Use Magic Device Questions [Archive] - Wizards Community

Use Magic Device Questions [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
john_bakken
03-14-07, 12:52 PM I understand the basics of Use Magic Device, but with my new Warlock character, some new questions have come up, mostly with staves. When you use a staff, normally you use your caster level, or the caster level for the staff, whichever is higher, you also get to use your relevant ability score and feats to set the DC. Thanks for your help on this. I have not seen answers in the FAQ, or erratta. I have also tried asking the sage but have not heard back.

1. A warlock wants to activate a staff, what ability score would set the save DC's?

2. It is possible to emulate an ability score as part of a Use Magic Device check. This is usually done to make sure you can cast a scroll, but can it be done with a staff activation to get a higher save DC?

3. A warlock wants to activate a staff with a caster level of 8. However, the warlock is level 10. Since the warlock actually does have a caster level, which level is used when the staff is activated? Does it matter if the spell being activated is arcane/divine?
ravenshrike
03-14-07, 01:18 PM The ability score would be based either off of your ability score for that type of spell(Cha for Sorc/Bard spells, Int for Wiz, Wis for Rang, Pally, Cleric, and Druid) or as high as you could make the check on(best option if your DM allows UMD boosting items).
tarkin
03-14-07, 01:19 PM 1. Not sure. None. He always gets the default minumum for the staff. If all his stats are 30, it does not raise the DC's one bit.

2. Use Magic Devices lets you activate a magic item. That is it. (OK, the Warlock later gains a specific power to make magic items, but that is part of the specific power, not part of the general rules for UMD. If it does not specify any other powers, you get no extra powers.) It does not allow you to emulate a higher ability than the default for staves. You trick the magic item, not the universe.

3. Level 8. He is not a regular user of the staff, he is using UMD to pretend to be allowed to use it. He has ZERO caster level, with regards to the spells on the staff.
jaelis
03-14-07, 01:39 PM I agree with Tarkin. A warlock using UMD works exactly the same as a rogue using UMD. The saves, caster level, and whatever else are set by the item.
ravenshrike
03-14-07, 11:44 PM The saves are not set by the item default.

Staffs use the wielder’s ability score

To cast a spell from a scroll, you need a high score in the appropriate ability (Intelligence for wizard spells, Wisdom for divine spells, or Charisma for sorcerer or bard spells). Your effective ability score (appropriate to the class you’re emulating when you try to cast the spell from the scroll) is your Use Magic Device check result minus 15.

Your effective ability score. As in, applies to whatever check you are making. What you can't change with UMD is caster level, at least not to my knowledge.
tarkin
03-15-07, 10:17 AM Hm. This is odd.

I see two contradictory listing in the SRD.

Under general magic item it only says:

Saving Throws Against Magic Item Powers
Magic items produce spells or spell-like effects. For a saving throw against a spell or spell-like effect from a magic item, the DC is 10 + the level of the spell or effect + the ability modifier of the minimum ability score needed to cast that level of spell.

Staffs are an exception to the rule. Treat the saving throw as if the wielder cast the spell, including caster level and all modifiers to save DC.

Most item descriptions give saving throw DCs for various effects, particularly when the effect has no exact spell equivalent (making its level otherwise difficult to determine quickly).

Here, the only staff difference is caster level. Also, I always played that when you uses a Staff, you used the minimum DC, UNLESS you were a higher level.

But under Staff Description it says:

Staff Descriptions
Staffs use the wielder’s ability score and relevant feats to set the DC for saves against their spells. Unlike with other sorts of magic items, the wielder can use his caster level when activating the power of a staff if it’s higher than the caster level of the staff.

Which clearly supports your claim.

This looks to me like one of many contradictory bits in the books.

Your way looks like it has 'primacy' because it is in a portion directly about staves.

However, you way leaves entirely open what stat you are supposed to use. It is not listed in the book at all about what stat a Rogue using UMD to activate a Staff that has a spell on both the Wizard, Sorceror list and on the Cleric list can use.

Would he get a choice? Can he choose his best one/ Would what other spells are on the staff affect it?

What if the spell is not on the cleric list, can he still choose to use Wisdom if his Wisdom is higher?

The presence of these intelligent, unanswered questions leads me to decide to House Rule: Stat must be minimum unless you can cast the spell, then and ONLY then can you use the same stat you use to cast the spell.
Merestil Haye
03-15-07, 11:35 AM The thing about UMD is that creatures make a check only when they require a particular attribute to activate a device and do not have that attribute.

There is no ability score required to activate a staff - it's like a wand in this. The character needs one thing and one thing only - to have the spell they wish to activate the staff for on their class list. They don't need a minimum ability score so they don't get to make a check for the ability score.

Therefore the staff will set the DC at the minimum for a spell cast from a device, unless the activator already has a score greater than the minimum, in which case it will use that.

That's the way I've always understood UMD anyway.
Vegepygmy
03-15-07, 11:46 AM I agree with Merestil Haye. Allowing characters to make unnecessary UMD checks opens the door to massive abuses.
ravenshrike
03-15-07, 12:59 PM In order to activate the device at the higher DC YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE ABILITY CHECK. There's a reason for it. Not to mention that if it's a staff for divine magic you're probably making the UMD ability check anyway. There's no reason you can't emulate a higher ability score if you have the capacity. It's not like it's that big a deal anyway. In order to make a check for a +5 modifier, you need to roll a 35. That means a warlock would need a +25 skill modifier to auto-roll it. Yeah, high level play you could concievably have a 'lock with an emulated score in the 50's, but that only applies to staffs, so it's really not that big a deal. Now, if the lock gets ahold of a scroll of gate or hires a wizard to cast it and gates in a night hag, THEN umd becomes broken. With a modifier of +15 the 'lock gains etherealness at will(cl16), +2 to all saves, and immunity to disease, and he only has to slay a CR9 creature(which for him is relatively easy since he only has to hit their touch ac and if he's smart has the acid blast essence which bypasses the SR) and give up the neck slot. Or he could concievably buy the item in question somewhere since it only costs 3600 gp(double what it's sold for).
tarkin
03-15-07, 01:04 PM I don't deny that you can emulate a higher ability score anytime you want to.

But I do deny that emulating a higher ability score can do ANYTHING but activate a magic item. Emulating an ability score only applies for activating the magic item. It can not for example, raise the DC you get.

Nor can you "use UMD to emulate a strength of 20, and thus do more damage with my +1 sword, because my strength is now 20."
Dheran
03-15-07, 02:08 PM I agree with Merestil Haye. Allowing characters to make unnecessary UMD checks opens the door to massive abuses. The rules already allow unnecessary UMD checks, at least in three particular cases: alignment, race, and abilty score for scroll use.Emulate an Alignment

Some magic items have positive or negative effects based on the user’s alignment. Use Magic Device lets you use these items as if you were of an alignment of your choice. You can emulate only one alignment at a time. Emulate a Race

Some magic items work only for members of certain races, or work better for members of those races. You can use such an item as if you were a race of your choice. You can emulate only one race at a time. Emulate an Ability Score

To cast a spell from a scroll, you need a high score in the appropriate ability (Intelligence for wizard spells, Wisdom for divine spells, or Charisma for sorcerer or bard spells). Your effective ability score (appropriate to the class you’re emulating when you try to cast the spell from the scroll) is your Use Magic Device check result minus 15. If you already have a high enough score in the appropriate ability, you don’t need to make this check. Please note that it doesn't at all say that you're not permitted to make the check. That leads back to the opening paragraphs about Use Magic Device:You must consciously choose which requirement to emulate. That is, you must know what you are trying to emulate when you make a Use Magic Device check for that purpose. So you're permitted to arbitrarily pick an alignment, arbitrarily pick a race, and also to make a UMD Emulate an Ability Score check for a scroll in the hope of increasing the DC of the spell. (What you're not permitted to do is make the check and choose your native ability score if it happens to be higher; picking the higher number is an option only spelled out for caster level for staff activation.)

Since there are already three options with UMD that allow complete user choice, I don't see allowing freedom to make other checks as "massive abuse". Buying magic items is always going to be more expensive than if you cast spells natively. Complete UMD freedom just opens the door for skill-based casters who are going to be paying significant sums of gp for every spell they cast. These skill-based casters will also be subject to other limitations, such as the inability to apply metamagic feats to their spells. Plus, except for Warlocks, the results of their UMD checks will vary widely -- 10 different possible DC values when emulating an ability score, for instance. This great unpredictability doesn't strike me as "massively powerful"; you need to make a UMD Emulate an Ability Score result of 25 (minimum skill modifier of +24) just to be able to cast a cantrip!
Tonus
03-15-07, 03:25 PM Read through the Use Magic Device description. "Emulate an ability score" references scrolls only.
Merestil Haye
03-15-07, 03:33 PM Two things.

Emulating an ability score is a check called for when you are trying to activate a scroll.Emulate an Ability Score
To cast a spell from a scroll, you need a high score in the appropriate ability (Intelligence for wizard spells, Wisdom for divine spells, or Charisma for sorcerer or bard spells). Your effective ability score (appropriate to the class you’re emulating when you try to cast the spell from the scroll) is your Use Magic Device check result minus 15. If you already have a high enough score in the appropriate ability, you don’t need to make this check.This does not allow the check to be made when trying to activate staves or any other kind of magic item. Only scrolls. So the answer to the original question is no, you cannot use UMD to emulate a high ability score and have that act as your score to set the save DC of the spell from the staff.

Neither will I allow you to do so when activating a scroll, but this is simply because it's a complete and utter waste of time. A scroll-user's ability score does not affect the save DC of the spell cast from from the scroll. Not at all. I don't care if you're a creature with the bare minimum to cast the spell or if you're Pun-Pun, that Fireball you just cast from a scroll has a save DC of 14.

As far as I'm concerned, if you don't need to make the check you are not allowed to - but that's irrelevant to the ability score question. You can only emulate ability scores when activating scrolls.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
john_bakken 03-14-07, 12:52 PM	I understand the basics of Use Magic Device, but with my new Warlock character, some new questions have come up, mostly with staves. When you use a staff, normally you use your caster level, or the caster level for the staff, whichever is higher, you also get to use your relevant ability score and feats to set the DC. Thanks for your help on this. I have not seen answers in the FAQ, or erratta. I have also tried asking the sage but have not heard back. 1. A warlock wants to activate a staff, what ability score would set the save DC's? 2. It is possible to emulate an ability score as part of a Use Magic Device check. This is usually done to make sure you can cast a scroll, but can it be done with a staff activation to get a higher save DC? 3. A warlock wants to activate a staff with a caster level of 8. However, the warlock is level 10. Since the warlock actually does have a caster level, which level is used when the staff is activated? Does it matter if the spell being activated is arcane/divine?
ravenshrike 03-14-07, 01:18 PM	The ability score would be based either off of your ability score for that type of spell(Cha for Sorc/Bard spells, Int for Wiz, Wis for Rang, Pally, Cleric, and Druid) or as high as you could make the check on(best option if your DM allows UMD boosting items).
tarkin 03-14-07, 01:19 PM	1. Not sure. None. He always gets the default minumum for the staff. If all his stats are 30, it does not raise the DC's one bit. 2. Use Magic Devices lets you activate a magic item. That is it. (OK, the Warlock later gains a specific power to make magic items, but that is part of the specific power, not part of the general rules for UMD. If it does not specify any other powers, you get no extra powers.) It does not allow you to emulate a higher ability than the default for staves. You trick the magic item, not the universe. 3. Level 8. He is not a regular user of the staff, he is using UMD to pretend to be allowed to use it. He has ZERO caster level, with regards to the spells on the staff.
jaelis 03-14-07, 01:39 PM	I agree with Tarkin. A warlock using UMD works exactly the same as a rogue using UMD. The saves, caster level, and whatever else are set by the item.
ravenshrike 03-14-07, 11:44 PM	The saves are not set by the item default. Staffs use the wielder’s ability score To cast a spell from a scroll, you need a high score in the appropriate ability (Intelligence for wizard spells, Wisdom for divine spells, or Charisma for sorcerer or bard spells). Your effective ability score (appropriate to the class you’re emulating when you try to cast the spell from the scroll) is your Use Magic Device check result minus 15. Your effective ability score. As in, applies to whatever check you are making. What you can't change with UMD is caster level, at least not to my knowledge.
tarkin 03-15-07, 10:17 AM	Hm. This is odd. I see two contradictory listing in the SRD. Under general magic item it only says: Saving Throws Against Magic Item Powers Magic items produce spells or spell-like effects. For a saving throw against a spell or spell-like effect from a magic item, the DC is 10 + the level of the spell or effect + the ability modifier of the minimum ability score needed to cast that level of spell. Staffs are an exception to the rule. Treat the saving throw as if the wielder cast the spell, including caster level and all modifiers to save DC. Most item descriptions give saving throw DCs for various effects, particularly when the effect has no exact spell equivalent (making its level otherwise difficult to determine quickly). Here, the only staff difference is caster level. Also, I always played that when you uses a Staff, you used the minimum DC, UNLESS you were a higher level. But under Staff Description it says: Staff Descriptions Staffs use the wielder’s ability score and relevant feats to set the DC for saves against their spells. Unlike with other sorts of magic items, the wielder can use his caster level when activating the power of a staff if it’s higher than the caster level of the staff. Which clearly supports your claim. This looks to me like one of many contradictory bits in the books. Your way looks like it has 'primacy' because it is in a portion directly about staves. However, you way leaves entirely open what stat you are supposed to use. It is not listed in the book at all about what stat a Rogue using UMD to activate a Staff that has a spell on both the Wizard, Sorceror list and on the Cleric list can use. Would he get a choice? Can he choose his best one/ Would what other spells are on the staff affect it? What if the spell is not on the cleric list, can he still choose to use Wisdom if his Wisdom is higher? The presence of these intelligent, unanswered questions leads me to decide to House Rule: Stat must be minimum unless you can cast the spell, then and ONLY then can you use the same stat you use to cast the spell.
Merestil Haye 03-15-07, 11:35 AM	The thing about UMD is that creatures make a check only when they require a particular attribute to activate a device and do not have that attribute. There is no ability score required to activate a staff - it's like a wand in this. The character needs one thing and one thing only - to have the spell they wish to activate the staff for on their class list. They don't need a minimum ability score so they don't get to make a check for the ability score. Therefore the staff will set the DC at the minimum for a spell cast from a device, unless the activator already has a score greater than the minimum, in which case it will use that. That's the way I've always understood UMD anyway.
Vegepygmy 03-15-07, 11:46 AM	I agree with Merestil Haye. Allowing characters to make unnecessary UMD checks opens the door to massive abuses.
ravenshrike 03-15-07, 12:59 PM	In order to activate the device at the higher DC YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE ABILITY CHECK. There's a reason for it. Not to mention that if it's a staff for divine magic you're probably making the UMD ability check anyway. There's no reason you can't emulate a higher ability score if you have the capacity. It's not like it's that big a deal anyway. In order to make a check for a +5 modifier, you need to roll a 35. That means a warlock would need a +25 skill modifier to auto-roll it. Yeah, high level play you could concievably have a 'lock with an emulated score in the 50's, but that only applies to staffs, so it's really not that big a deal. Now, if the lock gets ahold of a scroll of gate or hires a wizard to cast it and gates in a night hag, THEN umd becomes broken. With a modifier of +15 the 'lock gains etherealness at will(cl16), +2 to all saves, and immunity to disease, and he only has to slay a CR9 creature(which for him is relatively easy since he only has to hit their touch ac and if he's smart has the acid blast essence which bypasses the SR) and give up the neck slot. Or he could concievably buy the item in question somewhere since it only costs 3600 gp(double what it's sold for).
tarkin 03-15-07, 01:04 PM	I don't deny that you can emulate a higher ability score anytime you want to. But I do deny that emulating a higher ability score can do ANYTHING but activate a magic item. Emulating an ability score only applies for activating the magic item. It can not for example, raise the DC you get. Nor can you "use UMD to emulate a strength of 20, and thus do more damage with my +1 sword, because my strength is now 20."
Dheran 03-15-07, 02:08 PM	I agree with Merestil Haye. Allowing characters to make unnecessary UMD checks opens the door to massive abuses. The rules already allow unnecessary UMD checks, at least in three particular cases: alignment, race, and abilty score for scroll use.Emulate an Alignment Some magic items have positive or negative effects based on the user’s alignment. Use Magic Device lets you use these items as if you were of an alignment of your choice. You can emulate only one alignment at a time. Emulate a Race Some magic items work only for members of certain races, or work better for members of those races. You can use such an item as if you were a race of your choice. You can emulate only one race at a time. Emulate an Ability Score To cast a spell from a scroll, you need a high score in the appropriate ability (Intelligence for wizard spells, Wisdom for divine spells, or Charisma for sorcerer or bard spells). Your effective ability score (appropriate to the class you’re emulating when you try to cast the spell from the scroll) is your Use Magic Device check result minus 15. If you already have a high enough score in the appropriate ability, you don’t need to make this check. Please note that it doesn't at all say that you're not permitted to make the check. That leads back to the opening paragraphs about Use Magic Device:You must consciously choose which requirement to emulate. That is, you must know what you are trying to emulate when you make a Use Magic Device check for that purpose. So you're permitted to arbitrarily pick an alignment, arbitrarily pick a race, and also to make a UMD Emulate an Ability Score check for a scroll in the hope of increasing the DC of the spell. (What you're not permitted to do is make the check and choose your native ability score if it happens to be higher; picking the higher number is an option only spelled out for caster level for staff activation.) Since there are already three options with UMD that allow complete user choice, I don't see allowing freedom to make other checks as "massive abuse". Buying magic items is always going to be more expensive than if you cast spells natively. Complete UMD freedom just opens the door for skill-based casters who are going to be paying significant sums of gp for every spell they cast. These skill-based casters will also be subject to other limitations, such as the inability to apply metamagic feats to their spells. Plus, except for Warlocks, the results of their UMD checks will vary widely -- 10 different possible DC values when emulating an ability score, for instance. This great unpredictability doesn't strike me as "massively powerful"; you need to make a UMD Emulate an Ability Score result of 25 (minimum skill modifier of +24) just to be able to cast a cantrip!
Tonus 03-15-07, 03:25 PM	Read through the Use Magic Device description. "Emulate an ability score" references scrolls only.
Merestil Haye 03-15-07, 03:33 PM	Two things. Emulating an ability score is a check called for when you are trying to activate a scroll.Emulate an Ability Score To cast a spell from a scroll, you need a high score in the appropriate ability (Intelligence for wizard spells, Wisdom for divine spells, or Charisma for sorcerer or bard spells). Your effective ability score (appropriate to the class you’re emulating when you try to cast the spell from the scroll) is your Use Magic Device check result minus 15. If you already have a high enough score in the appropriate ability, you don’t need to make this check.This does not allow the check to be made when trying to activate staves or any other kind of magic item. Only scrolls. So the answer to the original question is no, you cannot use UMD to emulate a high ability score and have that act as your score to set the save DC of the spell from the staff. Neither will I allow you to do so when activating a scroll, but this is simply because it's a complete and utter waste of time. A scroll-user's ability score does not affect the save DC of the spell cast from from the scroll. Not at all. I don't care if you're a creature with the bare minimum to cast the spell or if you're Pun-Pun, that Fireball you just cast from a scroll has a save DC of 14. As far as I'm concerned, if you don't need to make the check you are not allowed to - but that's irrelevant to the ability score question. You can only emulate ability scores when activating scrolls.