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    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Psyche's Avatar

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    Default The Wand of Tricksy Escapes (Requires Attunement by a spellcaster)

    The wand has 8 Charges for the following Properties. The wand regains 2d4 expended Charges daily at dawn. When you reduce the number of charges to zero, roll a d20. on a 3 or lower, the wand shifts to a random plane of existence.

    Spells: While holding this wand, you can use an Action to expend 1 or more of its Charges to cast one of the following Spells from it, using your spell save DC and spell Attack bonus: Dimension Door (2 charges), Invisibility(1 Charge), globe of Invulnerability (3 charges), Hold Monster (3 charges), Fly (2 charges), Vortex Warp (1 charge), Web (1 charge), Far Step (3 Charges), Word of Recall (3 Charges), Teleport (4 charges), or Plane Shift(4 Charges)
    Last edited by Psyche; 2022-10-11 at 07:40 AM.

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    Titan in the Playground
     
    Inevitability's Avatar

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    Default Re: The Wand of Tricksy Escapes (Requires Attunement by a spellcaster)

    Quote Originally Posted by Psyche View Post
    The wand has 40 Charges for the following Properties. The wand regains 5d8 expended Charges daily at dawn.

    Spells: While holding this wand, you can use an Action to expend 1 or more of its Charges to cast one of the following Spells from it, using your spell save DC and spell Attack bonus: Dimension Door (2 charges), Invisibility(1 Charge), globe of Invulnerability (3 charges), Hold Monster (3 charges), Fly (2 charges), Vortex Warp (1 charge), Web (1 charge), Far Step (3 Charges), Word of Recall (3 Charges), Teleport (4 charges), or Plane Shift(4 Charges)
    Seems a bit extensive both in number of charges and available spells. Wands typically only have seven uses. Most wands have only a few spells they can cast: one is the typical number, with a few giving you as much as two or three spells. Forty uses, and eleven spells? What's that necessary for?

    It's not a fun item either: in the hands of a NPC it just means 'you are not killing this guy until I, the DM, specifically let you', which is never enjoyable to be on the receiving end of. In the hands of a PC, it's a taxicab (which can cut down on slog) but it offers so many in-combat spells and persistent buffs that players are heavily encouraged to use this thing all the time, which is great for the PC holding the magic item and kind of boring for everyone else.

    Lastly, wands usually have a chance to be destroyed in some way when they hit 0 charges. For this one, it might be thematically appropriate to simply have it shift away to some other world: the wand itself escapes from you if you ask too much of it.


    So how to rework this?
    I'd personally give it three spells: Invisibility (2 charges), Far Step (3 charges), and Teleport (5 charges), with 7 charges total and 1d6+1 regained each day. This forces the user to make actual choices: get the in-combat flexibility of Far Step but lose the panic button provided by Teleport? Cast Invisibility, and risk the wand melting down if you have to Teleport later? Or simply play it safe, and stick to three Invisibilities, two Far Steps, or one Teleport per day?

    There's still a clear thematic connection here, and it'll still be plenty if you need to guarantee some NPC can make his escape once or twice (while being narrow enough that PCs could subvert the item if they tried, for example by Counterspelling a Teleport) but it's no longer the most important part of any scene it shows up in.
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