are a resource. A wand of CLW removes hit points as a resource (out of combat) because the wand of CLW is cost-efficient. Players can expect to face each confrontation at full hit points, and delving deeper into the dungeon requires less creative thinking because direct confrontation and battles of attrition against a series of dungeon obstacles become too attractive.
Resource management - and logistics - arguments can be put forth for certain other wands: for example, wands of Darkvision remove the need for torches or light spells.
I am on the fence about "boring" wands, and I admit this might just be a personal bias: carrying around wands that provide buffs (Haste, etc.) just mean that the party starts every battle with a bunch of extra buffs. But that's not really a problem, I think: after all, buying that wand of Haste means giving up something that grants a permanent bonus - probably a fair trade. Though, again, there is the issue at later levels: when PCs are running around with so much gold that a Level 1, 2, or even 3 wand is a triviality: and so of course they buy a Wand of Haste then; it's an inexpensive way of getting a nice buff ("who wants an extra standard action? Everybody? Thought so").
The big hamper on the wand issue is Availability. If I follow the rules in the Dungeon Master section of the rulebook, then random items will be randomly generated. The players may want a Wand of Cure Light Wounds, but they cannot expect to find one in a treasure horde or even in a town; it's all randomized.
There are a few problems with that position, however. First, any settlement that is a small town or larger will probably have any Level 1 Wand that the PCs are looking for. Every settlement has a 75% chance of possessing any magic item below its base value; small towns have a base value of 1300 GP, which means they have a 75% chance of having any Level 1 Wand. If the PCs cannot find the wand at one settlement, chances are good they will find it at the next. You can address this by changing the 75% rule, but it's still a patch (and are you really going to say a metropolis doesn't have a Wand of Cure Light Wounds? You might as well just prohibit the wand anyway).
Also, depending on the campaign, the players may be able to craft the wands they want; or find somebody to do the crafting for them. If you're running a high fantasy setting, and have access to a city, you're bound to find somebody who has the financial resources and expertise to craft magic items (and, really, somebody is going to fill that market; and probably several people - imagine the bank you could make being the only person in a city who is crafting wands). Even if your game takes place in the middle of nowhere (and really, where is "nowhere" once the players are higher level?), somebody can take the relevant crafting feat: and at that point, you need to decide whether that is enough of a sacrifice for the benefit - my intuition is that it is not a fair trade, at least in the context of dungeon delve breakers.
Finally, rolling for wands actually isn't entirely random. Rolling for whether there is a wand is random, but the DM must still decide which wand it actually is. You as the DM cannot help but make an active choice on how you want your party
I won't prohibit potions or scrolls. I won't outright ban wands; but I will prohibit wands of "conjuration (healing)" spells; and perhaps several other wands.
Personally I don't think wands/scrolls/potions are ever cost effective, they're convenience effective. Consumables allow players to keep playing past the point they'd exhausted their spells/abilities/renewables. What you need to understand is you WANT players to push on and you WANT them to use up their supplies. If you're forcing players to rest more often it actually makes them stronger as the most powerful class abilities are refreshed, they're spending less money (if any), can nova more fights and are actually steaming ahead in experience because they're doing more fights for less risk.
Something else to consider is while some things are possible (like spending all your money a single use item), what is probable is way more realistic. There is no way in hell I'm going to spend money on a wand 90gp/scroll 150gp of dark vision when I can cast light for free or use a torch for 1 cp.
There is also no way in hell I would ever spend more than a fraction of my wealth on a consumable when permanent items give more mileage. I *could* save all my money up to level 5/6 and put down 11,250 gp on a wand of fireball or buy 2 scrolls of Power Word kill + Symbol of Death scroll. I'd be suffering for a very long time before and after for this limited power.
Alternatively I could get a bracers of armour+1 (1k), ring of protection+1 (1k), cloak of resistance+1 (1k), lesser bouncing metamagic rod (3k) and a Headband of Intelligence +2 (4k) and build up my power incrementally for the same price.
Remember if your players aren't throwing away money on consumables, they're stockpiling arms and armour instead.
If you limit magic items, casters reign as supreme because of the 5 minute adventuring day. It encourages players to go into the dungeon, do three encounters blowing all castable resources to stay alive, then to go rest.
It's absolutely ridiculous to punish the 100HP barbarian with 2-3 days resting to just get healed up because the party cleric can't load enough healing to recover all of that. It also forces every party to have a cleric no matter what, and everyone hated playing the healbot in the first place.
I'd personally rather play no pathfinder at all than play like this. Far better to have four players playing what they like then four players gaming their characters to survive overly strict magic item rules.
Your comment about a wand of fireballs seemed out of place. I've never seen an offensive wand user succeed. Fireball on a wand is 5d6 save for half at a terrible reflex roll. This means you're likely seeing 75%+ of the monsters save, and the cost is 225 (!!!) gp per cast averaging only 21 damage (based on 75% save rate) some of which might have hit your melee which will cost you healing.
That's completely ludicrous. Any player in their right mind would just sell the wand, stock up on alchemists fire and spend the profit on items that will actually have some return value.
The road you're headed down is one I've played through before. I'd never willingly opt to return there.
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I am on the fence about "boring" wands, and I admit this might just be a personal bias: carrying around wands that provide buffs (Haste, etc.) just mean that the party starts every battle with a bunch of extra buffs. But that's not really a problem, I think: after all, buying that wand of Haste means giving up something that grants a permanent bonus - probably a fair trade. Though, again, there is the issue at later levels: when PCs are running around with so much gold that a Level 1, 2, or even 3 wand is a triviality: and so of course they buy a Wand of Haste then; it's an inexpensive way of getting a nice buff ("who wants an extra standard action? Everybody? Thought so").
Another point worth considering in the specific case of a Wand of Haste is that Haste from a standard wand only has a 5 round duration, so it's an "in combat" cast, not a "pre combat" cast (unless the scouting is exceptionally effective, in which case ... go party). It's still likely a good use of an action, but it's an action not spent doing something else possibly more fun/effective (depending on build).
Even minute/lvl buffs will burn through a whole wand in a couple of hours game time if used continuously... Hellish expensive.
And of course the 10 minute or hour/lvl buffs are less swanky...
As I've stated it's your game and I understand where you are coming from but I have a few questions:
What do the players think?
I mean are they having fun?
Have you asked them if they think that the wands are impacting their play style or the decisions that they make in significant ways?
What does the party look like? Is there a cleric?
As an aside. In my experience class specific expendables are more often than not the reason why a party turns back in a dungeon delve rather than hit points. Things like # of spells left, # of rage rounds, etc. I just wonder why these wands might be causing such a disturbance...
Several posters have made the point that - at least generally speaking - investing in consumables is an interesting decision; and may even be a bad idea on the players' part. If the party wants a Wand of Fireball, that's fine: they won't be able to really afford it until level 9, by which point it's the equivalent of a holdout pistol. If they want a Wand of Haste, that means they are gaining a consumable buff in exchange for giving up +3 equipment. Therefore, I am dropping the contention that - generally speaking - consumables, even wands, should be restricted or prohibited.
Instead, I am focusing on certain wands: in particular, the Wand of Cure Light Wounds.
I want the decision about whether to press on to be an interesting choice for the players; and if they choose to, then I want it to be a challenge. Managing your hit points are one of those challenges. You can tackle that challenge in a variety of ways: consumables are one of the ways to manage that challenge. However, consumables cost gold, which means managing gold as a resource. The issue is that I believe the investing in Wands of Cure Light Wounds draws on an inconsiderable amount of gold, which means that the players overcome the hit point management challenge without making an interesting choice.
Re: Nova. In a dungeon delve, players shoot themselves in the foot if they go nova. After the PCs go nova, they still need to exit the dungeon, which means facing random encounters - and risking death. Furthermore: whenever the PCs leave the dungeon, that gives the local monsters a change to reset traps, bolster their forces, fortify their location, move their treasure, and plan new strategies for the PCs. The shorter the expedition, the less likely the PCs are to actually gain anything; the more likely they are overall to expend resources; and the more likely they are to make things actually more difficult for themselves when they return to the dungeon. Therefore, the players need to make a better accounting of their resources in order to get deeper into the dungeon: and this includes managing their hit points.
Several posters have expressed frustration with the idea of characters needing several days to rest in town. I hope the above point addresses your question. For the sake of completion, I will add this: I don't expect players will be bored during the time their characters are in town. I can skip over 15 days of resting as quickly as I can skip over one day. The difference is this: the longer the PCs need to recuperate, the more time the dungeon has to change.
As I've stated it's your game and I understand where you are coming from but I have a few questions:
What do the players think?
Opinions include "neutral"; "it's fine, and sounds like it fits the style of game that you want to run"; and "good idea".
I mean are they having fun?
So far the group's having a blast. No complaints about a lack of healing, and they'd made adequate preparations before the adventure (one paladin; one bard).
Have you asked them if they think that the wands are impacting their play style or the decisions that they make in significant ways?
The paladin's player just doesn't want to be relegated to heal b%+!$; and the group is respectful of that. There's been no contention in the matter.
What does the party look like? Is there a cleric?
In addition to the aforementioned bard and paladin; the group also contains a rogue, summoner, and wizard.
If you continue to seek problems, you are certain to find them.
Next thing it will be the healing hex....or channeling positive energy or lay on hands......
Slippery slope argument. The players' choice to use those characters means they are giving up other resources - it's an interesting decision. And, sometimes, acquiring or expending those methods of healing means giving up on other opportunities (the paladin, for example, once used lay on hands to damage a zombie). My point is that investing in Wands of CLW isn't an interesting decision; and is actually bad for a dungeon delve.
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So this is a problem I'm actually working on myself right now. I realized not that long ago that there was a sort of weapons race going on with my players.
It used to be that in order to sort of challenge my players, I would create a handful of encounters of various difficulties, but nothing too bad. Each encounter my eat up a spell or two, take off a few HP, no big deal, by the end of 4-7 of these, they are getting a bit weak, time to rest, don't want to run into the BBEG on accident.
Then they got to the point where they could craft wands of cure light wounds for cheap, or buy them from the store for 750. As the GM, I can't justify being "Oh no. Nobody in the entire city of 50,000 has a wand of cure light wounds for sale. Nobody knows how to make them.", so okay, that's the situation. Now they feel more okay saving their spells, just sort of tanking it up, using their wand of infernal healing or cure light wounds to top off the people who took damage and keep chugging. 3 charges down, roughly 45 gold. Next fight? 1 charge. Next fight? 2. For like 80 gold, they've negated all threat.
Now as a GM, I want to challenge them a bit. They need to work for their loot. Fights should chip away at them a little bit, traps should be a bit scary, enemies should make them stop and think. That isn't happening. I try other methods. Traps? Trapfinding, pumped perception. Diseases? Cure disease. Poisons? Easy to take care of after the fight. So I start making more difficult encounters.
Now, each encounter is more or less a mini-boss, it's threatening, they are working for their loot again, expending resources. Problem is, where it used to take an impressive span of bad luck to kill off a player, now it just takes some notable bad luck. Somebody is losing a character every other session, because the mini-boss type encounter crit and took him from half to dead. S*%*.
Now my players aren't making flavorful weird characters, they are min/maxing in order to survive. More s@&$. I miss fighters with flails because nobody uses flails. I miss evokers because I want to throw some damn fire. I miss rogues at all.
That's the way things have been for a while, finally I realized that I just wanted it to go back to minor encounters with a bit of expenditure of resources. I pulled my players aside. These are the changes we've agreed to make.
1) Wands of cure light wounds and similar can't be bought or crafted. They can be found. This makes charges a bit more precious, more of a situational thing.
2) Cure disease, remove curse, similar spells that remove status effects are not on player spell lists, but they can be found at some temples and in potion form. Again, potions are rarer. This means that disease you just got is something to be worried about, also means plagues make sense as a plot tool.
3) Detect Magic as a cantrip now can only be used on a single target a as a focus. This means you don't walk into the room, glance around, spend 18 seconds and go "Yup. 8th level illusion spell there, magical trap there, not sure what that is, but there is an aura on the other side of the door, and the invisible guy just ran past going that way." Greater detect magic works as per current detect magic, but is a 1st level spell.
4) Natural healing is faster. You heal at HD+1/2 con mod per day, double that with a heal check or certain low cost consumable (poultices, etc)
We'll see how it works out. More fixes are in the way, but I think it should help cut back on the arms race. Things will be tweaked, but still.
It is not such a stretch to imagine that there are no or very few clerics able to make cure light wounds wands. Clerics as a class are fairly feat-starved to begin with, and crafting requires investing feats.
Aside from that, and infernal healing (what a problematic spell!), I see no problems with managing consumables, unless the PC have been given excessive gold - in which case, consumables are actually a good way to siphon off part of it.
The Medium track for gold/encounter suggests 260 GP/level. That is too small a hoard to contain a wand, but a 1st level spell represented by a potion/oil is 50 GP while a scroll would be 25 GP. 260 GP is a lot of loot to put together. Now what keeps your party going longer in an "endurance run" type scenario?
- a small, silver-gilt coffer (100 GP) containing 100 GP worth of mixed coins and 6 finely cut and polished agate beads (10 GP each)
- a finely carved bone scroll case with brass fixtures (60 GP) containing 4 scrolls: Mage Armor, Burning Hands, Cure Light Wounds, Bless
The second loot pile, in the hands of a sufficiently diversified party contributes a great deal to the success of the party's next fight. That seems to be the priority in doing extended dungeon delves.
In my campaigns I use the optional ruleset from Ultimate Campaign (I used it before, now it's a ruleset =D) where crafting items takes special materials and reagents. To limit cure wands, I've basically just made it so that the key ingredient in them is angel tears. Being exceedingly rare and expensive, and also used to create holy avengers and other items of that sort, most crafters either don't have access to the reagent or just don't feel justified in using such a valuable component making a wand of curing light wounds. Those that are in existence tend to be in the coffers of large churches for huge disasters, field hospitals for very wealthy armies, or used by a powerful king's personal physician. In fact, being so rare they've actually taken on a sort of mythic quality in my campaigns and my players hoard them and hang on to charges unless they absolutely need them.
Alternatively, for healing potions I've just made it so the players can have up to three on their person at any time. It seems lame and stupid and restricting, but I've adjusted the Heal check to encompass repairing damage to characters who are above half health. Above 50%, any character can make one Heal check after an encounter to gain back a number of hitpoints equal to their check minus 15. Only magical healing or rest can heal people up if they're below 50%, which we treat as the point when a "bloodied" character actually starts getting stabbed and maimed. Until then they're getting sprains or minor cuts, or even just barely parrying powerful blows. This helps out with the attrition a bit, makes Heal a valuable skill to have, and since the check takes 2 minutes players without Heal have to wait for the ones with it to come around, which could let villains escape or open up opportunities for the later rooms to get prepared for the party. Players have had no issues with these changes, and dungeons and encounters have really been no different as a result besides the fact that the players have to actually consider using up resources now outside of combat. It also makes the clerics, oracles, and inquisitors really valuable party members because they're basically walking money-savers.
As for items that enhance abilities, honestly my players must be daft because they never think of making these. Though, they have recently discovered the wonders of blur + mirror image. I have some stuff ready for if they ever start seriously abusing it, but if it becomes a problem I'd more than likely just increase the cost of the items or just pump up CR on encounters. Buffs are fun, and players like them, so I don't see much of an issue with it, especially when most AP encounters have villains or enemies frequently making use of potions of shield or blur.