Identify

[der_kluge]

My HR variant for identify is the same, but it has a shorter casting time - minutes, not hours.

I've never liked Identify. I never understood why it had an 8 hour casting time.

 

[brightgoat]

Re: Re: Identify

Access to a library or magical research facility alos costs money.

Indeed. So that I can vary the cost depending on whether I feel my party has too much money. Also, there is the possibility of the party going on some sort of quest to find some rare book in order to gain unfettered access to the library.

A feat only for at least 7th level bards. At that level a wizard can identify with one identify spell seven magical items at 100 gp cost.

The feat is for spellcraft 10 ranks OR bardic knowledge. So a 7th level character, or any level bard.

Are your player so greedy ? or do they do not like to wait the time of spell identify (8 hours) ?

It's honestly not the players who are pushing for the house rule. It's me. Up to now, I have a few pages of items that are notated with a unique letter/number ID. I give the players that ID when they get the item. It got to the point where we had about 30 unidentified or unappraised magic items, gems, weapons, potions, and other treasure. When I heard this quote, I knew I had to do something about it.

"I'm attacking with my sword. The one that's marked with CC1."

Ack. I included the rule that it only works with 50% of the items so that I could decide if I want to keep something mysterious. But this way, I can also make sure they know what an item does if I want them to.

 

[Intrope]

It's all but useless where magic weapons are concerned, though. No what wonderful qualities a weapon might have, all Identify is ever going to tell you is that it's a +1 weapon (or +2, or +3) -- which you already knew, because ALL magic weapons are +1 (or +2 or +3) before they can have any other qualities added to them.

....

So, yeah, it's nice that Identify now works on one item per level, but you get a treasure with a bunch of magic weapons and you might as well not bother. Nine assorted weapons with completely different qualities and eight of them register simply as a +1 weapon, but the ninth is -- gasp! a +2 weapon!

And now you wait for Analyze Dweomer.

Actually, it's not nearly as bad as all that. Of 25 weapon enhancements in the DMG, only 6 of them can't commonly be discovered by means other than Analyze Dweomer: Defending, Keen, Spell Storing, Dancing, Ghost Touch and Bane.

The energy/energy burst ones are all command word driven; Search checks may reveal the command word, or a Knowledge Arcana or History check.

Brilliant Energy is obvious. Oddly, Ghost touch isn't (even though ghost touch armor is).

The 4 aligned powers can be discovered by any 1st level cleric.

Mighty Cleaving won't ever be revealed if you don't have Cleave, and not Great Cleave--but then, if you don't have Cleave (or already have Great Cleave) it's of no use in any case. Throwing is the other hard case, since people rarely toss a non-throwing weapon. But both could be discovered without additional magic (and the possibility exists that the weapon itself will contain a hint on it).

The remaining 7 powers (Vorpal, Wounding, Disruption, Speed, Thundering, Returning and Distance) should eventually be revealed by combat.

Note also that the magical school of the secondary auras (as revealed by Detect Magic) may also give clues, but I haven't actually gone through the effort of looking up all of the spells for this purpose.

 

[Damon Griffin]

Actually, it's not nearly as bad as all that. Of 25 weapon enhancements in the DMG, only 6 of them can't commonly be discovered by means other than Analyze Dweomer: Defending, Keen, Spell Storing, Dancing, Ghost Touch and Bane.

I will grant that it may not be as bad as all that, in the sense that you do not, in many cases, have to wait for Analyze Dweomer; thanks for giving several examples of why this is so.

However, my main point was that where magic weapons are concerned, the Identify spell is a useless analysis tool, and this remains true for all the examples you gave.

Also, your analysis works fine for the 25 enhancements in the DMG, but for people using a dozen or more third party supplements in their games, you can quickly find yourself with 200+ weapon qualities -- far too many to trust to trial and error analysis in combat.

 

[brightgoat]

Also, your analysis works fine for the 25 enhancements in the DMG, but for people using a dozen or more third party supplements in their games, you can quickly find yourself with 200+ weapon qualities -- far too many to trust to trial and error analysis in combat.

Also, extremely annoying for me as DM to keep track of everything that everyone doesn't know and give subtle clues without completely giving it away.

I'd rather just skip it and focus on making the adventure more exciting than spend two hours of real time with players saying "Ummm... I throw the sword.. no. Ok, I hack a tree..." etc.