<font color="cyan">True, but then it is easier to use the spell!!!
Hmm, I may have to concede though that they do have a use!</font>

There is nothing like the Wand of Monster Summoning! In the final battle I had the bad guy knee deep in yipping war dogs. He could pulverize one with each swing, but the pile of them kept him busy while we pincushoned him from afar.

I resorted to using the wands of Sleep and Fear a couple of times early on with my specialist mage party. I've never soloed it through a game, but if I were to do that I would go and get those two wands at High Hedge right away.

The Wand of Heavens and Wand of Frost both do 8d6 damage. Those two were my favorites when I did use them. And of course the Wand Monster Summoning was a huge help in many a battle back when.

[ 02-10-2002: Message edited by: Lemernis ]</p>

Well lets see...

I use:
Monster summoning
fireball
heavans
frost
paralysation

I dislike:
magic missiles (apart from on level 1)

I dont like magic missile because my mage can do a much better magic missile.
I like fireball because you can send an invisible character in with a wand against massed enemies.
I like frost and heavens because of the 8d6 damage each.
I like paralysation wand because against a mass of low-level enemies (say bandits or the like) it will knock most of them out.

<font color="cyan">After playing today, I decided to drop my dislike of the wand of fire. I kept it set on Fireball status, and I have now decided it is one of my favourite wands. It came in real useful when I had to pelt millions of skeleton warriors in the chamber in Durlags.

I like this wand.....I think I'm going to go,,,<font color="red">b<font color="orange">u<font color="red">r<font color="orange">n</font></font></font></font> something</font>

[ 02-11-2002: Message edited by: Lavindathar ]</p>

I seem to have developed an addiction to monster summoning after coming back to BG from SOA, had about 50 gnolls running around in the warder's room [img]smile.gif[/img] - they couldn't hurt them, but it sure made it easier to hit them with arrows.

Other than that, Frost is excellent when you've got an enemy surrounded and Fire when they're running at you.

*----Oh crap, that's an awful picture! Why is it there??

I use wands sparingly and don't accumulate them.

I use:
Wand of Heavens in situations that call for a drastic action
Lightening Wand with my specilaty mage
Fire Wand
Magic Missle Wand (this is helpful to stop enemy mage spell casting, even if it doesn't do a lot of "damage" per se)

The Wand of Frost is okay, but you have to use it as a first attack to wittle down the hit points if you want to be able to get the target's items afterwards.
I overused the Monster Summoning one the first time through, relying on it to win the tough final battles. I think a better solution is to have a cleric cast Animate Dead and maybe, if the circumstances are right, have a mage cast Stinking Cloud for them to operate in.

[ 02-12-2002: Message edited by: Katherine ]</p>

Using a Wand of Fire to Fireball bad guys while out of their sight range is cheesy, but hey, so's the final battle.

My favorites:
Wand of Frost
Wand of Fire
Wand of the Heavens

Other good ones:
Paralyzation (early on)
Monster Summoning (although I prefer using Animate Dead)
Magic Missile (rarely--lets my Fighters hit the Doomsayer, etc.)

I sell all the others. I've NEVER managed to make the Wand of Polymorphing work.