Since i don't think making detect artifact that lets you find all sorts of cool things be any easier to get either, how about this:

At creation allow mages to choose whether they'll be able to sense either their personal aura or shield location when entering an area.

Example:

At the appropraite level if the mage has detect magic up, they will recieve a message letting them know their wand is in the area they just entered. Thats it. Once they get the message they'll know that their wand is in that particular area.

They can only choose to sense either aura or shield and would need to find the other one and barrier. This just cuts the tedium and fustration of potentially finding none a bit. Having one wand won't make anyone killers out of anyone, just allow them a chance to have a bit of fun before finding another wand or con dying.

+++++

All that said, my second biggest problem with the system, the first being the tedium, is that it isn't yet complete, is it? As in, if i am playing an outlander mage, chances are my wand could still be in a crappy location for outlanders? On top of that, it has been said below that all the old locations are still there, which mean all the set locations players have been begging to be removed for what might be years now ares still there. While it was said that the current change allows these to be fixed, with arguable less mages about its going to be harder to see what needs changing.

I also think that adding more high end limit a/b/s would be a bad idea. It practically makes all the work your doing on the current system pointless and doesn't really solve any of its problems. The original intent of the system was to prevent ooc abuse not force/tempt people into commiting more of it. BTW, unless its specifically coded that at least one of the wand location is an old spot, with my luck chances are they are all in new spots, again though things like that shouldn't be consolations.


To the orginal question though, i think all around less mages to hunt down at hero effects villagers too. Oh well, they'll always have the liches right?