Increase the cost of holding wands

Started by Letsplayforfun, January 20, 2010, 02:19:38 PM

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Gnome on the Strange

Quote from: Caddies;163084Actually its DC15 and lasts for 5 rounds.

It's DC 15 yes, but a 1 round per level spell, and it's Caster Level 3. 3 rounds. I even tested it, sparring Fredac :P. The thing is though, it's one of the few wands in regular use by caster and UMD classes.

In an attempt to see more consumables used by the classes that are really meant to have easy access to them, how about changing offensive wand charge numbers? Make most offensive wands be created with 10 shots and reduce the price accordingly. Then they are less of a big-ticket item and a caster can have a range of them for different situation.s

A wand of Fireballs sounds cool, but the reason people always go with Colour Spray/Lesser Dispel/Darkness/Hold for wands is they are useful in a lot of situations and 600-1900 gold is within the reach of plenty of PCs. They are also the spells that are very useful even at low Caster Levels. CL has no effect on Colorspray, a L3 dispel works great against L3 potions. On the other hand, why take low DC CL5 Scint Spheres when you can buy haste pots and just pack one really good one?

yeahiknow

it's fine as it is and there is no good reason to adjust it.

Drakill Tannan

Gnome on the strenght: Wands are meant to be weaker, to compensate. Problem is, even if a wand of fireball could be very usefull, it costs too much. No one would ever use it for that price. Same goes with most wands, and i do mean most.

ExileStrife

Don't be too quick to say whether or not nobody uses a wand.  You might think nobody uses level 4 wands because they are too expensive too, but people do it, sometimes for the just the cost-benefit, or other times just to have a sweet wand.

Drakill Tannan

Wands are usually reserved to wealthy potion brewers or shamless powerquesters. The rest if us struggle to get enough gold for a good wand, and when it comes in between a wand of fireball or a wand of darkness and a wand of blur, the choice is the second level wands simply because 3000 gold is not worth it.

yeahiknow

Increasing the cost of these is rather silly I think. It's a low-save utility that really is only useful in an ambush / post dispelling (assuming they don't drink another potion between rounds) style. I have used these many times over and as stated, a mind-effecting save is pretty easily overcome and you'll often have a low chance of success with it. Even if it is successful you lose the first round of attacks due to nwn mechanics and that leaves you with 4 rounds to subdue a target, who if they failed the save, likely has high AC and hitpoints as well.

EFU is already heavily in favor of pure AB classes as far as consumables go and I think, if anything, wands in general should be a little cheaper to help motivate a more dynamic range of 'successful' character options.

There is also an item in game that seems to be more and more common with immunity to hold person on it.

Drakill Tannan

Yeah, don't empower fighters more. Wizards need love too.

Egon the Monkey

Quote from: yeahiknow;163111There is also an item in game that seems to be more and more common with immunity to hold person on it.
Two items actually.

TheImpossibleDream

Howland himself will tell you that a wand of color spray is twice as effective at half the price. (if its even half, think it may be less!)

Equinox


Egon the Monkey

Don't forget the 10 use Sound Burst unrestricted item from a 3-7 spammable quest (I had a PC who'd offer 200 for them ever time he saw one and amass several at a time) and the unrestricted HP 5 use item off another quest! I'd like to see more restricted loot that is useful to mages and clerics while making wand purchasing by bards, rangers etc less effective than having a full caster class. HP wands at 2k, but easier access to HP consumables for wizards, sorcs and clerics?

Example
QuoteGrasping Gauntlets.
Pointing a finger of these gloves at a foe will cause an unseen force to grip them immobile and in place. However they must be activated after being put on, rendering them useless to one uneducated in the arcane.

Hold Person (3) 10 uses
Only Useable by:
Sorcerer
Wizard
//Do not UMD

derfo

Hold person is fine, it has it's ups and downs and ways to counter it happening. I don't think having the price randomly jump some hundred coins will change much, if anything.

Egon the Monkey

Quote from: derflaro;163377Hold person is fine, it has it's ups and downs and ways to counter it happening. I don't think having the price randomly jump some hundred coins will change much, if anything.
It'd be 500 coins. the suggestion's about the base cost (1500) not "I, LPF *demand* players sell it for 2k not 1800" :P

VanillaPudding

Same effect. A dispel / color spray / displacement wand , and more, are still far more effective and viable purchases and I don't see any complaints on those. Sorry if you had a bad situation with your 1 will save barbarian or something but that's kind of the point of varied will saves according to classes.

This wand is basically an automatic fail against four classes in the first place and only feasible in use against others who have different defenses against the follow-up attacks.

Barehander

Wands are supposed to be the bread and butter of any mage; they reserve their own spells for real tricky situations. If anything, I'd like to see more and cheaper offensive wands (buffs are lame).