Rogue, UMD, and scrolls

[apesamongus]

Ok, a 20th level rogue with 18 charisma gets his hand on a wish scroll and wants to read it using his UMD skill.

First off, it's not on his class list, so he needs to make a UMD roll DC 20+CL17.

Now, if he succeeds, the spell counts as being on his class list, so he can try to cast it. Unfortunately, his caster level is 0, so assuming he's even allowed to make a CL check, he has to roll a d20 with no modifiers vs a 17+1 to succeed.

Now, advance that rogue to level 40, and he can automatically succeed at the first part, but his chances on the second part are exactly the same. Am I right in thinking that there is no way (short of taking level in a casting class) to improve the chances on the second roll?

 

[dcollins]

I guess you would use this at the same time, giving yourself an effective caster level (3.5 SRD)?:

Emulate a Class Feature: Sometimes you need to use a class feature to activate a magic item. In this case, your effective level in the emulated class equals your Use Magic Device check result minus 20.

Frankly, I still use 3.0 where it's crystal-clear ("Emulate Spell Ability... Your effective caster level is your result minus 20.").

 

[Hypersmurf]

First off, it's not on his class list, so he needs to make a UMD roll DC 20+CL17.

If he makes that check, he's fine... except that his Cha needs to be 1 higher to use a 9th level arcane scroll, so he needs to make an effective DC 34 UMD check to emulate Cha 19.

The 3E version of UMD was a DC20 to activate a scroll, with an effective caster level equal to your check result - 20. You then needed to make a caster level check using that caster level if it was insufficient to use the scroll automatically.

The 3.5 version has a DC that scales based on the caster level of the scroll, but if you make that check, you can activate the scroll. No extra caster level check required. Caster level is already taken into account by the DC.

-Hyp.

 

[Sigurd]

He might benefit from his diety if it was very much in favour of the wish. Otherwise I'd say you're right, no change.

My sense of it is that he has more overall levels but none in spellcasting. If I have a thousand levels in swimming it doesn't help me fly. At 40th level he'd be powerful enough to improve his odds with some sort of custom magic item if that was his serious goal. As a DM I'd tie the fate of that magic item to the chance though. If you failed its destroyed.


S

 

[apesamongus]

If he makes that check, he's fine... except that his Cha needs to be 1 higher to use a 9th level arcane scroll, so he needs to make an effective DC 34 UMD check to emulate Cha 19.

Ooops.

Well, actually, that's not true. The rogue either needs to have or needs to emulate a Int 19, not a Cha 19. A Sorc couldn't have made the scroll at CL 17.

(come to think of it, if the rogue activates a staff, the CL is 8, or whatever that staff's minimum is, but what stat is the save DC set by? Or, for that matter, does a cleric using a staff of fire use Wis or Int/Cha as the relevant stat?)

Looking at the specific skill description, "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." The line "appropriate to the class you're trying to emulate" is interesting, because it seems at odds with the description under "Use a Wand". "Use a Wand" says that you are trying to fake having a spell on your current class spell list (whatever that class may be) whereas "Emulate an ability score" implies that when using a scroll you are trying to fake being another class (that, presumably, already has the spell on it's class spell list).

So, by that reading (of Emulate an ability score), if you had a Cha 19, you could emulate being a Sorc instead of a wizard and not need to make the second check, but the difficulty would still be based on CL 17 (the level of the scroll) even though a sorcerer could not have possibly made that particular scroll.

Or better yet, if you take the two together, you're adding Wish to your Rogue spell list, so the relevant stat would be Dex. Yea, I'm being facetious here, but the two different sections of the UWD skill which both apply only to using scrolls seems to follow different reasoning (emulating a class vs adding a spell to the class list) and it's not clear which is correct.

The 3.5 version has a DC that scales based on the caster level of the scroll, but if you make that check, you can activate the scroll. No extra caster level check required. Caster level is already taken into account by the DC.

Why? Nowhere in the UMD skill description does it say that if you succeed you may activate the scroll. "Use Magic Device allows you to use a scroll as if you had a particular spell on your class spell list." Note the words "as if" and not "without any further requirements". The ability explicitly states that it acts the same as if it were on your spell list, it says nothing about increasing effective caster level. Using a scroll has two requirements, and UMD only - explicitly - helps with one of them.

 

[Thanee]

Well, actually, that's not true. The rogue either needs to have or needs to emulate a Int 19, not a Cha 19. A Sorc couldn't have made the scroll at CL 17.

You can choose freely between Int and Cha, since both wizard and sorcerer can read the scroll using their own caster ability, but that isn't really a matter, since the DC is the same, anyways.

(come to think of it, if the rogue activates a staff, the CL is 8, or whatever that staff's minimum is, but what stat is the save DC set by? Or, for that matter, does a cleric using a staff of fire use Wis or Int/Cha as the relevant stat?)

Caster level would be 8 then, the maximum of 8 and 0.

The user of the staff uses the caster ability, which he normally uses to cast the spell that is being activated from the staff (i.e. Wis for cleric, Int for wizard, etc).

A rogue using UMD could choose to emulate the spell as a cleric spell or as a wizard spell or as a sorcerer spell and then use the appropriate ability.

Nowhere in the UMD skill description does it say that if you succeed you may activate the scroll.

Might not be crystal-clear, but it's surely meant the way, that your caster level then is high enough to activate the scroll, that's why it is figured into the DC to activate it in the first place.

Bye
Thanee

 

[apesamongus]

You can choose freely between Int and Cha, since both wizard and sorcerer can read the scroll using their own caster ability, but that isn't really a matter, since the DC is the same, anyways.

Actually, it can matter.

Have a Bard Wis 12 Cha 15+ try to read a 5th level druid spell from a scroll. If it adds the spell to his spell list, he's fine. If he's emulating being a druid, then he also has to emulate the ability score. Give him a +14 skill and it's the difference between a 50% chance of success and a 37.5% chance of success.

Caster level would be 8 then, the maximum of 8 and 0.

Yes, I said that.

The user of the staff uses the caster ability, which he normally uses to cast the spell that is being activated from the staff (i.e. Wis for cleric, Int for wizard, etc).

What if he normally doesn't cast the spell? A cleric can use UMD also, it's no longer an exclusive skill. And if a cleric uses a staff with wizard spells on it, he uses his own caster level in place of the level of the staff, so why does it use cleric caster level but wizard caster stat?

A rogue using UMD could choose to emulate the spell as a cleric spell or as a wizard spell or as a sorcerer spell and then use the appropriate ability.

As above, what about a rogue/cleric using a wizard staff? Can he use cleric caster level along with Int for the stat to determine DC?
And, all that's still not RAW, because, there is nothing there about emulating a spell *as* any type of spell, you simply add it to your class spell list.

 

[Thanee]

Actually, it can matter.

Have a Bard Wis 12 Cha 15+ try to read a 5th level druid spell from a scroll. If it adds the spell to his spell list, he's fine. If he's emulating being a druid, then he also has to emulate the ability score.

As I see it, it is the latter. You don't add anything to your own class list, you just emulate the ability, so you activate the item as if you were a druid. In the case of a scroll this means, that you need the Wis score.

The user of the staff uses the caster ability, which he normally uses to cast the spell that is being activated from the staff (i.e. Wis for cleric, Int for wizard, etc).

What if he normally doesn't cast the spell?

Sorry, that was a bit misleading, I guess. What I meant is:

You choose a class (which can use the staff) to emulate.
You use the ability that class would normally use to activate the item.

Bye
Thanee

 

[apesamongus]

You choose a class (which can use the staff) to emulate.
You use the ability that class would normally use to activate the item.

So, if that applies to the ability score used, shouldn't it also apply to the CL?

 

[Armadon63]

Can you emulate a higher stat to make a dc check on a staff higher. like lets say you have a 14 int and want to cast fireball off a staff. can you emulate an int of 20 to make the DC save higher? so instead of a dc save of 15 its a dc save of 18.