>>>> Tell me how to differentiate "this mage is screwed" with
>>"this mage hasn't even made an effort".
>>
>>I don't think you can know it for sure.
>>Probably zero observation/exploration points may tell that
>he
>>hasn't even made an effort. But if he has lots of them there
>>is a possibility (only a possibility) that he actually
>tried.
>
>Yup, that's the hard part about this.


Actually I don't see a real problem with it.
Even if a mage doesn't do anything to find his sleeks, he already suffers by not having wands for many hours.
I don't think that doing nothing and waiting for a free quest at 200 hours is "win" path.
"The hard part" can be just dropped without actually breaking the game. You still need some level, obs/exp points and hours. If you are smart enough to have these and not doing anything about wands at the same time, well, you've "earned" free quest for being that smart.
Though you allies/enemies already walk with their sets for many hours while you don't.