Do characters need to do a check to use items like, for example, the Rope of Knots, or can anyone use them?
[RPG] Do Wondrous Items require the Use Magic Device skill
pathfinder-1e
Related Solutions
First question: trigger
The character needs only to have at least one level of a class which can cast the spell. In this case a first level wizard will be able to trigger any wizard spell.
Second question: completion
From the SRD: Scrolls
To have any chance of activating a scroll spell, the scroll user must meet the following requirements.
- The spell must be of the correct type (arcane or divine). Arcane spellcasters (wizards, sorcerers, and bards) can only use scrolls containing arcane spells, and divine spellcasters (clerics, druids, paladins, and rangers) can only use scrolls containing divine spells. (The type of scroll a character creates is also determined by his class.)
- The user must have the spell on her class list.
- The user must have the requisite ability score. 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.
This means that the character must be a spell caster of the correct type (arcane or divine): so no a fighter will not be able to use a scroll.
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.
In this case: yes a first level wizard will be able to try with any arcane scroll (if he has the required Int) but he will have to perform an appropriate caster level with the following consequences:
If she fails, she must make a DC 5 Wisdom check to avoid a mishap (see Scroll Mishaps). 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.
Use magic device
You can use this skill to read a spell or to activate a magic item. Use Magic Device lets you use a magic item as if you had the spell ability or class features of another class, as if you were a different race, or as if you were of a different alignment.
This allow to override the first condition: even if you are not of the correct class (or have the wrong alignment and so on) and you have the use magic device skill you can do a check and try anyway.
So in this case if your 20th level fighter is trained in use magic device: yes he can use a scroll
You are always welcome to fudge it, or not use the weirdo magic item economy in Pathfinder, but if you are wanting to go by the rules, you are doing it right. Higher DCs are supposed to cost that much more. Just like a +1 sword to +2 to +3 grows in cost squared, DC increase isn't priced linearly. A DC 14 is a lot less useful than a DC 17 and so the cost being 3x as much is how the system works.
You can try to eke out more "according to the rules" by adding cheesy limitations to the item to drop the cost, but it would be best to just wing it the way you want it. Unless you're publishing it, no one will care except inasmuch as it advances the play of your campaign.
Best Answer
Most of the time anyone can use wondrous items
The Magic Items section on Wondrous Items under the heading Activation says
Also, hidden in the section on Intelligent Wondrous Items, the game says that even a non-intelligent wondrous item has a 30% chance that
Thus if the item's possessor knows the command word, the possessor can take a standard action to employ the wondrous item.
Further, a creature can employ the skill Use Magic Device (DC 25) to activate blindly a command-word-activated magic item for which he does't know the command word.
It's possible, though, that the wondrous item might be easier to use than that because some are
However, this is Pathfinder, so exceptions will exist as to which creatures can use certain items, but those exceptions will either be listed in the item's description or specify a different activation method. The rope of knots is not an exception, functioning as it does "upon command," a standard action.