Can I craft a wand with <50 Charges?

[WombattheDaniel]

Can I intentionally craft a wand with less charges than 50? How would that affect the cost?

[LazarX]

WombattheDaniel wrote:

Can I intentionally craft a wand with less charges than 50? How would that affect the cost?

By rules you can not.

[Talonhawke]

LazarX wrote:

WombattheDaniel wrote:

Can I intentionally craft a wand with less charges than 50? How would that affect the cost?

By rules you can not.

Yep now if its a home game you can see if your GM will allow it. For instance in my games I will but your setting Max charges when you do so. IE. if you make it with 10 charges that's the max it can ever hold.

[KenderKin]

I think this is too keep people from crafting 1, 2, 3, etc charge wands of every spell they know......

Otherwise it would be 15 gold to carry around a one shot item of any 1st level spell. Cheaper than a potion, scroll, etc....

[Thefurmonger]

^^THIS^^

[Talonhawke]

Yeah I think I either tacked on a premium to it or made scrolls easier I don't know which have to find my notes. Might have also set a min number of charges.

[LazarX]

At the very least, I would significantly up the per charge cost on wand holding less than 50 charges. Enough so that it does not become the "go-to" option and set a minimum amount of charges, like 25 or so. I would say half the charges at 75 percent the cost.

The reason most wands are done with 50 charges has to be because it's the easiest and most cost-effective way to do so, otherwise it would not be "standard".

[WombattheDaniel]

Ah. Ninja'd.

I've been on/off typing this for about an hour or so...

Spoiler:

Then what about a set minimum? Something like: "Wands can only come with an amount of charges in multiples of 10, with the minimum being 10 and the maximum being 50"?

As for pricing, IMO, I don't see an issue with "Wand with 10 charges= 1/5 price of Wand with 50 charges", but if that could be too spammable, then I propose something like this:
For 10 charges, and the price of the wand itself, it could be 1/2 the price of the wand with 50 charges + 10% original cost. Then, for every variable above 10, the price would increase by +10% of the original wand, reaching the standard price at 50 charges. So, it would look like this:

Wand of True Strike: 1CL * 1st Level Spell * 750gp= 750gp for fully-charged wand

10 Charges: 450 gp.
20 Charges: 525 gp.
30 Charges: 600 gp.
40 Charges: 675 gp.

I think this way is balanced, and would encourage people to just make regular wands, but still, I don't like the idea that you're paying a lot more for a lot less, cumulatively.

[Maezer]

You could house rule it that way. But I see it leading to buying fully charged wands then selling them when they get down to 10 charges. To be even cheaper per charge than the standard wand.

[KenderKin]

Less than full wands make for good treasure!

[WombattheDaniel]

Maezer wrote:

You could house rule it that way. But I see it leading to buying fully charged wands then selling them when they get down to 10 charges. To be even cheaper per charge than the standard wand.

I couldn't agree more. That's one reason why I favor direct scaling of wand charge prices. Yeah, wands cost less than scrolls, but if you have a set minimum of charges, say 20, then things start looking a little better, IMO.

[Cuuniyevo]

You could have an NPC in your world that sells "Pre-Owned Wands, Half-Price, No Refunds" with 5d6-5 charges in each wand. You might get lucky and get as many as 25 charges, but on average, you'd only get 12-13, and sometimes you'd only get a few.