Wand

Version 0.28: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

An unusually magical sort of stick. "[The principle of selection] is the magician's wand, by means of which he may summon into life whatever form and mould he pleases." -William Youatt, _Sheep: their breeds, management, and diseases; to which is added the Mountain Shepherd's Manual_, ch. III. 1837.

A wand is a magical device that contains several charges of a specific spell or effect.

A player may zap a wand in the inventory with the V key (that is, eVoking it). This releases its magical effect at a target of the player's choice and expends one charge. The number of charges on a wand is always known, and wands of the same type will merge when picked up, taking up only one inventory slot and having the combined number of charges that the two previous wands had.

Once a wand's charges are used up, the wand is destroyed.

A wand's spell power equals 15 + 2.5 × Evocations, though this is still limited by the spell power caps for the spell cast. For monsters zapping wands, the power is 30 + hit dice. Some monsters, particularly uniques, may start with wands in their inventory, which are identified upon seeing a particular monster for the first time.

Xom is greatly entertained (200) when you use a wand of random effects on yourself or others.

List of wands

Image	Wand	Description	Max charges per individual wand on pickup	Monster version
	Acid	Fires a bolt of acid that may temporarily corrode targets	15
	Charming	Temporarily charms the target	15	Confuses the player
	Digging	Creates a tunnel through rock walls	9
	Flame	Shoots a puff of flame at the target	32
	Iceblast	Creates a 3x3 explosion of cold damage that partially ignores cold resistance	15
	Mindburst	Deals damage to the target; ignores armour, but checks willpower; no effect on mindless targets	24	Damage is reduced to 2/3 of normal
	Paralysis	Temporarily paralyses the target	15
	Polymorph	Changes target into a random creature of similar strength	15	Turns player into a bad form

Images

High-tier wands

Some wands are considered too dangerous to be generated in the inventory of monsters with HD less than 5. Monsters with the No high tier wand flag are also excluded. Ijyb is the exception to this rule.

• Wand of acid
• Wand of iceblast
• Wand of paralysis
• Wand of mindburst
• Wand of charming

History

• In 0.28, overall wand charges were reduced, but eleionomae and fenstrider witches (native to the Swamp) now drop them.
• In 0.27, wands of random effects were replaced with pieces from Xom's chessboard, an XP evocable. Wands of disintegration were renamed into wands of mindburst, which are useless against mindless creatures. Wands of enslavement were renamed into wands of charming.
• In 0.26, wands of clouds were replaced with condenser vanes.
• In 0.25, wands of scattershot were replaced with tins of tremorstones.
• Prior to 0.24, monsters couldn't use wands of iceblast, clouds, or scattershot.
• Prior to 0.22, wands couldn't be used in many transformations.
• Prior to 0.21, wands did not merge on pickup and had a maximum charge limit, though you could have multiple wands of the same type in your inventory. Wands had an unknown number of charges on pickup, and zapping the wand in this state would waste charges. The current number of charges could be discovered by identifying the wand, either by using a scroll of identify or by zapping the wand with Evocations skill (higher skill increased the chances of identifying the remaining charges). Wands were not destroyed upon reaching 0 charges, instead remaining inert in your inventory; scrolls of recharging existed, which would recharge on average about half a wand's charges. 0.21 removed wands of confusion and lightning.
• Prior to 0.20, another type of evocable item called rods was available, and rods of clouds and iron took the place of wands of clouds and scattershot, respectively. Also, Deep dwarves had an innate ability to recharge wands. 0.20 also removed the "big three" wands (heal wounds, hasting, and teleportation), three highly valued helpful wands.
• Prior to 0.18, wands did not display the maximum charges possible when identified. 0.18 also removed the wand of cold, draining, fire, fireball, frost, invisibility, and magic darts, but introduced wands of acid and iceblast. Wands of fire, cold and draining were considered high-tier wands.
• Prior to 0.16, wands were not automatically identified when picked up. However, zapping a wand with an unknown number of charges did not waste any charges.
• Prior to 0.15, wands weighed 10.0 aum each.