Charged Wands

[Zocelot]

One of my players wants to bring charged wands into the game. What he describes is an item that lets you use wizard/warlock encounter powers, but doesn't count towards your encounter powers used. Eventually, they would run out of charges.

I say it's unbalanced to have a character potentially not having to use at-wills during a combat encounter, but my player is in love with the idea. Any ideas on a rule system to make this work?

Thanks

[Burley]

Here's a way to make it work. He has one magic item encounter power her encounter. Even if you (for some horrible reason) give him a dozen of these wands, he may only use one per encounter. All that would do is give him a temporary (based on the number of charges) bonus that all other wands would giver permanently (while in possession).
I say, run it the same way you'd run a normal wand, but put in...20 charges, drop the cost a bit and maybe the level by one. If they critically fumble (I know 4e did away with it), the wand is useless for the rest of the day, as well as the charge being wasted.

Give him the item, but make it suck so hard that it isn't worth his time.

[Tadanori Oyama]

I would create a new option, like the one for daily magic item abilities. A herotic character can use one daily item a day, with one new one for each milestone they hit along the way.

Use a similar system of encounter powers with the wands (or whatever items) and find a number that works for you. The idea of the new magic items is that they draw energy out of the user, limiting how often they can be used.

It sounds like your play is trying to squeeze more power out of their character and you shouldn't let them.

[Shadow_Elf]

You could make it so that it was only for wizard at-will powers (i.e. Magic Missile) and then they could use the wand for as many charges as they had for it and it wouldn't be as rigged. For example, if you had a Rogue with a Wand of Scorching Burst (20) he could use it 20 times before it ran out. Has anyone here played Diablo II, since there's charged stuff in that that doesn't end up rigged. D2 charged stuff was hella expensive to recharge though.