Wand Wielder

[SliceandDiceKid]

I'm still revising my human artificer build starting at lvl 1.

Stats yet to be rolled.

Feats
1) extraordinary artisan
HB) extraordinary artisan
3) extend
4) persist
6) chain
7 Flaw) maximize
Flaw) reckless wand wielder
8) empower
9) wand mastery
12) extra rings

Skills
craft pottery, UMD, spellcraft, concentration, knowledge arcana, open lock, disable device, search

Medium armor, light xbow, bolts, book of magical items, book of spell effects (last two for flavor 5-7lbs)

Dedicated wright homunculus at lvl 4

Items I'm planning to obtain/make ASAP


Heward's handy haversack
Canith goggles
Spare hand belt
Wand bracelet
Carpet of flying
Ever smoking bottle
Healing belt
Decanter of endless water
Boots of speed
bag of holding
Ring of sustenance
Anklet of translocation
Headband of conscious effort
Goggles of minute seeing

I want to be the nerd tagging along who trips over things while reading his book. Dedicated wright in my bag of holding workshop. I want to scribe scrolls for every occasion. Burn spells applying metamagic to scrolls and wands to make the most out of items. Level 9 is where I'll shine brightest I think.


It's my understanding I can use as many metamagic feats on my wands as I want in one turn (paying the higher spell slots with charges, of course).

Also I'm wondering if dual wand wielder would be worth it. If so, what two feats should it and TWF replace?

I want to nuke with chained maximized empowered scorching ray and buff party with persisted haste. Hope y'all don't crush my dreams.

[Scarce]

While I should note that I'm not an excellent Min-Maxer, a friend of mine played an artificer (specializing in wands) and found the Quick Draw and Double Wand Wielder feats invaluable. For him, the experience relied on keeping dozens of wands for all occasions in a handy haversack (including duplicates of combat wands) and quick-drawing and dropping wands on a free action every turn to fit whichever spell he wanted to use. Following combat, his homunculus would retrieve dropped wands. Changing tactics on the fly made his single trick pony into an invaluable combatant.

[SliceandDiceKid]

You can already draw it for free as part of a move action if you have +1 BAB. I do love the QuickDraw feat though. Also the spare hand belt will help with this.

[SliceandDiceKid]

Bumping for more input

[Swaoeaeieu]

There is an item somewhere in one of the many dragon mags (compeltely forgot the number). 30,000 gp for a pare of bracers wich let you hold 6 wands on your arms. usable without drawing them.
I believe they are called the bracers of wand and would be awsome for wand centric characters.

[Piggy Knowles]

I'd recommend taking a look at Tempest Stormwind's Wand Overdrive (http://community.wizards.com/content/forum-topic/3641156). Basically, it's an artificer/Cannith Wand Adept, which uses Uncanny Trickster and Legacy Champion to progress Cannith Wand Adept well beyond the standard three levels. As a result, it can dual wield wands, and gets +13 to the DC and CL of wands it fires off.

[SliceandDiceKid]

Looks good. I'm counting on the handy haversack to draw wands as part of a move action. I'll drop whatever I'm holding as I draw the wand. Seems a cheap and reasonable solution.


I'm concerned about my low level survivability. Until I can make my UMD gloves at lvl 3 I'm not confident I can do a lot. I'll just be another d6 human with a Xbow in medium armor. I can't reliably make scrolls or use them. And my useful infusions take too long to cast.

[SliceandDiceKid]

I'd recommend taking a look at Tempest Stormwind's Wand Overdrive (http://community.wizards.com/content/forum-topic/3641156). Basically, it's an artificer/Cannith Wand Adept, which uses Uncanny Trickster and Legacy Champion to progress Cannith Wand Adept well beyond the standard three levels. As a result, it can dual wield wands, and gets +13 to the DC and CL of wands it fires off.

Sounds good. I'll go read it now. Can you use dual wand wielder to bypass the 1d4 charge burn?

[sleepyphoenixx]

Since you're crafting your own wands you could also benefit from the Enhance Item feat (ELH 114). It lets you use your own ability modifier instead of the minimum for crafted item save DCs.
Also, Wand Surge (MoE) along with Unfettered Heroism (RoE) can help you save charges(money).

[SliceandDiceKid]

We aren't using action points. So wand surge won't help.

[SliceandDiceKid]

Since you're crafting your own wands you could also benefit from the Enhance Item feat (ELH 114). It lets you use your own ability modifier instead of the minimum for crafted item save DCs.
Also, Wand Surge (MoE) along with Unfettered Heroism (RoE) can help you save charges(money).

I'm also planning to stick with no save spells for wands. Magic missile, scorching ray, ray of enfeeblement, etc.

My biggest plan is a scorching ray wand (7th) at my lvl 9 I'll cast it as lvl 11 (12d6 fire) as a ranged touch attack. Cramming metamagic into it.

[Grayson01]

Have you thought about Energy Sub for the oh so many creatures with fire resistance/immunity if your primary weapon will be fire based?

[NoACWarrior]

An efficient quiver is better than a HHH as an HHH takes a move action to draw things even with quickdraw, but EQ is a free aciton. Put in 40 wands into that arrow pouch, and EQ can produce any single or set of wands you want to use.

Also - while artificer is a good class to make the wands in, unless you have some ability to make higher level then 4 wands, its not very useful for a pure wand wielding build.
You can however use Sanctum spell shenanigans to toss a 5th level spell into the wands instead.

Also you might want to pickup 4 levels of warlock if you are serious about wants and using UMD, with epic rules, or some DMs you can roll a 1 on UMD and explode your wand, the deceive item take 10 is great for wands because of their set DC.

At later levels (or with a rebuild after you make all the wands you want to use) go for double wand wielder. Sure the price to use it is horrible, but double wands gives you a better action economy than most other non-celerity spell casters. With Quickdraw and EQ you are suddenly the solver of most things, being able to use things like mass resurgence and mass energy resist at the same time or using a double snakes swiftness mass to destroy an enemy mage's spell or deal with a single pesky monster who might kill your wizard next. Heck if you wan't to go damage, you could take double maxed CL fire orb wands and do 30d6 in 1 standard action. You could do the same to a bunch of mooks using two maxed CL fire ball wands doing 20d6 in an area. You could even go for the double summon monster method, and get twice as many meat shields for the cost of 1 full round action.

[SliceandDiceKid]

An efficient quiver is better than a HHH as an HHH takes a move action to draw things even with quickdraw, but EQ is a free aciton. Put in 40 wands into that arrow pouch, and EQ can produce any single or set of wands you want to use.

Also - while artificer is a good class to make the wands in, unless you have some ability to make higher level then 4 wands, its not very useful for a pure wand wielding build.
You can however use Sanctum spell shenanigans to toss a 5th level spell into the wands instead.

Also you might want to pickup 4 levels of warlock if you are serious about wants and using UMD, with epic rules, or some DMs you can roll a 1 on UMD and explode your wand, the deceive item take 10 is great for wands because of their set DC.

At later levels (or with a rebuild after you make all the wands you want to use) go for double wand wielder. Sure the price to use it is horrible, but double wands gives you a better action economy than most other non-celerity spell casters. With Quickdraw and EQ you are suddenly the solver of most things, being able to use things like mass resurgence and mass energy resist at the same time or using a double snakes swiftness mass to destroy an enemy mage's spell or deal with a single pesky monster who might kill your wizard next. Heck if you wan't to go damage, you could take double maxed CL fire orb wands and do 30d6 in 1 standard action. You could do the same to a bunch of mooks using two maxed CL fire ball wands doing 20d6 in an area. You could even go for the double summon monster method, and get twice as many meat shields for the cost of 1 full round action.

I'll definitely use the quiver. I plan to still have an HHH for my dedicated wright to live and work in.

Also artificer can take 10 on UMD at 12 I think. The dip wouldn't be efficient.

I was tinkering with the build last night and added energy sub.