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Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 6030903" data-attributes="member: 3192">There are all kinds of methods and I don't begrudge anyone wanting one over the other. I like trial & error by the players engaging in the exploration of the magic item because... it never has to end.Detect Magic notices an aura off your newly acquired rapier. It might even give off a relative radiance due to power level but the magic doesn't reveal the weapon's magical abilities. If anything, Identify does that. But I don't care for that spell so much (though not so much that I would deny it) Identify is like True Seeing. It ends the mystery. "What else can this sword do? Let's try it on a fire elemental" By removing the unknown and the possibility of learning something new we are dispensing with the mystery and thereby the magic.Here's an anecdote from Diaglo's OD&D game. [sblock]We found a mug affixed to a shield that was being used as the standard for a gnoll tribe. They had named themselves after it, the "Raging Beer Swillers" or something or other. When we were safely in a town next, our wizard-type checked all of our accumulated loot for magic. The stein radiated an aura, so we tested it. Immediately we thought it was a "Mug of Everfull Beer" as we called out words for a command word. Beer just happened to be the first one the person holding it tried. But when we asked for more beer nothing happened, so we assumed it worked only 1/day. A few sessions later one of us tried asking for a nice ale instead. And... lo and behold we received ale. The next day we asked for water and received water. Wow! This wasn't just an ever-full mug of beer. This kicked ass. So we began to try weird stuff and it began to happen that some of what we asked for did not appear. Later when we checked our packs for water one of us was low. We surmised that there must be a range limitation and that the container was actually summoning what we called for. I don't know when we finally decided to use the item as a weapon, but I do remember we called for the "eye juice" of Lavinia, an horrible, ongoing villianess we tussled with a few times and lost a PC against. Calling for her vitreous humour (as it's called) we determined how far the summoning distance was (about 100 miles by our estimates from overland travel speeds and our overland map we made - we could really be wrong on this one). We also learned a lot about how the inner fluids of monsters worked by calling for different portions of those as well. Blood, of course, but also phlegm, black and yellow biles. We laughed our asses off about blinding Lavinia until we realized that we did it multiple times (the mug only filled about a 1/2" each time) and she must be close to a cleric who could restore her or cast a powerful cure spell. After we figured that out we made it a regiment. We blinded that she-beast daily... or at least as often as we remembered too. Things get hectic when you're adventuring. Then one time, completely out of the blue, we called for "Lavinia's eye juice" and nothing happened. However, moments later guess who shows up via teleport? Major boss battle on our home turf. Exciting and ultimately short (a few rounds), but we actually killed Lavinia because we pissed her off enough by using a magic item that had no immediate revealing as to how useful it could be. Our playing with it made it fun, sometimes boring, but always holding the promise of something new and useful for the creative minded. [/sblock]</blockquote>

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