Wizard with wand nerfed OR errata

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

So, Wizards that choose the wand & buckler option end up with a baton they can not wield effectively as a weapon.

Solutions? Or, is this the intent of the rules as written?

Smallsword is a fencing skill, Shortsword is not.
Both Batons (used with Shortsword) and Short Staffs (used with Smallsword) are essentially wooden "sticks" and either could be used to make a wizards Staff.

The stats for a Baton and a Short Staff are identical, except that the Short Staff has a 0F parry, meaning it gets the improved Parry (half penalty for multiple parries; +3 when retreating instead of +1) but suffer a penalty equal to encumbrance.

Since Wizards are normally lightly armored the bonus usually outstrips the penalty, so it seems the intention here is to give Wizards a better Parry. This means that the Wand should simply be treated as a Short Staff.

Of course, if a player wanted to play a heavily armored Wizard it would be equally valid to allow him to swap out the Smallsword skill for Shortsword and treat Wands as Batons.