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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5785755" data-attributes="member: 4937">That may well be true, but it doesn't change the system.  It only changes  the assumptions of who at the table is empowered and to what extent, but the fact remains that a Vancian caster with a wand is a Vancian caster with a wand.  While I agree with you that it depended on the group, wands were reasonably easy to craft in 1e as well, as they didn't require the permenancy spell which was the really tight (unreasonably tight in my opinion) restriction on 1e crafted items.  In practice, a 1e DM could as empower the wand maker as much as a 3e DM - maybe more so because there was no 'feat' entry requirement - by making wand making techniques readily available (or as found treasure in moldly tomes, which was more my practice) or simply by having magical shops available where players could readily trade gold for wands (as some others did) or by being free with placed treasure (as many were).   And in practice, a 3e DM could disempower a 3e wand maker by, for example, listing specific rare magical ingredients as a requirement to make a wand rather than assuming that ingredients are always readily obtainable simply by spending fungible gold resources or that wands can not be readily bought in the store.   Which of the four theoretical DMs here is 'breaking the rules'?  None by my meaure.Assumptions and guidelines are not rules.  The same rules can play quite differently from table to table.   But while that's an interesting subject, the point remains that a Vancian spellcaster that has obtained a few wands is a Vancian spellcaster that has obtained a few wands regardless of which system we are talking about.   If 'you can have a wand' is sufficient to make the system non-Vancian, then I don't have a Vancian game, because wands of Ray of Frost (and other attack cantrips) are readily obtainable in my game and appear on the adventuring gear price list even though magic items in general  can't be bought in shops in my game and for more powerful items I would require specific rare items to be obtained before the item could be created and not assume that for example, fresh manticore liver and giant black pearls were readily obtainable on the market for anyone who had some gold.  And for that matter, if the obtainability of wands is sufficient to render something non-Vancian, Gygax didn't have a Vancian table either based on his published modules and the character sheets which have leaked from the early days.</blockquote>

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