RODS, STAVES, WANDS

Rods are about 3-ft long and as thick as your thumb. Rods are fashioned from metal, strange wood, ivory or bone. They can be plain or decorated and carved, tipped or not. 

Staves are about 5-ft or 6-ft long and as thick as a young sapling, i.e. about an inch and a half at the base, tapering to an inch at the tip, although they can be of nearly equal diameter throughout, knurled, etc. Staves are typically fashioned of wood, often carved, usually metal bound and shod, and likely to be gnarly and twisted. They can be unusual or appear to be ordinary. 

Wands are 1¼-ft long and slender. Wands are of ivory, bone, or wood and are usually tipped with something - metal, crystal, stone, etc. They are fragile and tend to break easily.

Rods and wands will usually be found in cases or similar storage places. Staves stand sturdily alone. In neither case is concealment precluded, of course.

Unless noted to the contrary, these items will have the following number of charges; each time the item is used, there is an expenditure of 1 charge (the user will not necessarily be aware of the number of charges in an item:

• RODS: 50 charges minus 0 to 9 (d10 - 1)

• STAVES: 25 charges minus 0 to 5 (dó - 1)

• WANDS: 100 charges minus 0 to 19 (d20 - 1)

Most of these items can be recharged by spell users of sufficiently high level. This is discussed elsewhere under the heading FABRICATION OF MAGIC ITEMS. 

Note that a rod, staff or wand completely drained will become forever useless, crumbling to powder as its last charge is expended.

Use of Rods, Staves, and Wands:

Any device of this nature which discharges some form of magic over a distance (that is, the device does not require touch or contact with the object or creature to be affected) must generally have a command word spoken in order to cause the device to function. 

Thus, a wand of lightning, for example, might require the utterance of the key word "blitzen" in order to discharge, or it might have a key phrase to cause it to function, such as "Watt and ampere, volt and ohm" (possibly even extending to: "...let this discharge find its home!"). A wand of polymorphing, or other similar device performing a like function, would require a key word and the new form to be made by the power: "Xot's the word, be a bird!" or some such. 

Magical silence will most certainly prevent such devices from functioning.

COMMAND WORDS

In order to use a rod, staff or wand, it is usually necessary to know the proper command word. There are several possible ways to acquire this knowledge. If the item is/was in the possession of an opponent, it may be possible to learn the appropriate word or phrase directly, either by noting what he or she says when using the item, or by causing the possessor to divulge the information through force or trickery. It is common for spell-users to keep such information recorded among their hidden scrolls and spell books, in case their memories should somehow become impaired (or simply prove insufficient) and the words be forgotten.

If none of these sources should fit the situation, and the item was not found with an accompanying scroll explaining its use and history, it may be necessary to resort to informational spells such as contact other plane, legend lore or speak with dead.

Rods

Unless specified otherwise, rods radiate a magical effect which influences creatures hostile to the wielder.

Staves

Unless inapplicable or otherwise specified, staves function at the 8th level of magic-use, i.e. their spell discharge is that of an 8th level of experience magic-user with respect to range, duration, area of effect.

The magic functions of a staff generally require only 2 segments to discharge, but the device must then build up power again, and this requires 8 segments.

Damage is nominally 8d6 with respect to fireballs, lightning bolts, etc.

Wands

Wands perform at 6th level of experience with respect to the damage they cause, range, duration, area of effect, etc. unless otherwise stated.

At your option 1% of all wands are trapped to backfire.