Charged Wands - inspired by Mike Mearls blog post

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Inspired by Mike Mearls blog post:
Wands with Charges

How would you do charged Wands?

Here's one take:
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Charged Wands
Charged Wands are not normal implements. Instead of aiding in casting spells, they contain only a single power that they can use repeatedly, until the charge is expended.
To create a Wand, a character can use the Enchant Magic Item ritual and know the power he wants to store in the Wand. The stored power must have the implement keyword. The Wand has a minimum level equal to the level of the power stored.
To be able to use a Wand, a character must make an Arcana Check DC 10 + level of the Wand. If he fails, he can attempt a new check after an extended rest.
A Wand costs as much as a magic implement of its level.
A wand can be stored with an at-will power, with an encounter power or with a a daily power. For making attacks with the Wand, use the Wands modifier for attack and damage, not your own. The values are given below. For the attack modifier, add half the Wands level. Any secondary statistics use the wielders bonus.

Level	 Bonus  Level	Bonus
1-5	 +5	   16-20	+13
6-10	 +8	   21-25	+15
11-15	 +10	   26-30	+18

Activating a Wand takes the same action as using the power contained in it.
After each use of the Wand, roll a d20, with a +1 modifier per use. Add a +1 bonus if the Wand contains an encounter power and a +2 bonus if the Wand contains a daily power. If the result is 10 or higher, the Wand cannot be used again until after a short rest. If the result is 20 or higher, the Wand is entirely discharged and becomes useless.
The DM may randomly determine the uses of a Wand that was found and has been used previously.

Due to the difficulty of ascertaining the number of times a Wand has been used and the likelihood of it discharging on the next try, Wands are very difficult to sell – or buy. Few merchants are willing to risk buying them of a finder, and if they are, they usually pray considerably less 1/25th or less of the price they cost to enchant.


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Charged Wands can be pretty powerful - Imagine an "at-will" Fireball or Visions of Avarice! Of course, the cost are also very significant - a fully fledged magic item of the spells level that you cannot use as an actual implement and that is destroyed at some point.

The sales cost is based on the idea that it's basically a consumable item with one charge as a minimum. (Because if it has no charges anymore, it contains no more magic.)

 

[CapnZapp]

I would limit such an item to be found or bought.

I would not allow the PCs to create them.

 

[CapnZapp]

As for static attack bonuses, I would use the standard (set by the AV books).

IIRC, it's "level + 4" (unless the spell targets AC).

I would also simplify the handling of charges. I like how Mike doesn't actually track charges, but I dislike how he ends up not getting rid of the need to track something much like it: usages.

Generally, I would be inclined to start off with the basic mechanism, and balance everything else around that.

I would use the simple save mechanism. After using the wand, make a save. Failure means it's dead. You could add bonuses to this save if you want it to "hold many charges", but these should be static - and not change during play. Of course PCs are allowed to use their save-boosting abilities for this save just like any other save (otherwise it would be a mistake of using that mechanism).

I would also ditch the penalty for using it more than once per encounter. Simply make it hold a Daily that is usable as an Encounter power, and that's plenty powerful for 4E.



So, a Wand of Fireball at level 5 (say), would be +9 to attack and damage (again, IIRC).

The wand would have the following power:

Power (Encounter): As per the Fireball spell, but with +9 to hit/damage. After each use, make a saving throw. Failure means the wand is used up, and becomes useless and worthless. (add more rules minutae as needed)

 

[FireLance]

I would limit such an item to be found or bought.

I would not allow the PCs to create them.

Actually, charged wands of at-will powers might not be so bad, especially if they lose their magic (or at least their charged property) after a number of uses. I agree that I would be more wary of charged wands with encounter or daily powers.

As for static attack bonuses, I would use the standard (set by the AV books).

IIRC, it's "level + 4" (unless the spell targets AC).

I would also simplify the handling of charges. I like how Mike doesn't actually track charges, but I dislike how he ends up not getting rid of the need to track something much like it: usages.

Generally, I would be inclined to start off with the basic mechanism, and balance everything else around that.

I would use the simple save mechanism. After using the wand, make a save. Failure means it's dead. You could add bonuses to this save if you want it to "hold many charges", but these should be static - and not change during play. Of course PCs are allowed to use their save-boosting abilities for this save just like any other save (otherwise it would be a mistake of using that mechanism).

I would also ditch the penalty for using it more than once per encounter. Simply make it hold a Daily that is usable as an Encounter power, and that's plenty powerful for 4E.



So, a Wand of Fireball at level 5 (say), would be +9 to attack and damage (again, IIRC).

The wand would have the following power:

Power (Encounter): As per the Fireball spell, but with +9 to hit/damage. After each use, make a saving throw. Failure means the wand is used up, and becomes useless and worthless. (add more rules minutae as needed)

For an at-will wand, I might just go with loses its property on a roll of 1 on the attack roll. Keeps the additional die rolling to a minimum.

 

[CapnZapp]

Actually, charged wands of at-will powers might not be so bad, especially if they lose their magic (or at least their charged property) after a number of uses. I agree that I would be more wary of charged wands with encounter or daily powers.

For an at-will wand, I might just go with loses its property on a roll of 1 on the attack roll. Keeps the additional die rolling to a minimum.

Sounds reasonable.

As long as we're both aware this is about at-will wands (the kinds already in the game; but with "charges") - Mearls (and the OP. And I.) discuss wands with dailies, which IMHO is the more interesting design challenge.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The real issue with wands of dailies is that they are just so seriously encounter destroying. Use of a single daily, assuming it is well used, is generally going to end an easy encounter, reliably tip an average encounter over to quick victory, and often be the deciding factor in a hard encounter (though maybe not in the really hardest ones).

Now, granted that players will not expend their wand powers on trivial encounters simply because they don't want to risk discharging them they still at the very least have a backup plan for when things go south, and a hurry up plan for standard/hard encounters that they want to end quicker, and a serious increase in nova power. This is especially going to be true at lower levels. Tossing a 5th level wizard a wand with a level 5 daily in it is a serious increase in the character's power level.

Now add in the fact that if I want to take a few risks with my wand I can use it pretty often and the wand toting wizard is suddenly the party badass. A wand toting Sorcerer with Sorcerer dailies would be truly scary.

Honestly I never liked charges. They were hard to track and even though we long ago adopted basically the "it is out of charges on a 1" mechanic it didn't really make it all wonderful. The player was bummed when their pet wand frizzled and just wanted a replacement. You couldn't rely on the item being around, so it was hard to gauge party strength too. All of a sudden wand frizzle happens and the next encounter which was hard is now impossible.

 

[Nebulous]

On the the other hand, i always did like wand charges. I thought they were easy to track and gave the PCs a concrete idea of how much "juice" they had left.

I can see at-will wand powers not being hard to balance in 4e, but encounter and especially daily powers are more problematic. One approach one could take is to rewrite the spell effects and conform them to the wand itself, rather than wholesale adopting a power from class powers.

For example, your "Wand of Fireball" could act in a wholly different fashion, could expend extra charges for metamagic effects, could drain healing surges or quit working on a "1" or blow up, etc. For what it's worth, i feel that magic items in 4e could use a real boost from "niche" objects that don't conform to the standard magic rules. YMMV.

In fact, now that i'm thinking about it, i might devise a couple of these and see how they work in playtest...