So, yesterday I posted about identifying magic items in AD&D. I didn't even mention that you need Detect Magic to tell things are magical (unless the sword is flaming or lights up a 10' radius . . . probably.)
GURPS is a lot more generous. It has some of the same feel - you need time, effort, and specialized magic to tell what things do. But it is both vastly simplified in comparison and less harsh. And you just get straight up Per+Magery rolls to spot magic items; also there is a spell or two that'll do it for certain, if you want to avoid using your low Per or hit a whole bunch of magic items once. Also the Alchemy skill, plus some time and cost, will let you identify if an item is magic, but not what it does.
Potions
These are a little harder to identify. You can't just sip it. Well, you can, and take 10 seconds to analyze it, but any negative effects happen full bore on you right away. If it's a beneficial potion, you need to roll vs. Alchemy skill to identify it. The safe way is 4 hours and a kit.
Scrolls
You just read them and see what's on them, unless it's in code or a language you don't understand.
Other Magic Items
Use might reveal some effects, but the go-to is Analyze Magic. It's 8 to cast and takes 1 hour, and reveals the least powerful enchantment on it and if there is another after that. It's quite useful and reliable in a way that the AD&D spell Identify is neither.
I long ago house-ruled the reverse - it reveals the most powerful first. This made logical sense and meant temporary or minor enchantments didn't obscure powerful magic - the Puissance +1 on an object didn't conceal that it was a Loyal Weapon from an initial scan.
And that's pretty much it - look at or touch the item, read the scroll, use Alchemy on the potion, and cast Analyze Magic on items. Like I said, pretty straightforward. Still, I wanted to go back and check while I was thinking about the harshness of AD&D's admonitions.
Is it Per+Imagery? For some reason I thought was IQ
ReplyDeleteUnder the description for Magery (p. B66), it says, "The GM makes a Sense roll (p. 358) when you first see a magic item, and again when you first touch it." So, Per seems to be the key number.
DeleteTechnically, it would seem that you can substitute Vision for the first instance and Touch for the second, so that acute senses matter.
It's a sense roll, like Ben said. It was IQ+Magery in 3rd edition.
DeleteI like your house rule better than the original rule, but it doesn't really matter much because PCs will mostly keep casting Analyze Magic until they've identified everything. So I won't bother house ruling this, in the interest of having fewer house rules to track.
ReplyDeleteThey key difference is, if you put some extra, lesser enchantments or temporary spells on an item (Trace, for example) that's already enchanted, a quick Analyze Magic won't reveal that. That played a big roll in my previous campaign, as a matter of fact, where people would conceal lesser unwanted spells underneath bigger, attractive ones.
DeleteYou know, like software.
Do you ever add modifiers to the Per + Margery roll? In DF it seems the Wizard would know magic item almost automatically unless there is a critical failure.
ReplyDeleteSure - distance, visibility, Conceal Magic spells, etc.
DeleteYour comment about enchantments obscuring other enchantments made me think that a -X per enchantment being skipped over for repeat castings (similar to Seek spells) may be interesting. As of now, players will always keep analyzing until they figure out all spells, because it affects resale value if nothing else, but what if hiding enchantments actually worked?
ReplyDeleteI like the cumulative penalty, it would fit with Seek spells in general and make complex webs of spells actually more than just a matter of time and recovery calculations.
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