Artificer UMD scroll spell loss

[moritheil]

An artificer tried to use a scroll, and failed his UMD roll. He asked me if the spell was lost off the scroll. After glancing at the rules, I found that a failure by 10 or more indicated an uncontrolled release of spell energy, which I interpreted as "the spell is lost, and unpleasant things happen." Since he did not fail by 10 or more, I ruled that the scroll was still usable on a later round, because no uncontrolled spell energy was released. This spell scroll wound up saving the group (10 level 2 or 3 characters) from a CR 5 elemental.

Given that the vast majority of the party would have been killed in an unpleasant manner had I ruled differently, I suppose I don't regret it, but it bothers me that I didn't see a simple, clear-cut statement of "If x, the spell is lost. If y, the spell is not lost," when I went to check the rules.

Did I miss something? How do you folks rule it?

 

[Caliban]

An artificer tried to use a scroll, and failed his UMD roll. He asked me if the spell was lost off the scroll. After glancing at the rules, I found that a failure by 10 or more indicated an uncontrolled release of spell energy, which I interpreted as "the spell is lost, and unpleasant things happen." Since he did not fail by 10 or more, I ruled that the scroll was still usable on a later round, because no uncontrolled spell energy was released. This spell scroll wound up saving the group (10 level 2 or 3 characters) from a CR 5 elemental.

Given that the vast majority of the party would have been killed in an unpleasant manner had I ruled differently, I suppose I don't regret it, but it bothers me that I didn't see a simple, clear-cut statement of "If x, the spell is lost. If y, the spell is not lost," when I went to check the rules.

Did I miss something? How do you folks rule it?

Is this 3.0 or 3.5?

I know that in 3.5, if you fail the UMD, then you didn't activate the scroll. Nothing happens.

It may have been different in 3.0, I don't have my old books handy at the moment.

 

[Timeboxer]

Yep, that's what I gather. Note that it's actually more dangerous for casters to cast from scrolls -- if they fail their caster level check, they need to make a DC 5 Wisdom check to avoid a scroll mishap.

 

[moritheil]

It's 3.5. Thank you and thank you; I hadn't realized that about casters.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Yep, you're fine in 3.5.

In 3.0, the UMD check to activate a scroll gave you an emulated caster level. You then used that caster level to try and activate the scroll, subject to the normal rules for scroll activation (>= means the scroll works fine, < means caster level check subject to failure).

Emulate Spell Ability: This use of the skill allows the character to use a magic item as if the character had a particular spell on the character's class spell list. To cast a spell from a scroll or use a wand, the character has to have a particular spell on the character's class spell list. By using the skill this way, the character can use such an item as if the character did have the spell on the character's class spell list. The character's effective caster level is the character's result minus 20. (It's okay to have a caster level of 0.) For wands, it doesn't matter what caster level the character is, but it does matter for scrolls. If the character's effective level is lower than the caster level, the character must roll to see if you use the scroll successfuly.