Magic Item Compendium help

[freyar]

What is so good about eternal wands? Any PC I have ever played definitely needed more than just 2 charges of a certain spell each day. Normal wands would be so much better, you can spam them with impunity as and when you like.

Well, as was mentioned, it's a GREAT item for bards and sorcerers as well as Hexblades and other limited arcanists, since the only requirement is that you're an arcane caster. You DO NOT need the spell to be on your spell list or one of your spells known.

Not as an important feature, certainly, but you also don't have to go plunk down more money for a new wand every 50 charges or whatever...

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Oh, definitely. It's also a lot easier (for me, at least) to track "did i use this twice yet today?" than to actually remember to keep reducing the remaining charges every single time I use a regular wand.

..Also, since a lot of times PCs get treasure from defeated bad guys, it could be argued from a DM's perspective that handing off eternal wands with a set usage limit ot the NPC villain is more "fair" -- both to keep from spamming usage and to prevent "lame" situations, like the wand had only a few charges left before the battle started, and the NPC used it up in the fight. Also in my groups, we usually have arena NPCs for PCs to fight, and have found eternal wands to be a better way to equip them, since their sheets effectively remain static and you can't just load them up on limited use items and pretend they get to restock as they please.
/threadjack

 

[Runestar]

but you also don't have to go plunk down more money for a new wand every 50 charges or whatever...

Lets see...2 uses/day, this means that an eternal wand is equal to a normal wand only after 25 days, or 100 encounters on average, which works out to ~7-8 lvs? A new wand will be chump change with all the wealth you are acquiring in that meantime.

This is why I go for a wand of vigor over a healing belt any day.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Lets see...2 uses/day, this means that an eternal wand is equal to a normal wand only after 25 days, or 100 encounters on average, which works out to ~7-8 lvs? A new wand will be chump change with all the wealth you are acquiring in that meantime.

No, no. You're simplifying things too much.
Eternal Wands ALSO have a really awkward scaling multiplier such that the lower level ones are more expensive than normal wands and the higher level ones are cheaper. For example, a level 1 eternal wand is 820 gp, 70 more expensive than a normal wand. So take that into your "days before you hit price equity" calculations.

This is why I go for a wand of vigor over a healing belt any day.

Which is great if you're a primary divine caster or have UMD. Fighters, Barbarians, Monks, and several others don't have that luxury.

 

[Runestar]

...? Why wouldn't I have a primary divine caster?

 

[Shin Okada]

Mithral Chain Shirt with Twilight ability is always good for someone with high enough UMD to use scrolls. If scrolls are of arcane, spell failure chance is still applied. You can combine it with mithral buckler, too.

 

[roguerouge]

Wow. Thanks!