Wands as improvised melee?

[Murdock Mudeater]

Light piercing weapons, right? I'm thinking damage as a blowgun dart, so 1 for small and d2 for medium.

Sound about right?

And before you mention durability, I recently noticed that wands have hardness 5 and 5 HP, making them as durable as wooden weapons.

[Drahliana Moonrunner]

No... they're more of the equivalent of Small Clubs which means they get 1d4 blunt damage and the size penalty to hit.

[SlimGauge]

See also this thread

[Nefreet]

Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:

No... they're more of the equivalent of Small Clubs which means they get 1d4 blunt damage and the size penalty to hit.

I'd probably handle it a little differently.

A club is a one-handed weapon that deals 1d6.

A light weapon version would then deal 1d4.

Improvised weapons typically are one dice less than their weapon equivalent, so a wand would deal a mere 1d3.

But no size penalty on attack rolls.

[Murdock Mudeater]

Wands are 6-12" long and 1/4" thick. Thrusting attacks only, or it breaks. That's a wooden stake equivalent, as the closest comparable weapon. Like attacking with a pencil.

[CannibalKitten]

The risk of breaking it though...
Are you talking emergency use or trying to make it a viable option?

[Murdock Mudeater]

CannibalKitten wrote:

The risk of breaking it though...

Are you talking emergency use or trying to make it a viable option?

Little of each, I suppose. It would be for a wizard, so it would really only come up rarely even if I considered it a viable option. I'm looking at arcane bonded object options, specifically for a bonded wizard. Archetype adds +1 HP and Hardness per wizard level, which really only matters on weapons, hence the question regarding using it as one.

Regarding the piercing, was wondering with regard to the amateur swashbuckler feat (also on that wizard). Was just thinking that the CHA to AC once per session or that parry attempt might be worth the investment. A wand is basically a pencil, in terms of compareable objects in real life, so it doesn't seem far fetched that it could be used as a light piercing weapon.

Anyway, it would be 2 feats, so it really probably isn't worthwhile, I was more wondering if it could work.

@drahliana: I really think a size penalty is inapproiate for improvised weapons. Yeah, if my PC declares he wants to use it as a specifc weapon that it is just too small (or large) to be, but the penalty to use an object as a weapon *should* be negated by the catch off guard feat. That is the entire point of the feat.

[Murdock Mudeater]

Though adding the fragile quality to improvised attacks with wands does seem pretty reasonable.

[CannibalKitten]

Yeah unless you really want the flair and that one or two times you put it to good use 2 feats might be too much. This reminds me a bit of the archetype that uses scrolls as melee weapons i always thought it was kinda weak though, I like the idea of using a wand as a weapon a bit more.

[Azara Emberkin]

Murdock Mudeater wrote:

Regarding the piercing, was wondering with regard to the amateur swashbuckler feat (also on that wizard). Was just thinking that the CHA to AC once per session or that parry attempt might be worth the investment.

Ever since the errata you can't select Opportune Parry and Riposte with Amateur Swashbuckler.