D&D 5E Magic items and identify

[Lanefan]

Well, unless you want to overwork yourself as DM by doing all your player's character sheets, players are the ones who keep track of their items, so if they tell me they got a scroll of fireball, I have to assume they really have one. If they find a scroll of charm person, but the NPC tells them it's a scroll of fireball, then they would note down "scroll of fireball" on their character sheet. That means if they are going to use it, which can very well be one year later, I still need to remember that that scroll of fireball is actually a scroll of charm person. If that was only one magic item that wouldn't be so much of a problem, but if your PCs tend to always ask the defeated NPCs what their magic item stuff is before finishing them off (like my players do), then they start to accumulate a large amount of magic items they don't bother identifying themselves eventually.

Which is why as DM I *always* keep a mirror list, and every significant found item (whether magic or not) gets its own item number that both I and the party treasurer make note of, and which follows the item when it is claimed at treasury division. Which leads instead of this...

Player: "I use a scroll of fireball."
DM: "Which one?"
Player: "I don't know!? Does it matter? One of the two in my inventory."
DM: "Sorry I need that to be more precise, where did you get it from?" *reads through notes to figure out what those scrolls really are and where he got them from*
Player: "Can't remember anymore."
DM: "Okay, then throw a coin."

...to this:

Player: "I use a scroll of fireball - number C-43 if it matters"
DM: <checks item list> "C-43. Gotcha. Ohh-K, you go through the motions but no fireball results; however the third guard on the left has started smiling at you for some reason."

Lan-"believe me: item numbering has saved so many headaches over the years"-efan

 

[Azurewraith]

Well, unless you want to overwork yourself as DM by doing all your player's character sheets, players are the ones who keep track of their items, so if they tell me they got a scroll of fireball, I have to assume they really have one. If they find a scroll of charm person, but the NPC tells them it's a scroll of fireball, then they would note down "scroll of fireball" on their character sheet. That means if they are going to use it, which can very well be one year later, I still need to remember that that scroll of fireball is actually a scroll of charm person. If that was only one magic item that wouldn't be so much of a problem, but if your PCs tend to always ask the defeated NPCs what their magic item stuff is before finishing them off (like my players do), then they start to accumulate a large amount of magic items they don't bother identifying themselves eventually.

It also makes communication with my players hard. Like if they have multiple scrolls and want to use one of them, how do I communicate with them which one of them they want to use?

Player: "I use a scroll of fireball."
DM: "Which one?"
Player: "I don't know!? Does it matter? One of the two in my inventory."
DM: "Sorry I need that to be more precise, where did you get it from?" *reads through notes to figure out what those scrolls really are and where he got them from*
Player: "Can't remember anymore."
DM: "Okay, then throw a coin."

With meta-information it's much easier but also puts a lot of responsibility on the players to avoid metagaming:

Player: "I use the scroll of charm that I think is a scroll of fireball at the skeleton in the center."
DM: "You use the scroll but for reasons unknown to you, the spell fails."

Wow your players have some real restraint my murderhobos would never of thought to ask a Guy what they were carrying.

 

[Lanefan]

Wow your players have some real restraint my murderhobos would never of thought to ask a Guy what they were carrying.

Mine would, sometimes: it's called Speak With Dead.

Lan-"dead men tell three tales"-efan

 

[Dausuul]

Nothing in the rules says you need to identify an item in order to attune to it or benefit from its properties. This ain't Diablo; items do not have an "identified" flag that you have to set before you can use them. Identification is simply information. So:

1. Yes, the PC benefits from the item's special properties.
2. Items do not have an "identified" status. The NPC just tells you what the item does; maybe lying, maybe not.
3. Yes, the PC can use and attune to an item, regardless of whether s/he has identified it.

As far as "field testing," I would typically reveal an item's properties the first time they came into play. So if you're wielding a +3 sword, I'll tell you its attack and damage bonus the first time you attack with it. If you put horseshoes of speed on your horse, I'll tell you what they do as soon as you try to ride the animal someplace. Et cetera. Per the attunement rules, when you attune to an item, you learn its command words and how to activate its abilities... but it doesn't say you learn what those abilities are, so if you haven't identified the item, you'll just have to point it away from your fellow PCs, speak the command word, and hope it doesn't do anything too destructive.

 

[Lanefan]

Nothing in the rules says you need to identify an item in order to attune to it or benefit from its properties. This ain't Diablo; items do not have an "identified" flag that you have to set before you can use them. Identification is simply information. So:

1. Yes, the PC benefits from the item's special properties.
2. Items do not have an "identified" status. The NPC just tells you what the item does; maybe lying, maybe not.
3. Yes, the PC can use and attune to an item, regardless of whether s/he has identified it.

See below...

As far as "field testing," I would typically reveal an item's properties the first time they came into play. So if you're wielding a +3 sword, I'll tell you its attack and damage bonus the first time you attack with it.

You're more generous than me on this one; I'll give a roll after a few combats to see if they can figure out how and by how much it might be helping them, but to get an exact value usually requires either lots of use of the item or an ID spell.

If you put horseshoes of speed on your horse, I'll tell you what they do as soon as you try to ride the animal someplace.

Ditto, as this one is obvious: the horse simply goes faster than it should.

Per the attunement rules, when you attune to an item, you learn its command words and how to activate its abilities... but it doesn't say you learn what those abilities are, so if you haven't identified the item, you'll just have to point it away from your fellow PCs, speak the command word, and hope it doesn't do anything too destructive.

Interesting...so it works in reverse of how I'd have ever seen it: you can use attunement to get (some) information, where I'd have it you needed the information* before you could attempt attunement.

* - including the fact that the item has the attunement feature at all.

Lanefan

 

[Saeviomagy]

Player: "I use the scroll of charm that I think is a scroll of fireball at the skeleton in the center."
DM: "You use the scroll but for reasons unknown to you, the spell fails."

As others have pointed out, the solution is to not have the meta data in plaintext. ie :

Player: "I use a scroll of fireball on the skeleton"
DM: "Which one?"
Player: "It says here a dusty, worn scroll of fireball"
DM: "Ok, for reasons unknown to you, the spell fails"

Or perhaps item cards with a DM reference number on them? In fact, I'm going to make up a deck of those.

 

[iserith]

I honestly don't think there's very much fun to wring out of the whole magic item identification and attunement process. It basically just delays the ability of the players to bring the items into use and offers little else in the way of mystery in my view. Frankly, when I seed items into my adventures, I want the players to be able to have their characters use them pretty much right away and probably even set things up where finding these items makes some part of the adventure easier.

Typically I just refer to items as being storied and one-of-a-kind. So you didn't find any old gauntlets of ogre power - you found the Gauntlets of the Ogre King, forged by Vaprak the Destroyer, from which the strength of all ogres first sprung. Any adventurer worth his or her salt knows what these things are... and now they belong to you.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I honestly don't think there's very much fun to wring out of the whole magic item identification and attunement process. It basically just delays the ability of the players to bring the items into use and offers little else in the way of mystery in my view. Frankly, when I seed items into my adventures, I want the players to be able to have their characters use them pretty much right away and probably even set things up where finding these items makes some part of the adventure easier.

Typically I just refer to items as being storied and one-of-a-kind. So you didn't find any old gauntlets of ogre power - you found the Gauntlets of the Ogre King, forged by Vaprak the Destroyer, from which the strength of all ogres first sprung. Any adventurer worth his or her salt knows what these things are... and now they belong to you.

Making it difficult to identify magic items can be quite enjoyable in a game (like 5e) where most people aren't going to be playing with a lot of permanent items. If each item is special, then it's worth a bit of effort to figure out the puzzle of the mysterious gauntlets. It could even be an adventure in its own right.

Of course, your solution of giving known legends regarding particular items is a pretty awesome way of doing it too. The only time it doesn't work that well is if the item is supposed to be mysterious. Or if there are a lot of these one-of-a-kind items and everyone seems to have them memorized (but maybe wizards learn that as part of their standard education).

 

[Rya.Reisender]

Identifaction can add some strategical aspect because there is the decision which item to identify first.

 

[TheLoneRanger1979]

Side question:
If identify spell doesn't identify cursed items, how does one find out about the curse (except for the obvious curse blows up in your face method)?