Wand of Wonder spoilers

[Derakon]

I just thought I'd look up the effects a Wand of Wonder can have, after getting a message from it I didn't recognize ("You feel a surge of power!") that is apparently intended to facilitate ID-by-use. Anyway, when you aim a Wand of Wonder, the game rolls d100 and adds clvl / 5 to the result (thus generating a number from 11 to 110 for a level-50 character). The die determines the effect:

    1-7: Clone Monster
   8-13: Haste Monster
  14-25: Heal Monster (4d6HP restored)
  26-30: Polymorph Monster
  31-35: Fires a possibly-beaming magic missile dealing 
         (3 + (clvl - 1) / 5)d4 damage (up to 12d4)
  36-40: Confuse Monster with power clvl
  41-45: Fires a radius-3 poison ball dealing 20 + clvl / 2 damage (up to 40)
  46-50: As Spear of Light (lights a line dealing 6d8 damage to susceptible monsters)
  51-55: Fires a lightning beam dealing (3 + (clvl - 5) / 6)d6 damage (up to 10d6)
  56-60: Fires a possibly-beaming frost bolt dealing 
         (5 + (clvl - 5) / 4)d8 damage (up to 16d8)
  61-65: Fires a possibly-beaming acid bolt dealing 
         (6 + (clvl - 5) / 4)d8 damage (Up to 17d8)
  66-70: Fires a possibly-beaming fire bolt dealing 
         (8 + (clvl - 5) / 4)d8 damage (up to 19d8)
  71-75: Fires a drain-life bolt dealing 75 damage to 
         the non-(demon/undead/golem/elemental/vortex) target
  76-80: Fires a radius-2 electrical ball dealing 30 + clvl / 2 damage (up to 55)
  81-85: Fires a radius-2 acid ball dealing 40 + clvl damage (up to 90)
  86-90: Fires a radius-3 cold ball dealing 70 + clvl damage (up to 120)
  91-95: Fires a radius-3 fire ball dealing 80 + clvl damage (up to 130)
 96-100: Fires a drain-life bolt dealing 100 + clvl damage 
         (same target restrictions as noted earlier) (up to 150 damage)
101-103: Causes a radius-12 earthquake.
104-105: Causes a radius-15 Destruction effect.
106-107: Performs a Banish effect (single monster type with prompt)
    109: Deals 120 damage to all monsters in line of sight
    110: Dealings 150 damage to all monsters in line of sight; 
         slows all monsters in line of sight with power clvl; 
         sleeps all monsters in line of sight with power clvl; 
         heals the player for 300HP.

Personally I think the Banish effect should be replaced by Mass Banish, since that seems more random than getting to choose which monster type goes away. Otherwise, it'd be nice if the player's level had more of an impact on the effects selected; as it is the only effect you can get to go away entirely is Clone Monster. The wand only becomes entirely beneficial IMO once Polymorph Other is no longer an option. Of course by that point the effects are likely too weak to rely on. Certainly I doubt anyone has ever seen the 110 effect, though my current character managed a perfect 100 roll, getting him an earthquake -- another impetus to check out the spoilers.

Ideally, I think it'd be neat if this wand looked broadly like this at the following character levels:

1: Even odds of heal monster / haste monster / clone monster / stinking cloud / frost bolt
20: Even odds of haste monster / polymorph monster / spear of light / acid bolt / fire ball
35: Even odds of any elemental ball / drain life (300) / earthquake / teleport-away
45: Even odds of acid ball / dispel all (200) / drain life (500) / Destruction / heal self (300)

In other words, the wand would always be unreliable, but it would at least generate effects that, at the level at which you use them, you would appreciate if you could summon them reliably. Of course, getting a Destruction when you wanted to deal damage would be annoying (as would getting an acid ball when you were hoping against hope for a Destruction), but that's the name of the game. It'd be awesome to see people diving for those Wands of Wonder when they get into a serious bind.

[Chud]

Originally Posted by Derakon

It'd be awesome to see people diving for those Wands of Wonder when they get into a serious bind.

I agree completely! I do go for that wand when in a bind... but, only before about cl 10-20 or so, depending on class. After that the odds that it will do something that will really get me out of the bind are low enough that it almost never seems the best choice.

[will_asher]

I think what you're looking at there is the effects of the wonder mage spell. The wand of wonder just imitates the effect of a random wand excluding the few most powerful ones (like dragon's breath) unless that's been changed since 3.0.9 (obviously a lot has changed since then, but I don't remember any mention of this change).

[Sirridan]

It has, I've fired off a few wonder wands (heh, sounds funny) and I've gotten the earthquake and destruction effects more than a few times.

[Derakon]

No, this is the wand. I got to this code (effect_wonder() in effects.c) by seeking out the phrase "You feel a surge of power!" which I got when I zapped the wand; this is the only place in the code where that phrase shows up.

Besides, I went looking for it right after getting an earthquake effect.

[will_asher]

/me is out of the loop. that's why I shouldn't comment on V threads much anymore.

[buzzkill]

It seems odd to me that (any) wand behavior is infulenced by CL. I could see device skill, maybe.