Problem: Chaotic good bard wants to use an armor made literally of beggar's skin and blood of a lawful good dragon. Item description says "only the most evil of humans could wear such a vile item" but in the Baldur's Gate video game (which is loosely based on 2nd edition AD&D and some 3.5 additions) there's a High Level Ability (HLA) for Bards and Thieves called "Use Any Item" (UAI). It allows use of items regardless of class, alignment or racial restrictions, etc. Mechanically the bard can wear it, though it's unclear to me if that's an oversight or if the ability is supposed to work like that.

Ingame description of the ability makes no mention of alignment one way or another

"Rogues take pride in their ability to adapt and make clever use of whatever is at hand. This ability is an extension of that basic skill. Once learned, the effect is permanent. The ability allows the rogue to use any item, even items that are typically restricted to one class. This allows the rogue to use everything from wands and scrolls to mighty weapons that none but a fighter could otherwise use."

I assume the game designers came up with it themselves, but as they're unlikely to be available for questioning I figure if I can find something equivalent in any pen-and-paper game system that is better described that would help me make a decision here.

Over here Kaigen speculated that

"It might be extrapolated from the "Use Magic Device" skill from 3.X, which thieves and bards were the main classes with access to. UMD allowed you, with a high enough skill check, to do things like activate items without the proper command word and to fake various prerequisites, such as race, class, alignment, etc. By epic levels, it was easy to have a skill modifier high enough to reliably use just about any item you fancied."

But no one in the thread seemed to know for sure. Even if that is the origin it doesn't really help as the alignment restriction on the object wasn't the object rejecting the user unless of a particular alignment (where it could perhapps be tricked by UMD skills into thinking you had a different alignment) - but instead from a presumption that anyone else couldn't "handle" the evilness of it all.

Because of the way it worked in-game I always interpreted that ability as basically a rogue learning to cope with the weird magical energies regarding the nature of the artifact and using it for his own purposes what ever those may be. An evil bard can wield a paladin sword while hunting angels, and a good bard using an evil artifact that would corrupt normal people can go hunt evil creatures.

Can anyone point me towards descriptions of similar abilities in similar systems that I could base my decision on?

Problem: Chaotic good bard wants to use an armor made literally of beggar's skin and blood of a lawful good dragon. Item description says "only the most evil of humans could wear such a vile item" but in the Baldur's Gate video game (which is loosely based on 2nd edition AD&D and some 3.5 additions) there's a High Level Ability (HLA) for Bards and Thieves called "Use Any Item" (UAI). It allows use of items regardless of class, alignment or racial restrictions, etc. Mechanically the bard can wear it, though it's unclear to me if that's an oversight or if the ability is supposed to work like that.

Ingame description of the ability makes no mention of alignment one way or another

"Rogues take pride in their ability to adapt and make clever use of whatever is at hand. This ability is an extension of that basic skill. Once learned, the effect is permanent. The ability allows the rogue to use any item, even items that are typically restricted to one class. This allows the rogue to use everything from wands and scrolls to mighty weapons that none but a fighter could otherwise use."

I assume the game designers came up with it themselves, but as they're unlikely to be available for questioning I figure if I can find something equivalent in any pen-and-paper game system that is better described that would help me make a decision here.

Over here Kaigen speculated that

"It might be extrapolated from the "Use Magic Device" skill from 3.X, which thieves and bards were the main classes with access to. UMD allowed you, with a high enough skill check, to do things like activate items without the proper command word and to fake various prerequisites, such as race, class, alignment, etc. By epic levels, it was easy to have a skill modifier high enough to reliably use just about any item you fancied."

But no one in the thread seemed to know for sure. Even if that is the origin it doesn't really help as the alignment restriction on the object wasn't the object rejecting the user unless of a particular alignment (where it could perhapps be tricked by UMD skills into thinking you had a different alignment) - but instead from a presumption that anyone else couldn't "handle" the evilness of it all.

Because of the way it worked in-game I always interpreted that ability as basically a rogue learning to cope with the weird magical energies regarding the nature of the artifact and using it for his own purposes what ever those may be. An evil bard can wield a paladin sword while hunting angels, and a good bard using an evil artifact that would corrupt normal people can go hunt evil creatures.

What is the D&D ability that Baldur's Gate's "Use Any Item" feature is based on, and how would that feature interact with an item like this armor?

In the Baldur's Gate video game (loosely based on 2nd edition AD&D and some 3.5 additions) there's a High Level Ability (HLA) for Bards and Thieves called "Use Any Item" (UAI). It allows use of items regardless of class, alignment or racial restrictions and such. I assume the game designers came up with it themselves, but I'd like to know is there something similar or an equivalent in any pen-and-paper game system, including any D&D?

Ingame description

"Rogues take pride in their ability to adapt and make clever use of whatever is at hand. This ability is an extension of that basic skill. Once learned, the effect is permanent. The ability allows the rogue to use any item, even items that are typically restricted to one class. This allows the rogue to use everything from wands and scrolls to mighty weapons that none but a fighter could otherwise use."

Over here Kaigen speculated that

"It might be extrapolated from the "Use Magic Device" skill from 3.X, which thieves and bards were the main classes with access to. UMD allowed you, with a high enough skill check, to do things like activate items without the proper command word and to fake various prerequisites, such as race, class, alignment, etc. By epic levels, it was easy to have a skill modifier high enough to reliably use just about any item you fancied."

But no one in the thread seemed to know for sure.

Because of the way it worked in-game I always interpreted that ability as basically a rogue learning to cope with the weird magical energies regarding the nature of the artifact and using it for his own purposes what ever those may be. An evil bard can wield a paladin sword while hunting angels, and a good bard using an evil artifact that would corrupt normal people can go smite evil creatures. But the ingame definition doesn't mention alignment restrictions and I can't find the equivalent to this ability anywhere else.

Is there such a thing as "Use Any Item" elsewhere (i.e. besides this game)?

Problem: Chaotic good bard wants to use an armor made literally of beggar's skin and blood of a lawful good dragon. Item description says "only the most evil of humans could wear such a vile item" but in the Baldur's Gate video game (which is loosely based on 2nd edition AD&D and some 3.5 additions) there's a High Level Ability (HLA) for Bards and Thieves called "Use Any Item" (UAI). It allows use of items regardless of class, alignment or racial restrictions, etc. Mechanically the bard can wear it, though it's unclear to me if that's an oversight or if the ability is supposed to work like that.

Ingame description of the ability makes no mention of alignment one way or another

"Rogues take pride in their ability to adapt and make clever use of whatever is at hand. This ability is an extension of that basic skill. Once learned, the effect is permanent. The ability allows the rogue to use any item, even items that are typically restricted to one class. This allows the rogue to use everything from wands and scrolls to mighty weapons that none but a fighter could otherwise use."

I assume the game designers came up with it themselves, but as they're unlikely to be available for questioning I figure if I can find something equivalent in any pen-and-paper game system that is better described that would help me make a decision here.

Over here Kaigen speculated that

"It might be extrapolated from the "Use Magic Device" skill from 3.X, which thieves and bards were the main classes with access to. UMD allowed you, with a high enough skill check, to do things like activate items without the proper command word and to fake various prerequisites, such as race, class, alignment, etc. By epic levels, it was easy to have a skill modifier high enough to reliably use just about any item you fancied."

But no one in the thread seemed to know for sure. Even if that is the origin it doesn't really help as the alignment restriction on the object wasn't the object rejecting the user unless of a particular alignment (where it could perhapps be tricked by UMD skills into thinking you had a different alignment) - but instead from a presumption that anyone else couldn't "handle" the evilness of it all.

Because of the way it worked in-game I always interpreted that ability as basically a rogue learning to cope with the weird magical energies regarding the nature of the artifact and using it for his own purposes what ever those may be. An evil bard can wield a paladin sword while hunting angels, and a good bard using an evil artifact that would corrupt normal people can go hunt evil creatures.

Can anyone point me towards descriptions of similar abilities in similar systems that I could base my decision on?