Why no wands?

[Regiz]

It's disappointing that there's only staves in BG3 that require two hands and there's no wands that require one hand... They should've at least added a feat that makes staves only require one hand. I used a shield + wand on all my magic focused party members in Divinity Original Sin 2. And they sort of force you to use 4 party members. It would be nice to have something like lone wolf from DOS2.

[Piperbird]

IIRC from BG1 and 2, wands only had so many charges and then were done. They were used the same way as scrolls or potions, so you'd still use your regular weapons in your hands.

You wouldn't use like a wand in one hand and a shield in the other.

[Orion Invictus]

Staves are versatile, meaning you CAN wield them one-handed with a shield in the other hand. There's also a feat for dual-wielding non-light weapons that lets you dual-wield staves.

[Meewec]

staffs are versatile. they get a d8 when 2-handed or a d6 when one handed, just equip a shield.

i did run into a wand somewhere, never looked into the fire resistance to actually want to use it.

[LordNibbler]

Like the others said, your character just needs Shield Proficiency to avoid penalties but otherwise the Shield+Staff combo is absolutely possible.

There's also a "Crooked Wand of Fireballs" in the game that you can find (which casts Fireball), but that's just a one time use (and another wand that has no function other than being sold for some gold). So "no wands" is technically false... :P

[seeker1]

So, there is this mod ...

https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/5458

If you use a smithing tool, you can change these wands from melee weapons to ranged weapons (which makes far more sense to me).

To me, it makes a lot more sense for wizards to be using these as ranged weapons than (say) a light crossbow, which is usually the only alternative (as darts & slings are not in the game).

Then you can have a staff in main hand, and wand in your ranged slot, and have the benefits of both ...

[Brian_the_Brute]

There is a mod where you can smith attributes on weapons. One of the choices is to make a weapon have the LIGHT attribute, so you can dual wield staffs (like they are wands) without having to spend a feat on something the game should have allowed in the first place.

https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/6265