Wands and Staves - Potential Mechanics for Arcane Foci

[Lalliman]

Staves:
- You may increase a spell's spell slot level by one for free when casting it. You may use this feature a number of times equal to half your spell casting modifier each day (Rounded up), and regain all expended uses of this feature on a rest. You must wield the staff with two hands to gain this benefit, and you must have spell slots of the desired level unlocked to be able to use this feature. (i.e. You MUST have access to 2nd level spell slots to upcast Magic Missile.)

EDIT: I just notice you said "rest" not "long rest". If you meant short rest, it might be fine all along.

I think you’re still overvaluing upcasting. With such few charges, the staff is way worse than the wand. Just look at the numbers.

Staff
A 5th level wizard casts a fireball on three enemies. He uses his staff to upcast the fireball into a 4th level slot. Each target takes 9d6 damage on a failed save, for a total average of 94.5 damage.

In the rare chance that someone provokes an OA from him, he can hit them with his staff, which assumably acts like a quarterstaff. Quarterstaves are not finesse weapons, so he probably only has a +3 attack bonus and d8 damage. Total average damage in this case: 99, not counting his decreased hit chance.

Wand
A 5th level wizard casts a fireball on three enemies. Each target takes 8d6 damage on a failed save, for a total average of 84 damage. He then casts fire bolt as a bonus action for another 8.5 average damage*. Total average damage: 92.5.

Spoiler: *Math

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His attack roll with fire bolt is at a -3 penalty. If his normal attack bonus is +7 and the NPCs have 15 AC, that penalty brings his hit chance down from 65% to 50%, which is a relative decrease of 23%. To represent that, we’ll lower the average damage of the fire bolt by 23%. So the average damage of the fire bolt is 11 * 0.77 = 8.5

In the rare chance that someone provokes an OA from him, he can cast another fire bolt for an average of 11 damage. Total average damage in this case: 103.5.


So in this scenario, the staff deals marginally more damage, but only if the wizard doesn’t get an OA, and only the 2-3 times per day that he can actually use the upcasting function. Ergo, the wand is better 95% of the time.

This is only tested with one spell, but it stands to reason that other spells would give similar results. I guess upcasting all the time might be a bit much, but you could at least increase the number of charges to be equal to the spellcasting modifier, and remove the “must have the desired spell slot” restriction. Being able to cast dimension door or polymorph before 7th level is potentially game-altering, but casting a slightly stronger fireball isn’t.

I’m making a point out of this specifically because you say that your games are narrative and not power-gamy. If the system is imbalanced, people are encouraged to power-game. If there are no lesser options, then people have no reason to worry about the mechanics and can make their choices freely.