Wand

Version 0.21: 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 one charge of the wand will be depleted. 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 normally 30+hit dice, although this can vary greatly depending on the type of wand. Some monsters, particularly uniques, may start with wands in their inventory.

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	Usable by monsters
	Acid	Corrodes the target temporarily	15	Yes
	Clouds	Blasts a cone-shaped area with various destructive clouds	9	No
	Digging	Creates a tunnel through the targeted wall tile	24	Yes
	Disintegration	Disintegrates the target or object	24	Yes, but damage is reduced to 2/3 of normal
	Enslavement	Charms the target temporarily	24	Yes, confuses the player
	Flame	Shoots a puff of flame at the target	48	Yes
	Iceblast	Casts a field explosion of cold	15	No
	Paralysis	Paralyzes the target temporarily	24	Yes
	Polymorph	Target reforms as a random creature	24	Yes
	Random effects	Randomly selects any other wand and duplicates its effect	48	No
	Scattershot	Fires powerful blasts of metallic shrapnel	9	No

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 HT wand flag are also excluded. Ijyb is the exception to this rule.

• Wand of acid
• Wand of iceblast
• Wand of paralysis
• Wand of disintegration

History

Prior to 0.21, wands did not merge on pickup and had a charge limit; hence you could have multiple wands of the same time in your inventory. Wands would not destroy on reaching 0 charges, and scrolls of recharging existed which would recharge on average about half a wand's charges. Wands of confusion and lightning also existed. Wands had an unknown number of charges on pickup, and zapping the wand in this state would waste charges. The number of charges could be found out by identifying the wand, either using a scroll of identify or by zapping the wand with evocations skill, which had a chance to identify it.

Prior to 0.20, wands of heal wounds, haste, teleportation, and slowing existed. Another evocable item called rods were available, and rods of clouds and scattershot were changed into their respective wands.

Prior to 0.20, Deep dwarves had an innate ability to recharge wands.

Prior to 0.18, wands' charge differences were not easily visible even if identified.

0.18 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 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 weighted 10.0 aum each.