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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 8378319" data-attributes="member: 22779">Now, why on earth am I futzing about with these magic items when all I have to do is wait a bit, and bang out an Identify - heck, 10 minutes is all it takes if it's in my spellbook - and get all that information without a single risk to my character?  Knowing that it's entirely possible that you have magic items that will instantly kill my PC, why on earth would I take the risk?Again, in 5e, after 10 minutes, I can get everything you just wrote there without expending a single resource.  Why would I not do that?  What is the benefit of blindly fiddling with magic items when fiddling is guaranteed to kill my character/lead to false results (as in example 6)?  This is the point that's been made all through this thread.  DM's are expecting this to be this big exploration scene - fun trying out magic items.  The game gives me 100% accurate, no fail means of resolving this without expending a single resource except time.  And, fiddling about with the magic items will take the same time or more anyway.  So, I'm not even losing time.It's very much like the Ranger thing.  Yup, having the ranger means you will unerringly find your destination given enough time.  Without the ranger though, you will never reach that destination because you will get lost, which will take far, far more time.  What is the benefit of engaging with the exploration pillar here?  If using the abilities of the character is bad and not playing the game, then what is the benefit of not using those abilities?  To put it another way, if you don't want me to bypass your exploration pillars, you better make it worth my time to not bypass them.  I remember dealing with one DM years ago when we had to do this overland travel thing.  My character, a Binder (3e) could summon a Huge monster (centipede AIR) at will for an hour.  So, we hopped on the giant centipede, which had a climb speed, and set off overland at a dead run, because, well, killing the centipede didn't mean anything, I could just summon another.  Meaning that we were moving at 4X speed overland and able to bypass any obstacle (within reason) because we had a mount with a climb speed.  The journey that was supposed to take days took us hours instead.  DM just started doing what people have suggested in this thread - very obviously throwing obstacles in the way to railroad us back onto the precious adventure he had prepared.And, frankly, that's the sense that I'm getting from everyone that is so adamant about how exploration is this hugely rewarding pillar.  It's not that spells and powers can bypass these challenges.  They most certainly can.  It's that these spells and powers are bypassing the DM's precious challenges and the DM, instead of dealing with the fact that the DM made a mistake and didn't recognize what the party could do, starts railroading the party back into line to force them to start engaging with the exploration pillar on the DM's terms.</blockquote>

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