Use Magic Device Advice


Rules Questions

51 to 64 of 64 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>

"This glove? It's actually the skinned hand of the orcish shaman I took this wand from..."

"...I'm darned happy the wand doesn't have a command word."


Back to the original question, the Fighter can roll to use the wand, but he probably won't have much chance of activating it. The coin flip method for our of combat healing will need some adjustment if the PC gains ore ranks in UMD. I guess with 2 ranks you could roll a d3 and 1 is failure. Another system which might work would be to roll multiple d20s, say 4 or 5, at the same time and repeat until there's a success or a nat 1. If a "batch" of dice has both the nat 1 "wins" since the player using the skill in this way seems like it could be an annoying waste of time.

If the low Charisma Fighter is interested in the UMD skill you might suggest to him various ways he could improve it besides simply maxing out his ranks. Taking Skill Focus would be a big boost, especially after he gets 10 ranks, and if the DM won't allow a masterwork tool for UMD then a circlet of persuasion would still offer a +3 (albeit for much more gold than the +2 from masterwork). A magic item which gives a +5 competence bonus on UMD checks would be cheaper than the circlet and nice to have, but I think a lot of DMs won't allow such an item until it appears in a rulebook. I know mine won't.


Healing also never wins you the game. Just lets you to continue playing it.

Some may be skeptic of a CLW Wand removing the "threat of death" from a game, but it's 90% of the time used out of combat. In combat, it's more of a last-ditch effort to get someone out of the negatives.


Devilkiller wrote:

Back to the original question, the Fighter can roll to use the wand, but he probably won't have much chance of activating it. The coin flip method for our of combat healing will need some adjustment if the PC gains ore ranks in UMD. I guess with 2 ranks you could roll a d3 and 1 is failure. Another system which might work would be to roll multiple d20s, say 4 or 5, at the same time and repeat until there's a success or a nat 1. If a "batch" of dice has both the nat 1 "wins" since the player using the skill in this way seems like it could be an annoying waste of time.

Simpler method: if he has X ranks in UMD, he rolls the die with X+1 sides, or the next larger die if there isn't one. If he gets a number larger than X+1, he re-rolls. If he gets a 1, he gets locked out. And otherwise, he eventually gets his spell off.

E.g., if he has 6 ranks, then he's got 6 chances in 20 of winning, 1 of losing, and 13 of getting a re-roll that we want to ignore. Since you probably can't roll a d7, roll a d8 instead and reroll any 8s. On a 1, he loses. On a 2-7, he wins.

Lantern Lodge

Youcan roll a die of almost any size online.

demonstration: 1d7 ⇒ 5

I would suggest haveing him roll as normal but if he rolls a 1 hes locked out but higher then that is how long it takes him to succeed in minutes, for a result higher then ten multiply by ten minutes.


DarkLightHitomi wrote:
You can roll a die of almost any size online.

Yes, but as far as I know most games are still played at a table with physical dice. For that matter, I've seen physical seven sided dice (typically either a seven-sided prism, or a five-sided prism with the ends marked as well), but they're also very rare. If you're really into odd stuff, I can get you a thirty-sided die, a nine-sided die, an 18-sided die, and a 32-sided die.

Quote:


I would suggest haveing him roll as normal but if he rolls a 1 hes locked out but higher then that is how long it takes him to succeed in minutes, for a result higher then ten multiply by ten minutes.

That's not a very good way of handling it if you want to keep the probabilities similar.


Alexis Jefferson wrote:

I know a fighter character who took 1 rank of Use Magic Device. He claims that now he can use his wand of cure light wounds whenever he wants. In the rules for UMD, it says a player can't take a 10 or a 20 with UMD, but when the character fails, the wand charge is not used up. It also says that if the character rolls a natural 1, he can't use the wand for 24 hrs. I was wondering how groups handled such a situation?

Let's assume the character has Cha mod of -1. This puts his UMD at a 0. So he has a 50/50 chance of rolling a 1 and a 20. Would this just be a flip of a coin? Or should we just give the player his use of his wand?

I don't understand why this is a topic... you roll the dice, and if he rolls a 1 he crit fails, if he rolls anything but a 20 he normal fails and no charge is used.

What exactly is the problem here?

Also if he does not have 11 wisdom, he must make TWO checks. One to emulate the ability score.

It's a DC 20 for him to activate it.

** EDIT
Ah. I see. You are talking outside of combat of "I try to heal everyone to full."

I'd make them roll for it as a GM. If they don't like rolling they can just not do it. Use an online roller and just click it a bunch for him then calculate how much time it takes.

The take 20 rule assumes you hit the numbers 1 through 20.

So, you could say, that it takes an equal amount of time to fail as it does to heal someone. So if he wants to take 20, he can, then roll a percentile. If 50 or below he succeeds, but it takes 2 minutes of him spamming. If he fails, then it's done. I think this is reasonable. 2 minutes to cast cure light wounds with a 50% 24 hour spell block too broken for 1 point of UMD.


Personally I think the a fun way is to have 20 20-sided dice. They all must be discernibly different. Record an order to them. Roll them All. Then pull out any 20's and 1's. Look to see which order they 20 and 1's appear. Then if a 20 appears first in the chart. they it works. If a 1 is first, then it fizzles. This is fairly fast.

It can then be taken a step further. You can do this for each try, or annotate the number of 20's before the 1's, and this is the number of heals you get before it fizzles.


Rogar Stonebow wrote:

Personally I think the a fun way is to have 20 20-sided dice. They all must be discernibly different. Record an order to them. Roll them All. Then pull out any 20's and 1's. Look to see which order they 20 and 1's appear. Then if a 20 appears first in the chart. they it works. If a 1 is first, then it fizzles. This is fairly fast.

It can then be taken a step further. You can do this for each try, or annotate the number of 20's before the 1's, and this is the number of heals you get before it fizzles.

To further this idea, if you have a 2 in UMD, then include 19's in the rolls to pull out. easy peasy!

Liberty's Edge

Orfamay Quest wrote:
Devilkiller wrote:

Back to the original question, the Fighter can roll to use the wand, but he probably won't have much chance of activating it. The coin flip method for our of combat healing will need some adjustment if the PC gains ore ranks in UMD. I guess with 2 ranks you could roll a d3 and 1 is failure. Another system which might work would be to roll multiple d20s, say 4 or 5, at the same time and repeat until there's a success or a nat 1. If a "batch" of dice has both the nat 1 "wins" since the player using the skill in this way seems like it could be an annoying waste of time.

Simpler method: if he has X ranks in UMD, he rolls the die with X+1 sides, or the next larger die if there isn't one. If he gets a number larger than X+1, he re-rolls. If he gets a 1, he gets locked out. And otherwise, he eventually gets his spell off.

E.g., if he has 6 ranks, then he's got 6 chances in 20 of winning, 1 of losing, and 13 of getting a re-roll that we want to ignore. Since you probably can't roll a d7, roll a d8 instead and reroll any 8s. On a 1, he loses. On a 2-7, he wins.

You might want to double check that. If he has a bonus of +6, he succeeds on 7 out of 20 rolls (14-20, inclusive), and fails on one. You need X+2, not X+1.

Edit: changed "6 ranks" to "bonus of +6"


Howie23 wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
Devilkiller wrote:

Back to the original question, the Fighter can roll to use the wand, but he probably won't have much chance of activating it. The coin flip method for our of combat healing will need some adjustment if the PC gains ore ranks in UMD. I guess with 2 ranks you could roll a d3 and 1 is failure. Another system which might work would be to roll multiple d20s, say 4 or 5, at the same time and repeat until there's a success or a nat 1. If a "batch" of dice has both the nat 1 "wins" since the player using the skill in this way seems like it could be an annoying waste of time.

Simpler method: if he has X ranks in UMD, he rolls the die with X+1 sides, or the next larger die if there isn't one. If he gets a number larger than X+1, he re-rolls. If he gets a 1, he gets locked out. And otherwise, he eventually gets his spell off.

E.g., if he has 6 ranks, then he's got 6 chances in 20 of winning, 1 of losing, and 13 of getting a re-roll that we want to ignore. Since you probably can't roll a d7, roll a d8 instead and reroll any 8s. On a 1, he loses. On a 2-7, he wins.

You might want to double check that. If he has 6 ranks, he succeeds on 7 out of 20 rolls (14-20, inclusive), and fails on one. You need X+2, not X+1.

I think the fighter was supposed to have total score of 0. charisma of 9 and rank of 1.

However, I did do my math wrong. for a UMD of 2. you would include 18,19, and 20's

Lantern Lodge

After reviewing the pfsrd, you are denied taking ten but taking twenty is not mentioned so unless I am missing something elsewhere he can take twenty.

Also, he does not need appropriate ability scores for wands, only scrolls or whatever magic item specifically mentions the need.

Liberty's Edge

Take 20 can't be used when there is a penalty for failure. This sometimes gets falsely interpreted as "the penalty for failure is failure." In the case of UMD and wands, there is a penalty for a failing 1 other than simple failure. The penalty is that you can't use the wand again for the day. Thus, you cannot Take 20 to UMD a wand unless you have +19 UMD such that a 1 doesn't trigger the penalty.


I think a good way to look at taking 20 is that it is like rolling everything from 1 to 20 starting at 1. If one or more of those results would cause a problem then you can't take 20.

51 to 64 of 64 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Rules Questions / Use Magic Device Advice All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.