Bummed about Craft Wand Feat

[NPC]

Just wanted to express my bummedness about the Craft Wand feat. My character took it, thinking I'd create some buff wands so I could save spells slots for offensive spells.

After creating some wands, imagine my surprise when I find out that they have 12-14 charges on them!

I guess you don't get to make wands with 50 charges? The game creates wands with 1d20+caster level charges on them? I saw this on the Bioware boards.

Have I missed something in the rules? I didn't find this in my HotU manual. I assumed, naively, that I'd make wands with 50 charges.

Seems like I've wasted a feat! Grrrrrr.

 

[youspoonybard]

I feel the same way.

It's much better to make stacks of scrolls in this game, until you're level 40 or so, and by then I doubt you're using level 1~4 spells that much anyway.

 

[NPC]

Yep. Makes sense. I think I'll go the scroll route next time. I realized that I only got spell leves 1-4 in the wands, but there are some good buffing spells that I would love to have 50 charge wands of.

Anyway, you win some, you lose some I guess. It's just the min-maxer in me hates "wasting" a feat.

 

[LightPhoenix]

I know there's an option somewhere to turn it off. It's set in one of the script files, and defaults to off, of course. I can take a look at the code perhaps tonight, more likely tomorrow morning and find exactly where. That is, of course, if they want to change it.

I do agree with your sentiment that it's a wasted feat. I was going to play through SoU and HotU with some sort of wizard or sorcerer, taking levels of pale master, and grabbed Craft Wand. Boy was I disappointed. d20+CL is rediculous, especially since you still pay full price for them.

On the other hand, being able to craft wands at a full 50 charges would be a bit game breaking, I think. For one, XP and GP are much more readily available in NWN than in pen and paper. For two, in pen and paper wands tend to increase the longevity of usefulness of a spellcaster - something that is for the most part rendered moot in NWN what with resting and all that.

I think a good compromise would be 25+CL charges, at either full or 75% price. That way a lot of the randomness is taken out, making it more reliable, but still keeping in some of the balancing that I feel is necessary.

 

[Geoff Watson]

Craft Wand sucks.

My Paladin took it, but could only make wands for a few of his spells, and those he could buy potions or scrolls cheaper, so I reloaded a saved game and got Divine Might instead.

Geoff.

 

[NPC]

LightPhoenix, I think your idea of 25+CL makes sense.

Maybe I'm cheap, but the current XP loss for a 12 charge wand doesn't seem worth it, even if XP is readily available.