evilbob said:
Also, is there still no one who will offer an interpretation on the "interupting silence ruins scoll/uses wand charge: yes/no" question?
I've hidden my answer to that a little too well:
There's no reason I'm aware of that a magic item triggered by verbal command would be triggered is the command is successfully suppressed. That means that wands and most wondrous items won't be triggered if a silence spell sucessfully supresses the command word in the nick of time; no charges are consumed.
Spell completion items (scrolls) are a little trickier, since they're more like normal spells. The rules don't really cover it. In the definitive rules section on such items, there's no clear answer either way. Shortly before it, concerning AoO's, it's said that spell completion items are treated as casting spells and hence provoke attacks of opportunities, and in the section specifically about scrolls it says they're subject to disruption as are normal spells. Despite these things, I'd rule that scrolls aren't consumed when disrupted by silence.
Partially that's because it's not nice to destroy someone's magic item, so I'd prefer the conservative approach here
in general. Another part of it is the difference between types of disruption: if you hit someone and he fails his concentration check; then the ability is truly disrupted. However, with a scroll, it's possible it never even is activated properly. At least some times, you can easily imagine the silence taking effect before the crucial reading step. Unlike normal spells, in scrolls the "real" preparation (the part that causes you to require daily study etc) is stored in the scroll. This part is clearly not disrupted by silence; merely casting silence doesn't destroy a scroll. You could disrupt a scroll only if it's "preparation" has already left the paper so to speak, but not yet taken effect. I'd rule that that's not possible - the activation is instantaneous, and you can disrupt it, and it fails, but you can't half-disrupt it, allowing it to proceed far enough to consume the scroll yet not far enough to cast the spell. The disruption destroys your focus in all the things you've prepared; except that in a scroll's case there is not preparation since that's in the scroll.
The above explanation is extremely wishy-washy, so I'd expect most people to rule otherwise; but I'm not going to destroy magic items unless it's clearly the correct course of action - I'd call it erring on the side of caution. Consider also, that destroying such a scroll is almost always bad for the PC's - it might be their scroll (in which case it's obviously bad) or it might be an opponents (in which case it's just less loot). And for cases where it's an important NPC that doesn't fall into the PC's hands, then I don't want to derail the character's abilities without due cause.
I'd say
no disrupting the activation of a magic item consume any charges - unless there is a clear cause (such as disruptions which disrupt the execution of the effect and not the activation itself - for instance a spellcaster being hit who tries through concentration to continue casting, but fails - the activation doesn't require a concentration check, the fact that it's a spell does).
