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Message: <blockquote data-quote="shurai" data-source="post: 337219">First of all, I think most of you are missing something critical about the nature of most of the game worlds that we play in.  Only a few people in every hundred can wield any kind of magic.  Of those that can, very few are high enough level to create anything but potions, scrolls, and minor wondrous items, which are quite easy to figure out.  The DMG has this information in the form of its Town Generator section, which has some remarkable clues to D&D demographics.  This means that powerful magic items (any worth more than a few thousand gold) are extraordinarily rare.You're all neglecting that there's more than Identify and Analyze Dweomer when it comes to identifying items.  Scrolls, obviously, take Spellcraft.  The DMG had provisos for identifying potions by taste and sampling.  Rogues can figure out what magic items do through their skills.  Bards and Wizards can use Knowledge (Arcana).  Anybody with eyes can know that the sword you found is Flaming given that the evil necromancer was just using it on you!Karinsdad, I think you might be getting melodramatic when you say "The fact is that it is easier to Raise someone from the dead than it is to divine the abilities of an item. It is easier to Teleport to the other side of the world than it is to divine the abilities of an item."  Because most magic items, remember, only have one or two functions, and they can be discovered through Identify or other means.  And we all know the inherent problems with Raise Dead and Teleport.  A more honest way of putting it would be to say, "It is easier to raise someone from the dead or teleport across the world than it is to discover the properties of rare and powerful magic items."  Which, in the balance, isn't nearly as bad.Also, Analyze Dweomer works on any object or creature, not just just magic items used as PC equipment.  This is way too powerful to be lower than 6th level.The second-level spell Karinsdad mentioned, Augury only works for activities 1/2 hour into the future, and often will yield unmeaningful or dangerously incorrect results.  Divinations are a tricky part of the game.  Few of them work very well.  Divinations in general don't provide the kind of information that you're asking for when you identify an item.  Instead, most of them let your senses work at a distance or perceive that which wishes to remain hidden.  With a very few exceptions, none of them grant knowledge that isn't mundane, that is to say, knowledge that you could get just by looking or listening in the right place if you could.Magical energies in D&D are subtle and hard to figure out.  Remember that Detect Magic itself requires a roll to get any information at all about the nature of the magic it detects.  It could be argued that the magic in an item is the most subtle of all, since it is so difficult to make them (think of the xp cost and the description of the effort it takes in the DMG).  In this context, it doesn't surprise me its hard to figure them out.As to the deity not granting the ability to figure out a magic item while its handing out death and destruction instead, remember that D&D deities are not omniscient or all-powerful.  If they're not handing out information, maybe it's because they don't have it to give out.But, of course, it's your campaign with which to do what you will.-S</blockquote>

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