Wand, uncommon
This wand has 3 charges and regains 1d3 expended charges daily at dawn. While holding it, you can take a Magic action to expend 1 charge, and if a secret door or trap is within 60 feet of you, the wand pulses and points at the one nearest to you.
Legacy: https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/4797-wand-of-secrets
I don't know if is intentional or not, but RAW this item is weak sauce due to the use of the narrow definition, ie, "secret door",.
For example, an obscured passage would not be found if it has no "door". Examples: An illusory wall hiding an open passageway. A sand-covered floor with a sand-filled pit with sand that has a tunnel at the bottom leading to the blue-dragons treasure vault. None of these are doors. All are passageways. Some are even doorways. All are secret. All are intentionally hidden.
RAW, the Wand of Secrets finds none of that.
Furthermore, if a roof partially collapses and obscures a door, is that door "secret"? It's not visible. There's no indication it is there. It was also not deliberately hidden by anybody. So, is it a "secret door"? Some players this yes. Some think no.
The term "secret door" is loaded with historical weight. Some will adjudicate that it literally needs to be a physical door that is standing in plain sight but doesn't look like a door. Others may agree that it can be a real door hidden by a bookcase. But few would say that a collapsed roof that hides a door is a "secret door".
This item should be clearly written so that it is obvious which of those 3 cases are found, and which are not.
Another example: natural quicksand in the jungle is a Hazard, not a Trap, and wouldn't be found, as we have definitions for Hazards. If created by a druid with the intention of killing you, then it's clearly also a Trap. But, in both cases, it's a Hazard. So, does the Wand find either? Both? And if not both, why? I'd say No for the first case, but Yes for the second. But, I'm using MY definition of the wand, and if I don't explain MY definition of the wand before a session where this WILL be relevant, there can be hurt feelings.
I know it's good to keep so items loosey-goosey so that DM has room to play, but this just begs for fights and hurt feelings at the table. I've seen it happen. I was really hoping this would be improved for 2024.
It needs to be more definitive IMO.
All good points, especially for homebrew campaigns. If you are running classic modules (from all the anthology books) it is pretty obvious from the map and room descriptions because they label things as secret doors and traps pretty explicitly. Your point on explaining this rings true though. Taking my cues from classic modules I suppose I might use the following description, I invite people’s feedback:
Secret doors are different than concealed doors (you should look behind/under things before using the wand). The wand doesn’t detect normal doors that are just hard to find. Secret doors are physically designed to not look like doors and usually have a hidden physical mechanism to open - though the physical mechanism may have a magical trigger. The wand detects the physical components not the magical parts. An illusion hiding a normal door won’t trigger the wand at all, you need detect magic for that. Traps are physical features/devices that can be disarmed with tools, magical “traps” need detect magic. Environmental hazards, eg quicksand, are not traps because they cannot be “disarmed”, even if they were purposefully put in your way.
E.g. the mechanism of a trapdoor is a trap, the illusion disguising it is magic, and the acid pool in the pit below is a hazard - using this wand you detect only the trap door mechanism.