Jailbreaker's Wand
Wand, uncommon
This metal wand weighs 3 pounds. The wand has 3 charges, and it regains 1d3 expended charges daily at dawn. You can use an action while holding the wand to expend up to 3 of its charges. When you do, choose a number of metal bars that you can see within 60 feet of you, up to twice the number of charges you spent. The bars are then magically bent in whichever way you like (GM's discretion). The bars remain this way for as long as you concentrate on the effect (as if concentrating on a spell), to a maximum of 10 minutes, at which point the bars revert to their original shape. A creature within the area of the bars when they revert is pushed to one side of them (its choice). To be eligible, a metal bar must be nonmagical, can't be held or carried, and can be no more than 6 inches thick.
It is rumored the first of these was made from bent nails, bedsprings, and the twisted head of a pickaxe for a handle. After all, the kind of mage arrested for crossing the law won't be the type of mage to wait idly for perfect materials and conditions, only for the workable ones.
Comments (2)
I like the descriptor for expending the wand's last charge, but don't you think that's a huge penalty for an uncommon magic item with only 3 charges? It really restricts use of the item, considering none of the other 3-charge wands in the game have that penalty, and that you would likely need to bend two to three bars every time to make a gap big enough for a human to slip through. ...just my two cents.
Not my item, but I see posts like this pretty often. What I'll say is that this seems to come from a meta game view rather than an in-world one. In the world it's perfectly reasonable to think item are regularly created that aren't maximally optimized or equal to "similar" items. The question is why is this item this way, what does it say about the world, and what story/worldbuilding ideas can come from it. I'm not saying you're assessment is wrong, but it is built on a certain perspective. In the real world not all cars are built equal even similar ones and there are real world reasons for that. Same can be true here. Again not saying you are wrong, just trying to explain the different mindsets employed while making items that can lead to these disconnects.