Wands should require being wielded before they can be zapped; this way it adds a bit more strategy for the player on when to wield a wand and which one, and balances them a bit relative to monsters. On the other end of the change, you now get a turn or two of warning when a monster is about to zap a wand, because they have to wield it.
Rangers break wands on their knee rather than raising it high over their head, because that’s what they’re used to doing with firewood.
Shopkeepers value empty wands at 0 and will not buy them.
Wearing rings that correspond in appearance to wands double, augment, or otherwise enhance those wands’ effects, including possibly turning a beam into a cone shaped blast.
This could also extend to drinking potions with matching appearances to worn rings, such as drinking a ruby or emerald potion while wearing a ruby or emerald ring.
Allow wielding some types of traditional magical implements to reduce spell failure rates:
New role, the Artificer:
Also see dtsund’s proposed Tinker role.
Zapping a wand with no charges remaining, if it fails to wrest with the usual odds, will cancel it instead of letting it crumble to dust. This allows you to recharge the wand.
A reduced version of the Wands Balance Patch in which there is still a new wand-use skill, but not varying wand effects at different levels of skill (because the skill of the wielder shouldn’t affect the magic in the wand). Instead, increased wand skill gives you higher accuracy (no more/much less missing Rodney with a death ray, for instance) and perhaps other perks such as being able to zap a wand once per turn as a bonus action, as with a stethoscope.
Zapping directional wands while stuck in a pit restricts the range of the wand to 1, basically shot at an angle to hit something right next to the pit.
Wearing gauntlets of dexterity allows you to quick-draw a wand (zapping any wand in your inventory as a half action, similar to applying a stethoscope - it costs no time but can only be done once per action).
Also, they allow you to use a container in inventory as a half action. For balance, you should probably only be able to do one half-action thing per turn.
When zapping a wand when confused, one of the potential random directions to zap is at yourself. This could potentially apply to any directional prompt, not just wands.
Instead of electricity blowing up your wands and rings, it makes you incapable of using rings (and potentially disables your rings’ extrinsics) for a few turns.
Artifact wand that causes monsters trying to zap wands at the wielder to drop them instead.
Creatures that get caught in a wand’s explosion (from the wand actually breaking, not from the regular effect of the wand) become uncancelled, unless the exploding wand is a wand of cancellation. Notably, this can be used by the player to remove the Cancelled status.
Zapping a wand requires touching it, so unless you are wearing gloves, this causes you to incur any effects, such as silver damage, from handling something of its material. Conversely, monsters usually won’t use a wand that will hurt them (unless they’re wearing gloves), and will incur material effects if they do.
Change one of the existing boring wand descriptions to “gold”, and make its material gold, for the purposes of being stealable by leprechauns.
When a disenchanter hits you, it may drain charges from your wands instead of your armor.
You must have at least one free hand to zap a wand. Otherwise the game won’t let you.
Wielding a wand will give you an accuracy or damage bonus with that wand. Or if the Wands Balance Patch is implemented, you get the effects of the wand at the next skill level. Monsters will always wield wands they intend to use, so you will usually see them doing so before they get a chance to take you by surprise with a fire or death ray.
Spell of blindness (possibly also available as a wand), which blinds monsters.
Beams and rays from wands have a slightly reduced range if the wand is cursed, and a boosted range if it is blessed.
If you throw a wand upwards and hit yourself on the head with it, it consumes a charge and zaps yourself. Come to think of it, this should extend to wielding a wand and hitting monsters with it.
Wand of detect magic. Non-directional; if you are carrying any items in your inventory which are magical, “You feel a magical aura inside your knapsack.”, and any object classes in open inventory which are magical but not type-identified are identified as being magical.
Wand of charging: non-directional wand that uncursed-charges an item in inventory. Will explode if an attempt is made to recharge it.
Wand of identify: a non-directional wand that will always identify one item when zapped.
Shopkeepers won’t buy wands from you if they are empty.
For variants with wand skill, higher wand skill improves the outcomes from snapping a wand. Ideas include increasing the effective number of remaining charges, increasing the explosion radius, and decreasing the damage the player takes.
You can consolidate wands of the same type by rubbing them on each other. This transfers one less than the number of charges in the wand (or just 1 charge if the wand has only one charge), and increments the recharge counter of the new wand. Overcharging a wand like this beyond its normal generation limits is likely to make it explode.
Give cursed wands some bad effects other than rarely exploding, such as a cursed wand of fire also hitting your own inventory.
When you crush a monster who is carrying a wand with a drawbridge, the wand explodes.
Wand breaking effects that depend on the number of remaining charges use (charges+1) instead of (charges), to account for the wrest charge.
A wand that, when it hits a creature, saves that creature’s position and forces it to teleport back to that position after a few turns.
Artifact whose invoke power creates attack wands.
Proposed nerfs for ring and wand destruction due to electric damage (some of them extensible to scrolls, spellbooks and potions for fire and cold damage):
Wands may generate pre-recharged.
