Alternate Wand Rules (PF 1E / 3.5)

[PretzelCoatl]

Hi all,

I'm looking for some alternate rules for wands. While I don't personally mind the reliance on wands of cure light wounds in this version of the game, my players have a hard time with the concept of keeping/using wands, and just go into fights until they die. I'm also not wild about the higher cost of higher level wands, which makes most players avoid them and makes them kind of unusable, from a practical standpoint (by which I mean, players won't buy them, so they may as well not exist).

My ideal alternate wand rules would function pretty similarly to 5e's, with effective X charges usable per day or recharging per day (I have no idea how to price this, however). I'm open to looking at any kinds of alternate wand rules, however, if anyone can clue me in to some. So far I've found the old runestaff rules, which might work for my purposes, but hoping to find some others, too. If anyone has any clues or leads, I'd greatly appreciate it. :)

[Hua]

There is no reason you can't change the pricing on wands if you want.
Just give it careful thought on the impacts. Lowering the cost should make them more common. But if your players are not going to use them anyway, it could actually make things worse for them.

Think about what change you would make, and then think of how you would exploit it if you were a player.

In the end, if your players don't use buffs, they are pretty screwed anyway.

[PretzelCoatl]

Yeah, the players are....just really bad about consumables for some reason. I think swapping it over to an item that has charges per day they effectively lose if not used would help them.

Just changing the cost of the items, though, I'm not sure I could do that in a balanced way. I genuinely am not sure how to price this.

[Tzardok]

Magic Item Compendium has eternal wands. Those are wands with 2 charges per day. Crafting one requires Craft Wonderous Item in addition to Craft Wand, and they are restricted to 3rd level and lower. Base price is 420 for 0th level, 820 for 1st level, 4,420 for 2nd level and 10,900 for 3rd level ( so more expensive than normal wands for the lower levels but less for the higher levels).

[Gruftzwerg]

Magic Item Compendium has eternal wands. Those are wands with 2 charges per day. Crafting one requires Craft Wonderous Item in addition to Craft Wand, and they are restricted to 3rd level and lower. Base price is 420 for 0th level, 820 for 1st level, 4,420 for 2nd level and 10,900 for 3rd level ( so more expensive than normal wands for the lower levels but less for the higher levels).

Agree, go for Eternal Wands.
By RAW they sole work for arcane spells. So the wand would need to have been crafted by a Bard (gets cure spells as arcane spell). Rare but possible.

[PretzelCoatl]

This is pretty much what I'm looking for. I even have this book, and was checking it earlier today for runestaves, just completely missed this, thank you a ton.

I'm not sure my players will be interested in this, since two charges a day is pretty low for handling between-fight healing, though. But a good starting point to begin work from. Thanks a lot. :)

[PretzelCoatl]

Another of the things I was thinking about was a concept of a slow recharge. One of the things my players struggle with is downtime. They get back to town from a long adventure and feel obligated to Go Out and Do Stuff immediately, with no downtime, then end up regretting it. As a DM, I'd personally like to see more downtime between active adventures/delves, and I was thinking about using wands as a method to leverage that.

I.e., Wands are a permanent magic item, holding X charges, and 1 charge is replenished naturally each [time period] It could be 50 charges for a level 1 wand, down to 5 charges for a level 4 wand, with recharge times varying based on spell level as well (1 charge for day for level 1 wands, 1 charge per week for level 4 wands, etc). (I want them to be able to push large amounts of healing between fights with low level wands, but an unlimited 50-charge 4th level spell would probably be too useful long term.)

As a concept, do you all think this is viable? How would you price it compared to normal wands? Are there any magic items out there that recharge like this?

Edit: Forgot to mention, one of the issues I have with the current wands is that the prices of wands over 1st level tend to make them prohibitive to most players. I rarely see players taking wands at higher spell levels, since the investment of 50 charges is just too much. Having wands that effectively function once ever 3, 5, or 7 days (on average) could help mitigate this cost. I think? Not really sure, I'm really unsure on how to price something like this.

[DrMartin]

you could have wands work like staves in pathfinder, with a set number of charges that you can recharge using your own spell slots even if you don´t have that specific spell known, as long as you have it on your list.

Need to keep a bit of a thematic difference from staves for this to make sense, like for instance:
- wands can hold only a single spell instead of a group of thematically linked ones,
- wands use the minimum caster level instead of the user´s.
- wands can hold up to 4th level spells
- wands can be crafted with craft wand feat, which at caster level 11 converts into craft staff. From this point on wands are effectively mini-staves.

Base price could be the same as Staves under these assumptions, or 400 x caster level x spell level, for a market price of 800 / 4800 / 12000 / 22400.

or you go the 5e way: wands hold a relatively low amount of charges (usually 7) that can be used to produce a single effect, every day they regain a random number of charges (usually 1d6+1) up to their maximum amount, and if you ever spend the last charge there is a low chance (usually 1/20) that the wand is destroyed / permanently drained of magic. I would still price this like a staff above as the difference in actual play is probably negligible - a bit less endurance but it recharges on its own.

edited to expand a bit on the ideas and give some suggestion on setting the price. coffee helps.

[spectralphoenix]

You can also look at the Healing Belt, also in the MiC. It's cheaper and more efficient than an eternal wand, and nothing stops you from carrying around multiples.

As far as downtime goes, I think the trick is to give them stuff to do in between adventures. Maybe they have a business to run, or a noble title to administer, or contacts to contact. If the only thing for them to do is go out and murderhobo, that's what they're going to do.

[Daisy]

Remember, wands don't always have to have 50 charges. If some adventurers find a wand of fireballs with 20 charges remaining and sell it (for 1/5 of the normal sale price), the reseller will similarly sell it for 2/5 of normal sale price (assuming standard buying/selling rules). So it's perfectly reasonable for a party visiting a magic shop to find some "pre-owned" wands at discount prices.

And you can always give out partially-charged wands as treasure, to encourage their use.

How often will a party use all the charges in a wand anyway?

[Elves]

Wands as they exist are a bad idea. You build the game around limited daily spell slots but then let people spend WBL to spam spells as much as they want? It's an example of why every game resource shouldn't be convertible into every other resource. It makes the different resource pools (in this case, spell slots and WBL) blend together into one, and devalues the logic on which particular resource pools are built.

4e did caster implements right by making them the equivalent of weapons for martials. Wands might give you bonuses to hit with attack spells, let you turn an area spell into a ranged touch single target spell, let you convert energy due to its elemental core, or all other sorts of stuff. Base it on the magic weapon pricing system.

At the very least, eternal wands are a better idea. Instead of something you can spam, something that provides a consistent but limited benefit. Maybe wands store a spell and let you spontaneously cast that spell from your own spell slots x/day. It balances out nicely, because sorcs get the advantage of a wizard's wider repertoire while wizards get the advantage of a sorc's spontaneous casting.

Spamming the same spell 20 times in a row is not a linear power tradeoff vs using it 1 time per day.

[DrMartin]

Another of the things I was thinking about was a concept of a slow recharge. One of the things my players struggle with is downtime. They get back to town from a long adventure and feel obligated to Go Out and Do Stuff immediately, with no downtime, then end up regretting it. As a DM, I'd personally like to see more downtime between active adventures/delves, and I was thinking about using wands as a method to leverage that.



maybe talk with them about it and introduce a semi-formal "downtown phase" between adventures, with a concrete list of options to pick and concrete benefits attached to them. It´s quite common for modern games to do this, if you have to pick a single reference for inspiration maybe check blades in the dark.

So maybe you "go carousing" and your spirit is lifted and for the next adventure you have 5 temporary hit points and +2 on saves against mind affecting spells. Or you "do research" on your next delve and for the next dungeon get a free use of the Brilliant Planner feat and a +2 on checks to identify monster weaknesses. Your companion "seeks healing" instead of gets healed to full and gets a chance to get rid of that negative level. Stuff like this, with maybe some scaling depending on character level / settlement level / optional resource spending

Pathfinder has downtime activities but i find that my players rarely engage with them, maybe because of the amount of bookeeping they need, or because the benefits are very tiny and come only after a big amount of time and effort has been spent on them - so I would try to keep it simple and give a very clear indication like "you have 2 downtime activities each, what do you wanna do?" and immediately handing out the benefits.

only tangentially deals with wands, but maybe the wands here are not the real issue :D

[aglondier]

There have been several interesting 3rd party products done for Pathfinder...

Affordable Arcana - Wands...introduces Improvised Wands, where you can include flaws into your wand during construction to make them much cheaper to produce, and also the feat Craft Improvised Wand which is accessible from 3rd level. Link (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/224995/Affordable-Arcana--Wands-PFRPG)

Wands Recrafted...introduces Complex Wands, which can hold more than one spell and are rechargeable. Link (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/134321/Wands-Recrafted-PFRPG)

The Genius Guide to Rune Staves and Wyrd Wands...which makes wands into casting tools, making them equivalent to a fighter's +1 longsword, a +1 wand would add a +1 to hit with attack spells and a +1 to damage as well. Link (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/86527/The-Genius-Guide-to-Rune-Staves-and-Wyrd-Wands)

Combining all three ideas makes wands into interesting and versatile tools, rather than simply expendable money sinks...

[Mordante]

As far as my experience goes, no one likes to use wands. Because the only way to use them effectively is by investing in use magic device. No one is ever doing that. But it also depends on how combat focused your group is. Multiple fights per session is something I've never seen. Fights happen maybe every few days and often not even that.

[aglondier]

As far as my experience goes, no one likes to use wands. Because the only way to use them effectively is by investing in use magic device. No one is ever doing that. But it also depends on how combat focused your group is. Multiple fights per session is something I've never seen. Fights happen maybe every few days and often not even that.

Depends on the campaign I suppose. I'm currently playing Pathfinder Curse of the Crimson Throne AP, and we have little or no downtime between bursts of fighting that can involve 3-8 encounters happening in as little as a 3-4 hours of In Game time (in the 4 years of fortnightly sessions, only about 3 months of gametime has passed). Wands have saved our butts more than once.
I personally dislike wands because of their consumable nature. It's a waste of our very limited gold and extremely limited crafting time to invest in something that will be used up fairly quickly. As for UMD...only our rogue has the skill, the rest of us stick to wands of spells that are on our spell lists, so not really an issue for us.

[Thurbane]

This is pretty much what I'm looking for. I even have this book, and was checking it earlier today for runestaves, just completely missed this, thank you a ton.

I'm not sure my players will be interested in this, since two charges a day is pretty low for handling between-fight healing, though. But a good starting point to begin work from. Thanks a lot. :)

If you're interested in this kind of item, there's also Drow House Insignia (Spell) [DotU p.99]. Holds a single 1st-3rd level spell, usable 1/day. Unlinke Eternal Wands, there is no restriction that it be arcane spells, and you don't need to be a caster to use it. It does take up the throat slot, though.

Another one I like is Minor Schemas [MoE p.122]. Hold a spell of up to 6th level, usable 1/day. Spell needs to be on your class list. Cannot hold a spell that has costly components, focus or XP requirement.

[PretzelCoatl]

you could have wands work like staves in pathfinder, with a set number of charges that you can recharge using your own spell slots even if you don´t have that specific spell known, as long as you have it on your list.

Need to keep a bit of a thematic difference from staves for this to make sense, like for instance:
- wands can hold only a single spell instead of a group of thematically linked ones,
- wands use the minimum caster level instead of the user´s.
- wands can hold up to 4th level spells
- wands can be crafted with craft wand feat, which at caster level 11 converts into craft staff. From this point on wands are effectively mini-staves.

Base price could be the same as Staves under these assumptions, or 400 x caster level x spell level, for a market price of 800 / 4800 / 12000 / 22400.

Yeah, this *works*, but one of the things I dislike about it is the reliance on spell slots to recharge, and I don't know how to price it without that reliance. Under this, the people that can use it are much more limited, and a wand functioning like this doesn't fulfill the role of "we're saving spell slots to heal between fights" that it currently has. If nothing else, this could work, and players just have the option to not recharge during an adventuring stay, I suppose.



or you go the 5e way: wands hold a relatively low amount of charges (usually 7) that can be used to produce a single effect, every day they regain a random number of charges (usually 1d6+1) up to their maximum amount, and if you ever spend the last charge there is a low chance (usually 1/20) that the wand is destroyed / permanently drained of magic. I would still price this like a staff above as the difference in actual play is probably negligible - a bit less endurance but it recharges on its own.

edited to expand a bit on the ideas and give some suggestion on setting the price. coffee helps.
Yeah this effect is basically just what I want, but I have no idea how to price it. I tried doing some mockups using the item creation rules and charges per day and it just absolutely doesn't work. Pricing it similarly to staves seems OK at first glance, but the recharge is way better (though the caster level is worse), so I really don't know how that should affect the final price.






You can also look at the Healing Belt, also in the MiC. It's cheaper and more efficient than an eternal wand, and nothing stops you from carrying around multiples.

That is a good item, thank you for pointing it out. I will think about how to apply it :)




Remember, wands don't always have to have 50 charges. If some adventurers find a wand of fireballs with 20 charges remaining and sell it (for 1/5 of the normal sale price), the reseller will similarly sell it for 2/5 of normal sale price (assuming standard buying/selling rules). So it's perfectly reasonable for a party visiting a magic shop to find some "pre-owned" wands at discount prices.

And you can always give out partially-charged wands as treasure, to encourage their use.



I'm not sure I entirely agree with this. Wand price is balanced around the need to buy all 50 charges. Sure, as corner cases, adventurers can find or purchase ones with less, but since wands are 40% cheaper than scrolls, allowing wands to completely replace scrolls and allow players to purchase wands at any charge value they want just gives them Cheaper Scrolls.


How often will a party use all the charges in a wand anyway?
This is effectively the crux of the issue with the more expensive wands. They're "not usable" because the initial investment is so high and it's hard to use them to the point where they become cheaper than scrolls. Only a few wands (CLW, low level buffs players are using regularly, etc) hit this category, and that's kind of why I feel like they are "not practically usable".




Wands as they exist are a bad idea. You build the game around limited daily spell slots but then let people spend WBL to spam spells as much as they want? It's an example of why every game resource shouldn't be convertible into every other resource. It makes the different resource pools (in this case, spell slots and WBL) blend together into one, and devalues the logic on which particular resource pools are built. Yeah, agreed. But that's essentially the gold standard of the system (or at least is in the games I've been in). Use CLW wands to heal up between fights, save all spells for combat.



There have been several interesting 3rd party products done for Pathfinder...
Thank you, I gave all these a read. Not quite what I'm looking for, I think, but helpful. :)





As far as my experience goes, no one likes to use wands. Because the only way to use them effectively is by investing in use magic device. No one is ever doing that. But it also depends on how combat focused your group is. Multiple fights per session is something I've never seen. Fights happen maybe every few days and often not even that.


Oh, wow, yeah, I don't imagine you need wands, or even most of your spells, in that scenario. Base game expects four combats a day, so running only one a day or one every few days means players will never have to worry about resource management, so wands will be a nonissue.



If you're interested in this kind of item, there's also Drow House Insignia (Spell) [DotU p.99]. Holds a single 1st-3rd level spell, usable 1/day. Unlinke Eternal Wands, there is no restriction that it be arcane spells, and you don't need to be a caster to use it. It does take up the throat slot, though.

Another one I like is Minor Schemas [MoE p.122]. Hold a spell of up to 6th level, usable 1/day. Spell needs to be on your class list. Cannot hold a spell that has costly components, focus or XP requirement.
Also helpful, thank you. Pricing single use per day items is pretty easy, though. I think What more fits the role/niche for what wands are, though, is a large pool of casts that can be used during an adventure, but needs time outside the adventure to build back up.

[DrMartin]

Yeah this effect is basically just what I want, but I have no idea how to price it. I tried doing some mockups using the item creation rules and charges per day and it just absolutely doesn't work. Pricing it similarly to staves seems OK at first glance, but the recharge is way better (though the caster level is worse), so I really don't know how that should affect the final price.



Well, even if you think the price should be a bit higher : your current issue is the playersnot using them, and you wanting them to use them. Price them in their favour and see if that changes things at the table.

Again, assuming that is the issue at all - seems to me from your other posts that the problem is actually a mismatch in the expected of the game loop, and that wands usage is only a symptom of you thinking along the lines of "prepare for next the adventure -> do the adventure -> recover from the adventure -> repeat" and then being "adventure adventure adventure" :D

[PretzelCoatl]

Fair enough, ok. I'll give some thought on this. Thank you. :)

[Vaern]

I was recently spitballing ideas for wands as a casting focus rather than a battery for sleep charges. In addition to a bonus to attack and damage rolls equal to their enhancement bonus, as suggested by aglondier, they'd have various bonuses applied to spells cast through them, much like a metamagic rod.
The effects are generally less potent than a metamagic rod, though, and not restricted to a certain number of uses per day. For example, a metamagic rod might be able to double the range of a spell three times per day; a comparable wand might instead treat the user's caster level as being 4 higher than normal for the purpose of determining maximum range with no daily limit.

[aglondier]

I was recently spitballing ideas for wands as a casting focus rather than a battery for sleep charges. In addition to a bonus to attack and damage rolls equal to their enhancement bonus, as suggested by aglondier, they'd have various bonuses applied to spells cast through them, much like a metamagic rod.
The effects are generally less potent than a metamagic rod, though, and not restricted to a certain number of uses per day. For example, a metamagic rod might be able to double the range of a spell three times per day; a comparable wand might instead treat the user's caster level as being 4 higher than normal for the purpose of determining maximum range with no daily limit.

Yeah, the Genius Guide to Rune Staves and Wyrd Wands does this pretty well. For example...
Fiery: When the magic implement is used to cast a spell that deals fire damage, it causes the spell to deal an additional 1d6 points of fire damage.
Moderate evocation; CL 5th; Craft Magic Wand or Craft Magic Staff, burning hands; Price +1 bonus.
Blazing: When a blazing implement is used to cast a spell that deals acid, cold, electricity, or sonic damage, it can cause the spell to deal fire damage instead. The spell loses the acid, cold, electricity, or sonic descriptor if it had one, and it gains the fire descriptor.
Moderate transmutation; CL 9th; Craft Magic Wand or Craft Magic Staff, elemental body I; Price +1 bonus.
Potent: A potent implement adds the implement’s enhancement bonus to caster level when determining the spell’s range, area, targets, and duration.
Moderate transmutation; CL 7th; Craft Magic Wand or Craft Magic Staff, mage hand; Price +1 bonus.

[zlefin]

While I don't have any good ideas that are'nt already covered; I have a few lesser ideas.

If your players ever take the magic item forging feats, I designed an alternate craft point system that lets them craft stuff they have the prereqs for every level. Since they just get the stuff for free at levelup (or at the next downtime) it encourages people to use things they might not otherwise use; and they might be more willing to use up the consumables since they get more in time.

You could try a market experiment, wherein you lower the price of some custom wand over time until the players decide to buy it. Probably won't be very accurate with just one group of players though. I'm not aware of any community project that has tried doing such a thing in games to get a better sense of how much various items should really be worth.

I haven't tried alternate formulae for the gp cost of wands; the existing formulae are certainly rather inaccurate. In particular they make too large a distinction between low and high caster levels; ofc that's complicated by spells varying considerably in how much they're affected by caster level. And I wouldn't want to use a non-integer exponent in the formula.
Maybe something like 125 * spell level * (5 + caster level) might work a bit better as a formula.

More clarification on exactly why your players have problems using wands might help; sometimes the issue is people hate using up consumables, sometimes its that 3.5 is just so full of options that people forget what they have, sometimes it just doesn't compare favorably to buying another item. different problems favor different solutions.

[Vaern]

Yeah, the Genius Guide to Rune Staves and Wyrd Wands does this pretty well. For example...
Fiery: When the magic implement is used to cast a spell that deals fire damage, it causes the spell to deal an additional 1d6 points of fire damage.
Moderate evocation; CL 5th; Craft Magic Wand or Craft Magic Staff, burning hands; Price +1 bonus.
Blazing: When a blazing implement is used to cast a spell that deals acid, cold, electricity, or sonic damage, it can cause the spell to deal fire damage instead. The spell loses the acid, cold, electricity, or sonic descriptor if it had one, and it gains the fire descriptor.
Moderate transmutation; CL 9th; Craft Magic Wand or Craft Magic Staff, elemental body I; Price +1 bonus.
Potent: A potent implement adds the implement’s enhancement bonus to caster level when determining the spell’s range, area, targets, and duration.
Moderate transmutation; CL 7th; Craft Magic Wand or Craft Magic Staff, mage hand; Price +1 bonus.

That looks like a fun bunch of properties. As someone who doesn't play nearly as often as I'd like to, though, most of the fun I get to have with the game lately is homebrewing my own shenanigans. Here's a bit of what I ended up with.


Price: +1
These wands enhance the power of spells using a particular type of energy, determined at the time of crafting. Roll on the table below for a randomly generated wand.
1 Acid
2 Cold
3 Electric
4 Fire
When a spell deals damage of the wand's chosen type, it deals an additional point of damage per die. For example, if an 6th level sorcerer casts fireball though a fire focus wand it deals 6d6+6 points of fire damage.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, any spell with the chosen energy type descriptor


Price: +1
Synergy Prerequisite: Energy focus (Fire)
A searing wand functions as a more potent fire focus wand. The intense flames conjured by this wand cause the bonus damage it grants to fire spells to ignore fire resistance and immunity. This effect applies only to the bonus damage granted by the fire focus property, not to the base damage of the spell.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Searing Spell


Price: +1
A runecasting wand is inscribed with a particular arcane spell of up to 4th level. The spell is determined at the time of crafting and can not be changed. The writing looks much like that of a wizard's spellbook and, in fact, a wizard may copy and even prepare the spell inscribed on the wand as though it were a spellbook borrowed from another wizard.
The wielder of a runecasting wand may expend a prepared spell or unused spell slot to instead cast the spell scribed onto the wand. The expended spell or spell slot must be of equal or greater level than the wand's spell.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, the spell to be inscribed on the wand

[Malphegor]

Eternal Wands are basically what you might want: Instead of limited 50 charges, have 3 charges per day that replenish. By the listed ones they’re all low levels but they’re basically following the charges per day wondrous item formula so ‘wands that charge a bit each day’ is pretty easy to make of any spell level.

Interestingly it looks like these have become how 5e runs EVERY wand so it is funny how wand technology changes across editions: less charge capacity in its ‘battery’ but now can be used daily with recharging cells so to speak

[St Fan]

A bit tangential to the thread, but if the consumability of wands is what bother you, there is one class feature that can avoid this problem.

Dragon Magazine #342 introduced the "Improved Domain Powers" ACF for Clerics, giving a new, expanded domain power. It's obtainable whether as a feat, a magic item, or in exchange for Turn Undead or two granted domain powers.

These new powers are, as a whole, rather underwhelming, at least in my opinion. However, the one for the Magic domain is interesting:



Power Magical Device (Su): You can channel divine energy through a wand, staff, or other charged magical item, powering it with faith rather than the item's own internal reserves. Doing so requires only as much time as is required to activate the item normally (typically a standard action). The magic item produces all its normal effects, but no charge is drained. To power an item, your caster level must be at least equal to the caster level of the item. You cannot use this ability to duplicate spells with an XP or costly material component. Abilities that require multiple charges require you to spend an equal number of uses of this ability. You may use this ability once per day for every two cleric levels you possess (minimum 1).