Option to recharge wands by XXX charges
Syntia13
Member Posts: 514
It would be neat if the High Hedge wizard offered a wand-recharging services.
Technically, we can sell a wand to anyone and buy it back fully charged - but this poses two problems:
1) How to explain that every butcher, baker and candlestick maker knows how to recharge a powerful magical item, and
2) Fully charged wand is insanely expensive, especially for a low-level character.
I can't count the times I nearly burst into tears and cried "But I can only afford two fireballs! Why do you insist on selling me 50 or none!?"
So what I'd like to see is a dialog option with Thalantyr where you can ask 'can you recharge my magic items?', which takes you to a screen similar to a shopping one, except only chargeable items from your inventory are visible, and clicking on them shows you how many charges are left in them, what is maximum number of charges, and a price of one charge. Then you can select your item, chose number of charges you need and/or can afford, and click OK to finish the transaction. Voila, you're, e.g., poorer by 800 gp, but you wand of ice will work three more times before falling apart.
And before that happens, you will hopefully accumulate enough gold to come back and repeat the process, this time buying *gasp* FOUR more charges! Or even five! 
In BG2:EE the same service could be offered by Deidre at Adventurer's Mart, and scroll-selling Drow in Underdark.
Technically, we can sell a wand to anyone and buy it back fully charged - but this poses two problems:
1) How to explain that every butcher, baker and candlestick maker knows how to recharge a powerful magical item, and
2) Fully charged wand is insanely expensive, especially for a low-level character.
I can't count the times I nearly burst into tears and cried "But I can only afford two fireballs! Why do you insist on selling me 50 or none!?"
So what I'd like to see is a dialog option with Thalantyr where you can ask 'can you recharge my magic items?', which takes you to a screen similar to a shopping one, except only chargeable items from your inventory are visible, and clicking on them shows you how many charges are left in them, what is maximum number of charges, and a price of one charge. Then you can select your item, chose number of charges you need and/or can afford, and click OK to finish the transaction. Voila, you're, e.g., poorer by 800 gp, but you wand of ice will work three more times before falling apart.
And before that happens, you will hopefully accumulate enough gold to come back and repeat the process, this time buying *gasp* FOUR more charges! Or even five! In BG2:EE the same service could be offered by Deidre at Adventurer's Mart, and scroll-selling Drow in Underdark.
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Comments
Although, needless to say, certain wands should be restricted to not be rechargeable (the Breach and Resurrection wands come in mind, which are kind of OP as they are already, especially if used by a simulacrum)
Another way to fix the above issue would be to simply make it expensive as hell for those two wands to be recharged.
Perhaps there could be a wand level based on the spell it casts and the price would be 100 x spLevel /charge... or something
Unless you pro rata the cost of charges i.e. buying a wand for 10,000gp that has ten charges or you could opt to recharge at 1,000gp per charge
L.
Would it? Can't we already sell a set number of potions / scrolls / arrows from our stack by double clicking and moving the slider? Something similar could be applied to wand recharge I'd have thought.
Also forgot to say in original post I think it's a great idea!
wand of monster summoning - 298 gp
wand of cloudkill - 214 gp
wand of fire - 202 gp
wand of lightning - 190 gp
wand of frost - 101 gp
wand of missiles - 59 gp.
Those are, I think, suitable prices which could be used in recharging screen. Especially at lower levels, this would be a still a tough decision - do I keep that awesome longsword +1 I just found, or do I sell it to buy 1, maybe 2 charges for my awesome new wand?
Curiously, the cheapest-per-charge wands of missiles and frost got charged up to 100, while the rest only got up to 50 charges.
So in the end, most fully charged wands in BG2 cost around and above 10 000 gp, putting the player before a choice - buy two wands, or rescue Imoen?
Um, I think I'm starting to babble. My apologies, it's been a long day. I'm gonna go now.
So if a spell of Cloudkill costs 500gp, 10 charges of a wand should cost 5000gp.
Also this recharging could/should be dialog based:
"Aahhhh you have a wand of Cloudkill with 3 charges left. I can recharge it for you."
CHARNAME:
1. No I want to charge another wand
2. No let me see your other wares
3. Yes what will it cost
"Only 500gp per charge, a bangain I would say"
1. Ok charge it up to 5 chages for 1000gp
2. Ok charge it up to 10 charges for 3500gp
3. ....
4. ....
5. No I don't have that account of money
From a flavor perspective I'd like to see the sell/rebuy method removed altogether (items are re-sold with the same number of charges), and recharging implemented through one of the methods suggested, ONLY from magic speciality vendors like High Hedge or Sorcerous Sundries.
Another thing is, the scrolls are quite expensive. Having to pay 14000 gp for ten charges would defeat the purpose of the recharge option. (I might as well just pay 11000 for a wand with 50 charges).
The way I see it, buying a scroll - or actual wand - would be like buying a new Walkman, a can be as expensive as the developers see fit. But recharging a wand would be like buying new batteries for your Walkman - not free, but not as expensive as the product itself either. I think the prices the game currently uses are fine - just let me buy charges one at a time, rather than only in bundles of 50 or 100. Um... that is not the best idea. Considering that there are 10 different kinds of wands in BG, and that I can potentially gather them all and have more than one wand of the same kind, this would mean up to 30 opening dialog options (you have wand of fire with 3 charges and a wand of fire with 7 charges and a wand of ice with 4 charges... etc.)
And then it would be up to 50 (and for some wands up to 100!) responses regarding number of charges. (I want to buy 1 charge, I want to buy 2 charges, I want to buy 3 charges... etc).
A shopping screen tweaked to act as recharging screen, where I click a wand and click 'buy' for single charge, or double click a wand to buy multiple charges, would be much easier to manage. (Possibly also easier to code, but I don't know for sure, since I have no clue about coding).
@Elzarath That's exactly what I meant. Or alternatively, the wand itself could be more expensive, let's say, 1000-5000 gp for a wand, plus 60 - 300 gp per charge. E.g.:
wand of missiles with 10 charges = (1000 + 10x60) = 1600,
wand of monster summoning with five charges = (5000 + 5x300) = 6500.
And if you happen to find/loot a wand during your travels, you only pay for additional charges. My thoughts exactly.
As for pricing charges, that is a matter that requires some consideration:
- Actual wands should be rare and expensive. After all, they are in many cases (certainly in BG1) a much more efficient way of casting spells than regular spellbook casting: less casting time, no chance of interruption, and can be used a comparatively large number of times per combat (as long as there are charges left). On the other hand they have fixed caster levels, which means that a wand of missiles, for instance, can't quite compare to casting an actual magic missile spell.
- Once you have acquired a wand, I agree that the recharge price should be less than the price of a new wand/number of charges, but it should be enough that you won't be running around spamming fireballs and cloudkills at every corner...
- An argument could be made that charges should be more expensive than scrolls for the corresponding spells, as you'd typically prefer buying wand charges over a stack of scrolls (beyond the first one required to copy the spell to your spellbook)... Perhaps if the wand is difficult enough to obtain in the first place, it would be easier to justify cheaper recharging.
I didn't know that. That's a very interesting concept and if it was implemented in the game in a way that would allow me to create my own magic items, I'd ...do something embarrassing out of joy. (I'm a tinkerer. The only thing I remember fondly from NWN2, was putting my own enchantments on everything). I'm not sure how well would it blend with BG though, or if it could be implemented at all. Uh... you realize that in the original game, every single vendor can 'recharge' wands, right? Which is one of the reasons why I created that thread - to propose that only mages can do that, and with a separate screen that would clearly indicate that some specific work is done with the wand, rather the current 'sell empty, instantly buy back full' mechanic.
And if you are making Magic Items, you also have to add the spell "Permanence" or you have created a 1 use item (like the Wands in Irenicus's dungeon if you remove them from the trap). And every time you cast Permanence, it costs you 1 point of Constitution, regainable only through a Restoration spell...
That said, recharging a wand could operate under a similar principle. Assume a healthy profit for recharging the wand - this will prevent players from making money of their own wands, and limit the ridiculousness of continually recharging them.
If so, then that might be a way to go about it. I like the idea of being able to see the number of remaining charges directly from the inventory screen.