thalion's page

New player here.

I saw the errata and thread that says you can't use Vital Strike with Spring Attack.

However, can you do a Power Attack as the single attack when you do a Spring Attack?

Hi, I'm completely new to Pathfinder. Haven't played 3e or 3.5e either so this is all new to me. (I'm an old 1e player).

A couple of people are planning on starting a Pathfinder game so I'm in the process of trying to generate a character for it.

As such, I anticipate having a bunch of questions as I go.

My first set of questions revolve around skills.

Okay, a class gets x number of skill points per level and that is modified by his intelligence bonus. I get that.

I also get the fact that each class has a list of class skills.

Does that mean I can only spend my skill points on those class skills or can I spend them on any skill I want?

If the latter, is the only difference between a class skill and a non-class skill the +3 bonus that class skills give when you add a point to it initially?

Question about UMD. I think I understand but I'm not wholly certain. From what I ascertain, a character can use a wand normally if the wand contains a spell from that character class spell list. But, if the wand doesn't... is that when the UMD check comes in?

So, I notice that the Magus has UMD as a class skill meaning that it's a skill he should at least think about taking because he might want to use it to cast wand spells that aren't on his spell list.

A wizard, on the other hand, doesn't have it as a class skill presumably because the wizard spell list is assumed to know all of the wizard spells and thus wouldn't need UMD. Is that a correct assumption?

How about if a wizard wanted to cast a cleric spell from a wand. Would he need to make a UMD check?

Also regarding wands in general. It says that you can use a wand to cast a spell that is on your spell list. Can you use a wand to cast a spell higher level than you have access to if it's on the class spell list or is it limited to spells that you can actually cast?

Finally, I'm planning on going with a magus/ninja multiclass combination. I notice ninjas (like rogues) have UMD as a class skill. If I were only interested in using a wand to cast spells from a magus spell list, would I need to make a UMD check as a ninja if I was multi-classed with magus?

I've never played Pathfinder before but a couple of friends of mine are starting a campaign at level 3.

I was planning on playing an elf ninja but got the idea of going ninja/kensei with the emphasis on the former.

I'm not looking for optimal. I'm just looking to see if the concept is viable.

It's as much for flavor as anything else.