Use magic device

[King of Nowhere]

I'm having troubles understanding the UMD skill. as in, it is often talked about as a must-have and something that lets rogues do a lot of things with magic loot.
but at my table, nobody's ever succeeded at making it work. besides a handful of ranks to use a wand of cure light wounds out of combat.

the problem is, it's super duper difficult to use. there is literally no printed DC below 20. and charisma is not a primary stat for a rogue.
so, even your mid level rogue, having spent 1 skill points per level (and sure, rogues get lots of skill points, but they also get lots of skills they want to have; i've never seen a rogue that wasn't starved for more skill points), will fail half the times. on the easiest check.

perhaps people assume a cheap boost to the skill check*? because unless you can get a free +20, the skill just seem unusable.



* we don't use those at my table because we believe they make skills moot

[Silent Alarm]

Yes, Use Magic Device is something that you need to build for to make worth your time. It requires ability score investment, skill rank investment, feat investment, and a legitimate strategy around getting it to work consistently.

A 1st level Artificer of any race with the base ability scores (Str 8, Dex 13, Con 12, Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 15; Elite Array) can take Skill Focus: Use Magic Device and successfully activate your wand with an 11 or higher; A 9, if you are allowed to make your own Masterwork Tools for 18gp, 3sp, and 33cp. At higher levels, when the character can actually AFFORD magic items, this obviously becomes easier, but as I said: It is something that you need to build around and plan for in advance if it is something you want to do.

EDIT: In theory, your character can reliably activate every magical item they would ever pick up if they picked up Iron Will at 1st level (ideally as a Human bonus feat, or through whatever means you can convince your DM to give it to you) and taking Hardened Criminal from City of Stormreach to be able to take 10 on your Use Magic Device check, and as I mentioned. With the previously listed factors, and the additional +2 ranks (meaning that you can largely dump your Charisma if you are inclined to use Magic Items at later levels) and still achieve the same result OR discard your masterwork tools.

[nedz]

UMD is a must have skill for Warlocks, and useful for Rogues.

Warlocks should be able to reliable use Wands by around level 6 (even with 10 Cha) — which is when you start to see them in loot.

A Cha based Rogue is possible — they do have plenty of social skills — not all Rogues are the same.

[Kelb_Panthera]

It's a bit dicey at low levels, certainly, unless you build toward it in particular.

However, even as something unreliable, the effects that can be garnered are pretty impressive. Just by default you get a chance to activate wands and staves that would otherwise have their powers locked away unless you're a caster with that spell(s) on your list. You get a slimmer shot at scrolls but scrolls can be -immensely- more powerful than what you'd be able to otherwise do if circumstances are right.

Then there's actually getting gear to supplement your character's skill.



A +20 item to UMD would, indeed, be problematic but for a couple of things:

First, that would be 40,000 gold pieces, which is no mean price for any character to pay.
Second, it requires the cooperation of someone with 20 ranks in the skill to create; a pretty rare 17th level character.
Third, non-epic skill items are capped at +15 so it's actually 400,000 gp.

Even the 22,500 for a +15 is no guarantee and still gods-awful expensive. The MIC guidelines suggest you shouldn't have one before level 13 at the earliest and 15 is more appropriate. I just don't see how something that expensive can be a problem when you have to spend still more money to use it. The same issue goes for other skills except for the extra cost to use.

[Thurbane]

Rod of Mimicry (A&EG p.126) is +10 competence bonus on Disguise, Forgery, and Use Magic Device checks, plus ventriloquism at will. 30,000gp, so not an insignificant investment - not to mention it's coupled with skills that you may not even want boosted (Forgery in particular). It's the highest printed (i.e. non-custom) items bonus to UMD I've seen, though...

[SimonMoon6]

And one of the things to also be aware of is: nothing bad happens if you fail a UMD check. If you try reading a scroll and fail, try again next turn. The scroll isn't used up unless you actually succeed. If you try to use a wand and fail, you don' t use up a charge of the wand.

So, for non-combat items where time is not important, you can eventually succeed at using any item (as long as rolling a 20 is enough for you to succeed).

Yes, rolling a 1 means you have to wait a day to try again. But, again, if time is not an issue, that's not a problem.

[Silent Alarm]

Rod of Mimicry (A&EG p.126) is +10 competence bonus on Disguise, Forgery, and Use Magic Device checks, plus ventriloquism at will. 30,000gp, so not an insignificant investment - not to mention it's coupled with skills that you may not even want boosted (Forgery in particular). It's the highest printed (i.e. non-custom) items bonus to UMD I've seen, though...
You absolutely want Forgery. Forgery can be better than Bluff because it is countered by Forgery. Who the hell puts ranks in Forgery?

[nedz]

You absolutely want Forgery. Forgery can be better than Bluff because it is countered by Forgery. Who the hell puts ranks in Forgery?

Every Beguiler should have ranks in Forgery and a blank piece of paper.

Concealed Spellcasting — Silent Spell — Silent Image — Forgery.

It's the Dr. Who Psychic Paper trick.

[Drelua]

Just curious, do you often play at higher levels or are your games generally lower level? UMD probably seems less useful if you're usually playing at low levels.

But if you can get your skill close to 20, which shouldn't take too many levels, just being able to use wands can be a huge advantage. The cure wands are of course great, but there's a lot of other options. A ranged touch spell can be great if you can sneak attack with it, though I haven't played 3.5 in ages so I can't remember exactly how that works. And 50 castings of invisibility for 4500 can last a rogue a long time, and 90 gold a shot is less than a third the price of a potion. Put that in a wand chamber and you can disappear any time you want.

If you're playing a more social rogue you've probably got a decent charisma, and even if you're not you can boost it with items like a circlet of persuasion, it's not super cheap at 4500 but a +3 to all charisma based checks is pretty great. If you have a sorcerer or a bard, split it with them and they can use it when you don't have to lie talk to people.

I've always wanted to have a villain who seems like a good guy by UMDing celestial armor and a sunblade or a holy avenger to fake the alignment. Maybe a PF Inquisitor or a Paladin of Tyranny. So from a GM's point of view it can be useful for having bad guys with loot that good guys really want.

Edit: don't know why I thought celestial armor had an alignment requirement, must have had it confused with something else.