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In just looking over UMD I'm just wondering how viable it would be to use as your main shtick in PFS?
Between prestige points, the level 12 cap, and no crafting, it seems as if UMD is pretty hard to pull off. You really have to wait till the upper levels before you have enough gold to be able to purchase enough items to be a kind of UMD "batman" character.
I have had a lot of fun with it at the low levels. While I don't use it with an intention of becoming a "Batman" character, at 3rd level my bard began carrying a scroll of fireball to use against swarms. She calls it her 'Taldan doomsday device'. I consider the skill valuable enough to invest two feats in it.
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In just looking over UMD I'm just wondering how viable it would be to use as your main shtick in PFS?
Between prestige points, the level 12 cap, and no crafting, it seems as if UMD is pretty hard to pull off. You really have to wait till the upper levels before you have enough gold to be able to purchase enough items to be a kind of UMD "batman" character.
Every 2 PA that you acquire you can 'spend' to get a single 750gp item, which coincidentally is the exact price of a level 1 wand with CL 1 of a spell without material components.
-James
virtually everyone one of the people I play with regularly uses 2 PA for a wand of CLW. Normally we have to hand off the wand to someone who has it on their list. But there have been a few times when I'm happy my rogue put some ranks in UMD when the spellcaster went down.
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I have a rogue with some UMD. It is quite useful. You are right that you need to get plenty of points in it to make it reliable, but 12 levels of play is plenty for that when you look at ways to get the number up. Feats for starters and then magic like circlet of persuasion which will lift your Charisma based skill checks.
UMD is a fun concept anyway. It keeps those elitist wizards in their place a bit, and of course being able to use a wand of CLW is always handy.
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Even with say a +4 UMD score you are going to be able to eventually activate a wand out of combat 5/6 times (i.e. roll a 16 or higher before rolling a 1).
Well if you don't have enough points then 5/6 is ok, but when you need it to work because its life or death then 6/6 is what you want (but not a 1).
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I have a rogue with some UMD. It is quite useful. You are right that you need to get plenty of points in it to make it reliable, but 12 levels of play is plenty for that when you look at ways to get the number up. Feats for starters and then magic like circlet of persuasion which will lift your Charisma based skill checks.
UMD is a fun concept anyway. It keeps those elitist wizards in their place a bit, and of course being able to use a wand of CLW is always handy.
It happened once that I (a rogue) was the only party member still conscious. Everyone else was at negative hit points, some bleeding. The witch's familiar and I (Yay, Kitty!) killed the last two monsters. If I did not have UMD, we never could have escaped. I used the witch's wand of CLW to get the witch back to consciousness, then he took over.
Someone in the party should have UMD; you never know when you will need it.
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I have a 9th level bard with a high UMD (high CHA, max ranks, circlet of persuasion)
Wands require a 20 UMD check. She has to roll a 2 to use her wands of bless weapon, magic missile, and resist energy.
ANY wand, of any level spell (since she has enough total PA to get anything she could possibly afford) has a check of 20.
Scrolls are harder and more complicated. She has to get a 2 or 3, I'm not sure, to get off a scroll of cure critical.
UMD + PFS = 1 "free" (2PA) wand every/every other scenario of ANY 1st level spell.
