Imbue with spell ability and wands

[Wycen]

Our cleric brought up the idea of using one of his 4th level spells to give another party member the ability to cast a healing or buffing spell. I chimed in and said what you want to do is give them Cure Light Wounds and then hand them a wand of cure light wounds to use.

He said that sounded wrong, I can't remember if he meant cheesy or impossible at this point, but after reviewing the spell and spell trigger rules, I am still convinced this is a good combo.

Am I missing some Faq update or something?

Thanks

[Cry Jay]

Nope, the only draw back to this spell is if the cleric uses up all his spells then the other party member cant use the spells that the cleric gave him. (at least that's how i read it.)

Wands are good, but if the recipient isnt good with magic they arent gonna be able to use the wand. This is a good spell to use to give a person the ability to buff them self so the cleric can spend a extra round firing off another spell.

[Wycen]

If you have an abundance of 4th level spell slots, it can be a good idea, but there are probably better things like Freedom of Movement. Unless you really need someone running around the battlefield burning charges on a wand.

[Burn56]

The spell: imbue with spell like power reads:

Quote:

You transfer some of your currently prepared spells, and the ability to cast them, to another creature. Only a creature with an Intelligence score of at least 5 and a Wisdom score of at least 9 can receive this boon. Only cleric spells from the schools of abjuration, divination, and conjuration (healing) can be transferred. The number and level of spells that the subject can be granted depends on its Hit Dice; even multiple castings of imbue with spell ability can't exceed this limit.

Emphasis mine.

So to me, yes you gave him the sbility to cast the spell, but remember, wands require a use magic device check if the spell is not normally able to be on your spell list.
So unless that character can normally cast cure light wounds (or can obtain the spell from their class) you still need a check with the wand.

[HaraldKlak]

I don't believe it enables you to use a wand (without UMD), since that requires you to have the spell on your spell list. Imbue only grants the ability to cast a few spells once, it doesn't grant actual spell casting.

Overall, I think the spell has decent uses. Grace is a nice 2nd lvl spell for a frontliner. Entropic shield can be very worthwhile when facing ranged enemies.
Generelly though, I think you need to be quite high level before you have a lvl 4 spell slot to spend on it.

[Wycen]

But using that same emphasis, mine, I can argue it doesn't require anything special of the recipient (except the INT 5 WIS 9), that's all granted by the spell. Why would it bother to mention the having a INT of 5 and WIS of 9 anyway?

A fighter with an INT of 9 can cast the spell they've been imbued with? If they can do that, look at the spell trigger description and go from there: Spell trigger activation is similar to spell completion, but it's even simpler. No gestures or spell finishing is needed, just a special knowledge of spellcasting that an appropriate character would know, and a single word that must be spoken. Spell trigger items can be used by anyone whose class can cast the corresponding spell. This is the case even for a character who can't actually cast spells, such as a 3rd-level paladin. The user must still determine what spell is stored in the item before she can activate it. Activating a spell trigger item is a standard action and does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

Perhaps I'm just seeing "the ability to cast them" too liberally, but that's why I posted.

I wonder if digging out a 1E or 2E Players Handbook and reading the older version would shed some light on this.

[Howie23]

As you've quoted, a wand can be used by anyone of a class that can cast the spell. Cure light wounds is not on the fighter's noticeably short spell list. Imbue doesn't change that; he can cast the spell, but still has no spell list. Doesn't work.