Thoughts on wands being overpowered in 5E

jgsugden said:

It was good. I checked it when I did it.

The conclusion was that an average party should find about 6 non-consumable magic items per PC over their career in hordes if you follow the DMG guidance. About half will be attuned. Beyond those, PCs will get enough money to buy items, but what they can find to buy (or trade for) is totally up to the DM.

If you follow the probabilities and tables from the DMG guidance, the chance the PCs find one of those rare wands is about 1 in 3 *over their career*... and that could be fireball, paralysis, slow...

Another thing to consider: Whena wizard can first cast fireball at 5th level, the DC is likely to be 14 or 15. It is likely to climb at levels 8, 9 13, and 17 - and will end up around 19. The DC of the wand is always right there at 15. By 11th level, the damage is about that of a cantrip when the save is made.

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I'm not arguing it starts to feel underwhelming by 11th level. I was asking if it felt overpowered for its rarity (rare) which starts getting handed out at level 5 (possibly sooner if you're a 3-4 level party fighting a CR 5 dragon) and what did your table do about it.

Jonathon Robinson said:

I'm not arguing it starts to feel underwhelming by 11th level. I was asking if it felt overpowered for its rarity (rare) which starts getting handed out at level 5 (possibly sooner if you're a 3-4 level party fighting a CR 5 dragon) and what did your table do about it.

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It is strong for the rarity, but it does not break the game from level 5 on.

At level 5 it is very strong, but you don't need to do anything about it other than celebrate the heroes being heroic and powerful. Remember that you don't need to threaten the lives of the PCs to create great adventures ... and if every battle is an inch from death, the heroes don't feel like the heroes that save the town - they feel like the grunts on the city wall when the orcs attack ... fodder. The game isn't "DM versus PCs" - it is DM and players coming together to tell a great story. That can happen when the PCs are very strong relative to other parties of their level.

Ancalagon said:

I had a similar discussion about a month back, and someone pointed out that if you roll for magical items - or say, use the table ad a guide to how rare a particular item is, about 1/3 parties will find a single wand from level 1-20 (note: I didn't check the math).

You might say "oh but some wand are "merely" rare or even uncommon, how can this be?" So let's look at the wand of magic missile for example. On average, a party will get (from level 1-20), 8 uncommon items. Uncommon items are mostly on table F (this is where the wand of magic missile is). Your chance of getting a magic missile wand is 2% on that table, and you have 8 rolls.... so odds are you probably won't be getting one.

Anyway, the conclusion of the discussion was that the wand in question (lightning bolt, *not* fireball) was going be quite impact-full but not insanely so. I also decided to reduce the number of charges from 7 to 5, and lower the recharge rate accordingly (1d4/day). It should still be quite useful to the party.

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I think I like this nerf the best. 5 charges (so, typically 4 fireballs) feels much more in line with other rare items. The 1d4 recharge rate still has it recharging within two days on average but gives much more variance to it and won't guarantee a recharge in 3 days.

Consequently, if I was to create a magic item from scratch using the Creating a Magic Item rules in the DMG (page 285), a rare magic item is capped at a 6th level spell 1/day and a Level 6 fireball is 4 charges. Adding 1 charge for the hail mary gets me to 5. I don't think I would've ended up with 7 charges for a 3rd level spell following those guidelines.

jgsugden said:

It is strong for the rarity, but it does not break the game from level 5 on.

At level 5 it is very strong, but you don't need to do anything about it other than celebrate the heroes being heroic and powerful. Remember that you don't need to threaten the lives of the PCs to create great adventures ... and if every battle is an inch from death, the heroes don't feel like the heroes that save the town - they feel like the grunts on the city wall when the orcs attack ... fodder. The game isn't "DM versus PCs" - it is DM and players coming together to tell a great story. That can happen when the PCs are very strong relative to other parties of their level.

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Sure, but at my table the wand basically turned fireball into a cantrip. I'm not sure that's the intent for magic items.

Jonathon Robinson said:

Sure, but at my table the wand basically turned fireball into a cantrip. I'm not sure that's the intent for magic items.

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I addressed that in my earlier post. Magic items are, in fact, supposed to be iconic elements of the characer that significantly change them. What you perceive as a defect was an intended feature. The 5th level spellcaster that levels waves or orcs with a flick of a wrist.... heroic. It makes them feel powerful... when it can be used In my games, fireballs tend to be hard to use. I'm not suggesting you look for way to make the fireballs harder to use, but you should look at the ramifications of using them (or lightning bolts).

Jonathon Robinson said:

So in the particular group I mentioned, I was the party wizard with a Wand of Fireballs. I actually felt less useful. Sure, I had a bunch of free spell slots, but instead of using them to cast spells I wanted the party wanted me to "just cast fireball" instead as it is so much more powerful than any spell 3rd or even 4th level spell a wizard can prepare.

I chatted with the DM about this - I wanted to trade for a Ring of Spell Storing instead so I could have one more casting of Greater Illusion instead. He said no because that ring is very rare and the wand is rare. I did manage to get an Ioun Stone which I put a charge if Invisibility into.

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Maybe I should have been more explicit but when I mentioned using the fireball preparation slot for some other spell, I meant a spell that wasn't made for combat. Something like charm person, levitate, or detect thoughts. Spells which you might want to prepare and may have been useful in earlier encounters but you didn't prep it because you wanted your combat spell loadout. In combat, sure, use that wand of fireball, it's why you've held onto it.

cbwjm said:

Maybe I should have been more explicit but when I mentioned using the fireball preparation slot for some other spell, I meant a spell that wasn't made for combat. Something like charm person, levitate, or detect thoughts. Spells which you might want to prepare and may have been useful in earlier encounters but you didn't prep it because you wanted your combat spell loadout. In combat, sure, use that wand of fireball, it's why you've held onto it.

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I get what you're saying, and an Ioun Stone is rare and accomplishes the same thing. I wasn't a combat wizard (hence Greater Illusion and Invisibility) but the wand turned me into one. :/

jgsugden said:

I addressed that in my earlier post. Magic items are, in fact, supposed to be iconic elements of the characer that significantly change them. What you perceive as a defect was an intended feature. The 5th level spellcaster that levels waves or orcs with a flick of a wrist.... heroic. It makes them feel powerful... when it can be used In my games, fireballs tend to be hard to use. I'm not suggesting you look for way to make the fireballs harder to use, but you should look at the ramifications of using them (or lightning bolts).

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I agree that magic items should be iconic. When the party got its first wand of magic missiles it really felt amazing. But when the party got its wand of fireballs it just felt... overpowered. Maybe it was just our campaign, everything was stone walls or open fields, but I've heard from others that the wand of fireballs in particular feels a little too strong for a 5th level character, when rare items start arriving.

Jonathon Robinson said:

..., but I've heard from others that the wand of fireballs in particular feels a little too strong for a 5th level character, when rare items start arriving.

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Again, FEATURE, not bug.

Yes, a wand of fireballs in the hands of a 5th level party is extremely powerful. If the combats allow for it, it can allow them to devastate the enemy with blast afer blast of fiery wrath. At that level, it becomes tool #1.

AWESOME.

CELEBRATE.

This is a moment when the heroes uncovered a powerful tool and saved the day with it! This is a great story moment! How many stories turn on the heroes finding a McGuffin and using it to save the day? Sometimes it is a quest just to find it, but ometimes they find it in the ruins when they thought they were there for another reason. And their legend will unfold as they blast across battle after battle with it in hand... until eventually the PCs become known not just as the fireball crew, but for other great abilities as well.

If you don't want that in your game, then don't have it. Over the decades of D&D I've played I've had a lot of games where the PCs took a huge jump in power when they found some particular weapon/staff/ring.... They're not bad memories. They were highlights.

Let there be a highlight.

As the proud owner of a Wand of Lightning Bolts I'll speak from experience and say that it's useful but not broken. Way back when I got the Wand of Lightning Bolts in the Hidden Shrine of Nottagonnaworkhereanymore we were dealing with traps and puzzles. There wasn't a reason to use it. I got better use out of my Wand of Magic Missiles. The wand's DC is a static 15 while the save DC for my spells is currently 17. Next level it will increase to DC18. I have way better spells to cast than lightning bolt, especially when the save DC matters. When I hit 9th level the Wand of Lightning Bolts became a novelty, like a fun way to zap bad guys, proving that I'm a powerful wizard and not to be trifled with.

The last session I got better use out of the cantrip Booming Blade than my beloved wand. Since the demon moved around a lot it kept him rooted, and demons are resistant to lightning but not thunder. The only time I used it last session was to lightning bolt a pool of water, just to see if anything was hiding. For the record, I've never cast more than 5 lightning bolts in a single day. The action economy limits me to one spell per round, maybe two if I cast Shield. When you only have one spell you need to make it count. When you're facing high CR monsters you need to throw high DC spells at them otherwise you're doing like 15pts damage with a lightning bolt when your cantrips will do 20pts or more.