Excerpt: You and Your Magic Items

[Picatrix]

That is beyond lame. Fighters who've never had magical training whatsoever shouldn't be able to identify magical poop, let alone the properties and effects of a magical item. Sure, they can feel the balance of a sword is better and that it fits their hand perfectly, but anything beyond that should require a person trained in arcane knowledge.

Maybe it was just my group that went through this, but I remember the tedium of people trying all sorts of things in 1st edition to figure out what the items they found did. ("I jump in the air. I put my hand over the candle. I touch the cleric. I think really hard about talking to that plant.") In the end, the DM skipped the whole process and just told us what things were when we found them.

I tended not to do things that way, but with the cost of Identify at low levels (plus the gradual depletion of the local goldfish population), that turned into characters carrying around packs of unidentified items until they eventually forgot they had them.

As a shorthand for "you spend some time fiddling around with the doodad in the strangely obsessive way that adventurers do, and eventually discover X," I kind of like this system.

(Edited a typo)

 

[Stalker0]

I loved everything about this article.

1) Identifying magic items. Easy as pie for those who want it. Want it harder? Arcana checks.

2) Magic bonuses are standardized by level. Want magic items, no problem. Don't want them, you can add static bonuses to your players and call it a day.

3) There are limits on how often you can use magic items. We are quite sure of the limit, but the article mentions you can't just toss out encounter power after encounter power with different items. Very happy to see that.

All in all nothing but good things to say.

 

[Aria Silverhands]

The article says you can play other ways too.

Thaumaturge.

Yeah I know, but it seems like nearly all the stuff in 4th edition is by default, in the player's hands and it requires the DM to be a hardass and say, no you can't do this. No you can't do that. Instead of the DM saying, here's what you can do.

 

[Stalker0]

Amulet of the Matrix: 55,000 gold pieces.

Plate Armor of the Iron Dragon: 115,000 gold pieces

+6 Vicious Greataxe: 225,000 gold pieces

Getting to tell the DM that you did an additional 108 points of damage: priceless.

Having the DM then smile, saying you knocked his monster to bloodied, releasing another breath weapon that annihilates the party. Funny...and priceless

 

[Aria Silverhands]

Maybe it was just my group that went through this, but I remember the tedium of people trying all sorts of things in 1st edition to figure out what the items they found did. ("I jump in the air. I put my hand over the candle. I touch the cleric. I think really hard about talking to that plant.") In the end, the DM skipped the whole process and just told us what things were when we found them.

We never did that. We just chipped in and bought pearls for the wizard or had a cleric with the magic domain, which removed the need for the pearl somehow, but I forget how. =

 

[Rechan]

Yeah I know, but it seems like nearly all the stuff in 4th edition is by default, in the player's hands and it requires the DM to be a hardass and say, no you can't do this. No you can't do that. Instead of the DM saying, here's what you can do.

You mean like the default of high fantasy, and the DM having to be a hardass and say "No, you can't use that"?

There will always be a level of default and everything else being DM taste.

As a DM, I feel quite justified on saying what from the PHB, right down to classes and races, are not allowed. Hardass or no.

 

[Thaumaturge]

Yeah I know, but it seems like nearly all the stuff in 4th edition is by default, in the player's hands and it requires the DM to be a hardass and say, no you can't do this. No you can't do that. Instead of the DM saying, here's what you can do.

I disagree with the bolded word. Your assumptions and the things you require force your hand.

Oh, you could, you know, say, "yes".

Thaumaturge.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Amulet of the Matrix: 55,000 gold pieces.

Plate Armor of the Iron Dragon: 115,000 gold pieces

+6 Vicious Greataxe: 225,000 gold pieces

Getting to tell the DM that you did an additional 108 points of damage: priceless.

Keep in mind, as per the weapons article, high crit weapons add an extra dice on a crit at heroic tier, an extra 2 dice at paragon, and an extra 3 dice at epic.

3[W] attack plus 26 strength, plus +6 Vicious Greataxe plus crit=
50+9d12 damage.

 

[Rechan]

We never did that. We just chipped in and bought pearls for the wizard or had a cleric with the magic domain, which removed the need for the pearl somehow, but I forget how. =

The biggest bugaboo for me about the Identify spell isn't just the 100gp cost, but that it takes 8 hours. Talk about downtime while you find out the haul you got.

 

[Arivendel]

Did i read it wrong? or does the holy avenger actually does +nd10 whenever you strike with a radiant power?

Thats like, so awesome! plus it can be used as an implement! no more of the "I drop my weapon and hold my symbol to use my daily"