Identifying Magic Items

[Hassassin]

Unusual magic as rationale for DM fiat (AKA fudging), in a deliberately inconsistent manner, is one I had not considered before.

Isn't it basically the reason wish and divination spells are (sometimes) fun?

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I think we are both saying the same thing.

No doubt. I had several conversations over the last 4 years in mind with that thought.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Isn't it basically the reason wish and divination spells are (sometimes) fun?

I guess it could be. I've just never played that way. I've run wish as RBDM so hard that the players were afraid to use them. And I've run them as free candy for everybody. And then everything in between. But in a given campaign, I tried to be consistent with it. Same way with other such effects. I suppose players can get a similar inconsistent feel going from table to table, too.

 

[Dragonblade]

I've never seen much of the appeal of identifying magic items. I'd much rather have characters just be able to quickly ascertain the capabilities of an item without even needing anything like an identify spell. Overly drawn out identification is just a chore. If you want magic items to be "magical", "mysterious", "wonderous", or whatever, then complex identification is not the way. After all, as [MENTION=2804]Dragonblade[/MENTION] said, it just turns into a tedious algorithm, and once that algorithm is complete the "mystery" is all gone.

Honestly, if you want a system where magic items slowly reveal their full potential, it would be better to use a system where magic items are have genuinely complexity and depth, rather than using a system of obscuring their shallowness with identification mechanics. I'd much rather see a flaming sword that has ever-greater levels of power that can be tapped by a skilled and creative wielder than see players play a silly minigame to figure out how to get the flaming sword to ignite in the first place.

I can't give you anymore XP, but exactly right.

I think people are confusing the initial lack of knowledge as to an item's properties with a sense of wonder. But its a cheap imitation 5-minute sense of wonder, soon dispelled by not only forcing the players to go through a tedious mini-game to identify their items, but by having items provide minor discrete bonuses.

Like eating a candy bar for energy instead of something healthy like an apple. You get a quick 5 minute sugar high, but it quickly leaves you feeling more tired than before. And then you need another candy bar.

More long lasting and fulfilling sense of wonder comes through getting away from magic as an algorithm to solve. Have items slowly reveal ever more mysterious and powerful abilities that go beyond simple discrete bonuses. Abilities revealed by the DM at dramatically appropriate moments. For true sense of wonder you need to get away from magic as physics that can be proven via experimentation and the scientific method.

 

[Hassassin]

More long lasting and fulfilling sense of wonder comes through getting away from magic as an algorithm to solve. Have items slowly reveal ever more mysterious and powerful abilities that go beyond simple discrete bonuses. Abilities revealed by the DM at dramatically appropriate moments. For true sense of wonder you need to get away from magic as physics that can be proven via experimentation and the scientific method.

That's what I mean by experimentation - using the item. If you just spend five minutes of trying stuff, you'll probably find the main function, which may have been obvious all along (it's a sword... it's used to kill people). If there are quirks you may never find out about them or find out about them at the best/worst possible moment.

 

[Mattachine]

In 1e, my players created a search/careful exploration algorithm (called "standard operations" by them), because they got tired of specifying the same set of precautions and actions whenever walking through a corridor, approaching a door, or searching a room. They came up with it on their own after the tenth or twelfth time I made them state exactly what their PCs would do. After playing with their "standard operations" for awhile, it became the unstated assumption.

Likewise, that same group came up with a standard procedure for trying out magic items. They normally didn't cast identify because you needed a live carp and then temporarily lost a bunch of Con; that spell was the extreme if I felt an item was beyond their means of testing . . . which meant that I didn't expect or want the item to be used in the current adventure. Meh.

 

[FireLance]

I'm somewhat nuanced in my views on experimentation.

Experimentation is fun when the players have no idea what to expect, and are trying to piece together the item's function from clues gleaned from research and inspecting the item. ("The ring seems to weigh less than it should? There's a feather inscribed on it? When dropped, it floats gently to the ground? Well, I tie it to a dagger and drop it. What happens then?)

Experimentation becomes less interesting (and in fact, routine) when the players are simply running through the list of magic items they have encountered from other games and crossing off those that don't apply. ("Okay, so it's not a ring of invisibility. I put it on and jump off a chair.")

IMO, once it reaches that second stage, it's time to stop messing around and just the players what the item is. That said, an item could always have hidden properties.

 

[DEFCON 1]

All I know is that if the Identify does spell comes back, I sure as heck hope they get rid of or change the 100 GP white pearl material component required for it.

With the amount of magic items in a standard D&D campaign setting... the richest guy in the world should be the oyster farmer who creates all these goddamn pearls that all these people then destroy just to find out their magic sword is one plus sharper than the one next to it. Talk about screwing up the economy...

 

[Kynn]

I remember in 1e, we found a magic ring.

The party ranger put it on, then tried bossing us around (nothin'), stuck his hand in a flame (ow!), then in some ice (brr), tried to look through a wall (no luck), tried to fly (nope) and then jumped off a chair (aha, a ring of feather falling!).

That was fun- fun enough that I remember it, even 28 years later, even though I was the wizard watching, not the ranger experimenting. I'd like to see that kind of thing return.

Wasn't that a lot of metagaming? I mean, he's clearly running down the list of Known Magic Items In The DMG (which his character really shouldn't have access to) as opposed to reasonably trying to figure out what the ring does.

 

[Lanefan]

In my old 1e games, we got so tired of having to experiment with a hundred different things that all the players literally got together, wrote a multi-page document carefully detailing every possible thing we could try with every item we find. Then we just went through it like a checklist with every item.

In character as Lanefan I wrote that document for our games:

Lanefan's Guide: A Treatise on the Field Testing of Found, Stolen, or Acquired Items of a Magickal Nature

Even with that, I wouldn't have it any other way. In a new campaign with low-level characters we assume they've never heard of the Guide, but once they've been at it for several levels it becomes pretty much SOP - when they remember to field-test their treasure at all! (very recently I had a party sit on a Girdle of Giant Strength for several sessions as they never bothered to field-test what they had found...)

Lan-"for water-breathing: field testing not recommended"-efan