Rod

Obsolete: This article refers to an aspect of the game which has been removed. It is retained for historical reference only.

A rod is a magical cudgel, similar to a wand or magical staff, but with some key differences.

Useful Info

Rods are equivalent to clubs in melee, without its stabbing bonus (including use of Maces & Flails skill).

When wielded, a rod can be evoked for a variety of magical effects. Unlike spells, wand have their own MP pool. It replenishes and depletes independently from your own MP pool. Evocations skill increases the strength of cast spells, as well as the MP regeneration rate.

Rods are displayed as a +X rod of <name> (Y/Z).

• +X is enchantment of the rod. This increases a rods melee damage, as well as its MP recharge rate. A base +0 rod recharges at ~ 0.04 MP/turn, and each +1 adds +0.01 MP/turn. Evocations also increase recharge rate by 0.057 MP/turn.
• <name> is the type of rod, which influences the spells the rod can cast.
• Y is the current MP of the rod, and Z is the maximum MP of the rod.

A scroll of recharging will add +1d2 to enchantment and maximum mana. The Deep Dwarf recharging ability works in the same way. Rods have a limit of +9 enchantment and 17 max MP.

Spell power is solely based on Evocations skill; each spell cast by a rod has a power of 5 + 3 * Evocations.

Hunger cost

Hunger reduction works differently from spells. Rod spells have the same base hunger cost as a spell of its level, but this is reduced by 10 × Evocations, instead of Intelligence × Spellcasting. Additionally, spell hunger from rods cannot be fully eliminated; there will always be a hunger cost of at least 5.

The reported hunger cost can be decoded to the following:

Reported cost	Per-casting cost
#......	5-20
##.....	21-60
###....	61-120
####...	121-200
#####..	201-300
######.	301-420
#######	420+

For reference, a flesh chunk gives 1,000 nutrition, and meat ration gives 5,000.

Tips & Tricks

• While a +9 rod may seem appealing, it only hits as hard as a club. Rods are generally ineffectual as melee weapons.
• Maxing out rods may require more scrolls of recharging than you have on hand, and you may wish to save some of those for useful wands. Nonetheless, it helps to at least tune useful rods up so that their max MP is an even multiple of the cost of the most frequently used spell.
• Most rods found laying around in the dungeon have mediocre or even negative recharge rates, but a rod generated by a scroll of acquirement will usually have a high recharge rate. So long as Evocations higher than all your other magic skills, you have 80% chance to get a rod you don't already own if you request a staff. Trog worshipers who select a staff from an acquirement will either receive a rod or a staff of energy.

Comparison to Spellcasting

Rods do have advantages over regular spellcasting, but they also have several shortcomings.

Advantages

• Rod use is independent of your stats or EV penalty. This allows heavy armoured players or those focused entirely on dexterity or strength to successfully cast some higher-level spells easily.
• Rod use only requires training in Evocations, which many magic-deficient races still have a decent aptitude in.
• Rod spell power is not subject to stepdowns: it simply scales with your Evocations skill.
• Rods do not drain your own MP, leaving it free for other things.
• Spells from rods need not be memorized, leaving your spell levels free for other things.
• Rods can be used while silenced.

Disadvantages

• Rod use is independent of your stats. Thus, high-stat races such as elves and Demigods enjoy no advantage in spell power, failure rate, or hunger costs when using them.
• Rods must be wielded to evoke spells from them. This significantly decreases tactical flexibility in using rods, is annoying for weapon-wielders and can prove a real danger if the rod should end up cursed somehow.
• Rods are ultimately capped at 86 power. This has a significant impact on higher-level spells like Iron Shot.
• The hunger cost of rod use can be significant for some races. Spriggans in particular may want to use rods sparingly.
  • Rod hunger can never be entirely eliminated. While the 5 nutrition minimum is generally ignorable, the minimum costs for level 5 and 6 spells (80 and 280, respectively) from rods are not.
• Rods have a fairly small pool of mana, capped at 17, which can limit the usefulness of spells that you will want to cast repeatedly, such as Abjuration.
• Rods have a somewhat limited selection of spells, and you must obtain relevant rods first.
• Rods take up space in your inventory, whereas spells do not.

Images

See Also

• List of rods
• Magical staff
• Wands

History

All rod items were removed in 0.20. The lightning rod was converted into an evocable, while the rod of clouds and iron rod were converted into wands.