Instead of charges....

[tussock]

NB: the proper price of a wand with 2% failure is the same as a wand with 25.5 charges left, as that matches the expected value over time with a base 50 charge wand (which is the mean number of uses remaining in all 2% failure wands).

NB2: discovered wands have less than 50 charges, so you should probably use a 4% failure rate, and price them as 13 charges, or 5% and 10.5 charges to make rolling easier.

NB3: Ban the gp to hp conversion, it breaks combat resource management.

[For Valor]

Woooo trollin'....

This is a bad system. It's based on "maybe I'm going to fail this, maybe not" and gives the chance of someone buying a 10-charge wand, and only getting to use it once. It also gives the chance of someone buying a 10-charge wand, and using it 100 times.

If there is a system that supports this, it is a bad system. Case and point.

[Ice9]

Personally I think all the wanking over the average is pretty useless. What I am a player am concerned with is this: "If I buy a 10 charge wand, am I likely to actually have 10 uses with it?".

In this case, the answer is no- the probability is that over half the time I'm going to have 7 or less. In which case I would be asking: why would I spend 10 charges worth of money on 7 charges?

If you buy one wand, yes. If you buy several wands (as is usually the case with healing wands especially), then you will get around 10 uses/wand.

[Doom]

And, again, we're back at the 'too easy to buy' issue, with the main complaint being the risk of purchasing and not getting value. I think that's been established pretty clearly.

For a system with magic items popping out of vending machines, charges make plenty of sense, since you're just buying another boring old product, no different than iron rations. Making it a percent makes it more random and almost magical, and you might not want that in your wands any more than your iron rations. But let's move past this issue, at some point.

The actual interesting bit is my players were MORE inclined to use the items, not less, despite the risk of losing them with every use. This is something I didn't see in AD&D with charged items...everyone saved, saved, saved, greatly weakening the coolness factor of actually having the item.

So, give it a shot, put a 10% failure rate item in a hoard and see what results you get. Nobody's paying, so, hopefully, nobody screams their throat bloody if they only get 7 uses instead of the 10 you theoretically planned (and, hell, you're rolling behind a screen), and see for yourself if it really causes the game to collapse into sludge, or if the players are more inclined, instead of less, to use the powerful item.

[ubernoob]

Personally I think all the wanking over the average is pretty useless. What I am a player am concerned with is this: "If I buy a 10 charge wand, am I likely to actually have 10 uses with it?".

In this case, the answer is no- the probability is that over half the time I'm going to have 7 or less. In which case I would be asking: why would I spend 10 charges worth of money on 7 charges?

If you buy one wand, yes. If you buy several wands (as is usually the case with healing wands especially), then you will get around 10 uses/wand.

I would like to state that encouraging people to walk around with stockpiles of wands is fucking stupid. Like, so stupid I can't believe this thread is still going.

[Zinegata]

Okay, let's cut through all of the negativity here, and let's restate what Doom is trying to achieve so we can go back to discussing the actual mechanics.

Doom wants to find an alternative mechanic to counting charges.

His proposal is to have a failure rate for charged items. Say, after use, there is a 10% chance that a wand will breakdown and stop working.

The Pros of this system are as follows:

1) Easier book-keeping. This is indisputable. It's easier to keep track of a static fail rate than the number of charges.

2) Players are more inclined to use items, as it breaks them out of the "hoard everything!" mentality (a claim made by Doom. I don't entirely agree - but I think some groups will in fact use their items more).

The Cons of this system are:

1) More dice-rolling and randomness.

2) Players may be less inclined to use the items, for fear of breaking them. Especially for "sentimental" items ("My first CLW wand broke! NOOOO!" ;_; ) or really powerful ones ("The Staff of Command was used in a test once and broke despite a 1% fail rate. That test doomed the world")

----

Finally, the issue of 10% fail rate = how many charges is frankly moot. As people have already shown, it's fairly easy to do the math. What should be discussed is the actual viability of the core mechanic, not how people can't do the math.

People will also still stockpile wands in both cases anyway. So let's stop pretending that's even an issue.

[ubernoob]

Just for discussion, I rather liked this solution:
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=51121

Wands: Wands are spellcasting items. They are always minor items, can only cast up to 4th level spells, and have 50 uses of the spell before they become non magic items. You must have the spell on your list, or make a DC 20 UMD check to activate a wand. Doing so is a standard action (if you fail the UMD check, you have still spent the action). Wand Caster level, and DCs are always based on the lowest possible level to cast the spell.

You must spend 15 minutes attuning a wand in order to use it to cast a spell. The Wand stays attuned until all non Permanent spells it has cast have had their durations ended, and you will it to unattune. There is no wait period after these events have occurred for it to become unattuned.

Potions and Oils: Potions and Oils are liquids infused with magic properties. A creature may have up to their Character level in potions or oils effecting them at any given time, further potions have no effect.

Potions mimic the spell effects of any spell of up to 3rd level on a single target. It takes a standard action to activate a potion, by drinking it or applying it to your person. (Or applying it to a willing target. Yes you can apply an oil of Combustion to a helpless enemy.) These do not need to be attuned to benefit or harm a target.

Scrolls: Scrolls mimic any spell effect. They are effectively one time use items that cast a specific spell for you. All scrolls are minor items. Scrolls have the minimum Caster level and DC that a creature could have and still cast the spell in question.

Activating a scroll is a standard action, or as long as the casting time of the spell, whichever is longer. You must either have the spell on your class list, or be able to make a UMD check to activate the scroll.

If you have the spell on your list and a Caster level equal to or greater than the scrolls caster level, you activate the scroll and it has the desired effect.

If you have a lower Caster level than the scroll, you make a Caster level check (1d20+Caster level) against the scrolls Caster level. If you succeed, the scroll activates and has the desired effect. If you fail, you lose the action, and the spell does not take effect. If you fail by 5 or more, the scroll is used up in the misfire, and becomes non magical. If you fail by 10 or more, the Scroll activates in a way harmful to you. IE, Fireballs you, Gates a creature that attacks you, ect.

If you are making a UMD check to activate a scroll, you must make a check against DC 20+Caster level of the scroll+2 per point that your mental stat is below the minimum required to cast that spell. (Each scroll has a primary ability modifier based on what the person who created the scroll used to cast the spell. This is compared against your value of that same stat.) If you fail, you lose the action. If you fail by 5 or more, the scroll is consumed and becomes non magical. If you fail by 10 or more, it activates in a way harmful to you.

Scrolls count as one of your attuned items for as long as the spell cast by the scroll is active, and then for 1d4 minutes afterward. You do not need to attune them in advance, but you must have an unattuned slot to place their effect in to activate them.

Staffs: Staffs are magical spellcasting items that don't run out, unlike wands and scrolls. A minor staff has 15 daily charges. A medium staff has 30 daily charges. A Major staff has 60 daily charges.

Staffs may have multiple spells attuned in them, but each additional spell reduces daily charges by 2.

A Staff requires a standard action to activate the spell effect, and consumes a number of charges equal to the spell level of the spell used. You must also have a character level greater than double the spell level, minus one, in order to activate that particular spell.

The staff casts at the Caster level and DC minimum needed to cast the spell, however, if you are capable of making a UMD check for a higher Caster Level as per the scroll activation, or if you have a Caster level and DC yourself in a class with that spell on your list, you may use that instead.

Some spells are not suitable to staffs, such as spells with a permanent duration, or spells requiring long cast times. Spells with one full round or one standard action casting times and non permanent durations are always able to fit in staffs, whereas other spells must first be confirmed with the DM.

Staffs count as one of your eight items, and they are attuned to you instantly just from wielding, like Weapons and stop being attuned as soon as all spells cast from the staff end. But while attuned you can use them as much as you want to cast the spells from them, until they run out of charges.

Magical Items That Cast Spells But Are Not Potions, Wands, Scrolls or Staffs:

Magical items that cast spells but are not potions, wands, scrolls or staffs and actually just potions, wands, scrolls or staffs. No other types of magic spellcasting items exist. The staff, potion, scroll and wand are merely the iconic form of the item, but for example, a Ring of invisibility is merely a staff in the form of a ring, that has the invisibility spell in it. In this case, you must still wield the ring (though this is easier than wielding a staff in most cases) and use a standard action to cast the spell.

[Parthenon]

And again, the thing you don't seem to be getting is that I don't care about the mean of infinite wands, I just care about the one I have in my PC's hands right now. And over half the time I have less than 3/4 of the number you've just told me I have.

[Zinegata]

Just for discussion, I rather liked this solution:
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=51121

It's not really a good solution though, as it still uses 50+ charges for most items. Which is a heck of a lot to keep track of when you've got more than 2 wands/staffs.

Sigma's solution is more elegant:

Instead of charges as an ever-declining value, how about items with per-day uses?
I think the gold price equivalency is something like... divide the charge total by 5, and that's how many uses you get as a refreshing item (it rests when you do)

Per-day uses, but considerably fewer of them. And it can all be explained in 2 sentences instead of a massive textwall.

[Ghostwheel]

...it's weird to have such strong emotions over this.

That's because humans are much more sensitive to loss than to gain.

For example, if I told you that you had a 100% chance to gain $80 or a 80% chance to gain $100, most people would take the 100% chance to gain $80 immediately even though it's mathematically the same because they prefer gaining less as long as it's certain.

On the other hand, if I gave you a choice of 100% chance to lose $80 or an 80% chance to lose $100, you'd probably choose the latter, because in your mind you'd take the chance to lose as little as possible over a certain loss to lose something because you're more sensitive to loss.

In this case with the spontaneously combusting wands, people are afraid to lose more despite the fact that it might (or might not, I don't care) be more worthwhile or the same in the long run, because they're more sensitive to the potential loss they might incur than to the gain they might get from it.

(By "you" I don't mean you, and don't want to start a big discussion--just explaining a psychology phenomenon.)

[ubernoob]

Just for discussion, I rather liked this solution:
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=51121

It's not really a good solution though, as it still uses 50+ charges for most items. Which is a heck of a lot to keep track of when you've got more than 2 wands/staffs.

Sigma's solution is more elegant:

Instead of charges as an ever-declining value, how about items with per-day uses?
I think the gold price equivalency is something like... divide the charge total by 5, and that's how many uses you get as a refreshing item (it rests when you do)

Per-day uses, but considerably fewer of them. And it can all be explained in 2 sentences instead of a massive textwall.

I would like to state that encouraging people to walk around with stockpiles of wands is fucking stupid. Like, so stupid I can't believe this thread is still going.

[Doom]

That's because humans are much more sensitive to loss than to gain.
...

A solid explanation, but doesn't quite explain the existence of casinos, where daily, people experience near certain losses in exchange for the possibility of winning (usually an irrelevantly small sum). I guess maybe it's because wands aren't used as much as slots are played, but now we're back to trying to see a way to make wands actually used.

[Zinegata]

...

I fail to see how sigma's solution will encourage wand spam. Do you really need more than 10 CLWs a day?

Frankly, your own solution to the problem is just a slightly different rehash of the existing 3.X system. Which in the context of this discussion, is complete and utter shit and a waste of everyone's time. You might as well have pointed us to the SRD.

If you want to fellate about these oh-so-awesome "revisions", make another thread about it, instead of shitting over someone else's cheerios.

[For Valor]

10 is too much, Zine. It's like, 9 more than I want to deal with.

[ubernoob]

...

I fail to see how sigma's solution will encourage wand spam. Do you really need more than 10 CLWs a day?

Frankly, your own solution to the problem is just a slightly different rehash of the existing 3.X system. Which in the context of this discussion, is complete and utter shit and a waste of everyone's time. You might as well have pointed us to the SRD.

If you want to fellate about these oh-so-awesome "revisions", make another thread about it, instead of shitting over someone else's cheerios.

Suck my dick. Here are the actual problems with wands:

1) Using them to stack a bajillion buffs if wands are cheap as free
2) Using them for out of combat healing at good exchange rates
3) Tracking charges is a pain (but mostly due to point two)

Now, in a normal party somebody might have a ten charge wand of X and a fifty charge wand of Y because they think that they'll need more Y than X. And frankly, wands of CLW or somilar are the only wands you ever are going to run out of. Like, seriously. A wand of fireball could have 10,000 charges on it and it wouldn't actually make a difference.

Now, if you want to have characters be casting big spells every so often from items, Kaelik's redesign of staffs works pretty damn well.

Fuck, his rewrite of wands fixes the issue of stacking a bajillon buffs too.


But yeah, I'll agree with you that the wands aren't much better than the SRD (they only fix the inifinte buffs problem), but the infinite buff issue is not the issue people are actually discussing in this thread.

People are discussing wands of lesser vigor being a problem. And all those people that are saying it is a problem are just being control freak DMs that need to stop trying to change the rules. Healing up between combats is FINE. If you had another issue (infinite buffs active, making the player feel he is spending resources without actually using tallies), then we could TOTALLY fix every last one of them with Kaelik's work.

So yes, there is literally nothing in this thread besides DM douchebaggery (not wanting players healing with wands) that could not be fixed with kaelik's work.


And really, rolling dice vs wand explosion at the end of every cast? Every fucking time? People will seriously just get 50 scrolls at that point to avoid rolling an extra die.

[Zinegata]

...

*chops off ubernoob's dick with a machette for being stupid enough to present it*



Nobody gives a shit of how awesome you think Kaelik's rewrite is. If you wanna go "Woo! This rewrite is so awesome!" go fellate yourselves in that Tome Errata thread.

This thread's title is "Instead of charges". Because again, Doom's aim is to minimize book-keeping.

So bringing up examples that still use 50-something charges which you have to keep track of is completely useless. Again.

[Zinegata]

10 is too much, Zine. It's like, 9 more than I want to deal with.

Then you're better off picking Doom's solution of a static fail rate.

Because if you want to replace tracking individual charges with some kind of static number, I'm not sure if there is really any other alternative aside from the fail rate solution he proposed.

Sigma's solution is nice and elegant because it threads the line between two extremes, while having a lot less book-keeping that carries over from session to session.

[Starmaker]

Personally I think all the wanking over the average is pretty useless. What I am a player am concerned with is this: "If I buy a 10 charge wand, am I likely to actually have 10 uses with it?".

In this case, the answer is no- the probability is that over half the time I'm going to have 7 or less. In which case I would be asking: why would I spend 10 charges worth of money on 7 charges?

If you buy one wand, yes. If you buy several wands (as is usually the case with healing wands especially), then you will get around 10 uses/wand.

Hey Elenssar, I thought you ragequit.

/troll mode on

no guise, your all rong. lissn, theres 10% chance that the wand breaks after 1 use, 9% chance that it breaks after 2 use's (90% to not break after 1 use and 10% to break on the second use), etc
so the most probable outcome is that you get only one use out of a 10% failure rate wand
so you pay for 10 charges and get only one
bawwwww shit suxx

/troll mode off

Over half the time, you are going to have 7 or less. So what? Taking the median as the measure of value is just as meaning less as taking the most probable.

Really, consider distributions D7i and D7s. D7i is identical to our original distribution until the 8th use, where the wand coughs up the last spell and disintegrates. D7s is identical to our original distribution until the 8th use, where the probability of disintegration falls to zero until it is used 9000001 times, and then it finally disintegrates.

In D7i, D7s and the original D, the median is the same.

Here, I'll say it once again, THE MEDIAN IS THE SAME. The average is different, and it is the average that makes anyone with at least half a brain prefer D to D7i, and D7s to either.

If you buy one wand, yes. If you buy several wands (as is usually the case with healing wands especially), then you will get around 10 uses/wand.

The average is the same whether you have one 10% wand or a thousand. It's in the fucking definition.

---

On bookkeeping.
Rolling failure is one more roll per activation.
Subtracting a charge is fucking around with one more number per activation.
A static failure chance gives more rolling and less bookkeeping.

[RobbyPants]

Doom, on the first page: (emphasis added)

Anyway, I think a proof for expected number of uses for general probability of failure after use is a bit much for here, but let's go with proving it for failure probability 1/2, since it's particularly easy, just for the simple pleasure of making Kaelik look like an ignorant loudmouth idiot in complete detail.

Is that clear enough for you? That you roll after, not before? So your crap about it blowing up before you use it is completely nonsensical, and has been from the beginning of this discussion?

And here is Doom on the first fucking post:

Instead, I just give the item a % chance of disintegrating with each use. So, the wand of fireballs with 10 charges before, now has a 10% chance of being done every time it's used.

Not every time but the first time. Every time.

I'm sorry for reading the first post. In the future, I'll just assume that when Doom contradicts himself after I point out he's wrong, he's actually using time travel to change the past except only I can see the original time line.

How is he contradicting himself? He's saying you have a 10% each time it disintegrates, but after the effect goes off. So you're always guaranteed at least one use from an item. Always. Cuz that's what he said.

No, that is more bookkeeping. With the charge method, if you have a wand, and use 5 charges then you can forget to make it off until later, and then mark off 5 charges and you're fine.

With the x% fail, you end up with oh shit, I forgot moments. And then if it turns out your wand broke on the first, or second, or third, or fourth cast LOL RETCON.

That doesn't make any sense. What if you accidentally use more charges than you had? LOL RETCON. I guess the charged approach is broken too. Who would have thought? In a game that requires bookkeeping, you have to do your bookkeeping.

I would like to state that encouraging people to walk around with stockpiles of wands is fucking stupid. Like, so stupid I can't believe this thread is still going.

But ultimately, I agree with this. This saves on charges, but at the cost of randomness and encouraging people to stockpile wands.

[Orion]

cGhostwheel's examples are backwards, suggesting that he doesn't understand what it means to be risk-averse. People will jump at a chance of to WIN and avoid a chance to LOSE. In his examples, people would choose the 80% cahcne for $100 and the 100% chance for -$80.

We know this because people buy insurance (guaranteed loss) and buy lottery tickets (chance to win). Often the SAME PEOPLE. Even though both of these transactions have lower expected values than NOT buying.

[Caedrus]

Being stuck without a crucial spell at a crucial time due to unforeseeable circumstances can lead to a very large loss. Getting a bonus charge... is not a huge advantage, especially since the potential loss is big enough that people are likely to waste extra money on *backup wands.* The potential loss is bigger than the potential gain.

[ubernoob]

Being stuck without a crucial spell at a crucial time due to unforeseeable circumstances can lead to a very large loss. Getting a bonus charge... is not a huge advantage, especially since the potential loss is big enough that people are likely to waste extra money on *backup wands.* The potential loss is bigger than the potential gain.

Pretty much on the ball. It's an issue of marginal utility. When people go to the store to buy an apple, they don't actually get excited if for some reason the store gives them an extra apple at the end of a transaction. They only wanted one apple. If the store did decide to just take away the apple after they paid for it...

People should not have to use gambling math to play D&D. Especially not infinite summations.

So yes, this entire idea was worthless from the get go.

[Parthenon]

Personally I think all the wanking over the average is pretty useless. What I am a player am concerned with is this: "If I buy a 10 charge wand, am I likely to actually have 10 uses with it?".

In this case, the answer is no- the probability is that over half the time I'm going to have 7 or less. In which case I would be asking: why would I spend 10 charges worth of money on 7 charges?

If you buy one wand, yes. If you buy several wands (as is usually the case with healing wands especially), then you will get around 10 uses/wand.

Hey Elenssar, I thought you ragequit.

You are accusing me of being like Elennsar? Weird.

The main thing about Elennsar was that he wanted a definite chance of failing (like 10% chance of death per encounter) yet expected the PCs to survive the entire campaign (more than 20 encounters) even when he was actually told that this meant that the cumulative chance of failure meant that the PCs would all die before the end of the campaign.

The thing with this wand idea is that it wants a definite chance of failing (like 10% chance of running empty per use) yet expects the wand to last the stated number of charges (a mean of 10 charges) even when in real terms the cumulative chance of failure means that the wand would fail before the mean 10 uses.

Really, consider distributions D7i and D7s. D7i is identical to our original distribution until the 8th use, where the wand coughs up the last spell and disintegrates. D7s is identical to our original distribution until the 8th use, where the probability of disintegration falls to zero until it is used 9000001 times, and then it finally disintegrates.

In D7i, D7s and the original D, the median is the same.

Here, I'll say it once again, THE MEDIAN IS THE SAME. The average [Note: I think you mean "mean"] is different, and it is the average [Note: again, "mean"] that makes anyone with at least half a brain prefer D to D7i, and D7s to either.

Yes, and if you have a distribution Dstupid where you have 99% chance to fail after the 1st use and 1% after the 901st use you have the same mean as 10% after each use.

Here, I'll say it once again, THE MEAN IS THE SAME.

Saying that the mean is always better "just because", or by showing a couple of made up distributions does not convince me of anything.

---

Hell, I like the idea of not having to record the number of charges, and having it to that when you find a wand as loot you don't have to work out how many charges it has. I can see the use, and the gains. I can even see the use of a random number of charges to try and get people to use it more.

I just think its a stupid idea and loses more than it gains.

[fbmf]

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
Confidential to the four people who have reported this thread because Kaelik is posting where he was told to stay out:

Kaelik is right. That "rule" only applies when posted in the thread title or first post of the thread. If DOOM feels strongly about it, let him edit his thread title.

Stop reporting this fucking thread.
[/TGFBS]