UMD and Staves

[The Souljourner]

A friend of mine noticed something the other day. With a high enough use magic device check, you can make a staff think you're high level, and thus the spells inside it get cast at higher level.

For example, if you are a 11th level bard with 22 charisma, maxed out ranks in Use Magic Device, Skill Focus: Use Magic Device, and Magical Aptitude, you have a Use Magic Device check of +25. Since "Emulate a class feature" is DC 20, and your level in that class is your check -20, this character would emulate caster level 1d20+5 when using the staff (minimum whatever the staff's actual caster level is).

Cool, huh?

For a mere 34,125gp, your bard could have a staff of Holy Word which would paralyze all nongood creatures in the area of effect with 1d20 hit dice or less for 1d10 minutes. Roll well and you could paralyze that Balor with no save, thankyouverymuch. Sure, he has spell resistance 28, but your caster level for this spell is 25, so it's not exactly a difficult roll

-The Souljourner

 

[DM2]

A friend of mine noticed something the other day. With a high enough use magic device check, you can make a staff think you're high level, and thus the spells inside it get cast at higher level.

For example, if you are a 11th level bard with 22 charisma, maxed out ranks in Use Magic Device, Skill Focus: Use Magic Device, and Magical Aptitude, you have a Use Magic Device check of +25. Since "Emulate a class feature" is DC 20, and your level in that class is your check -20, this character would emulate caster level 1d20+5 when using the staff (minimum whatever the staff's actual caster level is).

Cool, huh?

For a mere 34,125gp, your bard could have a staff of Holy Word which would paralyze all nongood creatures in the area of effect with 1d20 hit dice or less for 1d10 minutes. Roll well and you could paralyze that Balor with no save, thankyouverymuch. Sure, he has spell resistance 28, but your caster level for this spell is 25, so it's not exactly a difficult roll

-The Souljourner

Pretty cool.

Though, in specific, its up to the DM on whether to allow a staff of holy word or not...from the SRD:

Unlike wands, which can contain a wide variety of spells, each staff
is of a certain kind and holds specific spells.

 

[two]

This is delightfully sleazy.

Congratulate your friend.

Might as well get really silly.

Question: what's the highest UMD bonus you can make for a Bard20?

What's the "typical" caster level for this fellow, given a roll of 10?

If the Bard20 emulates an ability, like wisdom, what's the range of emulated ability scores (in order to determine the spell DC)?

With a high enough emulated Wisdom, even a lousy "charm person" in a staff is pretty powerful! (DC based on emulated score, I assume).

Make an epic level UMD specialist, and you could conceivably be throwing around caster level = 50 spells with a emulated ability score even higher.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Since "Emulate a class feature" is DC 20, and your level in that class is your check -20, this character would emulate caster level 1d20+5 when using the staff (minimum whatever the staff's actual caster level is).

Cool, huh?

Doesn't work.

You don't use "Emulate Class Feature" to activate a staff; you use "Use a Wand". DC 20 check to pretend you have the spell on your list, but since Spell Trigger items don't require any particular caster level to use, you don't receive an effective caster level as you do with "Emulate Class Feature" or "Use a Scroll".

-Hyp.

 

[DM2]

Doesn't work.

You don't use "Emulate Class Feature" to activate a staff; you use "Use a Wand". DC 20 check to pretend you have the spell on your list, but since Spell Trigger items don't require any particular caster level to use, you don't receive an effective caster level as you do with "Emulate Class Feature" or "Use a Scroll".

-Hyp.

So activating the staff would default to the staff's caster level, but use the save DC based on the charisma/wisdom/int of the user, depending on the type of spell.

Works for me, though applying the caster level was a clever thought.

DM2

 

[Hypersmurf]

So activating the staff would default to the staff's caster level, but use the save DC based on the charisma/wisdom/int of the user, depending on the type of spell.

Well, now, there's the next interesting thing.

The ability used has nothing to do with the "type of spell".

A staff might contain Hold Person, which appears on the wizard, cleric, and sorcerer lists. Neither the staff nor the spell is sufficient to determine whether Int, Wis, or Cha is used. That is determined by the class of the person using the staff.

When you use the UMD "Use Wand" function, you do not trick the staff into thinking "I'm a Cleric, and therefore Hold Person is on my class spell list"; you simply trick the staff into thinking "Hold Person is on my class spell list".

Thus, if you're a Rogue, in a way, you're fooling the staff into thinking that Hold Person is temporarily on the Rogue spell list.

So my inclination would be to say that a Bard using UMD to activate a staff of Flame Strike would use the staff's default caster level, and could use his Charisma modifier to set the DC, but a Rogue activating the same staff would use the staff's default caster level, and the minimum modifier required to be able to cast the spell (just like a wand), since a Rogue has no primary casting stat.

-Hyp.