Wands

[bcadren]

Writing this under request from DrKe. Intended as an overall analysis and discussion of direction, not just about current changes. Expresses mixture of empirical fact; his and my opinion.

Start with simple facts.

Historically wands contained mostly player available spells, granting the ability to use those spells a limited number of times to non-casters.

They still rely on the same formula as player spells for "spellpower" only with a much lower spellpower than a caster would have:

15+(2.5 x Evocations Skill) - min 15, max 67 (at 26+ skill).

Wands are supposed to be balanced by limited number of uses and needing to train the evocations skill to use. However; in effect due to the low spellpower cap, training evocations is very ineffective at boosting wand power. It maxes at the same level that a 10 int spellcaster not using any enhancers would max at with a similar curve. This curve is fine for a low-int caster with normal spells, they would simply need to find enhancers to get their spellpower to a better level. But with wands, it effectively means (especially the damaging wands) are unable to get significant enough spellpower even with training to be utilizable (excluding using Pakellas for enhancers).

DrKe was in particular concerned that all existing damaging wands in trunk use damage rolls from level 5 spells, which are significantly weaker than the damage rolls from the level 6 spells that cold and fire had. Making it much more difficult, if not impossible to effectively use wands as an "anti-Hydra" measure in Lair. He further stated that because ice blast uses the fireball's damage roll still (only with wand's lower max power it maxes out at 3d14 at 27 skill) the 40% irresistible wouldn't be relevant due to how low 40% of that damage roll is (1-17 dam [before AC reduction] at 27 evo).

Personally, I do believe the move towards unique spell effects instead of mirroring normal player spells is a good one; but I do think the spellpower curve needs to be enhanced such that it makes greater sense to train evo for wands.

For a really brief proposal:
Make most wands rarer. - This allows number of charges to be a more meaningful limit on their use. (The highest tier; /HW, etc. are probably rare enough).
Increase how much Evocations skill affects spellpower - This allows high tier wands to maintain greater utility if the player is willing to train evo.
Move towards unique wands only - Making wand effects unique from spell effects would make it easier to readily tweak wand damage rolls separately from considering that they are supposed to mirror lower spellpower rolls of normal spells.
With rare unique wands don't be afraid of effects that would be too powerful for spells - This is already true with enslavement, paralysis, digging, etc. I would have no problem supporting a wand of hellfire, if it had similar max charges to Heal Wounds and at 0 Evocations it only did ~3d3 scaling up to ~3d18 at max.

[sanka]

Some remarks, hope that they do not sound very negative:

1.Evocation is already a very stong skill, so I think the overall change should nerf it, not buff.
2. I am not entirely convinced that creating strong effects but balance them by rare availability makes the game better. In a given game this change can have two outcomes: A. You do not find the items, the existence of the strong effect does not affect your game. B. You do find the item, the game becomes substantially easier (and thus more boring). The prime example is cloak of the thief. This leads to the most important point:
3. If you want to balance strong effects by rare availablity, it's very important to find out a good probability to find *any* of these items in a given game, and keep it constant (and probably low). Simply adding strong unique effects is the most common source of power creep, as you can already see with elemental evocables. In the case of wands maybe keep the expected value of found wand charges (counting recharge scrolls and all strong wands) be kept at constant (maybe weighted if some charges are considered more valuable then others).
4. That is, making wand of digging more rare would probably help with the balance.
5. Minor point, but I think the major damage wands are already pretty effective against hydrae and keep being good items to use against boggarts and such things even later.
6. If you want to compare wands to spells like firebolt, you should not forget some other points:
- to use fire bolt you need to train 3 skills, sometimes with much worse aptitude, and they also depend on int, which is sometimes lower than 10
- you can use wands with 100% success rate from skill 0
- you can use the wands whithout spending mana, so you can use more charges in a given encounter, under silence, or when you have used your mana for other spells
- you can use them in very heavy armour, while casting fire bolt in plate mail requires substantial xp investment
- the evocation skill is often good for many other things like invisibility or summons, while for example conjurations and fire skill will only give you damage

[kuniqs]

Problem is, wands scale poorly with skill - either they're skill independent(hw, tele, digg, inv), or they barely deal more damage at max skill. OTOH, evocables scale good. If you're primary a wand user training evocations is a waste unless you worship Pakellas or Nemelex.

-remove elemental evocables - they're boxes and nets under different name
-nettify boxes and sacks, make them stackable
-give damage wands less charges, but stronger effect

[Bart]

Low tier damaging wands could spawn less often or even be removed, as they don't serve too much purpose at any point of the game (replace them with slings in early game if necessary). High tier wands are already limited in use to tougher encounters, so I don't see a reason to make them more scarce.

Problem is, wands scale poorly with skill (...) they barely deal more damage at max skill

This works fine. They are not intended to scale. They are strong early on, so that you can use them as panic buttons. They remain useful in the late game, but they do not outperform spells, which require much heavier investment.

With rare unique wands don't be afraid of effects that would be too powerful for spells

I am definitely afraid of additional powerful wands. Evocations school is extremely useful and does not need a buff.