Ritual: Identify Magic Item

Starfox said:

I admit, I didn't read either rule word-by-word

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Mustrum_Ridcully said:

In fact, a player centric view should be the given for a Players Handbook.

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Sorry guys, that's too inane to be worth a reply.

CapnZapp said:

Sorry guys, that's too inane to be worth a reply.

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I think, in fact, the entire "fix" was not worth a reply. My bad.

Greatwyrm said:

Rereading this thread, I just can't get past 'why?' on this part. Why is adding a monetary cost adding fun when you're still taking time and still making an Arcana check per the existing rules. Why does it make more sense to find out a sword is a Flaming weapon than to find out that bag holds more than it should?

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I'm not sure what you are asking with the last question, but I can answer the first, at least from my perspective.

In (non-WotC) fantasy novels and fiction, people do not find magical items and neccessarily know what they are. They experiment, or take the item to a hermit or sage to examine, or some such.

Now, taking the item to a sage slows down the game a lot. And I understand the concept of speeding up the game.

But, auto-knowledge (note: the core rule does NOT require an Arcana check for most items) is not a good rule. It's a Monopoly rule. In other words, it's not a rule that feels right, it's a rule solely devised to speed up play. This makes it a gamist rule instead of a simulationist rule.

Now, most players are able to handwave away many of the gamist type rules in 4E. This particular rule, however, has gone from being wealth plus a day's worth of effort (too far to the left) to free (too far to the right).

Some people view it as the PCs have defeated the monster, they are ENTITLED to find magic items and auto-know what they do.

Other people view it as the PCs have defeated the monster, if there is one or more magic items there, the goal now is to determine what they do. It's a new challenge, not candy handed out for free.

Different strokes for different folks.

Handing out the info for free just feels wrong. It goes back to many entitlement discussions in our gaming community. The PCs defeat the monster, so they are entitled to treasure in the first place is also part of the 4E rules, in fact, the DMG states exactly how much treasure they should get in every encounter. There are house rules suggestions here on this board on having magic items not add bonuses and just auto-add the bonuses at certain levels because the game system is designed around the PCs having to have certain power of items at certain levels. The PCs are entitled. That bothers some DMs who want to hand out magic at their descretion and when it works for the story, not in 40% of the fights because the DMG states that the PCs need those items to stay balanced (side tracked, I know).

But IMO, the players are not entitled to auto-knowledge and even an Arcana check to figure out a magic item in 2 seconds is still too darn easy for some of us.

Hence, the reason some of us decided to add a Ritual to the game system. It gives the players a choice as to whether to continue adventuring, or spending time and some small wealth (with my house rule) to figure out what newly found items do. There can be scenario situations where stopping to figure out the item helps the party more than waiting, or vice versa. Pros and Cons, not just auto-pro of taking a short rest and Shazam, we know what all the stuff does.

The core rule makes the PCs appear to be omnipotent when it comes to magic items. That feels wrong. WotC threw the baby out with the bath water with this rule.

Well, what KarinsDad pretty much sums up the "Why?" part, but quoting, the main reason is:

KarinsDad said:

Now, most players are able to handwave away many of the gamist type rules in 4E. This particular rule, however, has gone from being wealth plus a day's worth of effort (too far to the left) to free (too far to the right).

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As for the money the PC's would be spending, it's not an issue really: I just take a note of the amount of money they spent using the ritual (which is their money in the first place) and just give it back in the next treasure (or gradually as loot from bodies of enemies). I don't really see the money aspect as a problem.
What I see as a problem is the auto-identifying, which not only me, but even the players at my table don't like (they think that identifying that way kind of loses interest, it felt more "magical" using something to gain that knowledge, like the Identify spell in 3rd ed., and I agree.)

Even though some posts were off subject, all the info that some of you gave me really helps. I'm working this ritual in my mind right now, and giving it final details (at least for what I need for my table, which may not be what some of you want for your games), and when I have a little free time I'll post the ritual, maybe as an image so you can print it if you like it and hand it out at your tables too.

kevkas said:

What I see as a problem is the auto-identifying, which not only me, but even the players at my table don't like (they think that identifying that way kind of loses interest, it felt more "magical" using something to gain that knowledge, like the Identify spell in 3rd ed., and I agree.)

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This happened to us as well. Several of our house rules including this one were not just instigated by the DM, but also by the PC players.

What I also find interesting is that the rest of the 3E spells that were kept were either made a power, or made a ritual.

This is the only 3E spell (TMK) that was made a quasi-skill / quasi-gimme. Odd.

In my game world there are very few "standard magic items" and even they are culturally specific... and so most will require an arcana check or ritual coming in under the "non-standard" clause.

And I don't need anything more than that. As far as I am concerned that is perfectly in keeping with RAW, for one thing where does it tell me "standard" means every bloody magic item in every book.... its a DM's job to make that decision.

And if it says non-standard magic items may require an arcana roll or a ritual... well then that is the way it works without house ruling anything.

Putting the magic items in the players handbook is the questionable feature if you ask me.

So, I finallly figured out a way to shape what I had in mind for this ritual. The key that helped me was the Knowledge skill since it sounds right to make an Arcana check to determine the properties of a magic item. So that's pretty much what I did, but in the form of a ritual. I used the DC's that already came in the PHB for the Knowledge skill, so that it would be balanced for every tier.

A note about artifacts: (I hope my english lets me explain this...it's not my native language)
Since artifacts have a level assigned (H-P-E), but not a level number, what I did to determine the cost for identifying such items was: I considered each artifact as an item of half the tier (for example: a paragon level artifact would be a 15th level item...which is the middle between 10th and 20th), and then I just calculated the 5% (that's the number that I used for the ritual). I know it's not very exact, but artifacts... well.. there aren't many of them... and they are supposed to be "rare", so I tried to look at them from that point of view when pricing them (kind of a 50-50 situation).

The last part of the ritual is just a way to explain failure when using the ritual, and the DC 5 is only trying to contemplate when character's roll 1 (in which case they won't know anything about the item... at least at my table rolling 1 is still a critical failure and bad things happen to you.... ehh.. I mean to your character, hahahaha).

I know some of you may not like it, but I hope some of you do. Let me know what you think.

Good job.

I'm not a big fan of the variable component cost, but I think it'll probably work for you okay.