Use Magic Device: What it allows us to do and not do

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

I was thinking about the skill Use Magic Device today and came up with a question: What can UMD allow those not trained in the weave to do?
 
 We all know that UMD wouldn't allow a rogue to detect the use of magic, or to recognize a spell being cast, on them or otherwise, but can it allow them to figure out how to use complex magical devices like golems, machines, and or artifacts?
 
 I find UMD to mean that those skilled in using magical devices can "read" scrolls with varying success, activate wands and unleash whatever magic is locked inside them, and even get items that seem to allow a select few to use them (refering to items with class/race/alignment restrictions like Monk Robes) to work for them.  I justify this with my PC Tyra due to her "family" consisting of a very learned mage, a highly gifted priestess of Toran, growing up with a druid and a bard as friends, and having a little brother who's a wizard, essentially exposing her to the information she might need in order to tinker and work various magical trinkets.
 
 So, what does UMD allow our characters to do in an RP sense?  Obviously the mechanics allow for them to use all sorts of items, but how does this translate into the bigger picture?

[Pseudonym]

We all know that UMD wouldn't allow a rogue to detect the use of magic, or to recognize a spell being cast, on them or otherwise, but can it allow them to figure out how to use complex magical devices like golems, machines, and or artifacts?

The Use Magic Device skill allows you to 'activate' items. It does not allow you to use a skill, class feature, class ability, racial ability etc.

I think it in no way infers you have the skill, ability or feature in question.

With your golem example, I can see the rogue in question saying words, pushing buttons, making vague hand gestures, poking it here and there. Through a combination of determination, careful observation of others in the past, his/her general jack-of-all-trades know-how and some dumb luck, s/he could maybe work out how to activate it. However, more complex and specific golem-instruction or direction (I think) might very well be beyond him/her. At least, until told otherwise, that's how i'd GM Tyra's ability on any quest I ran.

A rogue can 'trigger' items using their UMD skill, but I think would be hard pressed to really understand let alone explain exactly what they did to make it work.

[EdTheKet]

A rogue can 'trigger' items using their UMD skill, but I think would be hard pressed to really understand let alone explain exactly what they did to make it work.

Agreed.

[Hellblazer]

I think it in no way infers you have the skill, ability or feature in question.

I'm thinking here that he means being able to use things  that would be usable only by races or classes only. So I'm guessing that it is partly like the use of magic wands or scrolls. The rogue or who ever has Umd, would learn to emote that race or that class, to be able to use that item that is specific to them.

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

The Use Magic Device skill allows you to 'activate' items. It does not allow you to use a skill, class feature, class ability, racial ability etc.

I think it in no way infers you have the skill, ability or feature in question.

I'm not sure you understood me when I said UMD lets you activate items with racial/class/alignment restrictions.  Clearly if Tyra found a Dwarven Defender only item and got it to work for her, she wouldn't suddenly have Defensive Stance or any other DD feat or skill, nor would Tyra wearing a Monk's Robes let her run at crazy speeds.  I mean that UMD lets whoever is trained to figure out how they work, even if it's not something they might be overtly aware of.

For an example, lets say Tyra (or any other UMD user) comes across a gnomish contraption thats sitting there doing nothing, apparently broken/deactivated.  Could Tyra, having skill in the use of magical devices, tinker with it and perhaps repair or reactivate said gnomish contraption?  On a quest run by Darkstorm, the group came upon two things they had to tinker with: 1) a huge, deadly, if half destroyed Golem (Timulty got to open up it's innards and deactivate it) 2) 2 or 3 electrical shunts that were broken and needed repair (Timulty and Tyra managed to repair one together).  In both of these examples it was the Wizard that was relied on to have all the know how to fix something, but why would mechanical know-how be limited to a mage?  Wouldn't someone skilled in using magic devices be able to figure something out like that?  Sure, messing with the innards of a golem or fixing an electrical circuit isn't exactly something a rogue would do every day, but is it really something a mage does too?

Might have went off on a tangent there, but just wondering what UMD is limited to.  to me it makes sense that the skill allows rogues/bards/assassins to have some sort of know how around magical devices, especially with it being a skill where training is required, meaning the user has some sort of experience with these things.

[Hellblazer]

On that quest, shiff, I think tim was relied on as the higher mage in the group, as there was evident magic in use with the mechanical. When there is magic concern that is remenant or active, one has to be able to trace it to know what it is. UMD does not give that ability which is spellcraft checks. Any one who puts point into SC could then be able to do what Tim did as their studies into analyzing the al'noth strand from one an other, would have given them the knowledge of what was in use.

[EdTheKet]

Use Magic Device is D&D Skill, and we use it as described.
For example, as described here: Use Magic Device - DnD - the Dungeons and Dragons Wiki

So Pseudonym's reply is correct.

In both of these examples it was the Wizard that was relied on to have all the know how to fix something, but why would mechanical know-how be limited to a mage?

You were repairing a golem. Golems are more than just machines. The mage may have studied/read about golems, and have the understanding of magic required to know certain things about how golems work.
A rogue does not. UMD doesn't all of a sudden temporarily make you a mage, different class, different alignment, or give you extra ability scores. It's a skill that allows you to activate magic devices, including scrolls and wands, that you could not otherwise activate. It doesn't give you some deep understanding of the device you are trying to activate.

Wouldn't someone skilled in using magic devices be able to figure something out like that?

So in short, no.

[Acacea]

To repair a gnomish contraption, tinkering levels would be of more value than either magery or UMD.

To make it "go" once repaired despite it being magically set to only activate for gnomes, they come more into play.

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

So then does UMD offer any RP advantages, skills, oppurtinities other then the mechanical benefits of using various magical items like scrolls, wands, and spell books?

[Hellblazer]

Exactly.

[lonnarin]

Another nebulous skill that I hope will not make it to the MMORPG.  Take Intimidate and Taunt, for example.  You can lower somebody's AC by making fun of them, but no matter how scary you are, it has absolutely no effect on combat statistics.  And then, boom, one day the barbarian turns epic and just gets so intimidating (+24 base), people wet themselves and run from him, but only when he's raging.  Meanwhile the uber-epic rogue with +50 intimidate is not fled from, simply because he's not foaming enough.  And the poor 326hp Dwarven Defender for some reason is simply not intimidating at all, pffft!

Can't wait to ditch class in lieu of the skill-based system!

Back to topic though, despite the rest of the movie being a megaton bomb of a disaster, the Dungeons and Dragons film did have a nice scene depicting this talent.  When the lead rogue activated the magic map, he recalled a wizard he knew and what he said in a conversation, much like how bardly lore is less of being learned or skilled, and more of having an ear to the ground for that sort of thing.  I imagine rogues are so good at it because of the nature of their skillset and their profession attracting greedy folks.  The types who deal in stolen property and never know what could be enchanted.  They learn the tricks and teach eachother because it's ALWAYS lucrative to know what needs stealing first and what increases the value in an item.  This insight on how to activate things comes from them being dedicated fences and thieves in a sense... kind of an extra bit of "item lore" that they have, since they rob mages so often.  Bards, the only other class I think that gets this talent, probably gain it through their bardly tales and social knowledge.  They might have heard of how to activate a certain item from a tale involving one they heard, like when the dwarf had to blow his horn of berzerking in a particular tune, or how the tassles of a certain carpet indicate that it might be a flying carpet, much like the one a daring hero in one of their tales escaped from.  Heck, he might even succeed in using an artifact because he remembers the epic song of the LAST guy who did it!

There is also that aspect of personal training of your force of will in unlocking the item... acting Orcy to wield a Grandite axe, for instance, trying to gaze into the cursed mirror without it sucking out your soul through the eye sockets.  Making your aura lie.  I still think that should be easier for mages than anybody else because they manipulate weave/alnoth energy with their own magic willpower and knowledge of the structure... especially sorcerors who manipulate magic energy by sheer inherent reflex.  Another oversight by Wizards of the Coast.  That and they made the charisma-based class have all of the social skills as cross-class.

[Pseudonym]

So then does UMD offer any RP advantages, skills, oppurtinities other then the mechanical benefits of using various magical items like scrolls, wands, and spell books?

Yes. I think I can safely speak for all GMs when I say if you think of a clever (and non-mechanical) application for your UMD skill during a quest then we'll be more than happy to acknowledge and reward that creativeness.

[LightlyFrosted]

I speak here to both chime in with what Pseudo is saying (it's true! - though I suppose I could have just thanked him..  Eh.  He gets enough already), and to clarify that on that particular quest, Tim got a synergy bonus on the golem because the principles of enchanting and infusing applied to the situation, and he was using spellcraft.  Fixing the shunt might have been UMD'able, but I've always viewed the skill much like disable device - something that a rogue gets from examining complex devices - the rogue might not know how to create the trap, but he or she can generally take it apart or use it because he or she can fiddle with it a bit.