Magic Armor, Magic Weapon and Use Magic Device?


Rules Questions


The rules around magic items aren't clear for me.

So, to use magic items you need the "use magic device"(generally).

But what about a simple fighter who want to use a magic weapon or a magic armor. When does he need the use magic device skill. Is he unable to use some magic armor/weapon/ring . . .?


Sinus Gamma wrote:
So, to use magic items you need the "use magic device"(generally).

Nope. Only specific types of magic item - generally scrolls, wand and staffs. (And even then, only some of the time - a wizard can use wands of wizard spells without any UMD skill, for example.)

As for what a Fighter would do with the skill - wands of spells that boost your fighting ability or defenses are pretty good. Mirror Image, for example. But it takes a lot of skill ranks to be able to do that.

Liberty's Edge

Take a look at the things that you can do with the Use Magic skill:

Activate blindly
Decipher a written spell
Use a scroll
Use a wand
Emulate a class feature
Emulate an ability score
Emulate a race
Emulate an alignment

In general, as Matthew said, these are only relevant to "devices" rather than weapons and rings and such. So if a longsword is +1 or +2 Mighty Cleaving, anyone can use it, and if you're a fighter, you'll be good at using it.

There are some cases where this would come into play with weapons or other "non-device" magic items, though. For instance, a weapon with the Holy ability would cause an evil character to lose a level if they picked it up. So they could use the Use Magic Device skill to emulate a good alignment, thereby bypassing this restriction. It's an ill-advised ploy, as you'd have to make the check every time you picked it up. But it illustrates a special case where your concern would be valid.


Thanks :) Then it's clear.

I thought this way, but I wasn't sure at all.

Earlier we played in a totaly different system for years, and we only met the d20 system in computer games.

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