Vaern
2023-08-23, 08:06 PM
Wands as a spell trigger item are a tool of convenience rather than an essential component for spellcasting. I've often imagined that wands, rather than being a battery to supply charges of a single spell, should function instead as a spellcasting amplifier that can enhance any spell that a caster casts through them. That is, more or less, the goal of this variant.
Now, a quick and easy introduction and description of how wands work using this variant:
Wands are now priced as weapons. A mundane wand costs 0 GP - much like a club or a quarterstaff, it's essentially just a stick. A wand of masterwork quality costs 300 GP and may be enhanced with magical properties.
A wand can be used to trace patterns in the air in place of hand gestures. Holding a wand never prevents its user from performing somatic components.
A wand may be used to deliver touch spells and direct ranged spells. A masterwork wand offers a +1 enhancement bonus to attack rolls on such spells.
A magic wand grants a bonus equal to its enhancement bonus to attack rolls and to caster level checks made to overcome spell resistance.
The cost to create a magic wand, improve its enhancement bonus, or to add special abilities is the same as the cost to create or improve a magic weapon.
As for special abilities, I tried to stick to a rule that any wand ability should generally be either A) strictly weaker than a comparable effect that could be granted by a feat or limited-use item, or B) unique enough that its effect is simply not comparable to any effect granted by a feat or limited-use item. I do not necessarily want a wand to simply apply a metamagic feat to every spell cast through it, for example, as that would make metamagic rods completely obsolete (beyond being difficult to price and balance); however, several wand abilities grant significantly dampened metamagic-like effects, which can then be improved with synergy abilities that grant unique effects beyond the scope of the metamagic feat used as inspiration. I also wanted the abilities to have some sort of built-in scaling to stay relevant (linear fighter, quadratic wizard, blah, blah, blah), so many of them are dependent on attributes of spells being cast through them or the enhancement bonus of the wand. Anyway, I've been rambling about my thought process for long enough and I really need to be getting to sleep, so here's what I've got so far.
School Efficacy
Price: +1
These specialized wands excel at channeling a single school of magic. The wand is bound to a single school of magic, determined at the time of crafting and can not be changed. Roll on the table below for a randomly generated wand.
1 Abjuration
2 Conjuration
3 Divination
4 Enchantment
5 Evocation
6 Illusion
7 Necromancy
8 Transmutation
When using this wand to cast a spell of the chosen school, your caster level is increased by the wand's enhancement bonus for that spell.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, crafter must either be a specialist wizard or have Spell Focus for the appropriate school
Energy Focus
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 Electricity
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 +1 fire focus wand it deals 6d6+6 points of fire damage.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, any two spells with the chosen descriptor
Eroding [Synergy]
Price: +1
An eroding wand functions as a more potent acid focus wand. The acid conjured by this wand gradually eats away at its enemy's defenses. When a creature with damage reduction or energy resistance is affected by an acid spell cast from an eroding wand, its damage reduction and each of its energy resistances is reduced by an amount equal to the bonus damage granted by the acid focus property for a number of rounds equal to the wand's enhancement bonus. Multiple instances of this effect on a single creature stack, and the duration of all previous instances of the effect is refreshed each time a new instance of the effect is applied.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, ?????
Freezing [Synergy]
Price: +1
A freezing wand functions as a more potent cold focus wand. The intense cold conjured by this wand cause the bonus damage it grants to cold spells to ignore cold resistance and immunity. This effect applies only to the bonus damage granted by the cold focus property, not to the base damage of the spell. In addition, any creature affected by the spell moves at half speed for a number of rounds equal to the wand's enhancement bonus.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Piercing Cold
Sparking [Synergy]
Price: +1
A sparking wand functions as a more potent electricity focus wand. The electricty conjured by this wand leaps from one target to another. When a creature takes electric damage from a spell cast through a sparking wand, a spark of electricity leaps to another creature with 5 feet per spell level. That creature takes electricity damage equal to the bonus damage granted by the electricity focus property.
The target of this effect may not be a creature who was affected by the spell. If the spell damaged multiple targets simultaneously, each causes a spark targeting a different secondary target; a single creature may not be affected multiple times from the a single occurance of this effect.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Chain Spell
Searing [Synergy]
Price: +1
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. If a spell would cause affected creatures or objects to ignite, the resulting fire likewise ignores fire resistance and immunity.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Searing Spell
Penetrating
Price: +1
A penetrating wand is especially effective for piercing magical defenses. A penetrating wand grants an additional +2 bonus to caster level checks made to overcome spell resistance beyond what is granted by the wand's enhancement bonus.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Spell Penetration or assay spell resistance
Piercing [Synergy]
Price: +2
A piercing wand functions as a more potent penetrating wand. The additional bonus to caster level checks made to overcome spell resistance is increased to +4 beyond what it granted by the wand's enhancement bonus.
In addition, your spells have a chance of affecting creatures that would otherwise be immune to magic. If a creature would normally be considered to have unbeatable spell resistance, you instead treat it as having spell resistance equal to 25 + its hit dice.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Greater Spell Penetration or assay spell resistance
Reaching
Price: +1
A wand with this property grants greater reach to spells cast through it. When a spell is cast through such a wand, treat its caster level as being 2 higher for the purpose of determining its maximum range.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Enlarge Spell
Sniping [Synergy]
Price: +2
A sniping wand functions as a reaching wand, except that your effective caster level for determining a spell's range is increased by twice the enhancement bonus of the wand. Your spells also seek out their targets much more easily, ignoring anything less than total cover and reducing miss chance due to concealment by 5% times the wand's enhancement bonus.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Enlarge Spell
Lingering
Price: +1
A wand with this property causes magical effects to linger beyond their normal durations. When a spell is cast through such a wand, treat its caster level as being 2 higher for the purpose of determining its maximum duration.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Extend Spell
Enduring [Synergy]
Price: +2
An enduring wand functions as a lingering wand, except that your effective caster level for determining a spell's duration is increased by twice the enhancement bonus of the wand. In addition, if the spell would be countered or dispelled, its effect is instead delayed or suppressed for 1d6 rounds after which it resumes functioning. This time counts against the spell's duration as though its effect was suppressed by an antimagic field. A spell may endure being dispelled this way a number of times equal to the wand's enhancement bonus.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Extend Spell
Nimble
Price: +1
A nimble wand seems to move almost on its own and makes it especially easy to trace patterns and symbols even when movement would otherwise be hindered. When using this wand to cast a spell with a somatic component, treat your arcane spell failure as 10% lower.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Still Spell
Surging
Price: +2
A surging wand causes spells to unexpectedly whelm with power. For each die that rolls its maximum value when rolling to determine the effect of a spell with a variable, numeric effect, roll one additional bonus die. Do not roll additional dice for these bonus dice rolling their maximum value.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Empower Spell
Bolstering
Price: +2
A wand with this property increases the potency of all spells channeled through it. When casting a spell with a variable, numeric effect determined by rolling dice, increase the size of the dice by one step to a maximum of d12.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Maximize Spell
(And as an added bonus, a property and synergy just for the sake of somewhat preserving the functionality of Core wands within this variant)
Spellbound
Price: +1
A spellbound wand is inscribed with a particular spell of up to 4th level. The spell is determined at the time of crafting and can not be changed. The inscription 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 (or as his own spellbook, if the wand is being used by the character that crafted it).
The wielder of a spellbonud wand may expend a prepared spell or unused spell slot to instead cast the spell scribed onto the wand. The level of the expended spell or spell slot must be equal to or greater than the level of the wand's spell.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, must be able to cast the spell to be inscribed on the wand
Charged [Synergy]
Price: +1
A charged wand functions as a spellbound wand, except that the user may also store spellpower within the wand to draw upon later.
Rather than casting the spell inscribed on the wand, the wielder of a charged wand may choose to expend a prepared spell or unused spell slot to add a charge to the wand. Once a wand has been charged with spellpower, its wielder may cast the inscribed spell by expending a stored charge rather than his own spellpower.
The wand only accepts spells of the inscribed spell's level or higher. Expending a spell of a lower level than the inscribed spell has no effect, though that spell slot is still lost. A charged wand may hold a number of charges equal to the wand's enhancement bonus.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand
Now, a quick and easy introduction and description of how wands work using this variant:
Wands are now priced as weapons. A mundane wand costs 0 GP - much like a club or a quarterstaff, it's essentially just a stick. A wand of masterwork quality costs 300 GP and may be enhanced with magical properties.
A wand can be used to trace patterns in the air in place of hand gestures. Holding a wand never prevents its user from performing somatic components.
A wand may be used to deliver touch spells and direct ranged spells. A masterwork wand offers a +1 enhancement bonus to attack rolls on such spells.
A magic wand grants a bonus equal to its enhancement bonus to attack rolls and to caster level checks made to overcome spell resistance.
The cost to create a magic wand, improve its enhancement bonus, or to add special abilities is the same as the cost to create or improve a magic weapon.
As for special abilities, I tried to stick to a rule that any wand ability should generally be either A) strictly weaker than a comparable effect that could be granted by a feat or limited-use item, or B) unique enough that its effect is simply not comparable to any effect granted by a feat or limited-use item. I do not necessarily want a wand to simply apply a metamagic feat to every spell cast through it, for example, as that would make metamagic rods completely obsolete (beyond being difficult to price and balance); however, several wand abilities grant significantly dampened metamagic-like effects, which can then be improved with synergy abilities that grant unique effects beyond the scope of the metamagic feat used as inspiration. I also wanted the abilities to have some sort of built-in scaling to stay relevant (linear fighter, quadratic wizard, blah, blah, blah), so many of them are dependent on attributes of spells being cast through them or the enhancement bonus of the wand. Anyway, I've been rambling about my thought process for long enough and I really need to be getting to sleep, so here's what I've got so far.
School Efficacy
Price: +1
These specialized wands excel at channeling a single school of magic. The wand is bound to a single school of magic, determined at the time of crafting and can not be changed. Roll on the table below for a randomly generated wand.
1 Abjuration
2 Conjuration
3 Divination
4 Enchantment
5 Evocation
6 Illusion
7 Necromancy
8 Transmutation
When using this wand to cast a spell of the chosen school, your caster level is increased by the wand's enhancement bonus for that spell.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, crafter must either be a specialist wizard or have Spell Focus for the appropriate school
Energy Focus
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 Electricity
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 +1 fire focus wand it deals 6d6+6 points of fire damage.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, any two spells with the chosen descriptor
Eroding [Synergy]
Price: +1
An eroding wand functions as a more potent acid focus wand. The acid conjured by this wand gradually eats away at its enemy's defenses. When a creature with damage reduction or energy resistance is affected by an acid spell cast from an eroding wand, its damage reduction and each of its energy resistances is reduced by an amount equal to the bonus damage granted by the acid focus property for a number of rounds equal to the wand's enhancement bonus. Multiple instances of this effect on a single creature stack, and the duration of all previous instances of the effect is refreshed each time a new instance of the effect is applied.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, ?????
Freezing [Synergy]
Price: +1
A freezing wand functions as a more potent cold focus wand. The intense cold conjured by this wand cause the bonus damage it grants to cold spells to ignore cold resistance and immunity. This effect applies only to the bonus damage granted by the cold focus property, not to the base damage of the spell. In addition, any creature affected by the spell moves at half speed for a number of rounds equal to the wand's enhancement bonus.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Piercing Cold
Sparking [Synergy]
Price: +1
A sparking wand functions as a more potent electricity focus wand. The electricty conjured by this wand leaps from one target to another. When a creature takes electric damage from a spell cast through a sparking wand, a spark of electricity leaps to another creature with 5 feet per spell level. That creature takes electricity damage equal to the bonus damage granted by the electricity focus property.
The target of this effect may not be a creature who was affected by the spell. If the spell damaged multiple targets simultaneously, each causes a spark targeting a different secondary target; a single creature may not be affected multiple times from the a single occurance of this effect.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Chain Spell
Searing [Synergy]
Price: +1
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. If a spell would cause affected creatures or objects to ignite, the resulting fire likewise ignores fire resistance and immunity.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Searing Spell
Penetrating
Price: +1
A penetrating wand is especially effective for piercing magical defenses. A penetrating wand grants an additional +2 bonus to caster level checks made to overcome spell resistance beyond what is granted by the wand's enhancement bonus.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Spell Penetration or assay spell resistance
Piercing [Synergy]
Price: +2
A piercing wand functions as a more potent penetrating wand. The additional bonus to caster level checks made to overcome spell resistance is increased to +4 beyond what it granted by the wand's enhancement bonus.
In addition, your spells have a chance of affecting creatures that would otherwise be immune to magic. If a creature would normally be considered to have unbeatable spell resistance, you instead treat it as having spell resistance equal to 25 + its hit dice.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Greater Spell Penetration or assay spell resistance
Reaching
Price: +1
A wand with this property grants greater reach to spells cast through it. When a spell is cast through such a wand, treat its caster level as being 2 higher for the purpose of determining its maximum range.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Enlarge Spell
Sniping [Synergy]
Price: +2
A sniping wand functions as a reaching wand, except that your effective caster level for determining a spell's range is increased by twice the enhancement bonus of the wand. Your spells also seek out their targets much more easily, ignoring anything less than total cover and reducing miss chance due to concealment by 5% times the wand's enhancement bonus.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Enlarge Spell
Lingering
Price: +1
A wand with this property causes magical effects to linger beyond their normal durations. When a spell is cast through such a wand, treat its caster level as being 2 higher for the purpose of determining its maximum duration.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Extend Spell
Enduring [Synergy]
Price: +2
An enduring wand functions as a lingering wand, except that your effective caster level for determining a spell's duration is increased by twice the enhancement bonus of the wand. In addition, if the spell would be countered or dispelled, its effect is instead delayed or suppressed for 1d6 rounds after which it resumes functioning. This time counts against the spell's duration as though its effect was suppressed by an antimagic field. A spell may endure being dispelled this way a number of times equal to the wand's enhancement bonus.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Extend Spell
Nimble
Price: +1
A nimble wand seems to move almost on its own and makes it especially easy to trace patterns and symbols even when movement would otherwise be hindered. When using this wand to cast a spell with a somatic component, treat your arcane spell failure as 10% lower.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Still Spell
Surging
Price: +2
A surging wand causes spells to unexpectedly whelm with power. For each die that rolls its maximum value when rolling to determine the effect of a spell with a variable, numeric effect, roll one additional bonus die. Do not roll additional dice for these bonus dice rolling their maximum value.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Empower Spell
Bolstering
Price: +2
A wand with this property increases the potency of all spells channeled through it. When casting a spell with a variable, numeric effect determined by rolling dice, increase the size of the dice by one step to a maximum of d12.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, Maximize Spell
(And as an added bonus, a property and synergy just for the sake of somewhat preserving the functionality of Core wands within this variant)
Spellbound
Price: +1
A spellbound wand is inscribed with a particular spell of up to 4th level. The spell is determined at the time of crafting and can not be changed. The inscription 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 (or as his own spellbook, if the wand is being used by the character that crafted it).
The wielder of a spellbonud wand may expend a prepared spell or unused spell slot to instead cast the spell scribed onto the wand. The level of the expended spell or spell slot must be equal to or greater than the level of the wand's spell.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand, must be able to cast the spell to be inscribed on the wand
Charged [Synergy]
Price: +1
A charged wand functions as a spellbound wand, except that the user may also store spellpower within the wand to draw upon later.
Rather than casting the spell inscribed on the wand, the wielder of a charged wand may choose to expend a prepared spell or unused spell slot to add a charge to the wand. Once a wand has been charged with spellpower, its wielder may cast the inscribed spell by expending a stored charge rather than his own spellpower.
The wand only accepts spells of the inscribed spell's level or higher. Expending a spell of a lower level than the inscribed spell has no effect, though that spell slot is still lost. A charged wand may hold a number of charges equal to the wand's enhancement bonus.
Prerequisites: Craft Wand