Draft:Wands

Omega 0.90.4

Wands are charged items used for magical attacks, control, healing and other effects. Their individual names include staff, wand, rod and stick, but all seventeen ordinary types use the same activation command and brown / symbol. The Staff of Enchantment is a separate artifact; a quarterstaff is a weapon.

Types

All ordinary types weigh 80 and have no initial enchantment under normal random construction. Value is the base value in Au, not a guaranteed shop price. The item level affects random generation, not a minimum player level for use.

Type	Item level	Value	Main effect
Walking stick	0	10	No magical effect
Staff of missiles	1	50	Single physical projectile
Rod of hiding	1	100	Conceals a map square as secret terrain
Snowball stick	2	100	Cold explosion
Staff of sleep	1	100	Targeted sleep; blessed form affects the whole level
Rod of apportation	2	200	Retrieves ground objects; cursed form causes item loss
Rod of summoning	2	500	Unrestricted hostile summon
Staff of firebolts	3	500	Single fire projectile
Staff of healing	3	500	Heals the user and clears blindness; cursed form harms
Staff of lightning bolts	3	500	Single electrical projectile
Wand of ball lightning	4	500	Electrical explosion
Wand of fear	2	500	Frightens a creature; cursed form targets the user
Wand of fireballs	5	500	Fire explosion
Staff of dispelling	6	750	Removes qualifying curses, monster powers or magical terrain effects
Staff of disruption	6	1000	Direct physical damage
Wand of polymorph	3	1000	Changes a creature's form; targeting yourself is fatal
Rod of disintegration	7	2000	Direct unstoppable damage or terrain destruction

Generation

Normal construction gives 1–20 charges, zero enchantment, and a 60% chance of no blessing, 20% chance of blessing +1 through +10, or 20% chance of curse -1 through -10. The type is chosen before the generic object's item-level acceptance check. Wands occupy ten of the 135 initial category slots; that is not their final fraction of accepted objects.

For a candidate of item level L and generation level D, the acceptance weights are approximately as follows. The extra 1% chance prevents higher-level types from being completely excluded. Within the wand category, a type's final weight is its acceptance weight divided by the sum of those weights for all seventeen types; there is no flat 1/17 chance after filtering.

Candidate level	Nominal acceptance
L below D	100%
L equals D	67%
L equals D + 1	34%
L at least D + 2	1%

Knight's Pawn Shop can stock identified random wands. Acquirement can select the wand category; a positive-strength acquirement also offers a specific type, but still uses ordinary random wand construction. Random monster possessions are another route to ordinary items, rather than evidence that a creature always carries its alchemical product.

Alchemy supplies seven types from specific remains: snowball stick, missiles, ball lightning, summoning, fireballs, healing and dispelling. These copies have 20 charges, blessing +1 and enchantment equal to the source species' level. That enchantment affects some powers but does not raise the fixed damage of most attack wands. A recipe is not a fixed carried wand, and obtaining ordinary remains is not guaranteed on each kill.

Appearance and identification

Each new game shuffles twenty appearance names and assigns seventeen of them to the types. The same type has the same appearance within that game; an oaken staff does not consistently identify a particular power between games. Even polymorph's initial definition is replaced by this shuffle.

Possible appearance	Possible appearance
Oaken staff	Chromed sequinned staff
Heavy metal rod	Old peeling stick
Shaft of congealed light	Jointed metal rod
Slender ceramic wand	Wand with lead ferrules
Rune-inscribed bone wand	Forked wooden stick
Knurly staff	Cane with gold eagle handle
Steel knobbed rod	Crystalline wand
Lucite wand	Metal stick with trigger
Sturdy alpenstock	Leather-handled stone rod
Gem-studded ebony staff	Tiny mithril wand

Most activated powers reveal the type even when the selected effect achieves nothing. There are exceptions: walking stick does not identify itself by use, dispelling does not set identification, and healing reveals its type only in the noncursed branch. An empty wand never reaches its effect's identification step. Knowing the type is not full identification: full knowledge is needed to display blessing or curse and the charge count. The normal charge display omits enchantment even though healing and recharging can depend on it.

Using wands

On a local map, press a and choose a wand from accessible inventory. It need not be wielded in the weapon hand; a wand still inside the pack must first be moved to an accessible slot. The countryside command list has no wand activation command. Activation spends charges, not mana, and has a normal action delay of floor(8 × player speed / 5), compared with ordinary movement's floor(4 × speed / 5). It is not an instantaneous reaction.

Fear blocks activation before item selection. Blindness and immobilization add no separate restriction in this command, though aiming and the particular effect still matter. Ordinary local sleep prevents choosing commands at all.

Point in the action	Result
Cancel before choosing a wand	No charge spent; returns to command selection without advancing monsters
Choose an empty wand	No effect; does not reveal its type, and the attempt still costs an action
Choose a charged wand	Deducts one charge before any effect or target selection
Effect has no target, is resisted, or fails to place a summon	No automatic refund
Press Escape while aiming	Already spent the charge; several powers do not safely handle the cancelled coordinates

Cancel at the item-selection prompt when possible. The targeting prompt advertises Escape, but its callers do not consistently check the result; it must not be treated as a universal safe cancellation. Hiding and disintegration reject invalid coordinates, while several direct-target powers lack that check. Cursed attack and fear wands force the target back to the user after aiming.

Enchantment and recharging

Method	Result and limitation
Noncursed scroll of charging, blessing B	Adds (B + 1) × a random 1–10 charges, then caps the total at 99; does not increase enchantment
Cursed charging scroll	Sets charges to zero
Successful nonnegative enchantment of strength E	Adds E + 1 enchantment and, if the old charge count is nonnegative, (E + 1) × a random 1–10 charges; no 99-charge cap here
Adverse disenchantment	Can set charges to -1 and remove the power; recharging that object does not restore its lost power
A beneficial chaos-storm result	Adds ten charges to accessible wands, as part of broader item and character changes; not a dependable service

An enchantment attempt can instead explode the selected item when its existing enchantment exceeds a random 1–20. At +0 or +1 that check cannot fail; at +2 it has a 5% explosion chance, rising to certainty at +21. The explosion is a manastorm centered on the player, and the item is lost. A normal +0 noncursed enchantment scroll supplies strength 1, so a successful use adds +2 and 2–20 charges. Dedicated charging avoids this enchantment-increase risk.

Blessing is a separate operation. Its usefulness depends on the power: it changes sleep's scope, leaves summoning hostile, and does not increase a firebolt's damage. Strongly cursed objects may resist a blessing or be destroyed by it rather than simply becoming blessed; see the blessing scroll for the thresholds.

Strategy

Keep a useful wand accessible before a dangerous encounter. It can continue working when mana is exhausted, but fear still disables it and charging takes resources. Identify an unknown wand before relying on its target or blessing: healing acts on the user, summoning is hostile, and polymorphing yourself ends the game.

Use dedicated charging when you mainly need more uses. Enchanting most attack wands does not improve their fixed damage, while repeated enchantment raises the explosion risk; healing is a significant exception. Do not tunnel with a valuable charged wand in the weapon hand: a breakage attempt can release a manastorm with strength proportional to charges × item level × 10.