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I am not particularly fond of the idea of destroying a wand just because it was used twice in one day. My change would be to make the overcharge roll before you try to cast the spell each extra time per day after the first. Success allows the spell to be cast and failure doesn't cast the spell and deactivates the wand until daily preparations.
The downside of trying to use a wand more than once per day is that you may waste the spell casting actions in combat and deactivate the wand. A nuisance, but not as negative and extreme as total destruction. The upside is that you may get 1 or more extra uses from the wand before it is deactivated. I thought about making it broken, but that can be fixed in 10 minutes and I figured that was too many potential uses.
The downside of trying to use a wand more than once per day is that you may waste the spell casting actions in combat and deactivate the wand. A nuisance, but not as negative and extreme as total destruction. The upside is that you may get 1 or more extra uses from the wand before it is deactivated. I thought about making it broken, but that can be fixed in 10 minutes and I figured that was too many potential uses.
I like this idea a lot. I’m not a fan of where they went with wands. I was also under the impression that they were trying to move away from “spells in a stick”, but they kept that and also made it essentially a once a day item. I agree the broken and destroyed ideas seem rather unfun.
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That's an interesting take. I'm warm to the idea, but not sure if it would be unbalanced or not.
I think your method makes staves a lot less attractive.
Personally I look at staves at the new spell in a stick alternative.
That's an interesting take. I'm warm to the idea, but not sure if it would be unbalanced or not.
I think your method makes staves a lot less attractive.
Personally I look at staves at the new spell in a stick alternative.
Good point, I didn't think about how they compare to staves. Maybe instead of giving them a chance to cast more than 1 extra time, they deactivate either way, but a good roll lets you cast once more.
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Good point, I didn't think about how they compare to staves. Maybe instead of giving them a chance to cast more than 1 extra time, they deactivate either way, but a good roll lets you cast once more.That's an interesting take. I'm warm to the idea, but not sure if it would be unbalanced or not.
I think your method makes staves a lot less attractive.
Personally I look at staves at the new spell in a stick alternative.
How about this:
Crit Success: Spell works normally
Success: Spell works this time but the wand is then deactivated until your next daily prep
Fail: Spell fails to work and the wand is broken and must be repaired
Crit Fail: The wand is destroyed
Why this need for extra free casts?
Because in Pathfinder 1 a wand got you 50 casts that you could blow through in 10 minutes if you really wanted to.
I acknowledge Draco18s statement, but will admit I didn't find that a necessarily ideal past state, with the degree of nova it enabled.
However, it is strange for wands to go from a consumable/disposable item, to a primarily permanent item. The overcharge mechanic seems to be an excuse to explain why some wands might have 'expired' but it is so drastic it seems to generally defy that anyone would try to use the extra charge, save to keep the enemy from being able to use the wand after taking it from you.
I suggested rather than instant destruction, that wands would become fragile, which would be destined to get more and more likely to expire, even at one use per day. That even opened up the option of finding fragile wands that wouldn't be permanent like a 'full' wand. It wasn't uncommon in first edition to find near empty wands as treasure. Wands as they are are otherwise all full use/permanent items, and we've lost a scale-able magic item.
I kind of like the idea of the risk of overcharge being more often the loss of actions, not full out loss of the wand as typical cost of failure. that way you can use the wand again, if you dare, but risk losing actions, and a small chance of damaging the wand. [perhaps rather than destroying on critical failure, it becomes fragile, losing the free no-risk casting of the spell once per day.]
Again, I don't think we need to be able to blow through 50 charges in a day, but taking a 45% chance of permanently destroying your wand to get a second casting seems unfun, dynamic that would stifle choices. Specifically, you could compare it to the choice for handling Attacks of Opportunity. They decided that AoO made movement in combat too much of a non-choice, so they made them less ubiquitous. I think making wands frying the ubiquitous reaction to overcasting, makes it a mostly unusable rule. [a rule that just closes off an action in a way that makes it become a false choice]
Oh... what if there was an option?
You have a wand you have used already today. You can:
1. Forced Overcasting: You cast using the wand, insuring your successful casting of the spell. Roll Flat Roll to determine the result:
Success: Spell is cast, Wand is Broken
Critical Success: Spell is cast, wand remains fine, Flat check overcharging DCs increases for today by 2 for the wand
Failure: Spell is cast, Wand is either destroyed or potentially instead utilizing a rule to make it Broken and Fragile
Critical Failure: Spell is cast, wand is destroyed completely
2. Coaxed Overcasting: Casting with the wand with a degree of hope.
Success: Spell is cast, Wand is Broken
Critical Success: Spell is cast, wand remains fine, Flat check overcharging DCs increases for today by 2 for the wand
Failure: Spell is lost, actions consumed, wand is spent until next day's preparation.
Critical Failure: Spell is lost, actions consumed, wand is Broken (potentially made fragile)
Fragile wands have to make a Flat DC check to cast even the first spell of a day, but the target check is normally in the range of 1-10. Each time a fragile wand is used successfully, the permanent DC of the check increases by 1 unless the check was a critical success. Any attempts to get a second casting of a spell from a fragile wand, the flat check's DC is 10 higher than its normal current permanent DC. Any critical failures on rolls for a fragile wand, the wand is destroyed.
This could leave someone managing to coax out a string of a few extra castings of spells by managing to roll a 20 a few times in a row, with an equal chance of turning your permanent magic item into a consumable. It also introduces a new kind of consumable wand that is the result of someone pushing their luck a little too far. That is a magic item as a GM I'd love to be able to drop into a trove somewhere, to give them a touch of a few spells, but without a scroll that can let them learn in and have infinite access.
I acknowledge Draco18s statement, but will admit I didn't find that a necessarily ideal past state, with the degree of nova it enabled.
Note that I did not say that I agreed with the PF1 mechanic either. I simply stated that that is where the overcharge comes from. People didn't like the once-a-day-that's-it mechanic and the risk for a second go was the result.
The reason why wands were less of concern in PF1 is because they were mostly just good for self buff spells.
The DCs on wand spells (in PF1) made them worthless. But PF2 wands remain effective, using your spell DCs. They're just not an all day utility belt item.
I think this honestly fits with PF2s new theme which seems to be along the lines of "you don't enter combat buffed, you have to spend actions to do it". That's mostly facilitated by duration on spells being lowered, but I still think they really wanted to reduce the frequency of spell casting. Especially not allowing a cheap consumable to do the heavy lifting, like a Wand of Cure Light in PF1.
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Overcharging was one of things that were proposed as houserule giving CHA more universal relevance.
So, apply CHA mod (incl penalty) to the Overcharge check. Effect of Overcharge itself doesn't change.
Even +6 modifier at end-game isn't enough to remove chance of failure, but this does tilt the table in CHA's favor a bit.
CHA modifier impacting # of Attunable items also seems reasonable.
I'm not sure this is the best way to handle it. Mostly because other stats don't do as much as they used to, so now Charisma doing more doesn't seem as important.
Barring specific class features, int only gets you additional trained skills (in addition to enhancing some specific skills). But you can ultimate only max 3 unless you're a rogue. And barring some specific things there aren't many ways to increase from trained to expert, and I think none to go from expert to master without the class level up provided skill increases.
Wisdom boosts Will save and gives bonus to some specific skills, including perception. Wisdom is now probably top dog for mental abilities.
Charisma basically only gives a you a boost to charisma skills. It's still the weakest, but int is a lot less strong now that extra trained skills don't mean more skill increases. And frankly extra trained skills just isn't that great. Humans can basically get training in every skill for for one ancestry feat, and any other race can get it for 1 feat and 1 ancestry feat.
I agree Charisma could have used something, but I fear allowing extra attunement and tilting wand use might be too much. Honestly I'd allow a "sweetspot" of giving the option to use Wisdom or Charisma for Will Saves.
Still I don't know how to solve the problem of "the fundamental way people used wands is dead, how do we get something back closer to that?" without it potentially going too far.
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I'm not sure this is the best way to handle it. Mostly because other stats don't do as much as they used to, so now Charisma doing more doesn't seem as important.
Barring specific class features, int only gets you additional trained skills (in addition to enhancing some specific skills). But you can ultimate only max 3 unless you're a rogue. And barring some specific things there aren't many ways to increase from trained to expert, and I think none to go from expert to master without the class level up provided skill increases.
Wisdom boosts Will save and gives bonus to some specific skills, including perception. Wisdom is now probably top dog for mental abilities.
Charisma basically only gives a you a boost to charisma skills. It's still the weakest, but int is a lot less strong now that extra trained skills don't mean more skill increases. And frankly extra trained skills just isn't that great. Humans can basically get training in every skill for for one ancestry feat, and any other race can get it for 1 feat and 1 ancestry feat.
I agree Charisma could have used something, but I fear allowing extra attunement and tilting wand use might be too much. Honestly I'd allow a "sweetspot" of giving the option to use Wisdom or Charisma for Will Saves.
Still I don't know how to solve the problem of "the fundamental way people used wands is dead, how do we get something back closer to that?" without it potentially going too far.
If Charisma needs something, how about bringing back "Use Magic Device"? It could be a Trained Deception ability, which is of course Cha. based. Make a check against the item's level (see the DC by level chart on pg 503). If you succeed, you convince the item that you meet some or all requirements that you don't actually possess. For instance, to cast spells from a wand or staff, the spells are supposed to be from your magical tradition and on your spell list, and at a level you could cast. A Success could convince the item of 1 of those things that is not actually true (maybe you are too low level to cast that spell, or your level is fine but it's from another tradition). A Crit Success convinces it that everything that is stopping the item from working for you is true for you. (so a Rogue could use the Cleric's Staff of Healing to cast Breath of Life.) A Failure means the item doesn't work, and a Crit Fail means it becomes suspicious of you and the DC increases by +4 for any further attempts that day. What do you think?
Well Use Magic is now a feat called Trick Magic item, and does allow you to use Charisma for the check, but also requires training in the relevant magic tradition skill for the spell (Nature, Arcana, Occult, Religion).
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Wands are permanent items in this edition, and thus quite powerful. The proposed houserules I read here are all very lenient with overcharging, making wands too strong in my opinion.
If the possibility that a wand is destroyed is too much to bear, I'd consider the following houserule: no overcharging possible.
After all, think about all the other 1/day items, both in PF1 and PF2: there is no option to 'use them again' when spent.
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Instead of destroying a wand, it could be deactivated for a week or something? Or it could go inert and require someone cast the spell back into it to reactivate after 24 hours pass? I'd be fine destroying it on a critical failure, and getting a third roll on a critical success (but maybe with 1 less degree of success)
So something like:
Try 1:
You cast the spell
Try 2:
Crit success: You cast the spell, and can try it again (at greater risk)
Success: You cast the spell, and the wand is inactive for 24 hours.
Failure: fail to cast the spell, and the wand is inactive for 24 hours.
Crit Failure: fail to cast the spell, and the wand is destroyed.
Try 2:
Crit success: You cast the spell, and the wand is inactive for 24 hours.
Success: fail to cast the spell, and the wand is inactive for 24 hours.
Failure: fail to cast the spell, and the wand is destroyed.
Crit Failure: fail to cast the spell, and the wand is destroyed, plus a mishap happens.
Probably too complex a house rule, but fun if you like to gamble...
I agree that the wand rules are too punitive and remind me of resonance (which is a great houserule and a terrible core rule), but like the others.
Wands are permanent items in this edition, and thus quite powerful. The proposed houserules I read here are all very lenient with overcharging, making wands too strong in my opinion.
If the possibility that a wand is destroyed is too much to bear, I'd consider the following houserule: no overcharging possible.
After all, think about all the other 1/day items, both in PF1 and PF2: there is no option to 'use them again' when spent.
I gotta agree with this. The "use again at the risk of breaking it" is cliff-hanger, nail-biting, end-of-the-campaign stuff. As they are, they're *well* worth the money if you choose the right spells, even without overcharging.
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Try 1:
You cast the spellTry 2:
Crit success: You cast the spell, and can try it again (at greater risk)
Success: You cast the spell, and the wand is inactive for 24 hours.
Failure: fail to cast the spell, and the wand is inactive for 24 hours.
Crit Failure: fail to cast the spell, and the wand is destroyed.
That is almost what I did:
Overcharging Wands: (pg597): You attempt to use it again in 1 day. Roll a DC 10 flat check:
Critical Success: It works normally
Success: It works once more and then deactivates until your next daily prep.
Fail: It fails to work and becomes Broken and must be repaired.
Critical Failure: It fails to work and is destroyed.