Identifying and Using Stuff...

[Gina]

So, in our game, we have run into something that I have seen in many previous groups.

You find a bunch of stuff. It's nice stuff, much of it magical. Potions, pearls and other gems that radiate magic, the odd ring....but then, your mage doesn't have the Identify spell, you don't have any pearls (exept the magical ones you want to identify).

Spellcraft can help somewhat, but you can't try again if you don't get anything the first time, and only the wizard has any chance of meeting the DC of 25 to figure it out.

In our party's case, we are also in a place where it would not be very efficient to run into town and in any case, I expect that it is unlilkely that we could find pearls anyway, being far from the sea and in kind of a "backwater" area.

So, what do you do? Do you randomly use items and hope for the best? Or just carry the stuff around until you can get what you need to identify it all?

Or is there some third possibility that I have not thought of?

Over and over I have been in groups that have lugged around some really cool stuff and never used it because they didn't know exactly what it was. In the end, things that you never use are so much dead weight as well as lost opportunities.

Thanks!

Gina

 

[Otterscrubber]

Well strictly speaking by the rules you need to lug it around until you can identify it. In your case it sounds like that means going back to town at somepoint in the future. Randomly using stuff can be impossible and/or dangerous if you don't have command words or knowledge of the items' functions, so that's up to you. If your DM has no intentions of making it easy for you to get to town in the next session or two he/she might throw you a bone and have some of the items identified in the form of a journal or inventory that the monster you took it from kept, but that is up the your DM.

 

[jgsugden]

If you're of sufficient level, identify is a waste. Try analyze dweomer - level 6. This is an overlooked spell that is *very* useful when battling wizards or when identifying items.

1 rd casting time, 1 rd/lvl, 1 item identified (or all magic auras around a creature determined) per round as a free action. Material focus of 1500 gps instead of an expensive material cost.

In battle, this will tell you that the enemy wizard has a minor globe up before you waste that maximized fireball. It will tell you what spells you manage to dispel. It will help you locate magically disguised enemies.

Once you use it, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it.

 

[DrSpunj]

If you're of sufficient level, identify is a waste. Try analyze dweomer - level 6.
<snip>
Once you use it, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it.

And if we live long enough to be able to cast a 6th level spell, I'm sure that will be true. However, Gina is playing the Druid in Nail's party we've (meaning you as well, jg ) been discussing in other threads, so levels currently range from 4th through 6th.

I know there are times when an unidentified item (magical or not) is important to the plot, or as the DM you want there to be some mystery with the cooler items, and not everything comes with an instructional manual (reference: Greatest American Hero show ), but more often than not the random magical stuff like potions and little wondrous trinkets essentially becomes so much junk and extra weight until it's identified. I've rarely met a player who really enjoyed drinking a random potion in the thick of combat just to see if it was worthwhile (the few individuals I can think of also enjoyed 2E's Wand (Rod?) of Wonder for the random magical effects) and thankfully no one in our current group seems to lean in that dangerous direction.

The PCs are in the middle of a series of tests in a remote ruin. As much as the player's want to be able to use this stuff, heading back to town right now isn't much of an in-game option (unless a few more of the party die ), so we're left hauling around a lot of magical stuff that remains in the bottom of our collective backpack. I keep hoping we'll come across that Wand of Identify but we've yet to find it.

Thanks.

DrSpunj

 

[Len]

Well strictly speaking by the rules you need to lug it around until you can identify it.

Strictly speaking, that's only true for some types of items. Things like weapons and potions automatically take effect when you use them normally.

And that can be lots more fun than using Identify, as my group found out recently. We didn't bother buying a pearl to identify a (presumably) +1 warhammer. When a rust monster disintegrated the tank's armour and greatsword, he hauled out the warhammer, rolled a crit on the first swing, and BOOM! Great way to find out it was a thundering warhammer. On another occasion, we guessed which looted potion was a desperately-needed Cure Light Wounds by comparing it to one that the ex-enemy had used and discarded during the fight.

I can't wait until the DM throws us a cursed weapon.

 

[DrSpunj]

Strictly speaking, that's only true for some types of items. Things like weapons and potions automatically take effect when you use them normally.

And that can be lots more fun than using Identify, as my group found out recently. <snip>

For weapons & armor with funky abilities, and most wondrous items, I tend to agree; experimentation can be a lot of fun. However, with potions and other single-use items there's always the concern you're going to waste it, so it usually just gets put in the backpack until you find someone that can tell you what it does.

Oh, one caveat: because of the Core rule that limits funky weapon & armor abilities to being placed on items that carry at least a +1 enhancement bonus, most of that "fun of discovery" doesn't occur until ~7th-8th level. That's when +2 weapons & armor typically become available, so at the lower levels your experimentation is limited to: "do I hit better with this weapon?" and "do I avoid being hit better wearing this armor?". Yippee.

FWIW, IMC I dissed this rule so I can hand out magical weapons and armor with any +1 bonus to my PCs of 4th level. It makes for a much larger variety of items at that level (and they still get the +1 to hit with that Corrosive Longsword, cuz it still has to be Masterwork to be enchanted in the first place!).

Thanks.

DrSpunj

 

[Gina]

I've rarely met a player who really enjoyed drinking a random potion in the thick of combat just to see if it was worthwhile (the few individuals I can think of also enjoyed 2E's Wand (Rod?) of Wonder for the random magical effects) and thankfully no one in our current group seems to lean in that dangerous direction.

Guess its confession time.....when I was last playing 2E, my Wizard PC LOVED her wand of wonder. The rest of the party.....not so much.

The last time we did use a random potion, I believe I was the one who encouraged the dwarf to drink it......

So, I do lean in a dangerous direction sometimes, but luckily for you, Rowan is slightly more cautious than my Wizard character was!

Gina

 

[Gaiden]

My group in RttToEE has a psion with inkling. We have been able to put that cantrip-like effect to very good use. (I know there was a 2E priest version that did much the same thing, but I am not sure about 3.X clerics.)

Basically, one time our party was near death (well, , there have been many times - this was one particular time). Our cleric was out for the count and maybe one of the party members was conscious with more than 1 hit point. The psion used inkling to glean whether any of the potions would be helpful (1 inkling per potion) and got a yes for several of them and a no for the rest. Given our situation - the psion figured what the hey, and force fed some of the potions to the uncscious priest. As luck would have it, they were healing potions. The ambush that crushed us before the next morning probably would have killed us but for those potions. Moreover, we later found out some of the potions were in fact poisons - so it was good thing we did not haphazardly down all of them.

Things like inlkling, are very useful if the circumstances are right. Certainly, they are not optimized, but in our case it was definitely a poor man's method of identifying them. OTOH - my character still has a necklace, ring, and a few other things he have yet to serve any even remotely useful purpose other than ornamentation.

I'll tell you this, the next time I play a game with an arcane caster above 1st level, I will definitely be buying a wand of identify (with fewer than max charges). The cost is definitely worth it, if for no other reason than the time savings.

 

[DrSpunj]

The last time we did use a random potion, I believe I was the one who encouraged the dwarf to drink it......

Well, IIRC, that ended up being an Enlarge Person potion, we weren't in the thick of combat (though we were as close as you could come otherwise, having just run from one battle and headed down into the next), and the dwarf was then nearly too big to squeeze through the tunnel and stairwells!

If we know a big battle's right around the corner, we *may* get to the point where we're anxious for every possible advantage and therefore take a swig from an unidentified potion or two. I personally get more pleasure from using an item appropriately, and for that we need to know what this stuff does. Not knowing what the circlet does, for instance, doesn't bother me. We can figure that out with UMD rolls, trial and error. That's fun. Not knowing what half a dozen potions and some other random items do is annoying, or even frustrating at times. That's not fun. YMMV, of course.

Thanks.

DrSpunj

 

[MerakSpielman]

Spoon out the money for a wand of Identify, unless nobody in your party can activate it. The convenience more than off-sets the cost. YMMV.