Arelith

For a wizard, how important is UMD? Which interesting use and benefits it has?

It's always nice if you have space for it, but there are other skills that are far more important, and most of what you'll get out of it, like immunity to death magic and negative energy, or increased AC, you can already get from your high level spells and Epic Mage Armor. In most cases, by the time you get it, it'll have niche uses at best, unless you're using it to get access to a race/class/alignment restricted item. If you actually NEED it for something, you're already in deep trouble.

IMHO having access to some of the higher lvl divine scrolls (Word of Faith, Mass Heal, Greater Resto) is essential for most builds.

Worthy of note: the entire restoration line of scrolls, including Greater Restoration, is accessible to any character without need for UMD.

It's nice for freedom wands.

It never hurts to have 15 points...but its not life or death optimal.

Freedom Wands and WoF scrolls are the two main things it gets you: The former a good for fighting evocation or conjuration mages, the latter for having some way to answer necromancers. So not a *huge* deal if you don't have them, but you should be able to fit it with no trouble.

Thank you all for the replies.