Never give this to a spellcaster with downtime.  

Hey, warrior.  Attune to my Rod of Absorbtion (stop laughing) and stand over there when you're done.  I'm going to cast Mental Prison, Dominate Person, Polymorph, and Vampiric Touch on you until I'm out of spell slots.  

Can I ask why?  

Because I'm about to go to bed and I haven't needed any spells that aren't rituals today.

could you use this to cause a flood by giving to a Water Ganassi and having them use everything to create a huge amount of water or is this not how any of that works 

Yes it does. It targets a creature. The trigger is casting a spell

A question one of my players asked me, and I'm not finding a definitive answer on. Can a Sorcerer create spell slots with the rod then convert those slots into Sorcery Points? The description says "you can convert energy stored in it into spell slots to cast spells you have prepared or know", so that makes me sort of on the fence on if it would technically mean the slots can only be used for spells specifically, or that you just regain those slots and can use them as normal, which would include things like Sorcery Point conversion or Paladin Divine Smites.

This is overpowered. Should definitely be a Legendary item or an artifact 

Wizard spellbook is not considered know spells by rules, at least not if you take rules as intended. When something says "spells known or prepared" it mean spells you could cast right this moment if you were guaranteed a spell slot for it 

Counterspell targets the caster of the spell, not the spell itself.

Yes.

As I interpret the item's description, it doesn't actually create/refill unused spell slots for the attuned spellcasting character to use later, but rather allows the wielder to cast spells "as normal" using the item's charges in place of their own slots immediately. 

Nowhere in description does it state that the wielder can activate the item as any sort of action to create a spell slot, only that it can be used while casting a spell to replace their own spell slot usage. 

But that's just my interpretation.

May One Dnd Paladin use smite with this magic item?

how do you get this?

Maybe I'm missing something... but there seem to be at least two conflicting interpretations on this item.

• the rod can absorb up to 50 levels of spells over the course of its lifetime
• a spellcaster attuned to the rod can convert the energy stored in the rod into spell slots to cast spells prepared (if you're the type of spellcaster that prepares spells per day) or known (if you're the type of spellcaster who just knows their list of spells).

Nowhere does it say that casting spells using the energy stored within the rod depletes the amount of energy in the rod.  But then how is the energy remaining in the rod monitored?  If the rod is almost full (45 spell levels) does this mean I cast 9th level spells all day long since the energy in the rod never depletes?  Could I only cast five 9th-level spells and that's it?  Does burning the stored energy to create spell slots reduce both the energy stored and the storage capacity by the same amount (essentially burning down towards zero and an inert rod)?

OR....

Does converting the energy in the rod reduce the amount of energy stored within the rod, so that as long as you don't allow the energy to build up to 50 levels, you can burn it down, like a spell battery?

Quote from patchwolf88911 >>

Maybe I'm missing something... but there seem to be at least two conflicting interpretations on this item.

• the rod can absorb up to 50 levels of spells over the course of its lifetime
• a spellcaster attuned to the rod can convert the energy stored in the rod into spell slots to cast spells prepared (if you're the type of spellcaster that prepares spells per day) or known (if you're the type of spellcaster who just knows their list of spells).

Nowhere does it say that casting spells using the energy stored within the rod depletes the amount of energy in the rod.  But then how is the energy remaining in the rod monitored?  If the rod is almost full (45 spell levels) does this mean I cast 9th level spells all day long since the energy in the rod never depletes?  Could I only cast five 9th-level spells and that's it?  Does burning the stored energy to create spell slots reduce both the energy stored and the storage capacity by the same amount (essentially burning down towards zero and an inert rod)?

OR....

Does converting the energy in the rod reduce the amount of energy stored within the rod, so that as long as you don't allow the energy to build up to 50 levels, you can burn it down, like a spell battery?

 so it works like this: 

Say you have 50 sheets of paper. Every time to absorb a leveled spell (no cantrips as they are not leveled), you fill in a number of sheets with ink equal to the level of the spell. You ALWAYS know how many paged are colored in.

Then say you wanna use those absorbed spell levels, you take the inked pages, and rip them out. You also always know how many are used.

It's 2 separate resources: let's say you have 14 levels absorbed, and used 3 levels for casting. It's 14/50 absorbed, and 3/14 used.

I have a question regarding the wording "a spell that is targeting *only* you and doesn't create an area of effect".

For example Tasha's Hideous Laughter is single target as a first level spell, but gains more targets when you up cast it. Does this mean that if you were the target of a second level THL, you wouldn't be able to absorb it, but you would if it was cast on you as a first level spell?