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arguskos
2008-12-07, 11:03 PM
So, yeah, wands. Do you prefer your wands to be standard you-have-50-charges-lol style, or do you prefer the less-times-but-more-durable style of eternal wands?

I personally enjoy both, battle spells I'll need frequently in normal wands, and less common stuff that I need less frequently, but enough to not make a scroll of it for eternal wands.

Thoughts?

AmberVael
2008-12-07, 11:04 PM
Eternal wands. I'm just really not fond of things running out. If I buy something, I want to be able to use it indefinitely.

Stupendous_Man
2008-12-07, 11:07 PM
The exception is for wands which you may need to use and pop off half a dozen charges of in rapid succession.

Lesser Restoration, for example.

mabriss lethe
2008-12-07, 11:18 PM
eternal wands (for me anyway) wind up being best for buffs or utility spells that you know you're going to use, but at most will only use once per encounter. regular wands are best for spells you'll use a whole honking lot in a single encounter. For spells that you use rarely, it's either/or. It won't matter one way or another if you stumble upon it. Better as a scroll though

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-12-07, 11:22 PM
I hate Scrolls and Wands. They're just not worth it to me. Anything that I spend money on I want to last forever. Otherwise I'll never use it, as any use will feel like I'm throwing money down the toilet.

Myatar_Panwar
2008-12-07, 11:24 PM
I hate Scrolls and Wands. They're just not worth it to me. Anything that I spend money on I want to last forever. Otherwise I'll never use it, as any use will feel like I'm throwing money down the toilet.

Exactly how I feel. With my past wizards, I would buy wands/staffs/etc, but never use them because I always felt like I would be wasting it when I could just cast a normal spell.

Stupendous_Man
2008-12-07, 11:35 PM
You're supposed to buy ammo for your shotgun and use it...

AmberVael
2008-12-07, 11:36 PM
You're supposed to buy ammo for your shotgun and use it...

Why shoot your shotgun when you're a cannon? :smallwink:

arguskos
2008-12-07, 11:40 PM
Why shoot your shotgun when you're a cannon? :smallwink:
Cannons are most frequently made of glass? :smallwink: /silliness

CthulhuM
2008-12-08, 12:15 AM
I tend to feel the same way about expendable items, but it actually isn't a very good instinct to have when it comes to 3.5 DnD. Because your wealth is always increasing (at an increasing rate, no less) and because, frankly, 50 charges will usually last you a good long time, the losses you incur from burning through your wands tend not to add up to nearly as much as you think they will.

Plus, there's the fact that, for classes like rogues, bards and obviously artificers, using expendable items gives you a huge increase in your overall power, to the extent that your UMD skill becomes as much or more powerful than all the rest of your class features combined. If you're a wizard, though... then yeah, you can probably afford to mostly skip out on the expendable items (other than contingent spells, that is).

xPANCAKEx
2008-12-08, 12:40 AM
i dunno - having a wand or 2 of some spells around is very useful. Things like knock, and other spells, where the slots are better spent elsewhere, can be very handy to have "just in case"

FMArthur
2008-12-08, 01:27 AM
An Artificer who spends their career crafting Eternal Wands winds up with a bewildering array of useful spells availible at all times that they can use constantly and still have the exact same wands availible next week, plus a few more. It's mainly for long campaigns. If you're starting at a high level, an Artificer can somehow assume that he has built an arsenal of 50-charge wands without using any of them at all over the course of his levelling.

Shpadoinkle
2008-12-08, 01:30 AM
Why shoot your shotgun when you're a cannon? :smallwink:

Because sometimes you want to just kill one guy, not blow up the city.

Anyway, whether a wand should be eternal or normal depends on the spell and the situation, I think. A couple eternal wands of CLW would be fine for a small group (3 or less), but a handful of normal wands of CLW would be better if you have more than four people, or you're pretty high level and for some reason have nobody who can readily heal otherwise (or just as insurance in case the healer dies or something.)

AmberVael
2008-12-08, 01:33 AM
Because sometimes you want to just kill one guy, not blow up the city.

"There is no 'overkill.' There is only 'open fire' and 'time to reload.'"

-Schlock Mercenary, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates"

:smallbiggrin:

Talic
2008-12-08, 01:35 AM
Wands should be used to shore up weaknesses. As such, contingency items that will see occasional regular use, but not be insanely needed?

Eternal.

If you need it that much more? I suppose a wand is in order, but this is special exception territory. Restoration Wand when you're getting ready to assault a castle full of wraiths and shadows. That sorta thing. Extreme need, in mass amounts, foreseen.

Regular wands also have use if you regularly expect to be on a tight time limit. If you're not so pressed? Eternals are fine.

Seffbasilisk
2008-12-08, 01:42 AM
Eternal wands. I'm just really not fond of things running out. If I buy something, I want to be able to use it indefinitely.

Same.


While the cost of wands may not add up to a lot, relativly, but it still adds up. When I made an adventurer, they're planning for the long-term. Those that don't? Die quick. Eternal wands are just that...Eternal. I normally don't need more than 2-3 uses of the wand each day, and when I no longer need the wand, it's either traded for something, or sold back. Better then just having an piece of kindling.

Ethdred
2008-12-08, 06:01 AM
I'm just really not fond of things running out. If I buy something, I want to be able to use it indefinitely.

Blimey, are you up for a disappointing life!

:)

Satyr
2008-12-08, 06:23 AM
Never eternal. Always force the characters to be smart and ressourceful, not spoiling them with gratious extra powers. I prefer to have to think and plan instead of spamming the oppoition with magic.
Besides, the more limited a ressourceis, them more prescious it feels and thew more rewarding it is to have accesss to them. Too many magical items or loads or similar just lead to an inflation of those things, witch is great form of suspension killing.

SoD
2008-12-08, 07:07 AM
At the risk of sounding stupid, what are eternal wands?

Tempest Fennac
2008-12-08, 07:25 AM
I'm not sure which book they are in, but they are just wands which can be used twice/day while bever running out of charges perminantly. I think they cost the same as normal wands.

arguskos
2008-12-08, 07:28 AM
I'm not sure which book they are in, but they are just wands which can be used twice/day while bever running out of charges perminantly. I think they cost the same as normal wands.
They are orignally from Eberron (the campaign setting book, IIRC), and were revised in the Magic Item Compendium. I believe they cost a touch more than normal wands, but it's a small amount more, if it is indeed more.

Talic
2008-12-08, 07:41 AM
Eternal wands can also be used without any casting ability. :)

kamikasei
2008-12-08, 08:07 AM
As I recall, they're costed exactly like a 2/day wondrous item, and any resemblance to the cost of a normal wand is coincidental.

Aquillion
2008-12-08, 08:09 AM
Don't forget there are some things (e.g. metamagic spell trigger in particular) that require a wand with charges. Many of those are worth using a real wand for.

Thrawn183
2008-12-08, 08:53 AM
If you're worried about ability score damage, get the rod that can fix a certain amount per day (through 3 charges). I think its 4,100 gold? Rod of Bodily Restoration? Its like an eternal wand for healing ability score damage, but it has flexibility built into it to!

Waspinator
2008-12-08, 11:39 AM
Eternal wands can also be used without any casting ability. :)

Not true. You need to be able to cast arcane spells to trigger one.

Stupendous_Man
2008-12-08, 11:52 AM
Not true. You need to be able to cast arcane spells to trigger one.

Or you can UMD it

Teron
2008-12-08, 12:18 PM
Not true. You need to be able to cast arcane spells to trigger one.
Indeed. However, any arcane spellcasting capability will suffice. That feature is significant in Eberron where NPC spellcasters are relatively common, but they're mostly level one magewrights (an NPC class with limited casting from a purely utilitarian spell list). For PC's in any setting, it has interesting implications for specialised or secondary arcane spellcasters like bards, duskblades and even assassins.

LibraryOgre
2008-12-08, 12:19 PM
I wound up reverse-engineering eternal wands, but without the 2-3/day limitation. Hzurr wouldn't let me have a wand that cast a 1st level Burning Hands at will, nor my "ring of shocking grasp", which could do that spell 3 times per day. :smallfrown:

When that happened, I took the money I would've spent on a variety of weapon wands and spent them on... weapon wands. I wound up have 250 charges of the various Lesser Orbs on what amounted to a keychain of wands... all with a metal cap with a hole in it on the end, allowing me to switch as I needed. Didn't do a lot of damage with any single shot, but I was a nasty bugger in the long-haul.

hamishspence
2008-12-08, 12:28 PM
I thought Factotum powers didn't count, because it was not, strictly, an arcane caster?

Still, there is always UMD.

Bayar
2008-12-08, 02:16 PM
Eternal wands with persist = own
Normal wands with twin energy substitution quickened energy admixture = PWN

Proven_Paradox
2008-12-08, 03:14 PM
If I can use them, I'm usually carrying around a standard wand of Minor Vigor--that, you will need more than twice after a single encounter, much less over a full day. I'll also often have a wand with some low level attack spell--magic missile, sonic orb, and such. After that, I prefer eternal wands.

Paul H
2008-12-08, 08:16 PM
Hi

Currently playing World's Largest Dungeon. Both types of wand are useful - 50 charges allow lots of use in one day, but the Eternal ones (MIC) will last forever.

Use Eternal Wands for spells that never end their usefulness as you level up - Comp Langs, Cure Lt Wnds, etc.

Cheers
Paul H

Paul H
2008-12-08, 08:19 PM
Hi

But as already been said - plenty of 'charged' items in MIC that are better than wands.

Belt of Healing allows 2D6 healing per charge. (3 charges/day). Rod of Bodily Health also useful, amongst others things.

Cheers
Paul H

Draz74
2008-12-08, 09:07 PM
I tend to be like some others and prefer Eternal Wands, just for the security of "never run out," but if I'm really trying to optimize, I'll take some normal Wands too.

It depends on the spell. Spells that you're definitely going to want every day, but that are mostly useful in combat situations so you won't need to be spamming them (unless you have tons of encounters in one day, which is bad anyway), should be Eternal Wands. Haste, Snake's Swiftness, Heroics -- good Eternal Wands.

I'd also go for Eternal Wands for some higher-level utilities that really seem like they'd come in handy often. Glibness and Major Image come to mind. (Yay for any arcane casters suddenly being able to use Glibness!) Of course, you can't really afford high-level (higher than 2) wands until high levels of the game, but there you are.

Utility spells that you really need, when you need them, are better for normal Wands, in case you really need to spam them. Knock, for example. The Lesser Restoration mentioned by others is probably a good example, too.

What no one else has mentioned is that utility spells that you'll only need rarely are also better to get as normal Wands (which will last you pretty much forever). You just won't use them often enough to make an Eternal Wand worthwhile. This includes things like Comprehend Languages and Nystul's Magic Aura. And it may break down for higher-level spells, where the Eternal Wands are actually slightly cheaper than normal Wands. You just have to decide, at that point, whether you can imagine an emergency situation where you'll need to spam the spell.

Waspinator
2008-12-08, 10:11 PM
The Eternal Wand of Identify is awesome if your DM lets you get away with dodging the per-spell material cost, which the description in the MIC technically doesn't mention.

Blood_Lord
2008-12-08, 11:02 PM
The Eternal Wand of Identify is awesome if your DM lets you get away with dodging the per-spell material cost, which the description in the MIC technically doesn't mention.

Not noticeably better then the Artificer's Monocle.

slimy_te_t_cles
2009-10-08, 08:40 AM
Seems to me the best use for eternal wands is to cast dispel magic into ring of counterspells every day to protect all your lovely persistent metamagic cleric buff spells :smallbiggrin:
It lets you rest easy :smallsigh:

Roland St. Jude
2009-10-08, 08:43 AM
Seems to me the best use for eternal wands is to cast dispel magic into ring of counterspells every day to protect all your lovely persistent metamagic cleric buff spells :smallbiggrin:
It lets you rest easy :smallsigh:

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