D&D 5E L&L for 5/12

[an_idol_mind]

I think the main purpose Identify served(at least for our group in 2e) was to move the dealing with loot from a dungeon to the end instead of constantly interrupting the dungeon to deal with the loot you found.

So, if you found a magic ring of some sort, rather than risk it being cursed or randomly attempting to activating it hoping you could figure out its command word, we would put it in a sack and deal with it when we had enough spell slots to casts Identify on every item we found. Which generally meant when the dungeon was over and we could distribute loot.

Seems like instead of needing an identify spell, the rules could just say, "You can identify a magic item after a long rest" and get the same effect. Or leave it up to the GM whether a short/long rest is required.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Seems like instead of needing an identify spell, the rules could just say, "You can identify a magic item after a long rest" and get the same effect. Or leave it up to the GM whether a short/long rest is required.

I agree. And I think that would work well. They just said in the article that they were using an Identify spell and its only purpose was to identify items that require attunement without actually attuning to them. Which seems to be such a narrow use case that I'm wondering why they'd include the spell at all....other than for nostalgia sake.

 

[tuxgeo]

< snip >
On an unrelated note, I can't remember which editions, but I think 2e and 3e both said that "some items can hide their true properties, even from an identify spell". Most cursed items said "This item appears to be X". I've never assumed that Identify could determine if a cursed item was cursed.

3.5E included the 6th-level spell, "Analyze Dweomer" (Brd6, Sor/Wiz 6) which said, "You discern all spells and magical properties present in a number of creatures or objects. . . ."

If the "Identify" spell were able to do that, then nobody would learn "Analyze Dweomer."

 

[an_idol_mind]

I agree. And I think that would work well. They just said in the article that they were using an Identify spell and its only purpose was to identify items that require attunement without actually attuning to them. Which seems to be such a narrow use case that I'm wondering why they'd include the spell at all....other than for nostalgia sake.

I'm not even sure identify is all that iconic. Up until 4th edition/Pathfinder, it was prohibitively expensive. In AD&D, its chance of success was less than 50% up until around 5th to 7th level and your wizard temporarily lost 8 points of Constitution (and good hunting on the live carp you need to hunt down and swallow before casting the spell).

With all those restrictions, I think the whole process barely came up in the games I ran. If you just tried the magic item on, you'd expose yourself to a possible curse, but the risk/reward was usually worth it just to avoid all the hassle of the identify spell.

 

[Mistwell]

I wouldn't mind if Identify worked like Object Loresight in Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved:

You learn something about an object you touch. Go through this list, in order, and the first bit of lore you do not know, you learn through this spell:

Age of object
Name of last creature to touch the object, if any (other than you)
Name of the object’s creator (a natural object, like a rock, was created by nature)
Race of the object’s creator, if any
Object’s purpose
Material(s) that makes up the object
Location of the object’s creation
Name of the most recent owner of the object, if any
Magical ability of the object, if any (random if more than one)

Multiple castings allow you to gain multiple bits of information. If you know all of the above information, this spell teaches you nothing.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think the main purpose Identify served(at least for our group in 2e) was to move the dealing with loot from a dungeon to the end instead of constantly interrupting the dungeon to deal with the loot you found.

Oh wow, really?

It totally didn't do that in the 2E/3E groups I was in at all, unless the item was inherently boring-seeming.

If the item was remotely interesting, Item-Testing Fest, 1365 Dales-Reckoning, began, as people wasted tons of time trying to work out what it was - far more time, in real life terms, than identifying stuff in a short rest did later in 4E. Plus the argument when they worked out what it was, of course.

You never saw that kind of nonsense? Your players was so patient that they would always politely wait until the end of the adventure and politely cast identify? Yet they flipped that shiz and obsessively on-the-spot identified in 4E? Colour me skeptical that it was rules-change that did this. Different players, maybe?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

You never saw that kind of nonsense? Your players was so patient that they would always politely wait until the end of the adventure and politely cast identify? Yet they flipped that shiz and obsessively on-the-spot identified in 4E? Colour me skeptical that it was rules-change that did this. Different players, maybe?

I think it was a combination of factors. I played with (mostly) different people in 2e than I did in 4e. My group back then had 15 members, though 8-10 of them showed up for any one session. Our DM was draconian in ruling the game with an iron fist so that 10 people didn't attempt to talk over top of one another. Because of that, we all learned to shut up and not say anything unless it was really important. We had a party caller whose job it was to talk to the DM. The DM didn't want anyone except the party caller to talk to him directly. He was the mediator between the group and the DM.

So, our group didn't have a lot of "I want that item!" "No, it's mine!" because our DM would fix us with a glare that could stop you dead in your tracks if you started that crap. The common answer would be "Let's do what we always do, let's add it to the party treasure and identify it when we leave." It didn't hurt that we'd exit most dungeons with an equipment list that looked like this:

18 +1 Longswords
12 +2 Longswords
5 +3 Longswords
1 +4 Longsword
6 +1 Battle Axes
1 +2 Greatsword
18 +1 Chain Mail
12 +2 Leather Armor
5 +1 Full Plate
1 Bag of Holding
1 Ring of Protection(AC 3)
1 Ring of Protection(AC 4)
1 Wand of Cure Light Wounds (4 charges)
1 Scroll of Mage Armor
2 Scrolls of Magic Missile
2 Scrolls of Remove Curse
1 Censor of Elemental Summoning

At that time, our group considered anything below +4 to be junk we don't even really need. We'd sell it at the next available opportunity. The function of the Bag and Scrolls would be immediately apparent, the wand we knew we couldn't use without the command word which only an Identify would tell us. So, the only thing left was the Censor...and we'd had too many bad experiences fiddling with magic items to let people attempt to use them without knowing what they were. The only thing someone MIGHT do is wear the ring just in case it did something useful.

However, our group used a strict "At the end of the adventure, we each roll a dice then we get one pick from the treasure list in the order of die roll. When everyone has gotten a pick, we start from the beginning again until all magic items are picked" policy. So, if we gave an item to someone part way through the dungeon, most of the other party members would feel that it was unfair because they didn't get a chance to roll and choose a magic item first. Plus, once someone was using an item it was much harder to convince them to give it up. Or they'd forget to remove the bonuses when we took it back for party treasure. Or worse yet, someone would have removed it from party treasure and the PC gets an extra magic item than everyone else.

However, in addition to those reasons, I believe it's because there were basically no cursed items in 4e. If we found an item it was bound to be useful. It was also bound to be CLEARLY useful. In 2e, if we found a hat it might be a cursed hat, it might have a command word that we didn't know, it might be a non-magical hat with Nystul's Magical Aura cast on it(which happened to us a couple of times), it might only be useful for Wizards or Bards. In 4e, if we found a magic hat and someone didn't have a magic item in their hat slot, then it would DEFINITELY add some kind of bonus. There might be a particular person in the group who it worked BEST with, but going without a bonus that was sitting in party treasure was unthinkable to my group of min-maxers.

Plus, in 2e, the Wizard likely had 1 or 2 Identifies prepared for the day. When we found 80 magic items in a dungeon, which one did we use the identify on? If we use it on this magic item, what if we find something that looks more interesting further in? Meanwhile, in 4e, you could identify unlimited magic items with enough short rests. If there were 5 people in the party, each one could identify one magic item. Short rests could be taken WHILE searching and looting a room so it didn't use an extra time up.

I believe even our old group would have stopped and distributed magic items on the fly given the rules in 4e.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I wouldn't mind if Identify worked like Object Loresight in Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved:

I'm really glad it doesn't work this way. I, as a DM, would not know half of that information when the PCs cast it. I would be running Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil or something and they'd find a chest behind a secret passage that contained a +1 sword and I'd be "I don't know who owned it or what its purpose is...does it matter? Its purpose is to kill people, it was owned by some nameless adventurer last who isn't important. Neither is it important to the game in any form to know who crafted it or what it's made of. It's a +1 sword. You found it in a chest. You are likely to pick it up and start killing monsters with it."

It's just way too much work for me to come up with all that stuff when it won't factor into the game at all. I MIGHT care a little bit if magic items are super rare and the PCs find 1 or 2 in the entire adventure and therefore I can spent real time and effort coming up with a description...or at least the adventure can "waste" space explaining a magic item in detail so that I have the answers to those questions. Still, I think colourful descriptions of the item are interesting...but aren't useful. So I wouldn't like to have a spell that told you ONLY the colourful things about an item with one casting.

 

[MarkB]

On an unrelated note, I can't remember which editions, but I think 2e and 3e both said that "some items can hide their true properties, even from an identify spell". Most cursed items said "This item appears to be X". I've never assumed that Identify could determine if a cursed item was cursed.

According to the 3.5e SRD, Identify has only a 1% chance per caster level of revealing a cursed item's true properties.

 

[fjw70]

This is how 4e did it.

Identifying Magic Items Most of the time, you can determine the properties and powers of a magic item during a short rest. In the course of handling the item for a few minutes, you discover what the item is and what it does. You can identify one magic item per short rest. Some magic items might be a bit harder to identify, such as cursed or nonstandard items, or powerful magical artifacts. Your DM might ask for an Arcana check to determine their properties, or you might even need to go on a special quest to find a ritual to identify or to unlock the powers of a unique item.

So no hard and fast rules. It was just left to the DM's discretion.