GameBanshee Forums

More or less, everyone agrees that the Thief High Level Ability (HLA) 'Use Any Item' is awesome.

'Use Any Item' was the 1st HLA I chose for my dual-classed Kensai/Thief, then I encountered a problem: I couldn't use wands. Trying to place a wand in a quick-use slot only gave the msg: "Inadequate Intelligence." (my INT value = 8).

Figuring out the problem's cause:

1st idea: tried reading thru "in game" materials:
Found out that every description of every wand in the game mentioned nothing about a minimum intell requirement.

2nd idea: searched thru many numerous "Internet" resources (forums, FAQ's, Walkthru's, etc.):
Scanned MANY numerous FAQ's, guides, walkthrus, and forum posts and discovered that finding out the source of my wand problem was gonna be a big pain-in-the-ass.

I was close to just calling it quits on my Kensai/Thief and creating a new character from scratch when I stumbled across this info table: Ackadia's Baldurs Gate solution - ADnD tables

Then it hit me: "The minimum intel allowed when creating a new mage is 9. DUHHHHHHH!!!!... That explains my wand problem!!" (felt kinda dumb for not thinking of that earlier).
Hence, I decided to create this post just in case someone else happens to encounter the same wand problem (since I found nothing on any Forum post,Walkthru, or FAQ that mentioned this exact problem).

Long story short, after a relatively short trek up to Level 4 of Watcher's Keep and using the "Machine of Lum the Mad", I was able to up my INT by 1 (increased my INT from 8 to 9).....
And VOILA: my Kensai/Thief was finally able to use wands that proved the 'Wand of Cloudkill' kicks ass!

-Thx

Yeah, the Use Any Item ability actually does not bypass that sort of requirements. If you want to use, say, Valygar's armor on a thief with UAI, chances are you'll see "not enough wisdom." I tried to give Cernd's cloak to Haer'dalis once (mostly just to annoy the damn family-abandonning stuck up piece of... something unflattering) and he had both his constitution and wisdom too low. That's because many items that are property of npc's will be "suited" to their stats and alignment.

One may say that its cheating; but, you could just put it on (NPC specific equipment, I mean) using a character editor like Shadow Keeper.

-Duskryn