Jul18
on July 18, 2017
Rock Fell, Nobody Died
There is the tension when you have a semi-consumable magical item that can solve your problems at hand, but it has limited charges and might go away if you use the last one. You have to balance the reward of being at full strength versus resting for a day or two against the permanent loss of an item. Consumables are tricky in that way, especially in tabletop games where you might not necessarily ever get them back: you can’t just reload and try it again or trust that a local shop will always have an semi-endless supply of expendable items. A hoarding instinct kicks in, and you want to save the consumable items – it’s treasure after all (!) – even if you really need to use it to continue adventuring.
You did hit a weak spot here… it took many years of gaming to learn how to discern when to use consumables. At first I was a hoarder, then I passed through the “heck, use all of them” phase.
Now, when I build up a new character, I can finally calculate how many charges a healing wand needs to have (in 3.5) to let me reach the level when I’ll no longer need it (due to feats).
But I’ve also heard of magic users deeply convinced that hurtling on a wand the same spell it contains recharges it… the guy had a wand of fireballs, and tried the process while travelling with his party on a raft in the middle of a river. Good thing he wasn’t in my playing group.