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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 6842293" data-attributes="member: 6778044">The problem with this is a part of the challenge of playing a game in your heads.If you remind them that there is a ring and a different pair of gauntlets, which you already described in detail, then you are also putting a big sign on them that says "don't sell these."There's a dilemma here in that the slightly unscrupulous smith is hoping to pull one over on the characters. That's a normal, expected, and interesting interaction. They should probably have a healthy distrust of almost any merchant that they are attempting to sell an item to. And it's entirely impossible if the DM has to remind them that the gauntlets have a ring and look different. As soon as you remind them, there is not scene, no interaction anymore.The PCs had an opportunity to get some cool magic items. They blew it. It's no big deal. This is one of the things that I don't think would ever present a problem with the players I've had (at least, things like this haven't yet). If they made a mistake, so be it. More importantly, since they never knew what the ring or gauntlets did, they wouldn't know whether they made a big mistake, or none at all. The fact that the mistake of one player impacted the party is irrelevant. That happens all the time. Bad things happen to the party because of bad decisions by one PC. I also agree that it now presents some interesting story opportunities should the PCs choose to follow up on them. Our group doesn't like the 5e approach to magic items. Sure, I'll often tell them what something is to keep things simple, but I and my players over the years have always enjoyed the idea of determining whether an item has an intrinsic or magical value. And then how to use that item. Most items I place have a history, if only a basic one. So it's usually a mix of items that I'll let them just determine what they are, and those that will require some additional work. We've modified things like detect magic and identify to take into account the power of the item or spell effect, and that casting the identify spell at a higher level has benefits. So this scenario does happen in my campaign. If I put in the effort to describe and answer questions about the armor at the time, then I'd expect that they'll remember it later on.I might, if I really felt it was necessary, allow a roll (I wouldn't tell them what it's for) to remember the items when attempting to sell them. It would depend in part on what they described as they go about the sale with the blacksmith. I should note that it's quite possible that they may be in the opposite situation, where they find a bargain because the merchant makes a mistake. It has and does happen in my campaign for the same reason. They also find that they can purchase magic items that aren't (the point of Nystul's Magic Aura).The bottom line is, the DM put together an interesting treasure. The RAW make it difficult to introduce interesting treasures with mystery and unknown capabilities. If the players didn't realize that something like this might happen, now they know. I doubt they would make the same mistake again, and maybe the one player learned that it helps to pay attention to what's going on (probably not in my experience).Based on the information given, I don't think the DM did anything wrong here at all.Ilbranteloth</blockquote>

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