It's a Wand! It's a Crossbow Bolt! It's a Floor Wax!

[Sigma]

Thanks Borlon, Primitive Screwhead, and Nim for running the numbers.

I haven't applied it to staves yet (haven't gotten high enough level to get one under this rule), but I probably would. For items that use multiple charges, I would roll multiple times.

I've played with the rule for a little while now, and players tend to like it as much as DM's. Wands get used much more often because of the element of risk. That, and the fun of rolling dice.

 

[Borlon]

Y'know what would be neat: if detect magic revealed what die a wand (or other item) was on. A brand new wand would shine- it's a d20. An almost-used up wand would be a d8. d12 or d10 would be somewhere in between; typical kind of treasure.

 

[cmanos]

interesting concept but you also could have a situation where the wand does not degrade at all.....

I'd also put in the rule that at any time you burn more than one charge (for using multiple wands at the same time, Wand Strikes, metamagic wand feats etc. it would automatically degrade the wand.

 

[Sigma]

interesting concept but you also could have a situation where the wand does not degrade at all.....

I'd also put in the rule that at any time you burn more than one charge (for using multiple wands at the same time, Wand Strikes, metamagic wand feats etc. it would automatically degrade the wand.

I don't think that's a good idea with this rule. It changes the nature of the feats from 'use an extra charge' to 'sacrifice the wand' in most cases. A wand with a d10 represents a half charged wand under this system (25 charges under the RAW). Under the RAW, a feat that requires two charges means that you could use the wand 12.5 times before it is destroyed. Under the automatic degrade rule, you could use the feat twice before the wand is out of charges. That's a significant nerfing of the multiple-wand charge feats.

 

[Denaes]

interesting concept but you also could have a situation where the wand does not degrade at all.....

And you could have a situation where a wand degrades on it's first use and only lasts for 13 uses total.

It's a bit of risk, a bit of randomness and tension and no bookkeeping.

I'd also put in the rule that at any time you burn more than one charge (for using multiple wands at the same time, Wand Strikes, metamagic wand feats etc. it would automatically degrade the wand.

Why? Just apply the same logic as using one charge and roll twice. Either both at once or one after another. Each 1 drops you to the next lower die.

I'm not the GM of my current game - I'm a player playing an Artificer and I've already emailed the rule to the GM and asked if we could use it as well

 

[Borlon]

A simple variant to this would be to give each wand a 2% chance that any given charge was its last one. All wands will last an average of 50 charges, no matter how often they've been used before.

To get 2% just roll a d10 twice. If it rolls a (1,0) or a (0,1) then the wand crumbles into worthless powder.

This variant saves book-keeping. You don't have to keep track of charges, nor of which die the wand is on (d20, d12, d10 or d8).

 

[Stalker0]

A simple variant to this would be to give each wand a 2% chance that any given charge was its last one. All wands will last an average of 50 charges, no matter how often they've been used before.

To get 2% just roll a d10 twice. If it rolls a (1,0) or a (0,1) then the wand crumbles into worthless powder.

This variant saves book-keeping. You don't have to keep track of charges, nor of which die the wand is on (d20, d12, d10 or d8).

I think the previous variant is more exciting, but this one is more straightforward (and is everyone convinced the previous version does give an average of 50 charges?)

I think I will use this variant for wands the players find, but I wouldn't use it for wands they make unless they all okay it. That's a fair amount of risk your taking on.

And at this point, this thread should go to house rules.

 

[ARandomGod]

I think the previous variant is more exciting, but this one is more straightforward (and is everyone convinced the previous version does give an average of 50 charges?)

I think I will use this variant for wands the players find, but I wouldn't use it for wands they make unless they all okay it. That's a fair amount of risk your taking on.

And at this point, this thread should go to house rules.

It looked to me like the average of this variant was around 20 charges. Which means to me that you need to add MORE degrees of degredation. I do like the concept, really, but I'd like to get the average as close to 50 as possible, so as to better know the game balance/monetary outlay that should be expected for these wands.

What would be the increase if you added a d6 and a d4 degredation?

And, for that matter, we really need to know what the average for each stage of power, so we'd better be able to price a wand at each stage. Assuming that the above variant does indeed average 20 charges, I can easily figure out how much that should cost a PC, or how much a PC would get from selling it. But what if the wand were already at d12? d10? d8?

And, of course, assuming we found a set of die that was closer to 50 charges, what would each of THOSE die degredation variables be?

For this to be a complete house-rule you really have to take these things into consideration.

 

[Denaes]

It looked to me like the average of this variant was around 20 charges. Which means to me that you need to add MORE degrees of degredation. I do like the concept, really, but I'd like to get the average as close to 50 as possible, so as to better know the game balance/monetary outlay that should be expected for these wands.

No, the average uses in this method is 50.

On average you'll roll a 1 on a d20 every 20 times.
On average you'll roll a 1 on a d12 every 12 times.
On average you'll roll a 1 on a d10 every 10 times.
On average you'll roll a 1 on a d8 ever 8 times.

So on average, you'll roll a 1 on each type of die after 50 rolls.

What would be the increase if you added a d6 and a d4 degredation?

You would get on average, 60 charges.

And, for that matter, we really need to know what the average for each stage of power, so we'd better be able to price a wand at each stage. Assuming that the above variant does indeed average 20 charges, I can easily figure out how much that should cost a PC, or how much a PC would get from selling it. But what if the wand were already at d12? d10? d8?

I don't know about pricing, the average for each stage of power is the number of sides per each die.

How much does a Wand with 20 charges go for? Thats d12/d8.

d12/d10/d8 would be the equivilent to 30 charges.

And, of course, assuming we found a set of die that was closer to 50 charges, what would each of THOSE die degredation variables be?

huh? something closer to 50 chargest would be d20/d12/d10/d8. I don't think I got the question.

 

[ARandomGod]

huh? something closer to 50 chargest would be d20/d12/d10/d8. I don't think I got the question.

I think the answer there is that I'm not all that good at math, and looking at what Nim and Primitive Screwhead posted ... I thought it was said that a d20/d12/d10/d8 wand would be 20 charges, not 50.

A second reading suggests to me that they might have been stating that a d20 with no degredation die would (on average) give 20 charges. Which is what you're saying. And subsequent dice would also last on average a number of "charges" equal to their faces.


So taking that as a given the D20/d12/d10/d8 wand would go for the same price as a "fully charged" (50 charges) wand.

A wand that's been degraded once, d12/d10/d8 would be priced as a 30 charge wand.

a d10/d8 wand would be charged as an 18 charge wand.

and the d8 wand like an 8 charged wand.

And so they'd be priced accordingly. IMC at any rate we do sell and sometimes buy wands that aren't fully charged. They can't be made that way, but you can obviously sell them that way, they're frequently found that way, and if the GM says they're in a store, you can buy 'em that way. In my games they buy and sell on a straight (number of charges/50) times (fully charged wand value). With normal penalties for selling, of course.

Edit: Of course, since wands are so extremely unpopular amongst my groups (with the exception of the occasional first level utility or healing wands), I might be tempted to give them a d6 and a d4 anyway without increasing the price (on average this would be 20% more charges, so a 20% price increase could be warranted). But that's neither here nor there.