Use Magic Device Skill

[Mordante]

Can someone explain to me why this is such an important skill?

I often read that it's a good idea to max out this skill or at least put a decent amount of points in it. But can someone please explain to me why it is so important. I'm in three 3.5 groups right now. But I don't think that a Use Magic Device Skill roll was ever required.

o I am really not sure why sometimes it is regarded as such a valuable skill.

[Buufreak]

Because most of 3.x boils down to "what types of magic can you use?" And when you have a skill that let's you fake being part of a class or having a certain spell on your list or class feature, it allows you to use particular items (usually wands, staves, things like that) as if you were appropriate to do so.

Example: let's say you are in a party with no wizard, no bard, and no cleric. Instead you have a rogue. Said rogue can use the UMD skill to cast cure light wounds or other healing spells off of wands.

[Aracor]

For the most part, the answer is because of wealth. If you don't have the skill or the ability to cast Lesser Vigor, a potion is 50 gold pieces. A scroll is 25 gold pieces. A charge of a wand is 15 gold pieces for the same thing, which is Fast Healing 1 for 11 rounds - effectively healing 11 hit points.

Same with Cure Light Wounds. Potions are terribly inefficient as far as cost. Wands are "balanced" because they have limitations as to who can use them. But if you can hit a DC 20 UMD check, you can use a wand instead. Much cheaper for the same effect.

[Zanos]

It depends on what class you are. UMD is one of the hardest skills to really boost up, and grabbing max cross class ranks in it as a wizard probably isn't going to add a lot of value.

But in general UMD let's you fake prerequisites to use magic items. Restricted items tend to be more powerful and cheaper than unrestricted ones. And there are a good number of spells that don't really care about the poor caster level or save dcs of spells cast from magic items. A wand of nerveskitter gives +5 initiative 50 times for 750gp if you can UMD it. A wand of instant of power, or grease, or mage armor, or cure light wounds, or blah blah blah.

Basically 1st level wands are just really good

[Psyren]

I'm in three 3.5 groups right now. But I don't think that a Use Magic Device Skill roll was ever required.

If you're not able to find, purchase, or craft any off-list items to use it on, then it's less useful. Recommendations around investing in it assume one or more of those things are true.

As stated, it's also more useful for some classes than others. In 3.5 it's harder to get as a class skill as well.

[Khedrac]

Anoher issue is that UMD is of very little use until it is high enough to work reliably.
Even though the mishaps only apply on "activate blindly" for anything in combat having a failed result is sually worse than trying to do anything else - wasting a turn is nearly the cardinal sin of D&D combat.
It's also quite poorly defined - so some DMs will happlily allow uses not on the given DC table to be used (which probably is what is intended) while others are a lot more strict.

All this adds up to the skill being very useful once one can reliably hit DC20 (activate a wand or similar) and of litle use before then. Thus in builds it is great, in play which may never reach high enough level (and usually has a balance of classes) it can be a wasted skill point.

[Aracor]

Anoher issue is that UMD is of very little use until it is high enough to work reliably.
Even though the mishaps only apply on "activate blindly" for anything in combat having a failed result is sually worse than trying to do anything else - wasting a turn is nearly the cardinal sin of D&D combat.
It's also quite poorly defined - so some DMs will happlily allow uses not on the given DC table to be used (which probably is what is intended) while others are a lot more strict.

All this adds up to the skill being very useful once one can reliably hit DC20 (activate a wand or similar) and of litle use before then. Thus in builds it is great, in play which may never reach high enough level (and usually has a balance of classes) it can be a wasted skill point.

In combat, I'll agree with you on this - but one of the primary uses is OUT of Combat. You're not going to waste your action in combat to cast Lesser Vigor, and out of combat, it's unlikely to matter whether it takes you 5 minutes or 10 minutes to get everyone back up to full hit points because you can't reliably get the wand to spark off. There's always the disadvantage of rolling a 1, but that can be mitigated by having a couple of wands, or have a couple of people who can make the attempt. The chances of a wand shutting off for 24 hours goes down dramatically.

Same with a Wand of Mage Armor - doesn't matter in combat. But you throw up a +4 AC bonus on everyone who can use it at the beginning of the dungeon, and stop in an hour to do it again if it takes longer. Not a big deal if it takes you a single standard action or 7 to get the roll to go over 20.

[SimonMoon6]

Basically, the main idea is this:

A character's power level is directly related to their versatility. Versatility in D&D is almost completely regulated by magical abilities that you have access to. Thus, your power level is directly related to how many magical things you can do.

Use Magic Device lets you do ALL the things. You have to be able to afford magic items. You have to be in a world where magic items can be bought. But that is the default assumption for D&D campaigns.

UMD requires you to be proactive about it. If you don't go out of your way to use it, sure, you might never use it. The DM's not going to ask you to use UMD. You have to force him to let you use UMD by purchasing items.

With a high enough UMD, you can use any scroll, wand, or staff. That's where spells can be put. That gives you access to ALL the spells.

If you have access to ALL the spells, you win.

[Fizban]

Because a ton of forumites are preoccupied with the idea of how powerful each character is, and being able to activate other people's items is powerful.

In a role-based team game where the party already has both main spellcasting roles, UMD is merely an emergency backup (for activating a healing/teleport/etc scroll when the guaranteed user is down), or a parlor trick (hey look I can use this stupid drow/myconid/alien squirrel-only item without being one, woohoo!).

But in a tier-based game where each character build has to be "viable" or "competitive" with the others, being able to cherry pick the most efficient spells from any class and say that you can totally cast them enough for when it really matters because you have UMD and went scroll shopping, means your character is way more powerful. There's a quasi-joke build about a "monk" who takes cross-class UMD and does nothing but activate partially charged wands (a workaround to deal with the cost), fighting with nothing but this.

UMD is supposed to be a nice-to-have, but since Rogues have too many skill points they can always have it, and thus just like the rest of the skills that the game doesn't actually care about, its supposed importance is inflated over and over until it's somehow "necessary." It's not.

[Mordante]

If you're not able to find, purchase, or craft any off-list items to use it on, then it's less useful. Recommendations around investing in it assume one or more of those things are true.

As stated, it's also more useful for some classes than others. In 3.5 it's harder to get as a class skill as well.

I think this is the main reason why no one in the groups I play with ever use UMD. Scrolls and wands or even potions are not hardly ever used.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Perhaps the causality goes the other way - scrolls and wands are hardly ever used in your group because people don't invest in using them, so they don't ask about them or look for them.

I do agree that if you have to get it cross-class (and you don't have a way to pump skills arbitrarily) you're probably going to have a bad time; in that case a potential wand-user is better off just emulating a magical class directly via the Magic Domain, the Arcane Schooling feat, or similar. It's more for skill monkeys. Having a bunch of skill points (though never enough IMO) and UMD as a class skill is essentially a mid-level class feature of those classes that lets you use a variety of magical items that other classes can't, at the cost of some skill points. I personally don't like to completely ignore class features, though if you do you're in same boat as most 3e play testers, and they were having fun.

It's also pretty simple to use in combat with dirt cheap wand chambers (Dungeonscape). A rogue can have some swift action "I can crit/SA this type of creature" spells, or for more fun, things like Accelerated Movement or Critical Strike. Later, 2nd level effects like Swift Haste and/or Wraithstrike become available.

The other nice thing about wand use is (per RC) it's a swift action activation when the spell is a swift action, so even if the check fails it's not a disaster. And pretty quickly that check does not fail, even if you aren't a Warlock 4. One obvious UMD user is a social Bard (but I repeat myself) with 20 CHA and a Circlet of Persuasion. With nothing directly invested in UMD except full ranks, she auto-succeeds on wand UMD checks at level 8. There are other ways to pump UMD (e.g., Shape Soulmeld: Mages Spectacles) but it's only necessary if you want to do wand stuff ASAP, or if you're doing scroll-related shenanigans.

[Anthrowhale]

If you have the Channel Charge feat, then a spellcaster can cast any spell using a slot or prepared spell one level higher using UMD. Access to UMD can be provided by Apprentice[Spellcaster] and there are several ways and UMD checks can be passed using Improvisation, Divine Insight, Guidance of the Avatar, etc...

[Mordante]

Perhaps the causality goes the other way - scrolls and wands are hardly ever used in your group because people don't invest in using them, so they don't ask about them or look for them.

I do agree that if you have to get it cross-class (and you don't have a way to pump skills arbitrarily) you're probably going to have a bad time; in that case a potential wand-user is better off just emulating a magical class directly via the Magic Domain, the Arcane Schooling feat, or similar. It's more for skill monkeys. Having a bunch of skill points (though never enough IMO) and UMD as a class skill is essentially a mid-level class feature of those classes that lets you use a variety of magical items that other classes can't, at the cost of some skill points. I personally don't like to completely ignore class features, though if you do you're in same boat as most 3e play testers, and they were having fun.

It's also pretty simple to use in combat with dirt cheap wand chambers (Dungeonscape). A rogue can have some swift action "I can crit/SA this type of creature" spells, or for more fun, things like Accelerated Movement or Critical Strike. Later, 2nd level effects like Swift Haste and/or Wraithstrike become available.

The other nice thing about wand use is (per RC) it's a swift action activation when the spell is a swift action, so even if the check fails it's not a disaster. And pretty quickly that check does not fail, even if you aren't a Warlock 4. One obvious UMD user is a social Bard (but I repeat myself) with 20 CHA and a Circlet of Persuasion. With nothing directly invested in UMD except full ranks, she auto-succeeds on wand UMD checks at level 8. There are other ways to pump UMD (e.g., Shape Soulmeld: Mages Spectacles) but it's only necessary if you want to do wand stuff ASAP, or if you're doing scroll-related shenanigans.

The few times we did use a scroll, our DM did not ask for a UDM check.

it could be that the three parties I play in play a little different from average. We don't visit magic markets and gold is always an issue. Maybe I should have a chat with our DM. Maybe he should start using the UDM skill check.

I play a Bard and a Warlock. Both are short on skill points without having put any points in UDM.

[AvatarVecna]

In theorycrafting, it's fairly straightforward: magic, even low-level magic, is a gateway to being at least semi-competent at anything (but not necessarily everything unless you're mega-tryharding), and UMD is a gateway to being able to use magic you couldn't otherwise use. A rogue with UMD gets to use magic, and a wizard with UMD gets to use more magic. And the more magic you use, the betterer you theoretically are (potentially infinitely betterererer?) at anything (everything?). An expert 20 with full ranks in UMD and no other skills worth mentioning could buy a wand of Guidance Of The Avatar and now can effectively spend 90 gp for +20 to a single check. And the amount spent can be lowered from 90 gp depending on just how much crafting shenaniganery you're allowed to have a party crafter set up. And a good part of that is the spell being broken, sure, but even if you don't wanna leave the SRD, access to spells like Invisibility, Silence, Knock, and Find Traps can still let you play a physical infiltrator well enough.

In practice, UMD is something with a lot of potential, but how much of that potential you get to see unlocked is dependent on a number of factors that aren't really in your control. If the group's casters are cleric and wizard, then UMD won't be seeing much use on other characters - you might occasionally need the rogue to heal the cleric when they go down, but most of the time in combat the rogue is better off stabbing people's butts than healing. If the group's casters are a healer and a warmage, though...that's a different story because their spell lists are much smaller, so the number of spells available to the group is much smaller unless somebody has focused UMD. But even that's going to be dependent on how many consumables you're finding/buying, which gets a bit into the economic aspect of it: buying consumables is...bad?

Like okay nobody is knocking a wand of cure light wounds, it's basically a staple even at relatively down-to-earth tables. But comparing it with other things you could be spending your money on, it's sometimes a bit hard to justify. You could spend 750 gp for 50 charges of a specific 1st lvl spell the cleric can cast, or you could spend 1000 gp on a pearl of power and give the cleric an extra casting of a spell of their choice every day for the rest of their adventuring career. Sure, the wand is gonna be better for burst healing, but that's money down the drain - you're spending gp for finite extra castings, when you could be spending gp for infinite* extra castings. How many jokes have you seen about playing a video game with a limited-and-highly-useful resources where they're like "I'll only use this really cool rare item when I absolutely need to" and the joke is that at the end of the game they never used it because the situation never seemed dire enough to spend a limited resource on?

You can get around that a bit if your DM is a bit looser on WBLmancy shenanigans, but that's the kind of thing that makes people cagey. I've attempted to build cheesy artificers in games where other players made wizards knocking on the T0 door, and the crafting shenanigans got shut down before the shapechange ones, because crafting can kinda get out of hand if you're just a lil too loose on restrictions. I've also had a low-epic crafter in a game where more or less anything goes, and they were able to mostly keep up with pure WBLmancy despite everybody else getting to play around with some epic spellcasting shenanigans. But I've also had DMs (on this forum, even) who give raised eyebrows even to people combining existing items together using the MIC rules. Sure, you could solve the problem in the previous paragraph by making an At-Will Command Word item of "Cure Light Wounds" for the best burst healing and it being an unlimited resource, but the number of DMs you'll meet in your entire life who would allow such an item (even if you peruse forums like this for DMs) is gonna be in the single digits, and probably approaching zero.

But the reason it's lauded is that, as a skill, it has more potential than basically any other skill. The other ones that can compete are...what? The skills that let you turn foe to friend? The skill that lets you grapple people into another dimension? The skill that lets you turn murder into wishes? Yeah that's probably basically it. Most skills are useful, but they're not exploitable rabbit holes to go diving down the way UMD is, hence why UMD gets a lot of focus on forums like this. There's nothing you're doing with Appraise or Jump or Hide that's really all that exploitable, outside of niche situations usually relying on PrC abilities. Iaijutsu Focus lets you destroy objects faster? Craft lets you make a bit of extra cash during downtime? Intimidate with the right feat can make somebody helpless for a round? All of those are kinda neat things you can do, but to a certain extent they're competing against "unlock as many secrets of the cosmos as you can afford".

TL;DR

UMD is a mechanic that lets anybody turn money into magic, and the system in general supports turning magic into power. How powerful/necessary UMD is to a given group or theorycrafting exercise is going to depend on how efficient "money-->magic" is, and how efficient "magic-->power" is. And that's going to be highly variable from table to table, and even for TO stuff it'll vary from forum to forum, frankly.

Separately, I don't think rogue actually gets "too many skill points" as another person pointed out. Having actually played a couple rogues in my time, yeah they got a lot of skill points, but they also have a lot of skills they want.

Physical infiltrator has a minimum of disable device / hide / listen / move silently / open lock / search / spot, for sneaking, scouting, and dealing with traps. That's a minimum of 7 skills, and that's without touching on any of the mobility skills: balance, climb, jump, swim, or tumble. You could get all of them if you have Int 18 on your rogue, but you probably don't. Probably a 14, and you're just passing a couple skills up, but that's a hard choice on what to cut. And that's the classic rogue schtick.

Social rogue? Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Intimidate, Knowledge (nobility & royalty [CC]), Sense Motive. That's 6 skills on a character who wants to be Cha primary probably, and has a number of worthwhile secondary skills: a couple more knowledges (maybe made class skills via Education feat?), listen/spot if they want to notice things in social scenes besides "did they just lie to me" (which makes Wis secondary even more useful)...heck, maybe Appraise, to keep the group from getting screwed over by a shifty merchant during haggling (sense motive can help with that too, but Appraise is more focused on the task, so DMs are more likely to call for that skill). K/Local and the other 3 makes 10 skills, hitting that Int 14 threshold where more points/higher rolls are harder to count on and are starting to take points away from other more important attributes.

IME, every rogue will consider UMD, but it's always going to be competing for skills more integral to their concept, and taking it means making a sacrifice elsewhere. And whether that sacrifice is worth it depends on a lot on how useful UMD is at that particular table (which at least partially depends on the games level - UMD is borderline useless at level 1 when you have no money or magic items, and can't reliably hit the DCs anyway).

[Mordante]

In theorycrafting, it's fairly straightforward: magic, even low-level magic, is a gateway to being at least semi-competent at anything (but not necessarily everything unless you're mega-tryharding), and UMD is a gateway to being able to use magic you couldn't otherwise use. A rogue with UMD gets to use magic, and a wizard with UMD gets to use more magic. And the more magic you use, the betterer you theoretically are (potentially infinitely betterererer?) at anything (everything?). An expert 20 with full ranks in UMD and no other skills worth mentioning could buy a wand of Guidance Of The Avatar and now can effectively spend 90 gp for +20 to a single check. And the amount spent can be lowered from 90 gp depending on just how much crafting shenaniganery you're allowed to have a party crafter set up. And a good part of that is the spell being broken, sure, but even if you don't wanna leave the SRD, access to spells like Invisibility, Silence, Knock, and Find Traps can still let you play a physical infiltrator well enough.

In practice, UMD is something with a lot of potential, but how much of that potential you get to see unlocked is dependent on a number of factors that aren't really in your control. If the group's casters are cleric and wizard, then UMD won't be seeing much use on other characters - you might occasionally need the rogue to heal the cleric when they go down, but most of the time in combat the rogue is better off stabbing people's butts than healing. If the group's casters are a healer and a warmage, though...that's a different story because their spell lists are much smaller, so the number of spells available to the group is much smaller unless somebody has focused UMD. But even that's going to be dependent on how many consumables you're finding/buying, which gets a bit into the economic aspect of it: buying consumables is...bad?

Like okay nobody is knocking a wand of cure light wounds, it's basically a staple even at relatively down-to-earth tables. But comparing it with other things you could be spending your money on, it's sometimes a bit hard to justify. You could spend 750 gp for 50 charges of a specific 1st lvl spell the cleric can cast, or you could spend 1000 gp on a pearl of power and give the cleric an extra casting of a spell of their choice every day for the rest of their adventuring career. Sure, the wand is gonna be better for burst healing, but that's money down the drain - you're spending gp for finite extra castings, when you could be spending gp for infinite* extra castings. How many jokes have you seen about playing a video game with a limited-and-highly-useful resources where they're like "I'll only use this really cool rare item when I absolutely need to" and the joke is that at the end of the game they never used it because the situation never seemed dire enough to spend a limited resource on?

You can get around that a bit if your DM is a bit looser on WBLmancy shenanigans, but that's the kind of thing that makes people cagey. I've attempted to build cheesy artificers in games where other players made wizards knocking on the T0 door, and the crafting shenanigans got shut down before the shapechange ones, because crafting can kinda get out of hand if you're just a lil too loose on restrictions. I've also had a low-epic crafter in a game where more or less anything goes, and they were able to mostly keep up with pure WBLmancy despite everybody else getting to play around with some epic spellcasting shenanigans. But I've also had DMs (on this forum, even) who give raised eyebrows even to people combining existing items together using the MIC rules. Sure, you could solve the problem in the previous paragraph by making an At-Will Command Word item of "Cure Light Wounds" for the best burst healing and it being an unlimited resource, but the number of DMs you'll meet in your entire life who would allow such an item (even if you peruse forums like this for DMs) is gonna be in the single digits, and probably approaching zero.

But the reason it's lauded is that, as a skill, it has more potential than basically any other skill. The other ones that can compete are...what? The skills that let you turn foe to friend? The skill that lets you grapple people into another dimension? The skill that lets you turn murder into wishes? Yeah that's probably basically it. Most skills are useful, but they're not exploitable rabbit holes to go diving down the way UMD is, hence why UMD gets a lot of focus on forums like this. There's nothing you're doing with Appraise or Jump or Hide that's really all that exploitable, outside of niche situations usually relying on PrC abilities. Iaijutsu Focus lets you destroy objects faster? Craft lets you make a bit of extra cash during downtime? Intimidate with the right feat can make somebody helpless for a round? All of those are kinda neat things you can do, but to a certain extent they're competing against "unlock as many secrets of the cosmos as you can afford".

TL;DR

UMD is a mechanic that lets anybody turn money into magic, and the system in general supports turning magic into power. How powerful/necessary UMD is to a given group or theorycrafting exercise is going to depend on how efficient "money-->magic" is, and how efficient "magic-->power" is. And that's going to be highly variable from table to table, and even for TO stuff it'll vary from forum to forum, frankly.

Separately, I don't think rogue actually gets "too many skill points" as another person pointed out. Having actually played a couple rogues in my time, yeah they got a lot of skill points, but they also have a lot of skills they want.

Physical infiltrator has a minimum of disable device / hide / listen / move silently / open lock / search / spot, for sneaking, scouting, and dealing with traps. That's a minimum of 7 skills, and that's without touching on any of the mobility skills: balance, climb, jump, swim, or tumble. You could get all of them if you have Int 18 on your rogue, but you probably don't. Probably a 14, and you're just passing a couple skills up, but that's a hard choice on what to cut. And that's the classic rogue schtick.

Social rogue? Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Intimidate, Knowledge (nobility & royalty [CC]), Sense Motive. That's 6 skills on a character who wants to be Cha primary probably, and has a number of worthwhile secondary skills: a couple more knowledges (maybe made class skills via Education feat?), listen/spot if they want to notice things in social scenes besides "did they just lie to me" (which makes Wis secondary even more useful)...heck, maybe Appraise, to keep the group from getting screwed over by a shifty merchant during haggling (sense motive can help with that too, but Appraise is more focused on the task, so DMs are more likely to call for that skill). K/Local and the other 3 makes 10 skills, hitting that Int 14 threshold where more points/higher rolls are harder to count on and are starting to take points away from other more important attributes.

IME, every rogue will consider UMD, but it's always going to be competing for skills more integral to their concept, and taking it means making a sacrifice elsewhere. And whether that sacrifice is worth it depends on a lot on how useful UMD is at that particular table (which at least partially depends on the games level - UMD is borderline useless at level 1 when you have no money or magic items, and can't reliably hit the DCs anyway).

I think you make a great argument. Right now I play the following characters.

Warlock 2
Rogue 1/Bard 2
Fighter 11?/Archblade 6

I will have a chat with the DMs concerning the UMD skill. Especially in the low level parties. The high level party is a bit odd. With my rogue/bard party I can definitely see a use for wand use, since we have no healer. Besides me there is a Hexblade and a Wizard (or Sorc) always forget what he plays.

WBL is always is bit tricky. For example the warlock in a place without economy and hardly any magic. Its a walled town from where escape is nigh impossible and most trade is done in barter. The center of the town is an arena where some copper can be earned in gladiator style death matches. Group vs group, 1vs1 and group vs monster. We are an evil-ish party and we sort escaped the holding cells below the arena. We were teleported into these cells by some entity who gathers people to fight in the arena.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

The urge to hoard expendables is real, and a dedicated UMD user has to overcome that urge, but the urge to be at full health dominates it. The same fighter who never uses his potion of Enlarge Person that he got in session 1 "in case I need it later" will demand the cleric heal him to full, whether that's from the low level cleric's meager spell slots or a wand. Relatedly, "burst usage" is an odd way to describe using a wand repeatedly until everyone is at full health out of combat. A single Pearl of Power 1 won't get anywhere close to accomplishing that, so it's not a fair comparison.

This gets to a general quality of permanent-v-expendable: Campaigns, and therefore all refreshable abilities, are finite. Thus, for a reasonable ballpark estimate of campaign length and uses of ability per time, we can compare the total cost of using expendable items to achieve an effect versus the total cost of using permanent or x/day items to achieve that same effect. To replicate the effect of "topping up the entire party after every fight," getting the requisite number of Pearls of Power is way more expensive than using a number of healing wands over the course of a campaign. Healing Belts are the real per-day option; barring higher-op tricks (e.g., Persistent MLV), the most cost-effective option over the course of a campaign is probably a few healing belts + one or two wands of LV for topping up when the belts run out.

This logic applies to effects other than healing as well. You have to compare the total cost of producing the desired effect over the course of the campaign, and then also consider the fact that a big up-front investment in WBL may not be worth minor cost savings at level 20.

Finally, it is amusing to me that one of the more cost-effective daily-use magic items is... an eternal wand (especially level 1), which still requires UMD or a workaround. For something you're only really going to cast 1-2 times a day, the eternal wand is fine. For something you'll rarely cast, but on those days you need multiples, a regular wand is better. For everything in between (e.g., something you're going to cast a lot on most days), like with healing, a mix is best.

[AvatarVecna]

The urge to hoard expendables is real, and a dedicated UMD user has to overcome that urge, but the urge to be at full health dominates it. The same fighter who never uses his potion of Enlarge Person that he got in session 1 "in case I need it later" will demand the cleric heal him to full, whether that's from the low level cleric's meager spell slots or a wand. Relatedly, "burst usage" is an odd way to describe using a wand repeatedly until everyone is at full health out of combat. A single Pearl of Power 1 won't get anywhere close to accomplishing that, so it's not a fair comparison.

This gets to a general quality of permanent-v-expendable: Campaigns, and therefore all refreshable abilities, are finite. Thus, for a reasonable ballpark estimate of campaign length and uses of ability per time, we can compare the total cost of using expendable items to achieve an effect versus the total cost of using permanent or x/day items to achieve that same effect. To replicate the effect of "topping up the entire party after every fight," getting the requisite number of Pearls of Power is way more expensive than using a number of healing wands over the course of a campaign. Healing Belts are the real per-day option; barring higher-op tricks (e.g., Persistent MLV), the most cost-effective option over the course of a campaign is probably a few healing belts + one or two wands of LV for topping up when the belts run out.

This logic applies to effects other than healing as well. You have to compare the total cost of producing the desired effect over the course of the campaign, and then also consider the fact that a big up-front investment in WBL may not be worth minor cost savings at level 20.

Finally, it is amusing to me that one of the more cost-effective daily-use magic items is... an eternal wand (especially level 1), which still requires UMD or a workaround. For something you're only really going to cast 1-2 times a day, the eternal wand is fine. For something you'll rarely cast, but on those days you need multiples, a regular wand is better. For everything in between (e.g., something you're going to cast a lot on most days), like with healing, a mix is best.

That's kinda why I said that cure light wands weren't really what I was talking about, that everybody appreciates those. Generally speaking, prepared casters want to fill up their slots with spells they have good reason to think they'll use that day, lest the slot go to waste. Preparing niche utility spells that you might need feels like a waste if you never end up using them, but honestly it still feels like a waste if you do use them because it's solving a problem the hard way. Let's use Knock as an example.

You prepare and cast Knock because you either don't have a rogue in the party who can deal with locks, or you have one but you think that for this particular day you'll need the ability to get them dealt with in a timeframe where rounds matter (as opposed to it occurring in narrative time like normal). Setting aside a 2nd lvl slot for Knock when you don't have a rogue is frustrating even if you know full well you'll cast it, because you could've prepared other 2nd lvl spells that do things more fun than "open a locked door". You could be reading minds or turning invisible or climbing walls like spider-man, and instead you're preparing this souped-up version of Open/Close because nobody in the party felt like playing trapmonkey. Scrolls and wands would free up your slots to do more fun stuff, but those are expensive. That's money spent not on a permanent buff to your abilities, or on new spells for your spellbook, or on improved magic items, or on a standing home you can live it...it's money thrown down the drain to solve a problem the hard way because the easiest way wasn't available. And the alternative to solving the problem with magic is to either go without, or to just use brute force to open locked doors you come across. The fighter can "unlock" doors in this manner without paying a single copper piece, it just requires the party to adjust to a different style of play. You're either giving up money, or you're giving up the sneaky option.

Pearls Of Power (and yes, Eternal Wands as well) are a better way to spend money in general, but it gets into burst potential issues again. Enough pearls/eternal wands to solve your lock issues in heavy dungeons is going to be expensive, even if it's not money that's gone forever. With eternal wands, you have the issue where if the problem doesn't come up, you've "wasted" your two free Knock slots, whereas purchasing Pearls Of Power (while more expensive than Eternal Wands) can be used on whatever spell you wanted. Wand is still far better burst than either of them, but it's money that gets used up. Once the 50 charges are gone, that's it.

An eternal wand of cure light wounds wouldn't be the most useful thing for burst healing, but if you have a bunch of them, it's only slightly more expensive than buying an equal number of wands, and they'll last longer. Let's say that a party ends up going through 1 castings per party member per level per day (so a party of 4 5th lvl characters is going through 20 charges of cure light wounds per day). That's simultaneously probably not enough healing for a hard day of combat, and also really expensive to get via eternal wands or pearls of power. But if you did get it via eternal wands, that's money spent on a permanent...lets call it "daily healing amount". Whereas with normal wands, the money is gone once the charge is used. Purchasing wands is objectively a less efficient way of spending money, but it's the only way to get the amount of healing, or knock, or guidance of the avatar, or whatever that your party needs for getting through adventures. No matter which direction you go in, it feels more wasteful than if you could handle the problem by having the right party member or the right spell.

It's the trap of WBLmancy, and as you say, the kind of thing a dedicated UMD user has to overcome. Sometimes the easiest thing to do is accept that your gear isn't going to be as powerful as you'd like because you had to spend some money solving a consistent problem the group faces in a less efficient way. Whether the person giving up a fraction of their personal power is the wizard, the cleric, or the UMD rogue is irrelevant, as long as the problem is getting solved. It still doesn't make it feel great, but this is all just an explanation of why it sucks when it happens: spending gold on a non-renewable solution to a renewable problem feels wasteful even though the adventuring lifestyle drowns you in money.

[Thurbane]

The urge to hoard expendables is real, and a dedicated UMD user has to overcome that urge, but the urge to be at full health dominates it.

I was one of those people who when playing arcade video games where you got three special bombs or whatever, I'd nearly always die and hit game over with a full load of them! :smallbiggrin:

I'm still a little like that: when I'm a player, I always urge party members not to use expendables if a renewable source is available. I tend to still have loose Potions of CLW on my sheet even when I'm mid-high levels. :smalltongue:

[Darg]

The other nice thing about wand use is (per RC) it's a swift action activation when the spell is a swift action, so even if the check fails it's not a disaster.

Not every group has the RC and without the RC it is a standard action. Remember, it was released as a separate book and while it supercedes previous rules it only applies when you actually have the book to tell you. And as far as I can tell, other than a few changes that could have at least been highlighted, it just consolidates rules into a single source.

An example of this is how nobody really plays with the few changes from the premium edition of the PHB.

[RexDart]

Not every group has the RC and without the RC it is a standard action. Remember, it was released as a separate book and while it supercedes previous rules it only applies when you actually have the book to tell you. And as far as I can tell, other than a few changes that could have at least been highlighted, it just consolidates rules into a single source.

An example of this is how nobody really plays with the few changes from the premium edition of the PHB.

What are those PHB changes? I'm not sure I've even heard of their existence before.

[Psyren]

Not every group has the RC and without the RC it is a standard action. Remember, it was released as a separate book and while it supercedes previous rules it only applies when you actually have the book to tell you. And as far as I can tell, other than a few changes that could have at least been highlighted, it just consolidates rules into a single source.

An example of this is how nobody really plays with the few changes from the premium edition of the PHB.

Not using that rule results in problems in the other direction though, like wands of longer casting time spells becoming reduced to a standard action. Spells like Make Whole, Restoration, and Bless Water are balanced around being more difficult if not impossible to use in combat. Even 1-round spells like summons or Sleep become markedly stronger if you can get them off with a swish and flick. And if you have an ability that lets you boost Wand DCs like an Artificer or a Magician Bard the latter is compounded further.

[Darg]

Not using that rule results in problems in the other direction though, like wands of longer casting time spells becoming reduced to a standard action. Spells like Make Whole, Restoration, and Bless Water are balanced around being more difficult if not impossible to use in combat. Even 1-round spells like summons or Sleep become markedly stronger if you can get them off with a swish and flick. And if you have an ability that lets you boost Wand DCs like an Artificer or a Magician Bard the latter is compounded further.

That isn't true. In each of the spell trigger item descriptions under activation it states that if a spell with a longer activation time is being cast it uses that activation time:


Activation: Staffs use the spell trigger activation method, so casting a spell from a staff is usually a standard action that doesn’t provoke attacks of opportunity. (If the spell being cast, however, has a longer casting time than 1 standard action, it takes that long to cast the spell from a staff.) To activate a staff, a character must hold it forth in at least one hand (or whatever passes for a hand, for nonhumanoid creatures).


Activation: Wands use the spell trigger activation method, so casting a spell from a wand is usually a standard action that doesn’t provoke attacks of opportunity. (If the spell being cast, however, has a longer casting time than 1 action, it takes that long to cast the spell from a wand.) To activate a wand, a character must hold it in hand (or whatever passes for a hand, for non-humanoid creatures) and point it in the general direction of the target or area. A wand may be used while grappling or while swallowed whole.

Yes, the "standard" in "1 standard action" is missing in the wand description.


What are those PHB changes? I'm not sure I've even heard of their existence before.

I don't actually own the books myself, so I can only tell you the ones I searched for a while back, but I have heard from the person who owned the premium edition books that there were other differences. Spring Attack and Shot on the Run feats were made to be full-round actions that don't work if you move more than your normal speed instead of the non-updated versions we got in the normal PHB that leaves your move action intact and was expanded on with the mobile spellcasting feat in CAdv. Basically the feats were rewritten to function how they did in 3.0 with consideration with the new action system we got in 3.5.