Our group doesn't use UMD

[keeper2161]

Like the title says our group doens't use use magic device skill. When it comes to wands our group always assumed the wands came with instructions on how to use it. Basically just point, speak, and shoot. Nothing complicated. No training necessary. To us wands are magical guns with no kickback. No training necessary. Like a wand of fireball. Just point speak "fireball" and boom. Fireball. We always sold scrolls or the magic user would keep it to have a free spells. If we happen to find a divine scroll and only have arcane users we just sold it or traded it an arcane scroll. For the emulating part well our group never had to deal with that. We have, to date, never run into a race or class only magic item. As for the alignment well why would the good character want to use an evil item? For neutral characters most evil items either don't do anything to them or what it does do is minimal and, depending on the character, worth using. But even if the neutral character did use the evil item the good party members would be wary and start to not trust them. So most evil items we got we either destroyed it or gave it to a good aligned church or other organization. Which they would sometimes reward us for doing so. They would then either destroy it or lock it up. So to us UMD is a useless skill Anyone else do this or just our group?

[Geddy2112]

It is not a useless skill at my table, but it comes up infrequently. One of the main uses is for CHA based casters and the occasional rogue to ID magical items like spellcraft, which comes up periodically. A couple people in my group are big on plot/signature magic items with unusual abilities or uses, and we use UMD on these to blindly activate or garner knowledge into what they are.
As for wands, we use the rules but I can only recall a single time a character used a wand not on their spell list. Mostly we see rangers and bards using wands of cure light wounds, with the occasional arcane caster having a utility wand. The scroll and race/alignment thing is the exact same in my group, particularly for good/evil items.

[16bearswutIdo]

The following skills have definitely been used single digit times at my table: Craft, forgery, gather information, handle animal, heal, profession, ride, and UMD

Any time my party finds scrolls/wands, they just hand them to the spellcasters. If the spellcasters can't use them, they usually just sell them.

[skunk3]

UMD is pretty commonly used in my experience, especially by Rogues and Warlocks.

Crafting gets used as well but it just depends on the campaign. Sometimes there just isn't a whole lot of 'down time' to craft and due to crafting taking ages, it's kinda pointless.

Gather information gets used a LOT.

Forgery is rarely used, but still used nonetheless. Depends on the campaign/characters.

Handle animal gets used but totally depends on party make-up.

Profession is rarely if ever used and only if someone designed a character with that in mind RP-wise.

Ride gets used a bunch if you're covering long distances by ground without teleport. It seems like such a crappy thing to invest ranks into but when you have to ride a horse all of a sudden it's pretty nice.


A lot of these aren't worth putting ranks into because you can just buy or have crafted a magic item that gives you a competency bonus for not that much gold. I think that +1 rank of a skill in item form is like 1,000 GP. With ride, for example, you can just have a magical saddle made that gives you a +10 or something and you're good to go. As long as you have the money!

[Jay R]

Well, yes, if you automatically give everybody the abilities of UMD, then it is useless to pay points for it. That would be equally true of any skill.

[Kelb_Panthera]

If you take the lock off the door the key becomes much less useful. Not sure how this is surprising.

[Khedrac]

When it comes to wands our group always assumed the wands came with instructions on how to use it. Basically just point, speak, and shoot. Nothing complicated. No training necessary.
This was how wands worked in 1st Ed AD&D (except for the "always come with instructions" part - most came witht he command word, but sometimes one had to search for it...

[Luckmann]

UMD is the kind of skill that comes up either all the time or extremely seldomly. It depends a lot on what characters are in the game and what kind of campaign is being run.

[KillianHawkeye]

I mean, sure, if you don't play by the rules, then some of the rules won't have any use to you.

Personally, I think UMD is pretty handy sometimes, but it all depends on whether or not you get loot that your party can't automatically use. Especially if you've got somebody with a few levels in Warlock, then you basically get a character who can use all the wands and staves pretty easily. I know my old Hexblade/Warlock character certainly enjoyed having a certain staff that held some cool sand blasting spells from the Sandstorm book, or your basic wands of magic missile or whatever.

[HighWater]

If you have UMD as a class skill, it can be pretty powerful if you play it the way the rules say you should. That said, the Rogue in the party I DM has a pretty good UMD check, but always seems to botch the roll when it really matters. They now prefer swift-action wands so at least their turn isn't wasted. I'm not entirely sure that giving everyone the ability to auto-succeed UMD for wands is such a terrible idea, actually. Although I would feel the need to compensate those that took classes with the skill on their skill list with an extra classskill of their choice as UMD is a big one. :smallredface:

In my game the appraise skill is useless. I, as the DM, don't want to track what items the PCs have appraised, what the 'value' is they got and what the actual value is. I already have too much bookkeeping on my plate without also having to keep track of that. I also have no NPC's that are determined to one-over PCs in financial transactions: no conning in this particular campaign as it just doesn't fit the vibe. So appraise is useless in my game (or at least in this campaign).