Is Use Magic Device Overpowered?

[Archnon]

So, I know most threads get kicked off with a "nerf this" claim but I would rather pose this as a question. It strikes me that UMD and the 3 level bard dip opens up too many mechanical possibilities. Basically a 27-fighter 3-bard build can now use magic wands and scrolls and even cast up to ninth circle spells (someone please correct me if I am wrong on this) with a minimum investment of 15 skill points? Mechanically speaking, this means that a nearly pure fighter has nearly the same magical potential as a mage that has spent 560% of his leveling life studying magic. What because a fighter took some singing lessons in a bar at some point he can command the weave to stop time? Now granted, the other half of the coin is the mage with a fighter dip to what, max out discipline? Not nearly the same scope of power as UMD and it just keeps you from getting knocked over. Any thoughts on this or thoughts from the devs/dms. I would dearly love for someone to convince me that this is not overpowered, but the more I have learned about builds, the more I have learned that getting UMD has come to dominate any build, which also makes it seem like it is too powerful.

[Ork]

Mechanically speaking, this means that a nearly pure fighter has nearly the same magical potential as a mage that has spent 560% of his leveling life studying magic.

No. UMD is not overpowered. UMD however allows builds to access necessary counterplay tactics against a wide variety of opponents. Imagine making a level 30 fighter (a terrible idea) and you come up against a wizard. Without UMD you would become completely disabled and unable to act. With the lack of a Word of Faith scroll to dispel his vampires, or a death ward wand to avoid a death spell, your character would be entirely at the mercy of this mage especially if your only counterplay was drinking a clarity potion (these have a cooldown). The mage wouldn't even need to be level 30 to effect your character and draw out a victory, and could defeat your fighter at any iteration of caster that might have a high DC death spell.

On the roleplay aspect, any character with UMD does not have an intimate knowledge of spellcasting. UMD equates to "fake it until you make it", and only effects magical items such as wands, scrolls, or items. No level 3 dip bard with UMD is going to come close to a spellcaster's proficiency over magic, roleplay wise.

These threads pop up frequently, and if you'd like to find other opinions or insight from both players and developers, you can use the search feature to find other threads of near identical questions dating back to Arelith's formation. In the end, I can probably say this with some confidence - UMD isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

[CosmicOrderV]

Simply using a 9th circle scroll isnt nearly as useful as being a mage, because of low Caster Level and low DC. Also look at how during timestop people above 50% hitpoints are completely immune to physical damage. So go ahead and be a fighter taunting 9th circle scrolls, they arent going to do anything for you. The only useful high end scroll for the fighter you describe, might be a summons, but one is usually more inclined to counter-summons, as a fighter, not bring your own.

I might suggest looking more closley at how Spell Resistance, Caster Level, and innate DC's work.

[Reallylongunneededplayername]

Imagine making a level 30 fighter (a terrible idea) and you come up against a wizard. Without UMD you would become completely disabled and unable to act. With the lack of a Word of Faith scroll to dispel his vampires, or a death ward wand to avoid a death spell, your character would be entirely at the mercy of this mage

As he should be!

But, As a former player of an UMD character, UMD isn't overpowered. Some items as scrolls should likely have a higher UMD.
Basicly, If you' re smart and get some coin quick, A lvl 3 Rogue could solo a lot of stuff with just summon scrolls and potions.

[Ork]

Imagine making a level 30 fighter (a terrible idea) and you come up against a wizard. Without UMD you would become completely disabled and unable to act. With the lack of a Word of Faith scroll to dispel his vampires, or a death ward wand to avoid a death spell, your character would be entirely at the mercy of this mage

As he should be!

I don't know if you're joking here, but there was a long stint in Arelith's history of characters solely being clerics and wizards for this exact reason. Think about what this sort of behavior reinforces at a macro level. Thankfully, Arelith has a fantastic mechanics team and the developers have made great decisions that have influenced a wide variety of builds that remain competitive on a PvP level.

[Cerk Evermoore]

Yes, but in a world of OP things it helps bring melee into line with casters.

[Lunargent]

We have this thread at least annually. Give it a rest. UMD is here to stay.

[xanrael]

A mage with a dip is going to have the same discipline as that fighter (and possibly AC as well depending upon the build) along with a pocket fighter of their own with an EDK. So it's not overpowered in that sense.

Is it overpowered comparing a level 30 pure fighter to a 27 fighter + 3 [rogue/bard], yes. But that's part of the whole design philosophy around all the builds/classes on Arelith. You're expected to multiclass here if you're looking to be optimal, heck you have to multiclass to even take PrCs.

In a PnP game you're building a team of PCs that will work together 100% of the time so you can cover weaknesses and use teamwork to succeed so many tables may have barely ever seen multiclassing. A Persistent World has a different play structure that makes multiclassing really attractive.

[Archnon]

We have this thread at least annually. Give it a rest. UMD is here to stay.

Honestly, like I said, I am not here to claim it needs nerfed. I am a total noob and it just shocked me that everyone took this so seriously as to add a dip in literally every build to get it. But your explanations really make sense.

I mean, in traditional paper and pen, you would probably want someone in your party to counter the effects of other mages. ie mage on mage. Hence the importance of a balanced party. A party of pure fighters would get owned. But in this game you are often on your own and need to rely on yourself. Having UMD helps to resolve this problem, but doesn't give you the DC to demolish someone, with say, an attack spell.

--EDIT--
Xanarael beat me by a hair on that comment, but yeah, that makes sense.

Thanks for the clarification and as far as searching the forum.... it is tough and remember that many players have been here less than a year.

[Ork]

Yeah, Archnon I apologize if my comment came off hostile. We honestly do get this discussion almost every other month so there's some burnout to how to answer it. I knew you asked this question without the passive-aggressive attempts by other posters in the past, and I hoped my answer made sense. Ultimately PnP and Arelith are different beasts, and xanrael's comment is dead on the money.

Cheers

[The Kriv]

UMD, Spellcraft, Tumble and Discipline. Every Build requires at least 2, if not all four, if you have -any- desire to survive PvP, or even most end game PvE.

I wish they would just be granted a base 15 to EVERY class... so that with EVERY level-up, regardless of class chosen, you gain
+0.5 UMD,
+0.5 Spellcraft,
+0.5 Tumble
+0.5 Discipline.
so by the time you're lvl 30 (regardless of class combination) you have a base 15 in each of the magic-4. (then we could finally put these discussons to bed too! )

Of course there will be characters / builds that will want to push it higher, but at least this way you can choose SOME kind of other skill path.. and Rogue/Bard-dip JUST for a skillz-dump could be actually something 'optional' where choosing to not do the skillz-dump-dip wouldn't gimp your character.

[Shadowy Reality]

If removing these dips would make such mundane classes unbalanced, which if probably the case.
Instead how unbalanced would things be if Discipline and Tumble (maybe UMD) were skills of every class?

[Zavandar]

no

[MissEvelyn]

I don't think UMD itself is overpowered. It's been nerfed with the heightened UMD requirements on certain gear.

What's overpowered is that a level 3 Rogue / 27 something else who cast a spell from a wand is harder to dispel than a Wizard with 20-something levels would be if she were to cast the same spell from her spellbook. That part makes absolutely no sense and I'd be glad to see that reworked so that all spells scale based on character levels when it comes to the dispelling DC.

[Eters]

In a world where leylines pop like apples on trees, killing dragons is the norm, every citizen of the isle is an epic level adventurer, you can travel planes with a snap of your finger, gods are literally present 24/7 for customer service, lenses are sold at grocery stores, the normal weaponry in the isle is +3 keen weapons, to put it in perspective, To "Hurt" Sehanine Moonbow according to the wiki, you need a +2 weapon minimum, so every random adventuring junkie on this island has weapons that can easily stab through a diety, Every mage can drop a nuke, Every mage can call a dragon, Etc, etc etc...

In such a world, any fighter, meleer that choses to /not/ learn a bit about magic is an idiot and it would make no sense to not know about magic and how it works because there is just /so/ much of it EVERYWHERE.

Mechanically wise without UMD Mages will slaughter everyone that doesn't have cha saves from paladin and blackguard or CoT heavy investement in saves. and that's it really.

[-XXX-]

UMD gives character options. It's always more FUN to have more options than the other way around.

[Reallylongunneededplayername]

UMD, Spellcraft, Tumble and Discipline. Every Build requires at least 2, if not all four, if you have -any- desire to survive PvP, or even most end game PvE.

I wish they would just be granted a base 15 to EVERY class... so that with EVERY level-up, regardless of class chosen, you gain
+0.5 UMD,
+0.5 Spellcraft,
+0.5 Tumble
+0.5 Discipline.
so by the time you're lvl 30 (regardless of class combination) you have a base 15 in each of the magic-4. (then we could finally put these discussons to bed too! )

Of course there will be characters / builds that will want to push it higher, but at least this way you can choose SOME kind of other skill path.. and Rogue/Bard-dip JUST for a skillz-dump could be actually something 'optional' where choosing to not do the skillz-dump-dip wouldn't gimp your character.

Honestly, What would be awesome is making UMD and really, Just every skill open to all classes, Just not as class skill but as a skill you could invest in. THEN, When you pick the feat " skill focus" it becomes a class skill.

I would go as far as for Animal empathy 25 points opens up animal language.

And Preform at 15 points would open up -music wich switches on and off the music notes above the characters head.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

As implemented via Vanilla NWN, UMD is absolutely overpowered to a ludicrous extent, no questions asked. Weaponmasters with Edit3: 10 13 intelligence, 15 ranks in UMD, and 3 rogue levels were never meant to be able to read time stop scrolls. Nor was any other character archetype meant to do such with 100% success rate with just 15 ranks (except, you know, mages). This goes for raise dead scrolls, wands of stoneskin, etc.

Arelith is, in fact, the only larger and more well-known server I've played on themed towards RP with 3.5 mechanics, that never bothered to update its UMD requirements to be closer to the book rules (although they did recently put more stringent requirements on race restricted gear, this is one of many small steps I'd like to see taken). (Edit: This is not to say there aren't others, but that I found it odd having not experienced it).

My honest opinion is that it will never happen if it relies on feedback to occur- the general air of entitlement when it comes to "our characters" despite the fact that our characters exist within a rules framework meant to make the world more enjoyable and consistent overall, is that "how dare you tell me what needs to be on my character sheet in order to do the things I want to do?" despite the actual ruling that one should in fact play what is on their character sheet.

This means anything that has the side-effect of limiting what characters across the board can do automatically receives backlash, to say nothing of the fact that every character with a level of rogue, assassin, or bard would have to be offered the ability to redistribute their skill points (read: about 90% of characters by level 30).

Edit 2: Also, I'm for entirely removing class-restricted skills. They aren't supposed to be a thing in the 3.0/3.5 universe. "Animal empathy" is the closest thing to anything similar that existed- it's a "free skill" given to druids, that's meant to go alongside "Handle Animal." Other than that, there are generally no such things as "class exclusive" skills; they should all be cross-classable.

[Basementfellow]

Weaponmasters with 10 intelligence

i prefer to build mine with 4 to more accurately portray me irl

[Loyal To The Bane]

Weaponmasters with 10 intelligence

For the record, you need a min of 13 Int to be a WM.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

any other character archetype

My bad about the 10 intelligence, but I'm somewhat disappointed that despite this, it's the only point drawing attention. Should I go back for edit 3 so that people can look past it? I think I will.

[Harkath]

Side question: Is magic overpowered enough that access to a weakened version of it still overpowered?

[Richørd]

To answer the initial question : Yes. Absolutely.

But why? Because without it melees would fall behind magic users at all times. UMD somewhat levels the playing field.

[Baseili]

As someone who has played a majority of mundane characters, UMD is practically mandatory in the higher epic levels and absolutely so in PvP. Not being able to dispell or banish, not to mention forgoing half a dozen immunities, is quite literally bringing a knife to a gunfight. Like others have said, its overpowered by comparison but standard in terms of context.

Also, never attempt to fight a prepared caster as a mudane character, it is futile and sours you on the entire server.

[The Kriv]

To answer the initial question : Yes. Absolutely.

But why? Because without it melees would fall behind magic users at all times. UMD somewhat levels the playing field.

righto, which raises the question also of 'why' is this? In the spirit of D&D... magic users are supposed to be very powerful, but also VERY squishy. Their spell use is supposed to be somewhat limited because they have to 'prepare' their spells in advance, and even then, only have access to each spell ONCE in a TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR period. -- 24 hours... In a row. Which means if those spells were removed (via dispelling, or whatnot) you couldn't just 'rest for 20 rl seconds after the fight, and re-apply.

And Spell Management is much more of a -thing- in regular D&D. So a journey through a temple, or in a dungeoun crawl, mages have to be much more frugal with their spells and spell selection. Not so in NWN. -this is part of why Mages are so completely god-like here in NWN.


But.. .back to the squishy part...


Although mages in D&D are very much supposed to be very very powerful, they ARE NOT meant to have huge Hitpoint Pools. In fact. Mages are supposed to get the max (4 hp) plus Con at level 1.... then 1/2 max+con per level (either average or outright 1/2)

So a level 30 magic user in normal D&D would only have 64 base hitpoints, plus whatever Con Bonus per level... which brings in another point...

In D&D... stat-enchants aren't supposed to stack... you can't make a viable Wizard with 28 CONSTITUTION in D&D. at best, you have your wizard with base con of about 14 or maaaaybe 16 ...and then a small +2 or +4 enchant somewhere (or +5 from a spell) but Ability Bonuses ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO STACK.

In D&D... a level 30 wizard would be WOW, AWESOME in power... but, would have Hitpoints around 100, maybe 120 tops. A wizard/mage in D&D would very very very very rarely be able to achieve 200 hp. that would be absurd.

In D&D, you cannot wear Gauntlet of Ogre Power for a +2 Strength, and a belt of Storm Giant of +4 Strength, and get a +5 Bulls Strength for a total of +9 strength... it was not designed to work like that.

A level 30 melee class... yes they are very vulnerable to the magical effects of the caster-classes. But... a level 30 true melee should have a very good chance of killing that wizard with a single crit, if he can get close enough to land the blow.

And of course, there's skill-dumping.. that's not a thing in D&D...

So those are ways the playing field gets to be a bit more level.... unfortunately, NWN has so many broken systems that don't represent how D&D was supposed to be implemented... we're dealing with the fallout from that.

((Disclaimor: Pure D&D Rules themselves have their own 'broken' components to them... NWN just is broken in a different way. ))