Rod of Wonder

[Aurenthal]

Ok, I just found the Rod of Wonder from the DMG and my reaction was like: :smallconfused: why would somebody even use that? Any thoughts for it?

[Jack_Simth]

Ok, I just found the Rod of Wonder from the DMG and my reaction was like: :smallconfused: why would somebody even use that? Any thoughts for it?
Summon Elemental Reserve feat, and lots of time. Have the elemental target a rock. Periodically, you'll get a few gems, and all the bad stuff either happens to a rock, or a Summoned creature.

[mregecko]

For fun and filler!

Front-liners have the fight in the bag? Want to conserve resources, but just delaying indefinitely in initiative sure is fun...

Enter: Rod of Wonder!

With its chaotic and plentiful list of interesting effects, you'll never be bored during a fight again!

[Mystify]

Simply put, its fun.
I've given my parties rods of wonder on several occasions. They have always been overjoyed to have it.
Its even been randomly useful at times (for instance, randomly shooting out a fireball at the white dragon(before the party even saw it), hitting, piercing spell resistance, and taking out a sizeable chunk of its fire vulnerable hide)
I've also had players try to turn their characters purple with it. Its never worked.

[Drelua]

Oh, I've been in parties that had rod of wonder fights. It got way out of hand, but it was hilarious so we didn't mind. All sorts of crazy stuff happened, including massive collateral damage, but we were about level 17 so we had the HP to survive it. Then there was the time we happened across a bunch of halflings that were selling cursed items. The leader had a necklace of fireballs in his back pocket, and when he reached for it I kicked him so hard he went flying, landed on it, and set it off. Then I walked away, looked back, waved my rod of wonder, and got a fireball. It turned out that they had a lot more necklaces of fireballs. I love rods of wonder, but they've been banned from all serious campaigns because they're just too much fun so they completely de-rail entire sessions.

[Aurenthal]

:smallamused: Sounds like lots of fun!

[TuggyNE]

Suggestion: Tap a Deck of Many Things with a Rod of Wonder until something, uh, "interesting" happens. (Optionally, leave a staff of the magi or staff of power nearby.)

:smallbiggrin:

[Darrin]

Ok, I just found the Rod of Wonder from the DMG and my reaction was like: :smallconfused: why would somebody even use that? Any thoughts for it?

Because it's not nearly as random as it should be. 20% of the time it shoots off a lightning bolt or fireball. To a low-level party or a "fifth wheel" REMF, that's reliable enough to try it for a few rounds and see what happens.

That and the whole summon monster/elemental thing to get free gems.

[hewhosaysfish]

In one of the games a play in, the DM "invented" an artifact/relic to give to one of the PCs - a cleric of Tymora (CG goddess of good luck).
It was a self-replenishing box of chocolates which would result in a Rod of Wonder effect when eaten. Apart from the 4 big ones in the middle which would produce a Deck of Many Things effect.
Based on my experiences, I would answer the question thus: because the PCs are often completely batty.

[DigoDragon]

For added fun you can be evil like me and build your own list of effects for the rod. Great way to surprise any potential metagamers. :smallwink:

[Chronos]

Be careful with a Deck of Many Things. Those have no place in a campaign except at the very beginning (when players haven't had a chance to get attached to their characters and so it's no big deal to re-roll) or at the very end (when everyone's about to re-roll for the next campaign, anyway). There are several cards in there that amount to a fate worse than death.

[gbprime]

Any wizard who takes the Wild Mage PrC (Complete Arcane) actively seeks these things out. At 3rd level in the PrC, you can roll twice on the Rod of Wonder and take whichever result you like. It performs better than a Reserve feat at those levels.

You have a 38% chance of blasting someone, turning them to stone, or generating a slow, stinking cloud, or gust of wind. If you can REROLL that chance, you have a 62% chance overall of getting one of those effects. The saves aren't the best, but this makes the Rod a useful tool in combat once the caster starts running low on spells.

(And since the caster in question is a Wild Mage and has doubtless taken Practiced Spellcaster to overcome the 3 level caster level hit of the PrC, at level 8 his caster level is 8+1d6 for each spell cast. So yeah, the Rod is a backup weapon...)

[Tr011]

I play a wizard right now how bought the Rod (friend said it would be fun and 12k at lvl 14+ is like nothing).

Soooo....
Look at the possibilities. Then just use it in situations that are not really important (when you wanna open a door, fight some low-CR guards or similar stuff). You don't use up your spells but still got spell effects of level 3-6. Ok, once I had a fireball in the middle of my party+2 fire elementals, one of my mates rolled a 1 on his save and his shoes burned away... but anyways, it's always a funny item.