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At our last session, a player who was playing a lvl 1 alchemist wanted to use his wand of cure light wounds. The GM informed him that he could not do so without making a Use Magic Device skill check. The player argued that his character had a spell list, because his formulas acted like spells, but the GM ruled against it. His ruling was based on the idea that
1. The class receives Use Magic Device as a class skill.
2. The book says that alchemists are able to make three types of magic items, which include extracts, bombs, and mutagens. So they are not spells.
Was the GM correct in making the alchemist use his skill to activate the wand?
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You might run into bigger problems trying to point this out to the GM based on their justification.
If you need to find it in the rules, it's in the back of the book in the Magic Items chapter; read the text for Wands and Scrolls; somewhere there it specifies which is spell completion and which is spell trigger.
it actually says in the alchemist description in the APG that they can use any item that they can can have a formula for. Page 27, second column first paragraph upper right. So the GM was way off.
Thomas Bond quoted the relevant portion in that Alchemist can use spell-trigger items, but not spell completion ones.
So they cannot use scrolls, even if they have that spell on their formulae list.
Oh yes, I know. I just wanted to make sure it was understood that they cannot use ‘any item’, as they can’t use spell completion items.
At our last session, a player who was playing a lvl 1 alchemist wanted to use his wand of cure light wounds. The GM informed him that he could not do so without making a Use Magic Device skill check. The player argued that his character had a spell list, because his formulas acted like spells, but the GM ruled against it. His ruling was based on the idea that
1. The class receives Use Magic Device as a class skill.
2. The book says that alchemists are able to make three types of magic items, which include extracts, bombs, and mutagens. So they are not spells.Was the GM correct in making the alchemist use his skill to activate the wand?
Your GM is correct. An alchemist does not have a caster level and does not cast spells. Therefore, he can't even qualify for Craft Wand and must make a Use Magic Device in order to utilize them.
Alchemists do not have a spell list. It is very clearly called a Formula List in the game, and they do not prepare spells. They prepare extracts. If no distinction was made, then calling them formulae and extracts would be superfluous and they would be coined "alchemist spells" and "alchemist spell list."
The Advanced Player's Guide goes out of its way to avoid this.
How would they do that since Read Magic is not on their formula list?They can use the scroll to scribe the spell into thier formula book.
or to prop open a door I guess. or maybe to ... but yeah, they can't cast the spell from a scroll.
You can make a Spellcraft check to decipher it, but if you buy the scroll yourself, I imagine you can skip that step since you already know what it is.
Your GM is correct. An alchemist does not have a caster level and does not cast spells. Therefore, he can't even qualify for Craft Wand and must make a Use Magic Device in order to utilize them.
Alchemists do not have a spell list. It is very clearly called a Formula List in the game, and they do not prepare spells. They prepare extracts. If no distinction was made, then calling them formulae and extracts would be superfluous and they would be coined "alchemist spells" and "alchemist spell list."
The Advanced Player's Guide goes out of its way to avoid this.
Bondoid already quoted the rule, in the second post, that says alchemists can use spell-trigger items, which is what wands are.
Trollbill: the spell Read Magic is not needed to decipher a scroll. A spellcraft check will also work. Also, the Alchemist rules in the APG say "An alchemist does not need to decipher arcane writings before copying them."
Alexander Agunas: Incorrect. Read the thread.
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Trollbill: the spell Read Magic is not needed to decipher a scroll. A spellcraft check will also work. Also, the Alchemist rules in the APG say "An alchemist does not need to decipher arcane writings before copying them."
Good to know. Though since my alchemist is a PFS Alchemist it's cheaper for me to simply pay an NPC to let me copy spells out of his book. Before I learned I could do that I was learning new formula primarily by sampling every potion in a mod with a Formula Alembic.
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And the Advanced Player's Guide goes out of its way to spell this out.The Advanced Player's Guide goes out of its way to avoid this.Bondoid already quoted the rule, in the second post, that says alchemists can use spell-trigger items, which is what wands are.
Way to productively contribute to the thread, Jiggy. >_>
Thanks for pointing out that rule, TheJeff & RDN. Wasn't aware of it, and it is certainly a good thing to know.
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Though it's worth bearing in mind if scrolls get found during the game. If you have the time, you should be able to add them in play, only paying the actual scribing costs, right?
Yes, and if you are fortunate enough to adventure with a Wizard or another Alchemist you can copy from them too.
Now if there was just some way of copying spells from a Witch's Familiar.
"Hold your damned cat still. I'm trying to copy from it!"