Wands and Rods as equipment

[edge2054]

So I found my first useful wand and I got to thinking.

What if wands equipped either as a weapon or with their own wand slot? This way players would either need to equip a wand on weapon switch or have only one wand equipped at a time (in the wand slot).

I realize that it would make them less useful but it would also help differentiate them from other consumables (like potions and scrolls). Right now they're basically giant/long consumable items that have targeted effects which in a lot of ways makes them more interesting (and sometimes more useful) then potions and scrolls but with no balancing factor attached.

Another way to look at it is like this.

Wands are basically charged items from previous betas that you don't have to have equipped. Which makes them quite a bit more powerful then charged items where.

[teachu2die]

i think the only balancing factor thus far is price.
i agree, though, the current implementation of wands is a little odd, and the non-combat-oriented ones tend to function just like stacks of scrolls, and are so expensive that it makes no sense to buy one ever. i could understand a rod of detect monster with a 200 turn cooldown costing 100 gold, but a wand of detect monster with 7 charges costing 70 gold is crazy, when you can buy 7 scrolls of enemy detection for half that.
their outrageously high price also means that even a fairly crappy wand can fetch more gold than a suit of mithril plate mail, which is a little puzzling from a flavor point of view, and possibly problematic from a gold/shop balance point of view (scumming the old forest for wands could be extremely lucrative).
im not sure exactly what the best way to combat these issues would be, but i would tentatively suggest:
a) halving the prices of wands
b) halving (or more) recharge costs.
c) giving wands a considerable chance of destruction upon recharge (not sure if this is implemented, when i went to recharge the one wand i used, the cost was prohibitively high).
d) getting rid of some of the basic utility wands (ie detect monster). there are already scrolls that perform these functions almost exactly. instead, make them rods with lengthy cooldowns. double the cost and make them rarer. making them artifacts might even work if one wanted to particularly restrict that kind of function.
e) implementing monster spawning on levels, to make it dangerous for players to constantly rest to fully recharge rods at every opportunity.

[Repton]

Scrolls tend to get incinerated by all the fire damage you take towards the end of the game...

[Final Master]

I really like the idea of wands being maces with egos. This would do 3 things. One being that it would reduce clutter in the world and shops (not that they are common at all). The second is that it would make maces be more unique from axes and swords, which has been a problem in almost every game I've ever played. Lastly, it would make playing a character focused around maces much more viable.

Give the wand effects as egos to maces and implement it like the old 'charged' egos. Sure, it'll maybe throw the balance into playing with maces off a bit currently now, but with a few more differing ideas for the two remaining weapon types (swords/axes) it will really feel more complete.

[Zonk]

I'm not sure about the 'wands as maces' thing.
Why not just allow a ALL kind of weapons to store spells? Any reason why you can make a mace-like wand, but not a sword-like one?

My actual suggestion is this:

1)Change the 'charged' ego type to actually use spells only(thus making charged item feels more magical - wandlike). These items would be wand-like(functionally equivalent to wands). In addition to this...
2)Keep the wand item type and make it always use the 'charged' ego, *however* they would be better than other charged items(improved spell level, better choice of spells, more charges).
A sword of fireballs and a wand of fireballs would both shoot fireballs, however the wand would, on average, be better on it.

Basically the idea is that, while for most equipment types being 'charged' is simply a nice extra enchantment, for wands it's the whole point.

[teachu2die]

i think there are less complicated ways of validating maces.
a) make some egos specific to maces (maybe things that increase chance of stunning, sunder armor, etc)
b) add mace artifacts. it's a bit harder to come up with in-theme maces (putting some thought into this, myself), but there should be just as many mace artifacts as swords, daggers, and axes.
c) add classes and talents that hinge on the use of blunt weapons. the cursed class does a great job making axes more exciting. how about something loosely based on the classic D&D/angband priest/paladin, a slightly magical quasi-tank with a fierce aversion to blunt weapons (call him the 'arcane club' ). or what about a smithing class that imbues their maces with powers (and maybe has some alchemist-type abilities as well)...

i think the 'charged' egos just get in the way, and i'm pretty glad to see them gone. having both wands and charged egos seems like overkill. the overarching issue here is with the way that wands/rods are currently implemented, not with weapons or ego types.