5e Wands: Nice in Theory

One of the aspects of 5e that I really liked on my read-through was the handling of wands (and staves, and similar items), which I thought was a marked step up from their handling in 3e. In particular, I liked that wands had far fewer charges, I liked that they slowly recharged overnight, and I liked that they had a chance on crumbling away when the last charge was expended (but, crucially, that it wasn't guaranteed, thus encouraging PCs to take that risk with the last charge).

However, having played through a fairly long campaign now, I've found that I'm not so enamoured with the way wands are handled. My reasons for this are two-fold: firstly, the PCs have a bit too much certainty when it comes to tracking the number of charges; and the chance of the wand crumbling with the last charge just isn't high enough.

They're just that bit too generous and too controlled.

My inclination is the make the following four changes to all wands (and staves and similar items):

1. The user does not know how many charges they have.
   
2. Each time a wand is used, there is a 50% chance that one additional charge is expended. (Also, see below.)
   
3. If the last charge is expended, there is a 25% chance of the wand being destroyed.
   
4. The wand recharges 1d3 charges overnight.

In the event that there are not enough charges remaining to power the desired effect, whether due to the use of an extra charge or simply because there were fewer charges remaining than the user expected, nothing happens - the wand does not lose any charges, but no effect occurs. The effect of these changes should be still leave wands as a valuable treasure, and one that PCs are reasonably confident of using fairly regularly. However, they're less controlled than before, which should mean either that they will rely on other powers more often or they'll incur that chance of destruction more often. And, indeed, wands will probably become a treasure that is useful for a few levels but that then eventually drops out of the game - which is also no bad thing.

Of course, I haven't had a chance to test any of these changes in play as yet, and won't until my next campaign. So for now, consider them as random thoughts and little more than that.