Dragon Shamans

[Rystil Arden]

If it comes up (which it doesn't in face to face, as my group has a horror of cursed items and IDs *everything* before use) I'll usually tell a player at least the enhancement bonus of a weapon if he's used it in two or three battles. Too much headache for the DM otherwise. I've never seen the Dragonfire Adept, so I can't comment directly, but I've found the Artificer's Monocle in SC to be a good thing... an initial investment that will more than pay for itself over time, but I don't feel that destroys the economy in any significant way.

I suppose PCs selling spellcasting services at 75% of market could also be described as destroying the economy, but in my experience they prefer to be out adventuring rather than sitting in the shard selling such things to other PCs. I see it as an economic advantage for the PC and his associates, but that's not entirely bad.

Heh, IMC (and I think RAW), Cursed Items are the only items that actually do have a good chance of evading discovery from an ID spell. But yeah, I'll usually tell the players the weapon enhancement bonus--that was the only reason it was becoming a headache for me with Ironwolf, as his main weapon was a magic weapon that was unidentified for over a year of gameplay (though not a year under me, thankfully!).

Crafting things for 75% of their value and selling them is fine--you pay 50% of the cost plus XP and craft days. In the case of Identify, you can usually sell it for 110 and make a 10 GP profit because of the pearlshake, which is offset by a used spell slot. The Dragonfire Adept can sell it for 90 and make 100% pure profit, and nobody can stop the undercutting because she's selling it for less than the at cost price of everyone else. That's huge.

EDIT: Okay, I guess another Dragonfire Adept could do it, but they just need to band together and collude to keep the price up.

 

[stonegod]

So, here are the MIC rules for ID for comparison:
- Kn (arcana) DC 30 check will give someone an idea about an item, generally if it is very legendary or has common forms. May or may not give full item details depending on item/DM. A 3rd level Wiz w/ 18 Int would have barely a chance at this, and wouldn't be able to do it regularly until 9 levels later when analyze dweomer is available
- Search checks *might* give command words for wands and rings. Again, DM fiat
- Spellcraft: Aside from the already usable potion check (DC 25), they allow a Spellcraft of 10 plus the roll needed to id the school of magic to id an item's function assuming detect magic is used. So, this is effectively 25+spell level. A 1st level wiz has a chance with an item with a CL of 6 or that uses a 3rd level spell, wouldn't be able to do this consistently until 10th level, one before analyze dweomer is available. Don't use time or an action, and can be retried as per RAW; I'd suggest making this check a full minute action (ala potions).
- UMD: If one succeeds on activating an item with a check of 5+the normally required roll, ID the various functions, # charges, etc. An Artificer 1 with 18 Cha could do this for wands, though not consistently until 6th level, a warlock at 8th; Wondrous items would be 10th/12th level respectively via an activate blindly if no other emulation is needed. Only works on items that are 'activated'

All of these are pretty reasonable, and don't destroy the economy as if you need to autosucceed, identify still works, and analyze dweomer is still pretty useful at its level. The magic insight invocation of dragonfire adepts, however, blows all of these away.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I like all of those a lot better. The Spellcraft should definitely not have a retry allowed, as per Potions. The UMD should only identify the function you just activated, not other functions you didn't activate. Other than that, it seems fine.

 

[Wik]

We could rewrite the Magic Insight ability to providing a +10 competence bonus on skill checks on spellcraft made to ID magic items....?

I'm going to go through Dragon Magic tomorrow and post a list of stuff that could be put into the game. Cuz I'm sort of thinking of using *something* from it for my next LEB character - a Serenese Barbarian is just too cool to pass up.