The care and flattering of magic items

[Femerus the Gnecro]

Disclaimer: this has probably already been covered a million times before.

That being said, it's still a total mystery to me.

So...

Why in the name of all that's holy (or to be PC, unholy, demi-holy, athiestically challenged) is the "Use Magic Device" skill based on one's Charisma score?

Anyone have ANY explanation for this at all?

What are you going to do... smile beguilingly at a wand until it fires?

Or better yet... bargain with a staff of healing.

"If you work for me, I'll give you a nice coat of wood polish!"

Abject silliness if you ask me.

Anyone have a clue why this is so?

-F

 

[Dimwhit]

I was just having this conversation with a friend of mine. The only thing we could come up with is that you are trying to manipulate and fool the magic into doing what you want it to do. Something like that. I thought for a while it was to have another Charisma-based skill, but there are already a ton of them.

Here's how I think it should be handled, though it does complicate things. Use whatever ability score is used to casts the spell held within the item. If there are two, use whatever is higher. So if it's a wand of fireball, the rogue would use Int, etc. Of course, the DM would have to state it. I don't know, maybe it's too complicated to be worth it. In lieu of that, I think Wisdom would be the more appropriate choice. Possibly Int.

But, I agree with you. Charisma is an odd choice. Unless someone has a good arguement, which I would love to hear. Maybe I'm missing something.

 

[Happiest_Sadist]

Charisma is force of personality and the mental equivalent of strength. You are either trying to convince the item you have the right to use it, or force it to work despite its objections.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The same reason that sorcerers use Charisma, I guess.

 

[justinsluder]

Well, the Bluff and Diplomacy skills are used to get people to do what you want. So, to get a magic item to do what you want you use the Use Magic Device skill.

 

[Femerus the Gnecro]

Charisma is force of personality and the mental equivalent of strength. You are either trying to convince the item you have the right to use it, or force it to work despite its objections.

This assumes, though that the magic item in question somehow has a kind of rudimentary intelligence and/or perceptive ability that allows it to determine whether it 'wants' to function for a specific person.

The same reason that sorcerers use Charisma, I guess.

And that is what? So that someone actually uses the stat?

Well, the Bluff and Diplomacy skills are used to get people to do what you want. So, to get a magic item to do what you want you use the Use Magic Device skill.

But, as I mention above, the items aren't intelligent, and thus shouldn't be able to determine whether or not they should work based on a stat which represents physical attractiveness. Otherwise, wouldn't wizards and other spellcasting classes require a good charisma score to 'entice' their magic items to work as well? While this would be an interesting concept for a homebrew campaign, it makes damn little sense from a rules standpoint.

-F

 

[clark411]

Maybe because it has less to do with "fooling" or "enticing" the item and more with actually changing yourself momentarily in some way shape or form.

Emulating a spell ability, or a different class or alignment (race even) definitely fits into altering one's own persona- and that sounds CHA based for true.

 

[AuraSeer]

Charisma doesn't only specify physical attractiveness. Simply being good-looking does not help you run a con game (Bluff), or fit in at a court function (Diplomacy), or get a prisoner to reveal secrets (Intimidate). That is all covered by "force of personality" -- basically an ability to project the face that you want the world to see.

An ordinary magic device has no sentience and cannot understand language, so it can't be fooled by lies per se. But it is able to sense its wielder in some manner, so it can tell when its power should be activated. The UMD skill lets you put forth a false image to those sensors, and then warp and change that image until you find the combination that triggers the item.

 

[Sir Hawkeye]

Charisma doesn't represent physical attractiveness.

Charisma, in a broad sense, is the projection of mental force. Mental Strength, if you will. Sorcerers use it because they have an internal "spell power source" of some kind, and they mostly just need to direct it on some target to use it.

Wizards, on the other hand, use Int because they are primarily concerned with the mantal construction and manipulation (Int as mental Dex) of whatever magical force they use.

Clerics primarily recieve their spell power from an outside source, using Wis (mental Con)

Use magic item falls into the category of "projection of mental force." Sort of a "manual override" of the normal safe limits of item operation.

 

[the Jester]

Charisma isn't about looks AT ALL. "Ooh- look at that sexy beholder!" [cha 15.] Who'd care to bet that the catoblepas has a reasonably high cha when the MM2 comes out?