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Message: <blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 6571913" data-attributes="member: 97077">The "mystery" is lost anyway when a character can sit down and hold onto an item during a short rest. The identify spell is just an option that takes a much shorter amount of time and a 100 gp focus that isn't consumed. There's a meaningful choice there - sometimes - but usually not because there isn't enough time pressure combined with a desire to use this item right now that would make blowing a spell slot attractive.The other issue with the whole "air of mystery" is that the PCs presumably just earned themselves a sweet item either by good exploration, defeating this monster or that, or whatever. Only now they don't know what the thing does and they can't trust that their DM isn't trying to pull a screw-job by making the thing cursed. So unless they really need that item right now (maybe they don't have a magic sword and there's demon's afoot), it's not worth the risk - into the bag of holding it goes. Which kind of sucks because they're not playing with the new toys they just got for Xmas.Me personally, I've just given up on the whole thing. I can get my whiff of mystery from other aspects of the game and so I just tell the players what these things do straight away by framing them as storied items they've heard about from some tale or another. Often I'll engage the players to help me come up with that lore so they're more engaged by it and remember it better.</blockquote>

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