Parties screwed without an Int-based PC?

[MwaO]

The current party in our game is a Warden, Avenger, Invoker, and Shaman. None of them are Int-based. It didn't strike me until after their second fight that they're going to be seriously hurting for magic items after a couple of adventures because their odds of walking past magic items are pretty high.

The Warden is trained in Arcana, but has only a +10 because he is Wisdom and Constitution based. With magic items being DC 20 + 1/2 level to detect, he's rarely going to have more than a 50% chance of finding something. He could focus on it with feats and/or items, but that still means they'll be weaker than the numbers of the game expect them to be.

I'm assuming this means your party is roughly 8-10th level? I'd point out that the Shaman, if he/she trains Arcana, can consistently add Wisdom to such arcana checks via the Speak with Spirits.

Also, in many cases, the party is going to take everything that isn't bolted down - bags of holding in 4e can hold a lot of weight. It isn't a question of whether or not you actually find out if the magic item is magical or not. The party needs to be convinced the item shouldn't be tossed into the bag and have some local adept take a look at everything later on...

 

[James McMurray]

They're 4th level. I probably misremembered his bonus as well. It's probably +8 (5/training, 2/level, 1/stat). So bags aren't really an option. The Shaman isn't trained in Arcana, though I'm not sure what he chose instead. Probably skills that enhance his high attributes rather than rely on weak ones.

 

[keterys]

You can also have PHB223's Identifying Magic Items rule supply them with what a magic item is once per short rest. They inventory what they found and if one item is a magic item - they figure it out. Poof, no house rule needed.

Note that while 'sense the presence of magic' doesn't allow you to detect in an area until you've taken an extended rest... I'm still assuming that the party has already mostly taken everything of seeming value before that, and you're talking about them detecting it afterwards. At which point it takes more like 25 minutes to take 20, effectively (or, maybe even a whole hour to be thorough), moving around as they detect. For pure silliness.

If it's a 'a magic item is hidden somewhere in the room'... meh. Hopefully they have enough Perception to notice the item physically.

 

[Saeviomagy]

The Warden is trained in Arcana, but has only a +10 because he is Wisdom and Constitution based. With magic items being DC 20 + 1/2 level to detect, he's rarely going to have more than a 50% chance of finding something.

Now that we've figured out the DC is 15, the guy has a 100% chance, taking 10, to find anything of up to 10th level.

So if your party are anywhere up to 5th level, that's basically everything they'll ever find. If your party are above that, then things are less great: they'll start missing the very top end stuff with take 10.

edit: he's got a +8 at 4th level. Still good enough to take 10 and get every item up to 7th level without help from the party. I believe treasure packages contain one item of level +4 though, so they still might miss something with an unlucky roll.

 

[Sunglare]

The current party in our game is a Warden, Avenger, Invoker, and Shaman. None of them are Int-based. It didn't strike me until after their second fight that they're going to be seriously hurting for magic items after a couple of adventures because their odds of walking past magic items are pretty high.

The Warden is trained in Arcana, but has only a +10 because he is Wisdom and Constitution based. With magic items being DC 20 + 1/2 level to detect, he's rarely going to have more than a 50% chance of finding something. He could focus on it with feats and/or items, but that still means they'll be weaker than the numbers of the game expect them to be.

To fix it in our game I offered the following bonus feats, depending on whether he took the character option that gave him Perception as a class skill or not. In both cases ___ is the name of his god (which he has chosen, but might change once he's had more time to browse through the options).

The Eye of ____
Prerequisite: Invoker, Must Worship
Benefit: Your senses are in tune with the ebb and flow of magic. You may use the Perception skill to Detect Magic as is using the Arcana skill.


The Harmony of ____
Prerequisite: Invoker, Must Worship
Benefit: Your body is in tune with the ebb and flow of magic, and your muscles hum when it is near. You may use your Constitution bonus in place of your Intelligence bonus when using the Detect Magic application of the Arcana skill.

Has anyone else run a party that didn't have an Int-based character with Arcana? If so, how did it work out?

The may have trouble sensing the presense of magical items but there is nothing stopping from just examing items after a short rest and getting all the quilities of the item, anybody can do this have they don't need to be trained in Arcana to do it. That is RAW.

Do all the magical items look mundane in your game? Do none of them have runes or are of just really nice qualitiy? Or a sword laying in a chest, there is no reason they shouldn't take a shrot rest to examine the item to see if it's magical. Once again Arcana is not needed to do this.

 

[Plane Sailing]

So they should be bad at what their class does in order to bump a single skill? I'd also take that to mean they're screwed without an int-based PC.

What it means is that they can choose to be super-optimised for their class (and dump Int) or they can choose to be a more well-rounded character rather than pump the key stats and have more flexibility in doing other stuff - like, for instance, finding magic items with Arcana skill.

Otherwise, why not just ditch ability scores altogether, if you don't want to give them the penalty for not picking them? What do you do if diplomacy or bluff is important and none of the classes are Cha focussed? What if athletics is important to climb something and none of the classes are Str focussed?

Different party compositions mean that different parties will have different ways of resolving problems. Just like an all fighter party will fight differently from an all rogue party or an all wizard party, they will have to have different ways of resolving skill related problems.

Regards

 

[James McMurray]

We're bumping the campaign to 11th level, which has a side effect of making take 10 not work all the time. Rather than change the characters, we're just dropping the need for Detect Magic in order to maintain the party's expected power level through treasure parcels. It will still exist as a tool for finding traps or hidden items, but is no longer a mandatory part of every party's makeup.

 

[KarinsDad]

What it means is that they can choose to be super-optimised for their class (and dump Int) or they can choose to be a more well-rounded character rather than pump the key stats and have more flexibility in doing other stuff - like, for instance, finding magic items with Arcana skill.

I think the problem here is the DC 20+.

That is pretty high for a first level PC.

Even being well rounded doesn't help.

Int 20 PC vs. Int 8 PC or any number in between.

The best PC without a magical item has a 50% chance for a level one item, 45% for a level five item. That's not exactly a high chance.

One should not have to take Skill Focus Arcana in order to have a decent chance, especially on something like acquiring magical items.

Even with Skill Focus and magical items, I think there is nothing wrong with making this DC 15 +1/2 magic item level. I want my players finding most of the magical items I put in the game system for them.

 

[James McMurray]

I misquoted the rule. It is DC 15 + 1/2 level. Even that doesn't make it guaranteed at higher levels, which means a party needs someone heavily focused on Arcana (or Int-based and trained) in order to find all of the parcels that the balance of the system assumes they have.

I'm fine with low Arcana making it harder to find traps or hidden things (just as I'm fine if they don't cover all the knowledges, or nobody trains in Perception). Its the possibility of throwing the game's baseline assumptions out the window that bothers me.

 

[Klaus]

Note that the Arcana DC is not meant to be a "handle this item and notice if it's magical". It's a "magic radar" that ignores walls and obstructions. If the PCs come across an item, the DM can merely say "the item looks exceptionally well-made". Then, after a short rest, the PCs choose of the "exceptionally well-made" items and the DM says "you can sense magic energies coming from it". No roll required.