still confused about UMD

[Matthew Paluch]

Is a spell 'on my class spell list' even if it is too high?  Does a lvl 1 cleric need to make a UMD to use a wand of cure serious wounds?  If so, would it be simply DC 20 as 'use a wand' in UMD section says, no lvl penalties?

If I wanted to use a wizard wand, am I correct Id need to make two UMDs per charge - one to Emulate a class feature (arcane spells) Dc 20, then a second DC 20 'Use wand'?

thanks in advance!

matt

[Marty Weil]

A spell is on your class spell list no matter what level it is. So a level 1 Cleric could use a wand of cure critical wounds without needing to make any UMD rolls. Oddly enough, a 1st level Ranger or Paladin can use a wand of Cure Light Wounds without needing UMD, unless they have an archetype that removes spellcasting.

And using a wand of a spell not on your spell list is only one DC20 UMD check.

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[Brandon]

However on that note, your level 1 cleric would need a UMD check for a scroll of cure serious.

[Michael Meunier]

Not exactly Brandon. Scrolls have their own rules for activating ones that are higher level than you can cast but on your list: 

If the user meets all the requirements noted above, and her caster level is at least equal to the spell's caster level, she can automatically activate the spell without a check. If she meets all three requirements but her own caster level is lower than the scroll spell's caster level, then she has to make a caster level check (DC = scroll's caster level + 1) to cast the spell successfully. If she fails, she must make a DC 5 Wisdom check to avoid a scroll mishap. A natural roll of 1 always fails, whatever the modifiers. Activating a scroll is a standard action (or the spell's casting time, whichever is longer) and it provokes attacks of opportunity exactly as casting a spell does. If the caster level check fails but no mishap occurs, the scroll is not expended.

Michael T. Meunier

"“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”"
- Eleanor Roosevelt

[at.rob...@gmail.com]

Not true about the cleric example and a scroll of cure serious. He can make a caster level check for the scroll (DC caster level + 1) to cast it since it is on his spell list. This is why bards can activate a scroll of see invisibility at level 3 without rolling even though it's a level 3 spell for them and they don't get it until level 7, the scroll itself is a level 2 spell and caster level 3. This is written in the scroll rules, not UMD.

[Brandon]

Eh, I knew it was some type of check.  Whoops! ;)

[Michael Meunier]

Well, I suppose you could still if you want go for the much harder UMD check =) 

Michael T. Meunier

"“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”"
- Eleanor Roosevelt

[Brandon]

You could always go for both.  Too high of a level so a CL check, and your wisdom isn't high enough to cast it so a UMD check. :)

[Matthew Paluch]

Thanks!  I am considering slapping 1 level of cleric onto my cavalier just to a0 get the basic domain powers (yeah the good stuff is at 4 and 8, i know) but also to be able to use big boy wands without a UMD.  thanks!

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Matthew Paluch
404.375.8898

"The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remember'd." - Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1

[Marty Weil]

A spell is on your class spell list no matter what level it is. So a level 1 Cleric could use a wand of cure critical wounds without needing to make any UMD rolls. Oddly enough, a 1st level Ranger or Paladin can use a wand of Cure Light Wounds without needing UMD, unless they have an archetype that removes spellcasting.

And using a sand of a spell not on your spel

On Friday, May 24, 2013, Matthew Paluch <geda...@edgeoftheworld.us> wrote:
>

[Andrew Roberts]

Bah, my fighter/urban barbarian/urban ranger with 9 cha (lowest a halfling could get) just UMDs his wand of false life. If he fails, he fails. I don't want him to lose BAB on using wands. :p

[Simon Thokaar]

hmmm.. now im confused by reading more about it.  Looks like for my bard to be able to cast a scroll of heal i would have to umd being a cleric (and use my 7 wis score instead of my 20+ cha) for determining how powerful a spell i could cast as that class) and then if that actually worked i would do another check to cast it?

or hell, lets use a spell bards can actually cast...  a cure scroll would be a divine scroll, but a bard is arcane caster.  so i would have to do the emulate thing there for a spell that i might have on my list already.

[Andrew Roberts]

In PFS, there is no distinction between an arcane and divine scroll. It's in the organized play guide somewhere.

On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 1:43 PM, Simon Thokaar <tho...@gmail.com> wrote:

hmmm.. now im confused by reading more about it.  Looks like for my bard to be able to cast a scroll of heal i would have to umd being a cleric (and use my 7 wis score instead of my 20+ cha) for determining how powerful a spell i could cast as that class) and then if that actually worked i would do another check to cast it?

or hell, lets use a spell bards can actually cast...  a cure scroll would be a divine scroll, but a bard is arcane caster.  so i would have to do the emulate thing there for a spell that i might have on my list already.

[Jonathan Choy]

Fortunately there's charisma-based divine casting. By doing away with class-linking the scrolls, they've made it so that charisma-classes can cross-cast quite easily.

On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 1:43 PM, Simon Thokaar <tho...@gmail.com> wrote:

hmmm.. now im confused by reading more about it.  Looks like for my bard to be able to cast a scroll of heal i would have to umd being a cleric (and use my 7 wis score instead of my 20+ cha) for determining how powerful a spell i could cast as that class) and then if that actually worked i would do another check to cast it?

or hell, lets use a spell bards can actually cast...  a cure scroll would be a divine scroll, but a bard is arcane caster.  so i would have to do the emulate thing there for a spell that i might have on my list already.

[Simon Thokaar]

thats good to know.  It looks like it would be cheaper to buy 50 scrolls of cure moderate wounds than it would be to buy a wand.

Now if i wanted to cast a heal scroll on my bard i would have to emulate a wisdom of 16 (level 6 spell) so it would be UMD of 31?  (Emulate an Ability Score: To cast a spell from a scroll, you need a high score in the appropriate ability. Your effective ability score (appropriate to the class you're emulating when you try to cast the spell from the scroll) is your Use Magic Device check result minus 15, so im thinking 31-15=16, the WIS i would need)

and then i would just have to umd 26 to cast the spell?


26 is damn near doable now with my +13 to it.  Going to be a long time before id feel comfortable spending that much on a scroll if i need a reliable 31 tho.

[Brandon]

Or emulate an Oracle, so you're looking to have a high Cha instead of Wis.

[David Silver]

I am immediately baffled. I thought the cost of wands was significantly lower than 50 scrolls.

[Andrew Roberts]

Just for the cost thing...

A wand of cure moderate is 4,500 gp, 50 scrolls would be 11,250 gp.

[Informed Opinion]

Not too long ago I asked this exact question and got the exact opposite answer.

 

I wanted my Bard (20 CHA, 8 WIS) to be able to cast Breath of Life from a scroll using CHA instead of WIS, since Oracles have access to every Cleric spell.  I was told "no way".  You'll have to make the much harder WIS emulation check and then the scroll check to cast this spell.  As a result, I chose for my bard to take Skill Focus (UMD) as her L11 feat, making virtually UMD actions gimmes.  I'm NOT going to spend 1,125 gp on a scroll only to see it evaporate due to a bad roll.  If I had heard what I wanted to hear, that my Bard could cast all non-domain-only Cleric spells utilizing CHA, I would have chosen a different feat.  (Her INT is also 20, so all she'd be getting out of the feat are Druid-only and Ranger-only spells via scroll.)

 

Sigh.

[Jonathan Choy]

Failed UMD checks to not consume the scroll barring mishap.

--

[Brandon]

Who told you no?  If it wasn't someone official or someone pointing to an official ruling at best it's table GM's call.

On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 2:49 PM, Informed Opinion <opinion...@gmail.com> wrote:

--

[Brandon Cecil]

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/scrolls

f the user meets all the requirements noted above, and her caster level is at least equal to the spell's caster level, she can automatically activate the spell without a check. If she meets all three requirements but her own caster level is lower than the scroll spell's caster level, then she has to make a caster level check (DC = scroll's caster level + 1) to cast the spell successfully. If she fails, she must make a DC 5 Wisdom check to avoid a scroll mishap. A natural roll of 1 always fails, whatever the modifiers. Activating a scroll is a standard action (or the spell's casting time, whichever is longer) and it provokes attacks of opportunity exactly as casting a spell does. If the caster level check fails but no mishap occurs, the scroll is not expended.

[Informed Opinion]

You'd need a 27 to cast CMW from scroll.  (It's a L2 spell, so 12 attribute + 15 = DC27.)

[Simon Thokaar]

Ahh, forgot about the existance of Oracles... thought all they did was make GMs reroll dice, the fact that they could cast spells never crossed my mind.


And i wasnt sure how much a wand would cost, but now that i have eaten some breakfast i see that the maths i did was for the cost of 50 scrolls of cure light, and it was more expensive than a wand.  drugs are bad kids.

[David Silver]

There is one issue with doing it 'like an oracle', and that's the caster level of the scroll.

--

[Brandon]

So you might have to make a CL check then, using the CL of the scroll versus when the Oracle would naturally get it.

[David Silver]

Yea, it'd be an easy check to succeed, but something to not forget.

[Jonathan Choy]

I"ve been carrying Breath of Life scrolls on my cleric since level 5....

[Informed Opinion]

I asked on the Paizo boards/forms.

 

I have NEVER seen ANYONE official answer ANYTHING, whether it was a question I asked, or a question that someone else asked first.  Every issue I've ever had with vagueness or interpretation has garnered much discussion from "nobodies", and nothing from "anybody".  Paizo seems to like it that way.  "Let the GM decide" is apparently the Paizo credo.  Perhaps they also feel that discussion and debate is good, regardless of the reason, a no such thing as bad publicity effect?  Too bad that in PFS the 'actual' GMs aren't really supposed to decide anything as the 'official' GM is PFS senior leadership.

 

The argument for having to use Wisdom for all Cleric spells comes right from the UMD wording:

 

Emulate an Ability Score: To cast a spell from a scroll, you need a high score in the appropriate ability (Intelligence for wizard spells, Wisdom for divine spells, or Charisma for sorcerer or bard spells).

 

Why Sorcerer/Wizard (and thus INT/CHA) gets special treatment is beyond me.  Even worse, why do Paladin spells cast from scroll use WIS?  Maybe it's the fact that the tables in the CRB say "Sorcerer/Wizard" and "Cleric".  Of course they would, since Oracles came after the Core Rules were published, so that argument seems flimsy to me, and doesn't explain why Paladin spells get lumped into WIS instead of CHA.

 

I know that the caster level check doesn't consume the scroll.  My (silly) confusion was whether the ability emulation could consume the scroll.  So, my gold was always safe.  Still, with the feat decision I made I can now bypass GM table variation and KNOW that my PC can trivially make those crucial UMD checks when a (fictional) life is on the line.

[Brandon Cecil]

This is confusing as hell to me as well, so I thought I'd put together an example guy to work this out.  Let's say you're Holy Shiv the Paladin 2/Rogue 5, and you have 14 INT, 8 WIS, and 16 CHA and a +13 to your UMD score (7 ranks, +3 trained class skill bonus, +3 CHA bonus).

Let's give him five magic items to use:

Wand of Magic Missile (CL 3)
Wand of Cure Moderate Wounds 

Scroll of Fireball
Scroll of Heal

Scroll of Cure Light Wounds

Wand of Magic Missile: Paladin is not a class that has Magic missile on its spell list.  He will need to use a UMD check each time he wants to use the wand.  This is a DC 20 check.  Note that it's always a DC 20 check (near as I can tell) regardless of the spell level.  If he fails, he does not expend a charge, and if he rolls a nat 1, he can't use the wand all day.

Wand of Cure Moderate Wounds: Cure Moderate Wounds appears on the Paladin's Spell List as a level 3 spell.  The fact that he can't cast that spell, and indeed has an effective caster level of 0 is irrelevant.  He can use the wand all day long without a check.

Scroll of Fireball: Fireball is:

• Not on a Paladin Spell List
• Requires 16 INT to cast
• Is a Caster Level 5 spell at least
• Not divine

So Holy Shiv is going to have a tough time of it, and he's going to have to use UMD.  Twice, as a matter of fact, because first he has to convince the scroll he's smart enough to cast it.  Normally he would have to make a UMD roll, subtract 15, and consider the result to be his ability score for the purposes of the scroll.  So he rolls, and with his +12 he gets a 22- subtract 15, and the scroll is convinced that his INT is 7, dumber than he actually is.  But wait- Holy Shiv remembers that Sorcerers can also cast Fireball, and while he's not smart enough for fireball, he sure is pretty enough.  So he uses his 16 CHA to obviate that requirement, and he proceeds to the next UMD check.

Now he needs to make a UMD check with a DC equal to 20+the caster level of the spell on the scroll.  For Fireball, it's a 5, so he needs to make DC 25.  He'll have to roll better than a 13, but if he does, the spell fires off as normal.

Scroll of Heal: While this is a divine spell, it is unfortunately not one that appears on the Paladin list.  Luckily both Clerics and Oracles can cast it, meaning he has the choice of using his WIS or his CHA to cast it.  Since he doesn't have it on his list, he'll have to make a UMD check to use it just like fireball above.

Scroll of Cure Light Wounds: Cure Light Wounds is:

• A Divine Spell
• On the Paladin Spell List
• Castable with a 16 CHA by somebody
• Requires more levels in Paladin than Holy Shiv has

Holy Shiv meets the first three requirements to auto cast scrolls with no checks, but not the last one.  If he were a level 4 paladin, he could do it.  Since he's not, he's going to have to make a Caster Level check, at DC 2.  Yes, DC TWO.  It's the scroll's caster level (1) +1.  Since Holy Shiv has no caster level, he could fail it on a nat 1.  Let's say he does just for giggles- He'll then have to make a DC5 wisdom check (which he has a higher chance of failing) to see if a mishap happens.

I hope that clears things up.

[Iammars]

Note that you need a 13 INT to cast fireball, not a 16, so the Holy Shiv wouldn't have needed to try to emulate INT in the first place.

[Brandon Cecil]

It's totally 16 if Holy Shiv's player is looking at the wrong chart, like I was.

[Informed Opinion]

Um, no, that doesn't clear things up.

 

CRB --> UMD entry --> Emulate an Ability Score paragraph:   "To cast a spell from a scroll, you need a high score in the appropriate ability (Intelligence for wizard spells, Wisdom for divine spells, or Charisma for sorcerer or bard spells)."

 

You do not get to choose CHA for casting that scroll of Heal.  Further, non-Paladins that want to cast Holy Sword from a scroll have to use WIS, not CHA, as insane as that is!

 

If this has been updated in another book or in an errata, I have not seen that passage.  Wish I had.

[Brandon Cecil]

Emulate an Ability Score: To cast a spell from a scroll, you need a high score in the appropriate ability (Intelligence for wizard spells, Wisdom for divine spells, or Charisma for sorcerer or bard spells). Your effective ability score (appropriate to the class you're emulating when you try to cast the spell from the scroll) is your Use Magic Device check result minus 15. If you already have a high enough score in the appropriate ability, you don't need to make this check.

Going by RAW, yeah, it is confusing.  But considering that's a parenthetical reference, and since Paizo hasn't made an official ruling on it, I would consider the above to be more of accessory example text than actual rule verbiage.  Otherwise, this would mean that Oracles with low wisdom could functionally never use scrolls of their own class, and bards/witches would have to have high int, cha, and wis to use their scrolls.  Also, what about clerics whose domains give them access to normally Arcane spells?

Yes, as it is written it's going to come down to "Table Variation."  And with that being said, it's a longer reach to suggest that Oracles can't use their own scrolls than to imagine that Cleric/Oracles work just like Wizard/Sorcerers.

--

[Informed Opinion]

Before I parse things further, let me state that it is 99.9% likely that the UMD wording is a very old 3e artifact that should have been corrected YEARS ago!  Pathfinder Paladins use Charisma for casting but they used Wisdom in 3e.  So, the original 3e wording for UMD, which is used verbatim in the PF Core Rules, is correct in lumping all divine spells into Wisdom (at least until Favored Souls escaped from the WotC offices many years later).  There is no rational reason for the wording in PF.  That said, you can either use the RAW, or you can fiat them as blatantly in error and go with something else.  Invoking Rule 0 for a rule that ISN'T vaguely worded is totally fine for home games, but not really appropriate for open gaming.

 

That having been said, if you take the rules as they are instead of assuming a glaring error that has gone unnoticed or unaddressed all this time...

 

I believe your starting premise is incorrect.

 

Wisdom is irrelevant for Oracles casting Oracle spells from scroll.  ALL classes cast their own spells with a caster level check.  (See Michael Meunier's post near the start of this thread for the RAW.)  That is why I stated that NON Paladins would need to emulate Wisdom when casting Holy Sword from a scroll .  A Paladin casts Paladin (divine) spells using Charisma.  Holy Sword is on the Paladin spell list, so the Paladin gets to use Charisma.  A UMD check is not called for in this case, just a caster level check, so the clause that forces Wisdom for casting divine spells from scrolls wouldn't be invoked.  The same is true for Oracles trying to cast Cleric/Oracle spells from scroll.

 

The problem is that Divine and Arcane casters are treated differently by the UMD RAW.  All the arcane casting classes that exist in the Core Rules are mentioned specifically and separately in the UMD text.    (Are there any spells that are Wizard-only or Sorcerer-only in the Core Rule Book?)  One has to ~assume~ that since all arcane classes are cited here that future arcane classes would be treated the same way.  So, casting Summoner spells from scrolls would use Charisma, and casting Witch spells from scrolls would use Intelligence.  Similarly, the way that the Sage and Empyreal Sorcerer Bloodlines are written, those bloodlines would override the normal UMD rule for spells that make it onto the Sorcerer spell list via those Bloodlines.

 

On the other hand, Rangers, Paladins, Druids and Clerics (the CRB divine casting classes) are lumped into a single entry of "divine spells".  That means that every divine class and prestige class that grants spells follows the same blanket rule regardless of the attribute they normally use for casting, so Inquisitor (Wis) and Oracle (Cha) spells are cast by NON Inquisitors/Oracles using UMD and Wisdom.  Just as strange as the rule for Paladin-only spells requiring Wisdom emulation for non-Paladins to cast from scroll is the fact (by extension) that non-Oracles would cast the Oracle-only (not for Clerics) spells from scroll using Wisdom.  Fortunately, I think all of these spells would have no effect for non-Oracles since non-Oracles wouldn't have Mysteries, Revelations or Oracle Curses to be invoked by the Oracle-only spells, so this consequence may be completely moot.

 

The issue of Domain spells that otherwise only appear on the spell lists for arcane casting classes is cloudy.  I'm not aware of any Pathfinder rule that would indicate how they should be handled when cast from scrolls.  I suspect that the PFS rules on class precedence (in terms of spell level) would apply but even that isn't 100% clear.

I would absolutely LOVE to hear from the original Pathfinder designers on why things are as they are written and whether the RAW is actually what was intended, or for that matter just an errata without any fanfare at all, but the august personages responsible for such things are loath to address anything once it reaches print.

 

On Friday, May 24, 2013 5:13:50 PM UTC-4, Brandon Cecil wrote:

Going by RAW, yeah, it is confusing.  But considering that's a parenthetical reference, and since Paizo hasn't made an official ruling on it, I would consider the above to be more of accessory example text than actual rule verbiage.  Otherwise, this would mean that Oracles with low wisdom could functionally never use scrolls of their own class, and bards/witches would have to have high int, cha, and wis to use their scrolls.  Also, what about clerics whose domains give them access to normally Arcane spells

 

[Matthew Paluch]

awesome reply but i need to digest all of this before replying myself, thanks!

matt

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Matthew Paluch
404.375.8898

"The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remember'd." - Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1