Having a Rod of Wonder means never having to say you’re sorry.

OK, maybe it does but it certainly is one of the funnest magic items out there.
Let me tell you a little about our Friday Pathfinder game. We’re running two adventure paths on alternating weeks but the one that’s important for this story is Council of Thieves. We have a nice little party; a half orc bard, a halfling paladin, a half elf cleric/rogue and me, a halfling sorcerer. This week we ran into a little problem. The paladin couldn’t make it and being in the middle of a dungeon run.
Needless to say things got really hairy.
First, we faced off against the calikang. This little (OK, big) beastie pretty much ate our lunch. The DM was feeling generous so he didn’t let the thing do a TPK but it could have easily and should of. By the time the calikang fell, both the bard and the rogue/cleric were down and I was standing there with 7 HP and beating the creature’s unconscious body with my staff just for good measure.
And then we had to face the boss. Have mentioned how much D&D vampires annoying me? Well this fight went slightly better. Of course, I looked down my spell list and started checking things off. A good chunk of my spell list fell into one of two categories; either won’t work on undead (charm person, confusion et al) or will help undead (enervation). Plus throw in the fact, that I was pretty low on spells. For most of the fight (most of the damage that was done) was from the good old magic missiles. But even those were running low. Time to pull out the big guns. The trusty Rod of Wonder. The other player’s grimaced but they were they were used to such tactics from this character. So the first time, things didn’t quite go as planned. The problem with monsters with class levels is that sometimes they get things like evasion, so that fire ball only succeeded in scorching most of the party. But later when the vampire shifts into gaseous form and tries to get away. Rod of Wonder powers go. Need that Gust of Wind. Oh, yeah. I got it. And the DM let the Rule of Cool prevail and we ended up taking out the boss.
It was a tough session. We nearly got wiped twice and were down character. The DM powered down the encounters but still challenged us. And when it came do to the final climatic battle. He let the Rule of Cool save our butts. It was one of the best sessions of the campaign.