D&D 5E Identify Spell too straight forward?

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I prefer to mix identify with skills and higher level spells like legend lore.

Set DCs for each of the key characteristics of the magic item. All are potentially discoverable with a knowledge/skill/intelligence check. Identify is a "free" way to get all of the lower DC items; higher DCs require legend lore if the check can't be made.

For example, the party finds a sword that detects as magic. Knowledge checks reveal:

DC 15: +1 sword.
DC 20: The sword was crafted by a famous dwarven smith, Duergeddin.
DC 25: +1 flametongue sword.
DC 30: The sword was gifted to a human lord, Vadderung, who used it to slay the white wyrm Sherbedeath.
DC 35: The sword has absorbed the soul of Sherbedeath, and the sword's intelligence lies dormant until it is plunged into the Great White Glacier.
DC 40: The sword knows the location of Sherbedeath's lair and treasure, which have never been located.

Identify grants all information up to DC 25. Legend Lore grants all information. To give sages a reason to exist in-game, I recommend a visit to an NPC sage being the equivalent of casting legend lore.

 

[billd91]

This is my preference and the easiest way to scale information based on item power, age or DM discretion.

+1 sword that was made yesterday. DC 10
Sword of the Gods crafted a million years ago. DC 100

Easy enough.

But wouldn't the Sword of the Gods have left a footprint through tales and history? I can see that it might be difficult to cut through the chaff and figure out what's true and what's legend, but I think the interaction between age and power and the difficultly in identifying an item could be a lot more complex than older/more powerful = higher DC than something minor and relatively insignificant.

 

[sheadunne]

But wouldn't the Sword of the Gods have left a footprint through tales and history? I can see that it might be difficult to cut through the chaff and figure out what's true and what's legend, but I think the interaction between age and power and the difficultly in identifying an item could be a lot more complex than older/more powerful = higher DC than something minor and relatively insignificant.

I was over exaggerating for effect. The point being that the DC can fluctuate based on whatever parameters the DM decides is appropriate for her campaign. If she wants an item difficult to identify, then the tools are available to do so, but if in my campaign I want all items easily identifiable, I can do so without issue. Perhaps the identify spell can simply give the history of an item, but not its effects, or something similar. I don't know. I've never used the spell in previous editions because the cost was always too high to bother using.

 

[Sadrik]

DC should be based on the caster level of the item. 10 + CL. Then identify could provide +10 to the roll. Make it a skill roll. Legend and lore would be an automatic.

 

[billd91]

DC should be based on the caster level of the item. 10 + CL. Then identify could provide +10 to the roll. Make it a skill roll. Legend and lore would be an automatic.

That's basically the Pathfinder approach (minus the differences with legend lore). Identify has been helpful but optional (and much cheaper than in 1e-3.5e). The main hiccup has been legacy issues with the OGL sources - and that's from oddball caster levels for magic items. A relatively minor item like a 1st level pearl of power still has a caster level 17 and that makes it hard to identify when its utility is best for low level characters. This may be a case of using caster level for too much - setting the identify DC as well as determining resilience vs dispel attempts - when those two should have no obvious interrelation.

 

[Sadrik]

That's basically the Pathfinder approach (minus the differences with legend lore). Identify has been helpful but optional (and much cheaper than in 1e-3.5e). The main hiccup has been legacy issues with the OGL sources - and that's from oddball caster levels for magic items. A relatively minor item like a 1st level pearl of power still has a caster level 17 and that makes it hard to identify when its utility is best for low level characters. This may be a case of using caster level for too much - setting the identify DC as well as determining resilience vs dispel attempts - when those two should have no obvious interrelation.

Hmm, excellent questions. Perhaps an item could be simply classified into 4 or 5 groupings similar to the 3e detect magic power-levels. Faint, moderate, strong, overwhelming, and perhaps add in epic.

Then you can put potions and scroll and the like into faint. Mundane magic items into moderate (+2 sword, +1 ring, +3 cloak, etc.). Strong can be things like ring of invisibility, pearl of power, and a whole host of things, actually most magic items would fit here... then overwhelming could be things like vorpal weapons, holy swords, staff of the magi, stuff that is really at the upper limit of power. Epic of course would be for artifacts. I can see the DC for epic items being low or high depending on the legends surrounding the item (it could be super obscure or super well known).

These categories could also give its relative difficulty in dispelling it, it could also provide a hardness bonus (or whatever mechanic will be used), relative cost spectrum, and any other bonuses that depend on the power level of the item.

Perhaps DC could be:
Faint 15
moderate 20
strong 25
overwhelming 30
epic 20/40

 

[sheadunne]

That's basically the Pathfinder approach (minus the differences with legend lore). Identify has been helpful but optional (and much cheaper than in 1e-3.5e). The main hiccup has been legacy issues with the OGL sources - and that's from oddball caster levels for magic items. A relatively minor item like a 1st level pearl of power still has a caster level 17 and that makes it hard to identify when its utility is best for low level characters. This may be a case of using caster level for too much - setting the identify DC as well as determining resilience vs dispel attempts - when those two should have no obvious interrelation.

They explained/corrected the CL issue with the pearls. The CL 17 is just for the highest one. The others are much lower. CL for magic items aren't usually higher than the minimum CL to cast the spells required for the item. It's just another one of those carry over things from 3x.

You can identify magic item properties in PF with a spellcraft check of 15+CL, which is usually pretty easy if you make your character to be able to do it. It works fine, but if you're looking for more mystery, the system doesn't support it.