D&D Ideas — Rods, Staves and Wands

D&D Ideas — Rods, Staves and Wands

June 27, 2021

Dungeons & Dragons/ Editorial/ Game Master Tips/ Player tips/ Roleplaying/ YouTube

Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is rods, staves and wands, which we discussed in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST on Nerdarchy Live to talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Rods, staves and wands are all powerful arcane implements but there’s plenty of variety and opportunities for those who don’t use magic to make use of them too. You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here.

Nerdy News

Steal a look at the week that was! Matriculate to magic school, mount up for combat and sneak the top 10 rogues into your next game plus new live chats with creative folks and industry pros and live game play round out this week’s Nerdy News. Check it out here.

Delving Dave’s Dungeon

Rods, staves and wands used to be one of the saving throw categories from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. In 5E D&D they are all spellcasting implements or focuses so if we are incorporating magic items they make a great grouping.

Instantly when we decided on this topic three implements of power jumped to mind — the Wand of Orcus, the Blackstaff of the Masked Lords of Waterdeep and the Ruby Rod of Asmodeus. Anyone one of these could spawn a whole campaign all by itself.

Both Orcus and Asmodeus have been known to let these items loose upon the Material Plane to further their own schemes. Unraveling those schemes and restoring order to the world would easily be a job for adventurers. A missing Blackstaff would be another worthy quest for young heroes either as a ruse to test the meddle of heroes for future causes of Waterdeep or out the actual need of a Blackstaff being returned to its rightful owner.

Famous rods, staves and wands aside they just add great flavor to 5E D&D. The fact your wizard can use them instead of spell components is pretty awesome. You could have even more fun with it though. What about arcane implements made from exotic materials? They aren’t technically magic but have a way of enhancing magic wielded through them. I could easily see a different material for each school of magic offering a different bonus. This bonus only applies to spells from that school of magic. Here are some examples:

Abjuration (Adamantine). Gain 1 temporary hit point
Conjuration (Carved stone from the Astral Plane). Summoned creatures have 1 additional hit point.
Divination (Any material that has traveled through time). Gain 1 additional piece of information from the spell.
Enchantment (Wood from a dryad’s tree). Increase the range of spells by 10ft.
Evocation (Meteoric metal). Do 1 additional point of damage to 1 creature.
Illusion (Quicksilver). Once per long rest add 1 additional element to illusion magic beyond what is normal for the spell. Has no effect on spells that already incorporate all of the senses.
Necromancy (Carved bone of a powerful undead). When you cast animate dead to reassert control you can control 1 additional undead.
Transmutation (Material from Limbo). Spells durations last 1 round longer.

From Ted’s Head

As Dave and I mentioned during the live chat, rods are listed as a spellcasting focus for wizard but most of the magical rods are in no way a focus for spellcasters. It needs to be done so I am going to create a rod for those casters who prefer a focus but think a wand is too small and a staff too big.

Rod of Intensification

Rod, very rare (requires attunement)

Rings of copper, silver and gold adorn the top half of this rod dark oaken rod in three sets of three with increasing size for each trio.

This magical rod functions as a +1 club as well as a +1 spellcasting focus. In addition the rod has 10 charges. While you are attuned to the rod whenever you cast a spell using a spell slot you can expend a number of charges to increase the level of the spell being cast. You can only increase the spell to a level you can cast and to a maximum of 6th level. It costs 1 charge for each level you are casting. Spells of 6th level and higher cannot be increased by the rod.

As an action, you can cast a spell using a spell slot into the rod. Instead of the spells normal effect the rod gains a number of charges equal to the spell slot being used (maximum 10).

The rod gains 1d6+2 charges when you finish a long rest.

Major Rod of Intensification

Rod, legendary (requires attunement)

Rings of silver, gold, and platinum adorn the top half of this golden oaken rod in three sets of three with increasing size for each trio.

This magical rod functions as a +2 club as well as a +2 spellcasting focus. In addition the rod has 15 charges. While you are attuned to the rod whenever you cast a spell using a spell slot you can expend a number of charges to increase the level of the spell being cast. You can only increase the spell to a level you can cast and to a maximum of 8th level. It costs 1 charge for each level you are casting. Spells of 9th level and higher cannot be increased by the rod.

As an action, you can cast a spell using a spell slot into the rod. Instead of the spells normal effect the rod gains a number of charges equal to the spell slot being used (maximum 10).

The rod gains 1d6+4 charges when you finish a long rest.

There you go — two versions of a cool magical rod for your 5E D&D games. Neither one gives your character extra spells, which is what staves tend to do, or have a single spell with lots of uses like wands. I am very happy with this concept. Enjoy.

A Staff of Black Light sheds light on situations both physical and metaphorical. Creatures who walk in the eerie black light of the lantern hanging from the crook of this staff find the truth flows more freely from within. Originally created for our Dark Paths: Forbidden Library book this staff more recently became one of our monthly Magic Item Cards we share with our Patreon supporters.

From the Nerditor’s Desk

Between the live chat and their editorials in this newsletter Nerdarchists Dave and Ted covered a lot of ground when it comes to rods, staves and wands in 5E D&D. I’ll approach this topic from a different direction — worldbuilding.

These three terms can serve as important positions within an arcane organization. When Curriculum of Chaos releases you might consider incorporating this into a Strixhaven campaign or maybe you loved our D&D academia series and the magic school in your setting includes a special group of mages.

There’s lots of resources and support for developing a faction for your games starting with the good old Dungeon Master’s Guide and vastly expanded in distinct ways with both Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica and Mythic Odysseys of Theros. Even Acquisitions Incorporated — a real sleeper with tons of awesome material — includes fantastic inspiration for this sort of thing.

Wand

Prerequisite: Renown 3 or higher in the organization

These agents are the ones who go out into the field. Investigating arcane mysteries, escorting important people and objects to their destinations and other activities critical to the organization fall under the purview of Wands.

Staff

Prerequisite: Renown 10 or higher in the organization

Agents who prove themselves competent assets to the organization can achieve this rank. As part of the Staff a member receives access to carefully guarded knowledge and resources. This would be a terrific opportunity to weave something like the Order of the Wizened into your campaign, where agents of this status are permitted to visit the group’s secret archive. But with greater power comes greater responsibility and a Staff is expected to actively contribute in a much more impactful way than a Wand.

Rod

Prerequisite: Renown 25 or higher in the organization

When a member proves their utmost dedication to the advancement of arcane knowledge they might earn the lofty rank of Rod. Since rods are often symbols of authority these agents serve as a public face of the organization. This provides them unparalleled access to individuals in the highest echelons of society but a Rod must remember to always tread carefully. They represent the organization in a critical way and the same benefits they receive also means others of similar status often demand the attention of Rods too.

*Featured image — Rods, staves and wands abound in 5E D&D. There’s collectively 31 of them in the free Basic Rules alone! More than enough magic items to keep adventurers busy for quite a while. [Images courtesy Wizards of the Coast]