Wands while in armor

Starting a new 3.5 campaign soon.

My son is playing a cleric, and has taken the magic domain. This
gives him the ability to use spell completion and spell trigger items
as a wizard half his level (talk about diminishing returns!).

He is wearing heavy armor and a shield and has a 50% arcane spell
failure chance.

Does the arcane spell failure chance apply to a wand? a scroll?

My thought is that it applies to the scroll, but not the wand. Since
a wand is spell trigger activation item, it does not require any
somatic movements.

Am I right?

> *Subject:* Wands while in armor
> *From:* decalod85
> *Date:* Sun, 13 Sep 2009 13:05:53 -0700 (PDT)
> Does the arcane spell failure chance apply to a wand? a scroll?
>
> My thought is that it applies to the scroll, but not the wand.
> Since
> a wand is spell trigger activation item, it does not require any
> somatic movements.
>
> Am I right?
>

Yes - although I would argue that a reading a scroll of a spell that itself has no
somatic components does not incur a chance of arcane spell failure, and using a
scroll which simply requires a single word to activate does not incur attacks of
opportunity either. An example of the latter could be any spell with "Word" in its
title, such as Power Word Kill, Word of Chaos, Holy Word, or Word of Recall.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicItemBasics.htm#usingItems

Spell Completion

This is the activation method for scrolls. A scroll is a spell that is mostly
finished. The preparation is done for the caster, so no preparation time is needed
beforehand as with normal spellcasting. All that’s left to do is perform the
finishing parts of the spellcasting (the final gestures, words, and so on). To use
a spell completion item safely, a character must be of high enough level in the
right class to cast the spell already. If he can’t already cast the spell, there’s
a chance he’ll make a mistake. Activating a spell completion item is a standard
action and provokes attacks of opportunity exactly as casting a spell does.

Spell Trigger

Spell trigger activation is similar to spell completion, but it’s even simpler. No
gestures or spell finishing is needed, just a special knowledge of spellcasting
that an appropriate character would know, and a single word that must be spoken.
Anyone with a spell on his or her spell list knows how to use a spell trigger item
that stores that spell. (This is the case even for a character who can’t actually
cast spells, such as a 3rd-level paladin.) The user must still determine what spell
is stored in the item before she can activate it. Activating a spell trigger item
is a standard action and does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

Command Word

If no activation method is suggested either in the magic item description or by the
nature of the item, assume that a command word is needed to activate it. Command
word activation means that a character speaks the word and the item activates. No
other special knowledge is needed.

A command word can be a real word, but when this is the case, the holder of the
item runs the risk of activating the item accidentally by speaking the word in
normal conversation. More often, the command word is some seemingly nonsensical
word, or a word or phrase from an ancient language no longer in common use.
Activating a command word magic item is a standard action and does not provoke
attacks of opportunity.



Cheers
JOanna