Identify magic effect makes no sense as written.

[Oompa]

As an DM i made an level 32 wizard, after years of research he made an few magical items.

- An chair that adjusts its size to the person who sits in it.
- An door that opens itself when someone gets within five feet.
- An wall that changes colour every hour.

As you can see, these are magical effects, not created by an power, magical item or an ritual..

Dc is 20 + 16 = 36.

 

[Obryn]

Take it like this. You are brand new to D&D. You take a look at that skill, you have no access to the internet, and this whole roleplaying thing is completely new, and you really want to follow the rules. What do you do ? They obviously wrote that specific DC level in refrence to something. If its just your encounter level why doesnt it say? If its just in refrence to power, where does it tell you this ? I could go on and on.

Well, if you're a new DM, you're probably using pre-written adventures - which will specify the levels of all effects.

If not, I doubt you'll be agonizing over one vague rule in a skill. There's lots of vagaries, and being able to deal with them is one of the DM's jobs. Heck, I did when I was a new DM and still do to this day.

-O

 

[Grazzt]

As someone told you over at the WotC thread, the answer is simply that you assign the level to the effect that you need it to have.

A "magic effect" is anything not covered between powers, rituals, etc. Surely if you've ever actually DM'd a game you MUST have come across some of these. A magical mirror that looks at a faraway place. A well where people make wishes. A talking statue that guards a passage and asks riddles.

If the party becomes suspicious of, say, the statue and wants to identify it before it has a chance to speak. You need a grade of difficulty for that. So you assign a level that you think will make it hard/easy enough as you need it to be. That's it.

Yep. Like the Font of Bones (that creates and spits out skeletons) in Necromancer Games' Rappan Athuk for example.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Ah, okay , but why 8th level ? Why not 6, or 7, or 9th ? What exactly made you say 8th.

Since it was part of the final, whizzy encounter I pitched it a little higher than the party level. I could have chosen anything.

 

[BendBars/LiftGates]

Look in Mike Mearls's article (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20080530a), which details some converted encounters from past editions. In the first one, he describes a magic trap that confounds the minds of adventurers in a minotaur's labyrinth. It's a level 5 trap. This might be something you would counter with such a spell (although, if I were DMing the adventure, I might say that the spell only clears an area of the effect, since it's such a pervasive, wide-reaching, firmly set, and powerful curse).

 

[Szatany]

"Identify Magical Effect . DC 20 + 1/2 effect's level"

I'm thinking it's for things like Tarrasque's earthbinding aura. A check to identify area as flyer-unfriendly, DC 35.