Parties screwed without an Int-based PC?

[keterys]

Precisely, Keenath.

 

[Ryujin]

One last visit to the thread. I received a response from Customer Service regarding the question of identifying magic items. This was my question:

There's a bit of conflict about concerning the intent of the statement on page 223 of the Players Handbook, concerning identification of a magic item's properties and powers. There it states that the properties and powers of one magic item may be determined after a short rest.

In past editions there was a clear delineation with respect to detection of an item as magical and the action of determining its properties. Is the act of identifying a magic item predicated upon having first determined that said item is magical via the rules on page 181 (skill: Arcana), or is that fact automatically determined during examination? If the latter, then would a short rest be required in order to determine the properties of even mundane items, as it is yet unknown whether they are magical or not?

If magic items are automatically detected during examination for their properties, without first knowing whether an item is magic or not, then it would seem to take a fair bit of wind out of the Arcana skill.

**This was the response that I received**

Thanks for your question.

Your interpretation of the written rules is correct; any PC may spend 5 minutes with a weapon testing it in order to determine if it is magical and what its properties are. However, I think it's key to note that only one item may be examined during this time though. To illustrate, if some arcana-ignorant characters come across a Kobold armory, they're going to require a lot of time to figure out which, if any, items found there are magical.

I hope this clarifies things a bit. If you have further questions, feel free to get back to us any time.

Jason
Online Response Crew
Wizards of the Coast

 

[Keenath]

While not disagreeing with that ruling per se, both the question and the answer implicitly assume that the magic item in question isn't visibly unique. I would be very surprised to go into a kobold armory and discover that one random halberd on a rack of twenty is magical, or to find out that a totally mundane sharpened stick was actually a spear of lightning.

 

[Nail]

@ Ryujin: Well done. Your question is very well composed; I salute you! ..and I'm srurpised to see such a correct CS response.

@Keenath: That would be my take as a DM --> most magic items are fancier than their mundane brethren, and therefore easier to pick out of a kobold armory. (Who raids kobold armories, anyway?) YMMV, of course.

 

[Ryujin]

While not disagreeing with that ruling per se, both the question and the answer implicitly assume that the magic item in question isn't visibly unique. I would be very surprised to go into a kobold armory and discover that one random halberd on a rack of twenty is magical, or to find out that a totally mundane sharpened stick was actually a spear of lightning.

Of course, some things will be blatantly obvious. You're likely going to start item identification with that massive flaming 2-handed hammer that the Deep Dwarf was smacking you over the head with a couple of minutes ago, unless he smacked you upside the head so hard that now it rattles, but not all (or even most) such situations will be so cut-and-dried.

*EDIT* Given this ruling, would any reasonable party leave anything behind if they didn't have to? An 'average' party with no Arcanist could check 1 item each every 5 minutes (12/hr), for a 6 hour extended rest, for a total of 360 items. As to the comment "Who raids Kobold armories?", I've been known to build the odd armoury myself in my day. It's amazing how large an armoury you can amass with Tensers Floating Disk, a Bag of Holding, and a Portable Hole in the course of 12 levels of adventuring, if you clean up after yourself.

 

[Herschel]

I don't think I understand what distinctions you're drawing. Challenging a weakness might be "If you can't make the necessary stealth checks here, you'll have to fight the hobgoblin guards." Screwing the party would be "If you can't make the necessary arcana checks here, you can't have the reward for winning that fight." Or, more extreme, "If you can't make the stealth checks here, you can't complete the mission; you just lose."

You speak in absolutes where there are none. I'm not "screwing" anyone. They made choices that make some things harder in order to make some things easier. You make it sound as an "all or nothing" proposition, which I simply never do. I will challenge them to find alternative methods to do some things if they don't have the tools to complete things the standard way.

But I rarely do "gimmes" with treasure. That's something earned, and discernment is part of the process. It has been since 1E. If nobody had appraisal, they'd better carry all the gems. If you don't have Identify, have a Dwarf to handle the stuff first or cash for the temple, etc.

If you aren't well-rounded, be prepared to find some things difficult when you find the things you built specifically for easier.

D&D is all about trade offs. There are no more uber characters. 3E is gone.

 

[Nail]

They made choices that make some things harder in order to make some things easier.

Which player made the choice not to have a skill (like Arcana)? You keep saying "they", as if "they" were a person, making choices.

 

[Keenath]

This thread is rapidly turning into a conflation of two different discussions.

But I rarely do "gimmes" with treasure. That's something earned, and discernment is part of the process. It has been since 1E. If nobody had appraisal, they'd better carry all the gems. If you don't have Identify, have a Dwarf to handle the stuff first or cash for the temple, etc.

Well, okay, if you say so, but the game as written today, 4th edition, not first, doesn't require that. It doesn't (at least by default) lump curses on you if you touch a magic weapon without checking it first. It doesn't suggest planting traps in every other hallway just to punish the party for being so foolish as to walk along without poking the floor with a stick. It doesn't suggest handing over lots of heavy but worthless treasure just to show the party how badly they screwed up for having nobody that can appraise effectively.

So yeah, if your party gets back to town and you shout "HA! Those thousand jewels you traded for are shiny glass beads worth two copper each!", you screwed the party.

But that's your choice. If you don't like "gimme" treasures, that's fine. My philosophy is to give out the treasure pretty freely; they've already earned it by getting past the combat, the puzzle, the trap, whatever the challenge was. I might choose to make discernment part of a particular puzzle or RP encounter, but it's by no means the default, and lacking it means the party will have a harder time beating the encounters that depend on it, just like a party with low attack bonuses will have a hard time beating a combat encounter or a party with bad climbing skills will have a harder time getting past the skill challenge of a treacherous cliff. In either case I'm not going to reduce the reward for a successful encounter due to some confounding factor of a missing skill bonus.

To me, what you're talking about is equivalent to saying, "Okay, you slew the giant spider. In the webs above your heads, you can see a number of shiny objects. Roll jump checks to see if you can reach them and pull down the treasure. Oh, by the way, the webs are fireproof and you can only jump one time." To me, that's a screw because you're refusing to let the party find any other solution than the one you specifically intend, and if they roll badly or just don't make it... too bad, so sad, shoulda put more points in Athletics. It's not "challenging their weakness", it's punishing them for having other skills, and refusing to let the players use creativity to make up for weaknesses.


In any case, that's all off topic. As Keterys pointed out to you a page back, all I've been saying here is that the book doesn't require such barriers before the party can play with their new toys, so it's up to the DM as to whether the party will miss magic items due to having low Arcana checks.

In your games they will; in my games they won't. You can bicker and quibble about whether or not that constitutes a 'screw', but that's just personal opinion. Obviously no DM thinks he's being unfair to the players.

 

[keterys]

A possible way to make Arcana useful for finding treasure, but not perhaps "screwing" them:

Pick two options for a treasure bundle for a given level - one something the party really wants, another something the party is okay with getting. Make the first more difficult to find, and the second only show up if they miss the first.

That way you occasionally get the 'Oooh, we found the hidden foozwat and got the shiny blingwad' effect without making Arcana something the party feels it cannot do without, as opposed to every other skill.

Even then I wouldn't do it too often - it's a lot more interesting for items to be distinctive in my personal experience. The lone item that has ignored the ravages of time on the skeleton, the flaming item used by the chieftain, the carefully wrapped object hidden in the mastermind's strongbox, etc.

 

[KarinsDad]

But that's your choice. If you don't like "gimme" treasures, that's fine. My philosophy is to give out the treasure pretty freely; they've already earned it by getting past the combat, the puzzle, the trap, whatever the challenge was.

Earned.

Such an interesting word.

That is a basic flaw with 4E. The concept that players MUST be given x number of items of y levels of power so that the game remains in balance. The DM has limited choice in the matter. There are very few non-stacking spells or powers to make up the deficit if this does not occur for some reason.

My solution is to hand out a wide variety in utility of items instead of just handing out items solely crafted with these specific PCs in mind (as suggested by the DMG). I hand out the recommended amounts, just not cookie cutter tailored especially for the PCs.

The real cool magical treasure are the few items (~1 in 3) that are unique for any given PC. These items become slightly more memorable because they fit the PC concept like a glove.

The rest of the magical treasure (often random or special for a given NPC) could be something like a +2 Battleaxe of xyz when no PCs use a battleaxe, or an item that although useful, isn't particularly cool or special for any PC like a +2 Cloak. It then becomes encumbant on the players to use Transfer Enchantment if they want xzy on a Longsword instead. Or, to Disenchant/Enchant some items or add/replace properties on others.

That way, they "actually earn" what they get as opposed to having cool stuff always spoon fed to them. There is less of an entitlement of "I opened the vault door or I killed the Ogre, where is my special reward?". There is more of an "I saved my money and now I can craft the Warhammer of Minion Slaying. Cool!" The items feel more earned then given.

They work and use resources to acquire exactly what they want. And, they give up other resources to accomplish this. The game feels more plausible that way and not shoehorned tailored to the PCs so much.