Wand "Charges"?

[sniffles]

That's actually one of the options in the poll.

Well, "party purchases wands and eats the cost of all charges" is close, but that's still not quite what we do.

Most of our wands are from loot, or purchased by the individual, who eats the cost of charges himself. In our one campaign that actually has a crafter, we don't purchase the wand, we just contribute some funds to defray his cost for crafting.

 

[JustKim]

The wand is NOT an inferior item. It's far more popular, by many times over, than an "endless wand".

Yes, it is more popular. Wands are in the DMG and take up more space on the random charts than they might ought to, while endless wands are from Eberron and don't turn up nearly as often. They are superior as a lasting investment, though, because they're always worth the same amount. You could buy two for 6 charges/day if you need to cast that single spell 6 times per day.

Oh really? What exactly do you have to say then?

That some of them are poorly balanced. I have no intention of getting into an argument about it.

That's a houserule.

It's on page 177 of the PHB. It is not a house rule.

Very rare on the standard encounter tables.

You are just being difficult. The encounter tables of the adventures you play are not a realistic scale of how often certain encounters show up in others' gaming experience by any means. EN World is not exactly an RPGA hotspot.

Extremely difficult for a DM to accomplish by the RAW.

How do you figure? The language is pretty clear in, for example, burning hands: "Flammable materials [...] burn if the flames touch them. A character can extinguish burning items as a full-round action." When something burns it suffers 1d6 fire damage per round.

Loss or theft is far from difficult to accomplish! Throw a +1 spear over a cliff, have someone walk off with an item, it is gone. These things can happen and nothing in the rules makes it difficult.

You've REALLY never seen a wand, especially a CLW wand, used up?

Not to the best of my recollection, no. 50 charges is an awful lot.

 

[Crothian]

Standard DMG, most of the adventures with encounter tables, the percentage of encounters in the overwhelming majority of WotC, RPGA and d20 modules; pretty much in general these encounters are rare. Far more rare than using wand charges!

There are no encounter tables in the DMG. Very few modules if any these days have encounter tables, and the percentage of encounters of them in modules does not equal an encounter table. Encounter tables are pretty much a thing of the past these days.

 

[takasi]

Yes, it is more popular. Wands are in the DMG and take up more space on the random charts than they might ought to, while endless wands are from Eberron and don't turn up nearly as often. They are superior as a lasting investment, though, because they're always worth the same amount. You could buy two for 6 charges/day if you need to cast that single spell 6 times per day.

We go through more than 6 charges per day. How many encounters do you meet up with per day? How often do you have to heal? Also, what is the size of your party?

At 5th level it takes a lot of wand charges to heal someone, especially if they are taking hits for 15+ damage each swing.

It's on page 177 of the PHB. It is not a house rule.

My apologies, I thought you were referring to fumbles. Yes, it's possible but even so the hardness and saving throw of a magic item are so high that it rarely comes into effect.

You are just being difficult. The encounter tables of the adventures you play are not a realistic scale of how often certain encounters show up in others' gaming experience by any means. EN World is not exactly an RPGA hotspot.

How often would you say these are encountered by most players? 20% of the time? 10% of the time? 5%? I would say less than 5% in my experience. And when they are encountered they are usually avoided or taken out without the loss of weapons.

How do you figure? The language is pretty clear in, for example, burning hands: "Flammable materials [...] burn if the flames touch them. A character can extinguish burning items as a full-round action." When something burns it suffers 1d6 fire damage per round.

It's still rare, but the point is moot. Consumable items have the same chance of being destroyed too.

The difference is that with consumable items you are destroying them by using them whereas with other items you are not.

Loss or theft is far from difficult to accomplish! Throw a +1 spear over a cliff, have someone walk off with an item, it is gone.

That's something the character can control though. Again, just USING a wand "damages" it. You can also lose a wand or have it stolen, so I don't really see your point.

 

[takasi]

There are no encounter tables in the DMG.

???

There are several tables labeled "Dungeon Encounters" as well as wilderness encounters.

But despite the EXAMPLES (a baseline), unless the DM specifically pits the party with oozes and rust monsters over and over and over it's obvious that the overall percentage of monsters that have a moderate chance of destroying party treasure is very low.

And I'm not even sure why this point is being argued in the first place. If you are comparing wands with weapons both can be destroyed by monsters. However, with a wand you are destroying it every time you use it.

If one player gets nothing but weapons and the other gets nothing but wands then eventually the player with wands will have a much lower level of wealth than the player with weapons, right? Weapon sundering has nothing to do with that, yet it was the "counterpoint" that was presented.

 

[JustKim]

How often would you say these are encountered by most players? 20% of the time? 10% of the time? 5%? I would say less than 5% in my experience. And when they are encountered they are usually avoided or taken out without the loss of weapons.

I feel like I once again have to say that this is in my experience. I don't know how often most players combat oozes or other monsters capable of destroying items. I only know that there are rather a lot of them out there and we've encountered them more often than wands are bled dry. We are leaving the realm of devil's advocate here and getting into a rather pointless argument about whose gaming experiences are the right ones. Let's not do that.

That's something the character can control though. Again, just USING a wand "damages" it. You can also lose a wand or have it stolen, so I don't really see your point.

You asked if, in my experience, items are damaged more often than wands are depleted. I said yes and listed the various ways it can happen. You did not agree with their validity. There was never a point.

 

[catsclaw227]

Typically, wands of this sort (usually buffs and heals) are considered party resources. The most appropriate character carries them, but is expected to use them on behalf of the party. However, the character who carries them does not pay for this privilidge. The items are removed from the haul before treasure division is performed.

This is exactly how we do it.

And as a player or DM, if there is a "fee" for players to help each other, whether for spells or consumable items, then the whole idea of what a party is seems to be lost. I am not sure I would want to play or DM a game like this.

In my campaign, the players don't get hung up on who has what, it's about the story and all players eventually make up for it with fair distribution of things. Not everything at all times is equal (as far as magic treasure is concerned) and things always seem to work out in the long run.

 

[takasi]

And as a player or DM, if there is a "fee" for players to help each other, whether for spells or consumable items, then the whole idea of what a party is seems to be lost.

In your games who pays for resurrections and restorations?

 

[Crothian]

In your games who pays for resurrections and restorations?

The group does, but they are extrmemely rare.

 

[takasi]

There was never a point.

You originally said:

"There are also going market prices for mercenaries, but nobody ever talks about paying the fighter a daily wage."

The counter to this point is that the fighter loses "less money" per battle than the user of expendable items. Should the user who is losing money be compensated for his loss, and if so how?