Stealing a Wand

[mythic]

If a player steals a wand from another player what damage does the wand do?

So an example. A 4 Column Celestial loses his brand new wand. It does 5 damage (1+4 9th) and has 36 charges in it.

The PC that steals it only has Read Magic and 1 level of Celestial.

Does the wand still fire off 36 bolts at 5 or does it drop down to 1 damage?

 

[Draven]

Wands do not do damage. Players do wand damage. Ergo, the wand damage would be based on the user's skill, not the wand itself. If the wand stolen has been augmented by rituals, and the user is aware of them, he may take advantage of those rituals, but outside of that, it's dependent on his own Celestial skills.

 

[KyleSchmelz]

Think of it this way: as a celestial caster, you have the ability to throw around a bunch of elemental damage, but you need a wand as a focus. Barring ritual enhancement (and ignoring the element of the wand), a wand is a wand is a wand is a wand. The damage and number of charges is based entirely on the caster.

 

[jpariury]

Wands are your bow. Your "arrows" come from within yourself.

 

[Avaran]

Think of a wand like a Longsword, and 9th level spells as profs.

A longsword - if you can use one - is always base 2 damage (barring damage enhancing rituals).

A wand - if you can use one - is always base 1 damage (barring damage enhancing rituals).

As a wielder of a longsword, if I have 4 Profs, I can then swing "6 Normal".

If I hand that same longsword to a more seasoned Fighter who has 8 Profs, they can swing "10 Normal".

Same basic principle for wands. The damage with a sword is determined by the wielder, not by the sword itself (barring damage enhancing rituals). The damage a wand can do, and the number of charges that one can use, is determined by the number of 9th level spells the caster has, and the total number of spells the caster has in memory, not the wand itself (barring rituals on the wand).