can you meta magic wands?

[green slime]

Well, considering that wand costs 10,500 gp and 840 xp to manufacture, and yet the 17th level character is amusing himself doing (1d3+7d6)x2/round of damage, IF the target is subject to criticals, IF the target is subject to cold damage.... Why not?

17th level and still high on ray of frost

 

[AuraSeer]

I thought the quicken question was settled when the ELH came out. Its magic item chapter includes Quickened scrolls, and staffs with quickened powers. (Or am I hallucinating again?)

 

[kreynolds]

(Or am I hallucinating again?)

Nope.

 

[Thanee]

How they can be abused? Two rays of frost per round with full sneak attack damage for an Arcane Trickster. A crazy DM might even allow him to cast another Quickened Ray of Frost additionally.

Oh, wow!

Not that the AT could do the same and more by simply using a bow or throwing weapon!

I really don't know why everyone is so keen on using the AT's Sneak Attack with spells! Weapons are so much better for this.

BTW, this might not work for Wands, but Staffs or other item types can hold spells of higher level, so allowing Quicken Spell this way, might actually get you much more nasty things in the end, not only cantrips!

Bye
Thanee

 

[AuraSeer]

Not that the AT could do the same and more by simply using a bow or throwing weapon!

That would require a regular attack roll. Ray of frost uses a ranged touch attack, so the AT will nearly alway .

 

[Darklone]

Yup, Thanee, monsters with natural armour +20 are a little bit easier to hit with Ray of Frost

 

[Tilla the Hun (work)]

Did I miss something? When/where did y'all discover a limitation on the 'number' of free actions in a round? So allowing a quickened wand spell is a 'bad' idea in my opinion... per the 'rules' any way

ACTION TYPES
An action’s type essentially tells you how long the action takes to perform (within the framework of the 6-second combat round) and how movement is treated. There are four types of actions: standard actions, move actions, full-round actions, and free actions.
In a normal round, you can perform a standard action and a move action, or you can perform a full-round action. You can also perform one or more free actions.

So I'll take a free action to use my wand of quickened magic missiles. Hmm, it didn't die? I think I'll take a second free action to use my wand. A third. A fourth. I'm getting impressed, but I still have free actions!


EDIT: Ok, ok, I thought this was obvious, but re-reading the thread - maybe not. Here goes...

You can place the metamagicked spell in a wand (heightened charm example above). Theoretically you can place a quickened spell therein as well, but doing so avails you nought.

USING ITEMS
To use a magic item, it must be activated, although sometimes activation simply means putting a ring on your finger. Some items, once donned, function constantly. In most cases, using an item requires a standard action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity. By contrast, spell completion items are treated like spells in combat and do provoke attacks of opportunity.
Activating a magic item is a standard action unless the item description indicates otherwise. However, the casting time of a spell is the time required to activate the same power in an item, regardless of the type of magic item, unless the item description specifically states otherwise.

and

Wands use the spell trigger activation method, so casting a spell from a wand is usually a standard action that doesn’t provoke attacks of opportunity. (If the spell being cast, however, has a longer casting time than 1 action, it takes that long to cast the spell from a wand.)

and

Activating a spell trigger item is a standard action and does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

So wand activation is standard action + casting time (if longer than standard action) regardless - unless a specific item description says otherwise.

Now, with all the disclaimers they put in, you could argue that a wand of quickened MM could be made to be a COMMAND WORD activation, thus:

Command word activation means that a character speaks the word and the item activates.

and that speaking a word is a free action... But this leads to the abuse I showed above...


Now as to metamagicked wands - so long as the spell level (NOT caster level) is 4th or less, you can do it... The table in the SRD even shows several such examples,
Hold person, heightened (4th level) for one.

 

[Darklone]

There's a limit to Quickened spells per round... 1.

 

[Tilla the Hun (work)]

There's a limit to Quickened spells per round... 1.

Yeah - if you're a character actually 'casting' the prepared spell A wand is casting it based on speaking a word... Speaking a word is a free action (I'm assuming command word activation here) and the wand certainly doesn't take a full round to recover...

But we're into a gray unknown territory, best dealt with in house rules as the rules are unclear what happens when you move to a command word activated wand as opposed to a spell trigger activation (which, by default, is usually a SA)

 

[Darklone]

Number of free actions per round is DMs decision... and no sane DM would let the PC use such a wand more than once per round, quipos?