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Ardantis
2007-05-23, 04:04 PM
Is the Rod of Wonder useful at any level?

Sure, it's hilarious, and I often grab one just for laughs if my character is silly, but is there any point in character development at which a Rod of Wonder gives you bang for your buck? And what if you have archer/rod feats to make it more effective?

And what classes could conceivably get the most benefit from it? Is it a useful item for casters, or is it better for UMD rogues and bards? Obviously it's a hefty purchase at mid-levels, but is it ever useful?

I would be curious to see what people think and what their experiences have been.

Jack_Simth
2007-05-23, 04:56 PM
You can make a profit off of the core Rod of Wonder.

How?

Well, you get a rock. This is the target.

You cast a Summon Monster I (Celestial Monkey) (Extend it if you feel like it). This is the "Wielder"

You have monkey invoke Rod at rock for the duration of the summoning spell, and depending on your DM, drop the rod just before vanishing (so the monkey doesn't accidentally steal the Rod).

Needless to say, you do this outside of combat.

What happens?

1-5: Slow creature pointed at. Rock's don't care - negligible effect.
6-10: Fairie Fire on target. Likewise.
11-15: User fooled into thinking it does something else. Doesn't matter, really - most effects don't matter, even if they're delusionary.
16-20: Gust of Wind. Rock isn't going to much care.
21-25: Wielder learns target's surface thoughts. Yeah, like rocks think.
26-30: Stinking Cloud. Rock's immune.
31-33: Heavy Rain. Doesn't matter outside combat. May cause you to lose a round of targetting the rock.
34-36: Summoned critter. Meh. If an actual Summon, it's utterly harmless. If it's conjoured Hostile, in an Instant manner, Rhino's and Elephants aren't that tough, and you're unlikely to care about the mouse.
37-46: Lightning Bolt. Meh, it's just a rock. You *might* need to fetch another. Oh well, who cares.
47-49: Butterflies. Doesn't waste a few rounds of the summons until the butterflies clear out (can't target rock when blinded).
50-53: Enlarge Person doesn't affect rocks.
54-58: Darkness. Potentially a few wasted rounds on the Summon, same as rain.
59-62: Grass. Well, horses need something to eat, right? Move out of the area and try again.
63-65: Ethereal - oh, we need another rock. Let's get one over 1,000 lbs this time, okay?
66-69: Reduce Wielder to 1/12 height. Time for a new Monkey. This is actually a very useful one to certain characters - three size categories is 1/8th height. That's +3 AC, +3 to hit, +12 to Hide. If your character isn't particularly worried about Grappling or moving stuff around, this is a good one for you to be afflicted with. But it's wasted on the Celestial Monkey. No problem - Summon a new one. It's only a 1st level spell slot.
70-79: Fireball. Boo hoo, maybe need a new rock.
80-84: Invisibility on wielder. Makes no difference.
85-87: Leaves on a rock. Cute, but harmless.
88-90: We'll get back to this one.
91-95: Creatures in the area are blinded by colors. Do rocks see? No meaningful effect.
96-97: Wielder or target changes color. So, is it a prettier rock, or a prittier Celestial Monkey? Either way, no long-term game consequences to the player.
98-100: Stone to Flesh (or Flesh to Stone): Oh, look - it's an edible rock. Who cares, let's keep going.

The one you want is the 3% chance of 88-90. Those 10-40 gems are worth (all told) 10-40 gp. On average, each invokation of the Rod of Wonder makes, directly, 0.75 gp worth of stuff. You occasionally burn a summoned critter - but those are kinda cheap. The Rod covers it's market price after (on average) 16,000 zaps. If you can get ten zaps per Summon, that's 1,600 summons. If you can get 10 Summons in a day (Basically 5th+) that's 160 days, or a little over five months. And you either do it by averages, or track how close to "average" your d100 rolls with a decent sample size.

Edit:
If you don't care about the possibility of changing colors, the 66-69 option (reduce wielder to 1/12 size) is a boon to anyone that benefits from a smaller size - casters and some rogue builds. The rest is kinda harmless outside combat.

Aquillion
2007-05-23, 05:26 PM
Just in a quick analysis:

There are no abilities with useful long-term effects (except gemstones, I guess, which are covered above.) So any value will have to come from use in combat.

The effects break down roughly as follows:
useful 61%
05% slow
05% faerie fire
05% windstorm-force gust of wind
05% stinking cloud
10% lightning bolt
05% darkness (situational)
10% fireball
05% wielder goes invisible
03% 10-40 gems do 5d4 damage split among targets
05% shimmering colors cause blindness
03% flesh to stone / stone to flesh

backfire 9%
05% deludes wielder
04% enlarge person, assuming it enlarges a foe you were trying to blast.

debatable 12%
05% read target's mind (unlikely that rod will be used when it is wanted.)
03% turn target ethereal
04% reduce wielder (depends on situation).

useless/unclear 18%
03% heavy rain around wielder (could occasionally be helpful/harmful)
03% summon animal (unclear if it is loyal to wielder; 50% of the time a mouse)
03% blinding butterflies around wielder. Probably harmful, usually.
04% grass grows (could occasionally be helpful/harmful)
03% target grows leaves
02% someone changes colorOr, in summary for those who don't want to go over that, 61% generally useful, assuming you point it at an enemy and are in combat; 12% debatably useful; 9% generally harmful to the user and their side; and 18% useless/unclear, often disrupting combat around the user but unclear who it's helping.

The overwhelming majority of effects are in line with or below 3rd-level spells cast by a 5th level caster. The backfires are rarely catastrophic, but (given how some useful effects are also sitautional, and there's a chance of hitting allies with fireballs or lightning bolts) I'd say that the rod is going to be a wasted turn around 40% of the time, and random 3rd-level spell the rest of the time.

Many effects also require that you be within 30 feet of your target or they'll whiff (or even backfire by altering the battlefield in a way you didn't want.)

Final analysis: Completely worthless in combat. Get a wand of fireballs, which is cheaper and more reliable, or a wand of scorching ray or something; by the time you run out of charges, the spells cast by the wands will be obsolete anyway. The 3%-of-the-time flesh-to-stone effect is not worth the ~40% chance of wasting your round.

Jack_Simth
2007-05-23, 06:21 PM
Aquillion:
Do note that there is no specific spell called Reduce (at least, not Core). The closest ones (Reduce Person, Reduce Animal) have vastly different durations (1 min/level vs. 1 hour/level) only do a 50% reduction, only affect certain types of targets, and either have saves or specify a willing target.

The Reduce effect of the Rod only specifies it's effect. No note on the duration at all. What's the duration? If it's short, it doesn't matter. If it's long, it's very handy for the right kind of character - if invoked outside combat where wasted rounds don't matter.

Yuki Akuma
2007-05-23, 06:52 PM
In answer to your question about the class that can get the most out of a Rod of Wonder: A Wild Mage, naturally. Roll twice and choose whichever roll you like best.

Darrin
2007-05-23, 10:20 PM
Is the Rod of Wonder useful at any level?


Our party found it quite useful, once we discovered there was a 20% chance of a direct-damage result (10% lightning bold or 10% fireball). The DM had to start improvising random effects just so we wouldn't eventually torch/eletrify anything we were frustrated with.

(We were still pretty low level, so wasting a round for a 20% chance to blast something to bits seemed like a good idea at the time.)

Goff
2007-05-23, 11:53 PM
Gentlemen, I present to you...


The Greater Rod of Wonder (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20060807a)

Gods, I love that thing.

TheOOB
2007-05-24, 12:57 AM
A rod of wonder is useful for amusment and not much else. In a combat situation it is far to random an unpredictable to be of any significant use. Remember, random may be fun, but the more random something is, the more it favors the NPCs.

The greater rod is another story, it has effects that are acually useful, unfortunatly its acually more random.

Aquillion
2007-05-25, 02:02 AM
Aquillion:
Do note that there is no specific spell called Reduce (at least, not Core). The closest ones (Reduce Person, Reduce Animal) have vastly different durations (1 min/level vs. 1 hour/level) only do a 50% reduction, only affect certain types of targets, and either have saves or specify a willing target.

The Reduce effect of the Rod only specifies it's effect. No note on the duration at all. What's the duration? If it's short, it doesn't matter. If it's long, it's very handy for the right kind of character - if invoked outside combat where wasted rounds don't matter.My gut feeling is that it's a reduce person, ignoring limitations, with no save and the size changed to 1/12... mainly because while that's a kludge, the alternative would be making up rules whole-cloth (or assuming it reduces them forever, which is out of line with the rod's other effects.)

Renx
2007-05-25, 02:56 AM
Well... if you happen to get 3 grass-effects in a row, you have a 160sq' area of 1000' long grass. Or four for 10000'. You could use it to feed livestock or water dry areas. (I can see it now -- farming community with a lot of rod of wonders. An invading kobold group? No problem :P

Jack_Simth
2007-05-25, 06:13 AM
My gut feeling is that it's a reduce person, ignoring limitations, with no save and the size changed to 1/12... mainly because while that's a kludge, the alternative would be making up rules whole-cloth (or assuming it reduces them forever, which is out of line with the rod's other effects.)In that case, anyone who doesn't care about the color effect (the only one called out as permanent; a simple Hat of Disguise or a Ring of Chameleon Power will do the trick; Dispel Magic could also work, as it's Permanent, not Instantaneous, and comes from a caster level 12 item) or the animals can just zap away at a rock all day directly - as there is no long-term penalty - to harvest the gems.

Making the 1/12th size an Instant effect introduces a long-term penalty to continued zappage - sure, a Sorcerer can benefit from a 3.5 size category reduction once... but the second time? Once you've gone from six feet (A little tall for Medium) to six inches (a few inches tall for Fine, a few inches short for Diminutive), you don't want to go to half an inch - as that would drop you off the size tables completely, and you probably don't want to go there.

Bender
2007-05-25, 09:28 AM
Making the 1/12th size an Instant effect introduces a long-term penalty to continued zappage - sure, a Sorcerer can benefit from a 3.5 size category reduction once... but the second time? Once you've gone from six feet (A little tall for Medium) to six inches (a few inches tall for Fine, a few inches short for Diminutive), you don't want to go to half an inch - as that would drop you off the size tables completely, and you probably don't want to go there.

Since there are no penalties to skill checks or spellcasting, it would be perfect, much better than greater invisibility, since even 'true seeing' doesn't reveal you when you're the size of an atom. A willing ally can carry you around. Nice tactics come to mind, exploring (even if it would take you years to cross the room, you still have a nice speed with fly or expeditious retreat, or better, take a few levels of monk/barbarian for 10 ft/rnd), being inhaled, consumed by a foe and wreak havoc from the inside (make sure to have acid resistance)...