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<blockquote data-quote="Zerakon" data-source="post: 4694588" data-attributes="member: 12921">In my last session my players defeated a group of monsters. As a DM, I like to have my intelligen monsters use magic items as it makes a lot more sense than the players finding something and thinking &quot;wow this would have hurt us!&quot; There were two magic items used in this particular battle.The first magic item was a Phantom Soldier held by a Howling Hag. It was obvious that this was a magic item because I described her using a figurine in her hand just before an illusionary soldier appeared on the battlefield.The other magic item was Boots of Stealth worn by a Bugbear Strangler. Not as obvious.At the end of the battle, the party tried to detect magic so I asked for the usual Arcana check. The wizard rolled poorly, resulting in a 15 arcana check. I've been using &quot;Sense the Presence of Magic&quot; under Detect Magic under the Arcana skill (PHB, pg. 181), so a 15 wasn't even close to detecting magic on the items.The party clearly had a clue that the figurine was magical, so they took that as well as the hag's quarterstaff. The Boots of Stealth were left behind. I'm feeling a little sorry about that as the rogue in the party is a little behind on magic item acquisition and he would have loved them.Am I using the right rules for this? In previous versions of D&amp;D, a spell could be used -- if the party chose to expend that resource -- to discover all the magic items in the area. Now they roll for a skill.How do other parties handle this? Do they spend a number of minutes using the Arcana skill until they've rolled sufficiently high? Does the DM just let them detect the presence of magic items automatically and the &quot;sense the presence of magic&quot; is used for other story-related magical presences?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Zerakon, post: 4694588, member: 12921"] In my last session my players defeated a group of monsters. As a DM, I like to have my intelligen monsters use magic items as it makes a lot more sense than the players finding something and thinking "wow this would have hurt us!" There were two magic items used in this particular battle. The first magic item was a Phantom Soldier held by a Howling Hag. It was obvious that this was a magic item because I described her using a figurine in her hand just before an illusionary soldier appeared on the battlefield. The other magic item was Boots of Stealth worn by a Bugbear Strangler. Not as obvious. At the end of the battle, the party tried to detect magic so I asked for the usual Arcana check. The wizard rolled poorly, resulting in a 15 arcana check. I've been using "Sense the Presence of Magic" under Detect Magic under the Arcana skill (PHB, pg. 181), so a 15 wasn't even close to detecting magic on the items. The party clearly had a clue that the figurine was magical, so they took that as well as the hag's quarterstaff. The Boots of Stealth were left behind. I'm feeling a little sorry about that as the rogue in the party is a little behind on magic item acquisition and he would have loved them. Am I using the right rules for this? In previous versions of D&D, a spell could be used -- if the party chose to expend that resource -- to discover all the magic items in the area. Now they roll for a skill. How do other parties handle this? Do they spend a number of minutes using the Arcana skill until they've rolled sufficiently high? Does the DM just let them detect the presence of magic items automatically and the "sense the presence of magic" is used for other story-related magical presences? [/QUOTE]

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