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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ryujin" data-source="post: 4757101" data-attributes="member: 27897">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.JasonOnline Response CrewWizards of the Coast</blockquote>

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