wand/staff

[Wout Broere]

At 11:07 PM 3/12/01 +0100, you wrote:
>Now, on to the destruction (under enhancement), and I quote: "Failure
>destroys 1/2 of the material used and does not bring about the enhanced
>values. Abysmal Failure destroys all of the material." SOOOO... if you are
>making something, like a bag, and HALF of it is destroyed... Or let's say
>you finally found that STAR SAPPHIRE and failed a casting... what good is
>1/2 a bag (a hood maybe?) or 1/2 a gem? NONE!

The text goes on to say that: "Material destroyed in this way is destroyed
only in the sense that it is, forever after, worthless for enhancement."

So I read it that it is not physically destroyed, but you can't bring out
the enhancements any more. The gem may not be worth anything for
enhancement, butr you can still sell it for good money.


And on the wand/staff issue. The text under wand says that it increases the
EL of the spell cast through it. (don't have book IV here, so can't quote
the text.) Now everyone seems to agree that increasing the EL for all
purposes by say 5 for only a single mana point is a bit over the top. So
the EL1 lightning doesn't get to be an EL6 lightning by casting it through
a wand.

But if the EL increase is only for the increased success chance, than I
still have a problem. If the EL of the spell increases by EL for the
purpose of success chance only, the success chance increases by DOUBLE that
amount according to the normal casting rules (you may substract twice the
EL in a spell from your roll).

So for a single mana point you get an ELx2 modifier on success, and with a
wand you get a MEL modifier for two mana points. Normal random items have a
2D6 MEL and a 1D10 EL, up to half the MEL r.u. That means that there is a
disproportionate number of items for which the EL is half the MEL ru, as in
an MEL7EL4 item. If this is a staff you get a 7% mod. for two mana, and if
it is a wand you get an 8% mod. for only one mana. That it is you take the
rules literally.

Ruling that the wand increases the success chance by EL% would solve the
problem, but that is not what the rules say. Is the wand mightier than the
staff?

And how do others use the 2D6MEL, 1D10EL up to half MEL rule for random
items anyway?

Ft