Quote:
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Drinking a potion, reading a scroll, or casting a spell using a wand or a staff all take a standard action, no matter what the casting time of the spell would be normally. (Good for long casting time spells, like lesser restoration; bad for short casting time spell, like feather fall).
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Not quite. What the
DMG says is that activating an item like a wand either takes the spell's base casting time, or 1 standard action, whichever is longer. This means that you cannot benefit from a wand of "swift action spell", such as wraithstrike, because it will always take at least a standard action. But using a wand of say, phantom steed still takes 10 minutes.
It is also worth noting that rules compendium supersedes this. Activating a magic item now takes the same time as the spell's original casting time, unless stated otherwise. This means that it still takes 3 rounds to use a wand of restoration, but just a standard action to quaff a similar potion. But you can now read a scroll or use a wand of say, wraithstrike as a swift action (previously not possible). So rogues can now benefit from wands of gravestrike.
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