Thoughts on wands being overpowered in 5E

[Jonathon Robinson]

I have found that the wands seem too powerful in 5E for their rarity.

In particular, Wand of Fireball and Wand of Lightning Bolt. A wizard can't cast 7 fireballs in a day until 9th level., so having just one of these wands is like having an additional level 9 wizard in your party (who is particularly combat focused). According to the DMG, these wands could start appearing around 5th level. I can attest that a level 6 party with one of these wands is a force to be reckoned with.

I haven't found the Wand of Magic Missiles to be too bad unless you got one at 1st level (it is uncommon so it is conceivable). But since it doesn't require attunement and allows multiple charges to be expended, I once DM'd a party with a bunch of these wands just so they could fire off 8 missiles per encounter.

Has anyone else experienced problems with these wands feeling overpowered and what did your group do about this?

 

[CubicsRube]

I personally don't like magic items that recharge. I might put in a wand of fireball with all its charges, but once it's used up, it's done.

Leaves me less afraid to keep something powerful in the party.

Only time I'll include something with a permanent enchantment is that it'll provide a minor benefit, or weapons and armor for martials.

 

[Mistwell]

Well, you don't generally cast 7 of them. If you cast the 7th, it might kill the wand. And each day it might only regenerate 2 charges (you don't really know what its recovered each day). So to be safe, you usually would cast no more than 2-4 fireballs. That's basically 5th (2) and 6th (4) level.

That said, fireball is the most powerful offense spell anywhere around that level of spell. I can see why it would throw your game off. A wand of Slow for example probably wouldn't be as disruptive.

 

[jgsugden]

This has been discussed many times with people on both sides of the argument.

In 5E, attuned items, generally, are supposed to be significant and iconic. They wanted them to be something rare that fundamentally changes what your character feels like. A fireball or two per day doesn't do that. You need to be able to rain fire to make that difference.

Further, people assume it will be used for 10 or more fireballs in an adventure, but in many games it is hard to set up that many uses.

In play, it is a huge impact at levels 5 to 8. After that, it starts to fade in prominence and progresses towards a fodder clearing option by high levels.

It is significant, but not broken.

 

[cbwjm]

I love wands. They give a caster a chance to shift their prepared spells for something else. If a wizard has a wand of fireball then that frees up a preparation slot for something spells they may have not have considered otherwise.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I personally don't like magic items that recharge.

I personally can't stand magic items that become less valuable as you use them, because it means that I should never use them as long as there's any alternative. If I get all of my HP back every day, but the charges in this wand will never come back, then it's less inconvenient for me to just get hurt a lot.

And then maybe someday I can trade that wand of fireballs for a shield +1, which is infinitely more useful, simply because I can actually use it without fear of having it break on me.

Well, you don't generally cast 7 of them. If you cast the 7th, it might kill the wand. And each day it might only regenerate 2 charges (you don't really know what its recovered each day). So to be safe, you usually would cast no more than 2-4 fireballs. That's basically 5th (2) and 6th (4) level.

I didn't see anywhere that the number of charges was supposed to be hidden information, so at worst, that's going to vary by table. But in general, yes, the players will go out of their way to avoid using the last charge whenever possible.

 

[toucanbuzz]

I have found that the wands seem too powerful in 5E for their rarity....Has anyone else experienced problems with these wands feeling overpowered and what did your group do about this?

Personally, I've seen both types of Wands introduced around 7-8th level, and neither broke the game. Nevertheless, if you're feeling they're too strong, consider modifying that they get less charges restored per day, or increase the % to break the wand when expended (e.g. 20% instead of 5%). Your combats may have varied, but these are really limited use items.

(1) Diminishing returns. If you get one of these wands at 5th level, pretty awesome. At 8-10, less so. 11+, you've got a ton of better options to use an Action on.
(2) Requires enemies to be lined up in a certain way to maximize effect. Other spells may be more optimal at the time.
(3) Requires an Action. Refer to #1. Mass damage is still ok, but not what it was in AD&D.
(4) Requires Attunement. At low levels, sure, odds are you're not full on attunement items. But a Wand will be hard to justify at some point.

In any case, I ran Out of the Abyss and saw the finale demon lord killed by a Wand of Magic Missiles. Not the +2 weapon, not a 7th level spell, not an act of Divine Intervention. A measly wand. But, someone in the group held on knowing Demons were resistant to a lot of things, but not force magic. There was something satisfying to the player about using a Magic Item to finish off the boss.

Unless you're rolling randomly, you control what comes into your game. So whether it's overpowered or not is irrelevant in that scenario. If you're random, you could run into a Vorpal Weapon or the like early on as well. So I don't do much about it. We did random loot once. If the party rolled something crazy useful, so be it (odds are, though, they roll junk). If they get lucky, I want them to savor it. So consider not diminishing the Wands.

 

[Shiroiken]

I prefer to use the non-rechargeable wands variant, but treat them more like consumables than regular magic items. While this makes it less efficient to up*-cast with charges, I limit the amount of charges that can be used in a single use to a 9th level spell slot (otherwise you could arguably just obliterate something with all the charges).

Assuming you use the wands as written, the easiest thing to do is simply not make them available until higher level. Casting 1d6-1 fireballs a day is powerful at level 5, but less so at level 10. My high level group gave their Wand of Magic Missiles to the barbarian, because he didn't have much ranged attack stuff. He just used it at maximum charges (minus 1, to avoid risking it breaking) the first time each day we fought a flying/climbing creature he couldn't get to, but it was still far less than he would have done in melee.

 

[CubicsRube]

The point of having non rechargeable wands etc is that it makes the choice to use them more impactful.

If you accidentally put something in too powerful, well it's a limited time deal.

And finally, you can include more magic items in your adventures this way.

More wands, more effects, less book keeping, less chance of persistant imbalance.

 

[Ancalagon]

I had a similar discussion about a month back, and someone pointed out that if you roll for magical items - or say, use the table ad a guide to how rare a particular item is, about 1/3 parties will find a single wand from level 1-20 (note: I didn't check the math).

You might say "oh but some wand are "merely" rare or even uncommon, how can this be?" So let's look at the wand of magic missile for example. On average, a party will get (from level 1-20), 8 uncommon items. Uncommon items are mostly on table F (this is where the wand of magic missile is). Your chance of getting a magic missile wand is 2% on that table, and you have 8 rolls.... so odds are you probably won't be getting one.

Anyway, the conclusion of the discussion was that the wand in question (lightning bolt, *not* fireball) was going be quite impact-full but not insanely so. I also decided to reduce the number of charges from 7 to 5, and lower the recharge rate accordingly (1d4/day). It should still be quite useful to the party.