Rods are magical ranged weapons usable only by druids and they work similarly to the sorcerer's wands. They fire every turn and spend a small amount of mana to inflict elemental damage. The benefit is that, unlike a knight's weapon, every hit deals damage. The drawbacks are that different monsters possess different resistances, which means that sometimes you might need a different rod to deal reasonable damage and the fact that rods deal overall much lower damage than the weapons of a highly skilled knight.
Whereas knights can use a weapon if they do not meet its level requirement, in which case they will simply deal lower damage, a druid cannot use a rod that requires a higher level that their own.
