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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SolitonMan" data-source="post: 5459131" data-attributes="member: 22433">I apologize if this topic has been discussed previously, I tried to search for existing threads but for some reason the search page is just hanging and returning nothing at the moment...I'm playing a warlock in a high level (17+) game, and I've been very pleased with the usefulness of UMD.  But I'm not sure about exactly how far it can be pushed to really take advantage of a high skill modifier.  I'm hoping others with experience with the skill might have some insights.Specifically, I'm at a point in the game where I can create custom magic items, and I've been thinking about how I can use the functionality of a staff with the UMD skill.  The basic activation of a staff (DC 20 according the skill description) is easy enough, but since a staff allows the wielder to use their own caster level and ability score to determine spell effectiveness and DC, I'm wondering if I can use my (superior) UMD options for these things, or if I'm limited to using my existing scores.I can see it working either way, but obviously I'd like to have some basis in reality for my position when it comes time to use this in the game.  To get a bit less abstract: if I want to use a staff of divination to cast tongues on myself and I just use the default DC 20 activation, the spell will last 130 minutes, since the staff has a caster level of 13.  But if I were to emulate the wizard spellcasting feature with UMD, my effective CL would be 32 (UMD modifier of +42, ability to take 10 any time due to warlock's Deceive Item feature gives score of 52, minus 20 for determining CL).  Thus tongues would last 320 minutes under that situation, a significant improvement.Similarly, if I were to activate an offensive spell with a save DC, I could easily emulate a much higher relevant ability score (like, 37) than I (or the staff's creator) actually possess, thus increasing the save DC.  On the one hand, the ability to work the devices this way seems a little "too good to be true", but on the other, spending all the skill points to get this skill to where it is seems like it should provide some ROI.  Anyway, if anyone has any experience with this, any thoughts about it or, most desirably, any links to official rulings, I'd really appreciate hearing about them.  Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.</blockquote>

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