Understanding Enchantment and the DF Staple: The Wand of Fireball

[Gavynn]

A common staple of dungeon fantasy, especially present in Diablo, is the “Wand of [something]” (or Staff of something, or Rod of something] which has some number of charges of a single spell in it, like a Wand of Fireball. I have never spent a lot of time thinking about the Magic enchantment rules. They are just not something that has come up in the games that I have been in. However, they started to come up when I was thinking of GURPS: Dungeon Fantasy – Diablo and let me be frank – I don’t get it. Please tell me what I am doing wrong.

So far as is my understanding, a wizard who wants to create a Wand of Fireballs (and has Enchant at level 17 and Fireball at level 15):

1) Obtains a wand. Note that this is not a “magic wand” per se since it won’t have the Staff spell cast on, although it could if the caster later chooses to do so. It will take 800 energy points to enchant the wand with the Fireball spell.

2) Obtains a $400 ruby to set into the wand.

3) The Power of the Item will be 15 (the lower of 17 and 15)

4) The wizard will work alone.

5) He has got to expend 800 energy. He only has 10 FP to give. He does have Recover Energy-15 so can recover fully in 50 minutes. So in an eight hour day, he can repeat his ceremonial enchanting 4 times, for 40 energy a day. This project will take 20 (yikes!) days to complete.

6) At the end of this time, the wizard rolls against his enchant skill with a 16 failing and 17-18 critically failing because that is just how it goes with enchanting. He rolls a 9. The enchantment works.

Now a Wand of Fireball is in existence that can only be activated by mages who know what it is. She can now use this wand can cast the spell whenever she likes. There is no number of charges, BUT she must “cast” with the wand for between 1 and 3 second depending on the size of the fireball desired AND must pay the energy cost to cast the spell herself. The wand activates correctly on a roll of 15 or less (since that is its Power Level). Now this is a little limiting, and since she knows the fireball spell herself at least at level 15, why would she choose to use the wand? I don’t think she would. So our she decides to make this wand have a bit more umph, so the wizard wants it to be self-powered. There are two ways to go about this:

a) She could create and affix a Powerstone or Manastone to the wand and have the wand always draw energy from the stone. If it were a Powerstone, she’d have to let the wand recharge away from her other powerstones. This would make casting the fireballs more energy efficient, especially if she made them exclusive powerstones.

b) Put a further enchantment on the Wand – the Power Spell (M.57) which he has at level 15. Since fireball spells can take up to 3 points of energy, she decides to make it a Power 3 item. This has an energy cost of 2,000. Given his rate of work above, this will take 50 more days! After 50 days he makes the roll against his level 15 power spell. He rolls an 11 – success. The wizard can now use the wand to cast Fireball with a skill of 15 whenever he likes and never has to pay energy for it. However, it still takes three seconds of casting time to get off a 3d fireball. She has also invested about two and half months of time putting together this wand. And she’d better not lose it, as I think it would have a market value of about $92,400 in enchantments alone.

In Dungeon Fantasy, we are introduced to Power Items which store FP for the casting of any spell, but don’t hold the spells themselves and can be recharged at $5 per point of FP back in town. So if she just creates a nice expensive wand she can have it charged up with FP and cast Fireball or any other spell with them that she likes.

I don’t think either one of these replicate the Diablo idea of an item having lots of charges of a single spell in it. I also would like to use the Diablo idea that these items can be recharged in a field expedient manner but reduces the maximum number of charges a wand can hold. Say whenever a magic wand/rod/staff is created they can only hold 1d20+80, 1d10+40, or 1d6+19 charges. Otherwise they can be taken to town and recharged by someone with all the proper equipment to ensure there is no loss of maximum power.

So first off, do I understand enchanting correctly? I bet I don’t. Second, how would one simulate the Diablo-style Wands of Fireball in a DF setting and outside of it? Can Diablo-style items be balanced in a DF world where there are also Power Items?