Shield-Bearer, Wand-Bearer: Wands Wands, PF2 Style

[Porphyrogenitus]

Ravingdork wrote:

The ONLY thing I don't like about wands, is that if you want to be a serious wand user, you need a golf bag of wands, rather than having a single wand that can do multiple things.

I feel single multipurpose wands are more thematic than a golf bag of a dozen. Having a dozen wands to cover all your favorite spells or to allow for more of a given spell a day just reminds me of those cartoonish anime characters with a dozen one shot pistols lining the inside of their coats.

That's what Ehlonna's Quiver is for. Then your familiar is your golf-caddy.

Or your apprentice. Serving in the role of a shield-bearer but for your golf..er, wand-bag.

Then you can be Chevy Chase and hand out dollops of wisdom do your underling.

Things like "Be the wand, Danny."
Lots of thematic RP potential, but different from before, yes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fMjspnFemM

For the old-thematic of wands, reskin a staff, possibly? Wand-like staff (wand-like in appearance, staff-like in function).

[WatersLethe]

I was about to suggest reskinning a staff. I don't see anything particularly wrong with losing the quarterstaff portion to gain the improved wieldiness of a wand form factor.

Staves are pretty awesome wands. If you could customize their load-out, they'd be absolutely badass.

I wonder, though, if simply making a wand with multiple spells could be an option at some point. It'd basically be a wand only quick draw.

[Loreguard]

I absolutely think that albeit potentially a rarer find, I'm all for the idea that you could come across a Staff in a wand form factor. I could even imagine the reverse of a wand made in the form of a staff. Explicitly for instance a Wand of Shillelagh.

I could imagine a feat or school of magic would allow a wizard or sorcerer to cast the spell by burning their own spell slot instead if they invested the particular wand. This even actually could even be used to explain some past/prior cannon examples of someone using a wand multiple times in a day without breaking it.

Honestly, I'd even be ok with wands being able to take some other small form factors, including knifes/daggers which are not completely unknown as form factors in various fantasy fictions.

I wouldn't necessarily open it up to any weapons, but I might imagine one making arguments for many or all or the simple melee ones as potentials.

[Rhiani32]

Is the problem with the flavor text of wands or the mechanics?

Mechanic wise they fit a purpose...
single use of 1 spell: scrolls
multiple uses of 1 spell: wands
multiple times per day for low level spells: stave (essentially more powerful wands)
once per day for high level spells: stave.

Flavor wise just have an item follow the stave rules and be a 10" piece of wood vs a 4' piece of wood.

At most as a GM I'd consider allow a wand to be powered up by sacrificing spell slots like the stave does.

[graystone]

Why reskin? You just use wands for giants [staff size] or staves for pixies [wand size]. The relative size doesn't alter the magic or function any.

[Zwordsman]

Honestly I think they could make a Rod of Many Wands item. It lets you slot in a number of wands into it, which all can be used. The extra cost of the magic item of the Rod offsets the ability to have all the wands "on hand" without having to play hand juggling.

It would also be highly customizable, and higher ITEM versions could allow for more wands within it. (idk. every 3 item levels nets 1 slot or every 4).

Add in a version or some method to use it as a Mace or something. Or more clearly define the rules on improvised weapons, runes, and such.
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I totally want general feats that help with wand usage too. I thought about an archetype about wanding but it would have to have a ton of benefits to offset locking off other archeyptes. But you could make a really nice one (extra uses per wand per feat as if it was the HP archetype feat lik thing). Raising abilities etc. If they did do an archetype for it I'd rather it not interact with innate spell slots so it could be standalone for casters or non casters. Something like it gives spell attack progression per feat (and its spread out enough to warrent that, up to masters)

I think getting extra uses out of wands would be a good general feat area.

[Eoni]

Wands in their current form do seem a bit restrictive but I understand why with the way they redid the number of slots everyone has. I'm thinking we may see some feats come out alongside the Occultist. I can definitely see them being able to modify wands in some way.

What I kind of wish overall is that wands were destroyed due to overclocking, just broken. That way it wouldn't hurt so much to attempt the flat check since you'd be able to repair it later.

Zwordsman wrote:

Honestly I think they could make a Rod of Many Wands item. It lets you slot in a number of wands into it, which all can be used. The extra cost of the magic item of the Rod offsets the ability to have all the wands "on hand" without having to play hand juggling.

It would also be highly customizable, and higher ITEM versions could allow for more wands within it. (idk. every 3 item levels nets 1 slot or every 4).

Add in a version or some method to use it as a Mace or something. Or more clearly define the rules on improvised weapons, runes, and such.

Now you've got me picturing and craving some sort of six wand revolver/shot gun hybrid.

[Ravingdork]

Thanks Porphyrogenitus for making this thread.

WatersLethe wrote:

I was about to suggest reskinning a staff.

The thought has occurred to me before. I was considering making a character with a ring that possessed the staff trait and functioned like a magical staff, but could have its powers combined with that of four similar rings to summon a powerful guardian outsider. XD

[BellyBeard]

Eoni wrote:

What I kind of wish overall is that wands were destroyed due to overclocking, just broken. That way it wouldn't hurt so much to attempt the flat check since you'd be able to repair it later.

The intention is "I need to cast this a second time or we might die, so I'm gonna risk it". The intention is not giving you 2-4 casts depending on how lucky you are. If you could just repair wands it would lend towards the latter use. Just think of them as 1/day,and 1 extra if you really, really need it.

Also,depending on how much HP a wand has, 2 wands of Mending could give you infinite spells from all your wands, since you just use wands to repair other wands, and are always guaranteed the first cast. You just cast spell, repair with first wand of Mending, repair first Mending wand with second if it breaks, back and forth til you succeed. Silly cheese. :)

[WatersLethe]

BellyBeard wrote:

Just think of them as 1/day,and 1 extra if you really, really need it.

Right. I tend to think of it as an "end of the campaign" option. The climactic end battle, things are going south, there's nothing left to lose, so break all your wands if it'll give you the edge you need.

[Ascalaphus]

BellyBeard wrote:

Eoni wrote:

What I kind of wish overall is that wands were destroyed due to overclocking, just broken. That way it wouldn't hurt so much to attempt the flat check since you'd be able to repair it later.

The intention is "I need to cast this a second time or we might die, so I'm gonna risk it". The intention is not giving you 2-4 casts depending on how lucky you are. If you could just repair wands it would lend towards the latter use. Just think of them as 1/day,and 1 extra if you really, really need it.

Indeed.

In fact, even if you lowered the chance of a wand going kaput to 10%, people would still be wringing their hands over it.

But by the time you can buy low-level wands by the bucketload, you can afford to chance some of them.

[Zwordsman]

EDIT: I wrote all of this and realized I'm basically designing and ssuggesting something like the ADament Entertainment (I think it was them) Artificer's Weird Magic items. WHich.. would be a great thing to make honestly. Was never an issue I ever saw in games.
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Well, rather than repair with mending or something. It feels like you could just have the wand "fizzle" and be unusuable for an extended time period as the magic recoaleses (which is a word I do not know how to spell).

So 1 free. flat check for broken. Which resolves itself with week of no usage at all. and you can roll another flat check while broken but that will break it.

That way you could try to risk things and wring out more usage in a "mid adventure" big moment (as oposed to the big end finale. After all your character doens't know when that is either). If you screw up you aren't out a large investment. But you are hampered for a significant amount of time. And if its "all hells broke lose we're screwed" moment and you try more and destroy it. Well thats fully the situation and is perfectly fine IMO.

This would also help design the Archetype or general feats. (more Archetype imo) or class feats for an occultist (great idea honestly)

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Yeah there is a lot of cool design space for wands. archetypes.
On the occultist idea. A wand focused branch could get themselves a free wand they can alter with some work (reaching into its history or something) and allow a modifiable wand, Or the Rod of Many Wands is a great idea for that occultst line. Basically they can make a wand similar to the ARtificer from D&D beyond where they can work and make their wand get a spell, and rework it later. In P2 terms taking spells from any tradition by pulling at the history and changing its properties. Purely item based magic with uses per day. Kind of like the p1 machihnesmith or adamant's artifcer's magic items (which would be really great insperation IMO)

Though at this point I've basically just turned Occultist into an Artificer via a research field I guess.