Don’t Forget About Those Wands

If you have ever taking the time to open up or to click on any of my normal playing screenshots (meaning those screenshots that I haven’t removed the tools bars and chat boxes from before taking it) you probably will notice that I tend to use a ton of tool bars.  LOL, I typically have tool bars covering the vast majority of the perimeter of my screen.  A good portion of these tool bars are filled with a specific type of commodity: wands.

Since the majority of my characters have some type of spell casting ability or have points put into Use Magical Device (UMD) the majority of my characters will also carry wands.  Wands can be an extremely useful tool for your characters.  There are primarily three different types of wands: buffs, damage, and healing/curative types.  There are also some crowd control wands (such as charm person or charm monster, but there effectiveness is relatively minor).  Using wands can vastly expand a characters spell list as well.

For instance, my level 13 Sorcerer Cantlin has a variety of wands.  Two of the wands he is currently using quite a lot include wands of false life and stoneskin.  One of the good things about wands, is that if you are continuously using a wand of a spell that is on your spell list, that will allow you to load up a different spell into your spell book or to mesmerize, which is extremely useful to classes such as sorcerers, favored souls, and bards that have a limited selection of the number of spells they can learn and load.  For instance, I tend to use wands of stoneskin instead of actually loading that spell in Cantlin’s spell list.  List allows me to take a different spell, such as shout or force missile, which are both at the same spell level as stoneskin.

Another extremely useful quality of wands, is that they also allow you to expand your spell list into spells from other classes.  For instance, if you have the UMD, your arcane casters will be able to divine caster wands.  This allows you to become self sufficient, especially at lower levels.  You can basically add the cure spells to your spell list being up to use wands to cast cure light wounds through cure critical wounds.  You can also obtain other curative wands that allow you to cast lesser restoration to remove that negative stat damage, cure disease, neutralize poison, remove blindness, and many others.  For many divine warrior characters, such as paladins and rangers, if you have put points into UMD you can also gain access to the use of wands to cast shield, false life, and stone skin all of which can add to your survivability and your resilience.

Cantlin taking a look at his wand of false life.

The damage dealing wands, on the other hand, are probably the least useful.  That is because their damage output is solely dependent on the level of the wand and not necessarily your character’s spell casting abilities.  There are enhancements that increase the effectiveness of these wands but in the grand scheme of things these enhancements are taken more to enhance and produce greater results from casting cure wands.  Even with that said, these wands do allow you to continue to cause damage when you run out of spell points and spell point potions.  In some instances, you can use wands to bypass certain barriers as well (thinking of quests such as Inferno of the Damned where you have light or extinguish the flames).

Cantlin glancing at his wand of stoneskin.

In any case, just don’t overlook the wands you come across during your adventuring.  It is also worthy of note that not all wands are available from the vendors.  Especially those 10th level wands.  If you come across those you should hold onto them or put them on the auction , I’m sure somebody will buy them.  Wands are just those items that help to expand your spell list and to make your character more resourceful.  If you are new to the game, keep this in mind and they can be very useful!!

Thanks for reading everybody and happy hunting in Eberron and Eveningstar!!