Do wands destroy the 3.x adventure paradigm?

[Darklone]

I've only noticed it as a problem when the party is way over the wealth guideline. Otherwise you get wands instead of weapons, armor, and rings, and, well, you need weapons, armor, and rings in the games I run.

Agreed. I never had a problem to make my players waste dozens of wands of CLW... and they never had too much money. Thinking about only one puny wand of weak fireball with a caster level of 5 (compared to the players level of 7 at that time) caused a huge crisis within the group concerning the groups treasure.

 

[Li Shenron]

I never had players abusing them, so nothing was disrupted here, but I do find them somewhat dull.

However it's only 1st level wands which can be crafted over and over, 2nd level are already quite pricey in my opinion.

You should consider that by the time these costs become "negligible" to your budget, you might actually be wasting your time casting 1st and 2nd level spells in combat

And thank God there is a level cap for spells which can be put on wands, so there is no chance of finding one in a treasure with too powerful spells on it.

IMXP wands have been used mostly for

(a) offensive/healing spells in combats that last longer than expected, or that weren't expected at all (such as being attacked during sleep)

This is typically only after you've run out of slots. In this case scrolls might work too, but you need them in multiple copies.

(b) tactical spells that don't get used every day but you need to cast on each PC separately, such as Invisibility or Fly.

Again, scrolls could help too but only if you have many copies of the spell. If you use the tactic reasonably often, you probably need those 50 charges and the 50% cost becomes important.

 

[Psion]

I don't think so.

Low level wizards drain quickly. Scrolls and wands are a hedge against that. But by the time the wizards' spells per day catch up at higher levels, buying wands and scrolls that keep up is a bit more expensive.

 

[werk]

Low level wizards drain quickly. Scrolls and wands are a hedge against that. But by the time the wizards' spells per day catch up at higher levels, buying wands and scrolls that keep up is a bit more expensive.

I agree, but at 2700gp at 3rd level (lower level), you could have 3 first level wands and almost nothing else. And you can't even craft your own wands until caster level 5, and at 9000gp you could have TWO second level wands as your entire character wealth.

I don't know ANY 5th level caster that has NO items besides a couple of super expensive, low level wands.

My point is that wands are almost always cost prohibitive if observing the wealth guidelines, and if you are not watching that, then your party is over CR anyway...which just gets messy.

 

[Psion]

I agree, but at 2700gp at 3rd level (lower level), you could have 3 first level wands and almost nothing else. And you can't even craft your own wands until caster level 5, and at 9000gp you could have TWO second level wands as your entire character wealth.

I don't know ANY 5th level caster that has NO items besides a couple of super expensive, low level wands.

My point is that wands are almost always cost prohibitive if observing the wealth guidelines, and if you are not watching that, then your party is over CR anyway...which just gets messy.

I'm don't see that I am disagreeing with your point. You can only afford 1 or 2 wands, or (more likely) some less than fully charged wands which are a bit more randomly acquired (since the creation rules don't let you make fully charged wands.) So I'm saying, it has its function but it's too expensive to keep up to a higher level power curve to be a game breaker.

 

[Notmousse]

Hate to hop on a bandwagon here, but I'll simplify this more than anyone else has thus far.

Wands cost you, spells per day do not.

Smart money rests, using wands when they're outta spells, or lack the needed spell on hand (AKA Knock, Grease, Cure Wounds).

 

[frankthedm]

The assumption the party has and uses wands is a huge factor in why the Warlock & Reserve feats are balanced.

Wand are also the reason a group of CR 1s is worth no XP to a group over 9th. They mop them up with a Wand of fireballs.

Same reasoning why Giants and other monsters at high CR do so much damage. If you could live through the fight and wait for the wand healing, then the monster would be a push over. The damage piles up fast so the cleric must burn his own higher level spells to keep you alive.

 

[Bad Paper]

With the wands, the party could probably run through an entire dungeon without ever having to rest.

As a matter of fact, I am about to throw my party into a sweet little dungeon where I expect them to do just that. The adventure was written with a timetable, and I have decided to triple the speed (adventure=four 15th level PCs, party=five overtreasured 16th level PCs). If they make it through without resting (or dying), they will succeed. More downtime = higher chance of failure. Good thing they have all those wands, staves, and more potions than you can shake a spellstaff at! {err..."more potions than at which you can shake a spellstaff," sorry}

Now, whether that's a good or bad thing depends on your playstyle, but it unquestionably goes against the "four encounters per day" paradigm of 3.x D&D.

I don't think this is a real paradigm; maybe it was an early rule of thumb for "real nasty fight," but it doesn't apply anymore. An "encounter" can be nothing but skill checks. Are you saying that we can only question four bartenders in a day?

And also, the wizard being able to throw his most powerful spell in every single round of every single fight might make the fighters feel pretty weak by compassion.

If your wizard is throwing around spells with the same DC as a wand, then it's time to get a new wizard. Also, victims don't make saving throws against fighters' melee attacks. They make "ugh ugh" sounds and then die. No fighter feels weak when standing over the mutilated corpse of his enemy.

PS: Shilsen thank you for a nice .sig.

 

[Darklone]

Hmm. I had a group once who put themselves into a real ugly situation (charging an army outpost in a city with 600 soldiers isn't that clever).

They wasted all of their reserves (wands, necklace of fireballs, scrolls), all one shot items and nearly all spells... and got out by luck.

Now these dudes were level 7 or so... 9 of them though. And all the use limited treasure they gathered and bought so far was wasted in one big fight? (which lasted 3 evenings and over 30 hours gametime)

There was no way the players would have won that battle even if they would have two wands of fireball more and a wand of cure critical wounds. So no, I don't think the game mechanism is screwed

 

[nittanytbone]

Also, remember the DCs on wands are really low.

Whoohoo! A 5d6 fireball with a Reflex save DC of 14. Not too impressive.

Wands are best reserved for low level spells cast frequently. Lesser Vigor, Cure Light Wounds, Truestrike, Enlarge Person, and so on are all good candidates. Maybe Magic Missile. Attack spells generally make poor wand-spells due to the lower DCs and damage.