Identifying Magic Items

[SnowleopardVK]

This is an issue that has just come up in our game recently that none of us really knew the answer to; our cleric and rogue found what appears to be (metagame knowledge; it's covered in fish designs) a ring of swimming. The cleric was able to tell that it's magic via a detect magic spell, but after searching through the rules, it seems like that's all she can do to figure out what it is short of actually putting it on and experimenting to find out the effects (She's a 1st level cleric by the way; she doesn't exactly have access to a huge variety of spells yet).

I know that with Knowledge: Arcana she could attempt to recognize the school of spell on it, and with Spellcraft she could attempt to actually identify the item itself, but she has neither, and both skills are trained-only (our wizard has ranks in both, but we got separated). Does that mean that being able to see that it's magic and that it has only a faint aura is the best she can do until she's able to get it to the wizard for identification?

 

[Is_907]

As far as I know, you are right. At least, that's usually how I play it.

Part of the fun is for non-Wizards (or poorly trained wizards) to screw around with items that might end up being cursed or useless!

 

[Asmo]

Pretty much yeah, trial and error and all that

Asmo

 

[DragonLancer]

What spellcaster doesn't take Spellcraft?

Anyway, does the party not have a wizard or sorcerer who can do it?

 

[SnowleopardVK]

What spellcaster doesn't take Spellcraft?

Anyway, does the party not have a wizard or sorcerer who can do it?

The cleric with a negative Int modifier who only gets 1 skill point per level (and only has one level), that's which spellcaster.

Yes we have a wizard, we just happen to be separated by various haunted things and some water at the moment. The wizard is trying to talk with the pirate captain and get him on our side; the cleric and rogue are on the other half of the ship (which was torn in two down the middle), and I jumped off the ship into the water to try and get away from undead pirates that were about to kill me.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's not metagame knowledge to guess that a magic ring with fish scales on it is related to swimming or water.

But I'd just say, jump in the water with the ring on and take your chances, old school-style. Identify's for wimps!

 

[SnowleopardVK]

Not my choice; I'm not the one who has the ring at the moment, the cleric/rogue duo do.

Also we're in a haunted pirate grotto, so there's reasonable paranoia that everything is haunted/possessed. They want to take it to the wizard first rather than take chances.

(And it's not metagame knowledge to guess it's related to water, but it is metagame knowledge for me to remember the exact description of the ring of swimming in the Core Rulebook and notice that my GM used some of the exact same words to describe it.)