I was using the word wand in my comment in order to make a connection between Mr. Howard's words and the topic. But seriously, I've got a question for you and everyone else who is expressing similar opinions. Why are people so hostile against wands? In this case, please do correct me if I'm wrong: a wand is an item that takes up one hand, and can be used to cast a spell. Correct? It's fine to believe that a staff possesses different characteristics than a wand. Why would we have regular wands in Skyrim when we have the larger staff. It's not like Dovahkiin can't carry a staff, and needs to resort to a half-pound wand. At the very least, it would throw off his/her balance during combat, and we wouldn't want that. That being said, what is the true different between a staff and a wand? We're arguing so much against wands, and for what? As Todd has shown, one-handed spell-casting wooden instruments will be included in the game. Todd calls the light-casting one a staff. It's a staff. That's exactly what it is. It fits every traditional definition of a staff. That's all I'm really trying to say. If you want wands, they're called staves. If you don't want wands, then that's okay, we have staves instead.

As for what honestly feels like an attack regarding the number of hands that can hold a staff in Skyrim... there is no rulebook for Skyrim. You have no confirmation that we cannot use two hands to wield a staff in Skyrim. The one thing that we can see is that you can use a single hand for that particular staff. We can extrapolate that there are more staves, and that at least some of them (if not all) will fit in a single hand. You are corrent about the staff casting a light spell. We don't know if any staff at all will require two hands, or will have the option of being held in both hands. I won't even speculate on a parallel relationship between dual wield casting and combined hand casting as it relates to staves. All I really want to say is that you're coming at me in a very odd way. I know I'm trying to be lightly confrontational, but it's weird to attack the two-handed comment since that had very little to do with my original post.

Instead of using WAND what about ROD or SCEPTER?


That's it MAGICAL SCEPTERS!!!!

Nine times out of Ten, a witch (if there are any in Skyrim) would more likely use a wand than a staff. That way they can be all secretive and hide their witchy ways.

STUPIFY

I just can't grasp the reason of instead of using the a cool-looking wooden staff from mystic origins powered by magicka, using a small little twig and yelling words. That's not how magic in the Elder Scrolls works.
Wand User: "I'll harm you...'
Staff User: "Go ahead, make my day."

My idea of wands is that they provide a bonus to magic use, in the form of reduced magicka cost, or added damage or effects, or cast speed. It's not necessarily that the wands themselves have enchantments, but that they facilitate the casting of magic by the mage.

I like this idea. A means of focusing the user's personal potential rather than an item with it's own innate magical properties.

Okay a couple points.

-Where people get that wands aren't "epic" or anything are off base. Just because they're small doesn't mean they can't be awesome. A machete is pretty cool, but does that make a balisong any less cool?

-Just because Harry Potter had wands, doesn't detract from them at all. Twilight has vampires, does that mean you don't want them in Skyrim? The point is there's no way we're gonna be going around seeing elder wands everywhere.

Besides...Harry Potter is awesome.