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I really love secret checks as the GM but my PLAYERS don’t, I usually tell them for stuff like this, I won’t tell them the DC, just have them roll, and relay information based on the roll without the DC. It’s essentially a secret roll in the open.
Ok, my question is: Is there a way to discover what trait (tradition) an item has prior to identifying it so that you know which recall knowledge skill is best? Otherwise you're potentially spending 40 minutes attempting to identify it if you keep getting failures and then repeating day after day.
The rules only say that the identifying character needs to know the item is magical before they can attempt a check to identify it. But, of course, GMs ultimately decide when that criteria has been met. I would imagine that most would allow someone else in the party to identify it if the spellcaster tells them that the item registers to Read Aura or Detect Magic. But others might say "Well, you don't actually *know* it unless you cast it yourself... your teammate might be lying or made a mistake."
Basics4Gamers thanks for your thoughts! That is more or less what I was thinking. I could see going either route based on the style of campaign one is playing.
If my players find a +1 mace, do they need to identify it some way to know it's magic? Or do the runes give it away? I'm confused because if there is no obvious way to see the difference between a mace and a + 1 mace besides casing a detect magic spell I can easily see my players not even looking twice at it and assuming it's just a normal weapon.
In a case like that, I'd probably describe it as a "nice-looking mace", and my players would likely take the hint. In my games only top-tier items can be enchanted with runes... it would have to be a quality mace and not some rusty piece of junk for it to hold magic runes.
I have made a Story related book of sorts. Under Pathfinder's 4 magic sources, it's of the occult magic. Now it's Highly Cursed, it's basically my version of Evil Dead's Necronomicon that unleashed all of the deadites (or however that's spelled) and Ash (not the Ash from Pokemon just to be clear) eventually get's a chainsaw for a prosthetic hand. Now what *MY* Book of Calamities does, is normally a prison for beings who bring disaster and death wherever they go. Now people CAN attune to it or whatever the term is here, but it slowly drives them into a form of hysteria or mental instability. For example, this book was first found by a ordinary scribe (originally a Warforged now Android) clerk. Poor bloke was picked on and harassed by his superior daily, he stumble on the book and then gain the "Backbone" needed to stand up to him, however that lead to his moral compass to go haywire. Initially he took this job for the good pay, but under the effect of this book he went from making money by working to "If I want more money, I'll just take it!" mentality. Thus he became a Pirate called Captain Infernos, as he leaves all the towns and ships in his wake ablaze with nearly nothing standing, but what of the "Calamities" said to dwell within the book? Well, for our Clerk to gain his power, he needed to open the book as one would a door.... (If this idea intrigues you, by ALL means use it! I'm giving you all who likes what you're reading here permission to just use this idea in whatever way you want!!) My point is, as it's cursed and based on what you head here, what DC would you advice me using?
I use a VTT, so the level of success rules for identifying items are too much of a hassle, as items are actual things the players can look at. I will give full information on a normal success, and it's too hard to give false information without having a substitute immediately at hand for every item, so instead I'll say that the critically failing character can *never* identify the item, and if no one else in the party can do it, they'll have to get it done in town.
Do +1 Magical items require identification? Per RAW the magical items with a +1 has "etched runes" visibly showing. Does it mean it grants the wielder the +1 bonus regardless of whether they identified it or not? Also, assuming that they required identification in the first place.
I saw someone saying online that they do not need to take Read Aura as a cantrip to determine that an item is magical for the Identify Magic activity. Instead, they could identify if an item is magical in less time than it takes to use Read Aura through the process of elimination. This could be done by placing all the items they find into a bag of holding and then taking each one out and casting detect magic once per round until they detect nearby magic. Does this make Read Aura unnecessary? Would you allow this and if not how would you prevent this or encourage taking Read Aura as a cantrip?
In my group this is even lower-tech. "I place the mystery items on the ground within 30' of the mage one at a time" The unfortunate reality is that even though Detect Magic no longer explicitly tells you if an item is magic or not, it takes only a small amount of creativity to exploit its magic radar and negate pretty much the entire function of Read Magic. I'm not sure precisely what is the best thing to do about it, whether remove Read Magic as a spell and grant its effect as an alternative cast feature of Detect Magic, or come up with a solid in-character justification why Detect Magic doesn't work for that without sounding like a cop-out, and/or giving Read Magic a minor buff to increase it's utility beyond confirming item magicality.
Yeah, and in my own games I've completely stopped enforcing the "you must know an item is magical before you can identify it" rule. I let my players try to identify anything they like and if it's not magical, then they automatically fail. I find the whole process of dealing with bags of holding or walking 30 feet away or having an ally carry the item away from the caster to be completely tedious, non-heroic, and does nothing to enhance the story. There are better ways to spend time at the table than all of that.
I couldn’t find any rule that states that you must adjust the DC for cursed items by 10. I treat them as rare, and requiring a critical success. That’s +15 to standard difficulty, and makes it incredibly hard to notice the curse. I felt that was hard enough. If I interpreted your video correctly, you suggest +10 and then critically succeed at that, so effectively a +20, right?
Basics4Gamers ah cool, I hadn’t seen that. It’s funny, on page 505 it doesn’t say that you require a critical success, and in the cursed items section in the GMG it doesn’t say that you should adjust the DC by “incredibly hard”. Which makes me wonder if these might not be conflicting rules.
@@stefontheair Yeah, this has been the topic of some debate, but the Devs haven't changed anything with the errata, so I guess this is they way it's supposed to work? Obviously, do whatever is best for your group and table, but I like it being this difficult to identify cursed items... because I'm evil and enjoy tricking my players! LOL
I tend to treat cursed Items DCs as the DC of the item they are Trying to pretend to be. If however they HIT the DC of the cursed Item they know it's cursed. Its almost like the items has 2 DCs. The Fake one and the "real" one.
That is a hard DC at lvl 2 if they weren't trained in anything that would help them, Then it would only be identified on a roll of 19 or 20. way to hard, would never set it that high as a DM myself.
How is the automatic success for future identifications of the same item any different than, let's say, using recall knowledge to get info on something. I agree: you ID it once, you should really know it. Because the ID process is an action. You wave the sword, search for inscriptions, poke and prod with it. It's an action. This is my rub with RPGs that tie knowledge to die rolls. You either know something, or you don't. There is no active action that you squint and your brain mechanically does something. I have yet to run a PF2E game, I'm mostly speaking from 5e. But I don't roll knowledge checks. A player walks up to an altar, they either recognize it or they don't. Maybe I'm thinking about it wrong, but the Recall Knowledge action really just makes me not want to play this system.
Not really, how would you know everything a player character knows? Have you mapped all the 500 years the elf wizard did before you started your adventure? Recall Knowledge is a way to "remember" things your character knows but the player dont. Your character having very high points in Arcana and not being able to identify some obscure/rare Arcane magic makes no sense. You character lived in Neverwinter for the last 100 years and the player is not aware of its lore? Recall Knowledge society and get a brief lore explanation about what you character knows. In DnD 5e there is very similar skills checks, they are History/Religion/Arcana/Etc... a Claric of Mystra can simple use a History/Religion check to see if in her training/travels she learned something about this weird altar... in PF2 it would be a Recall Knowledge check in Society/Religion. In the end its just an separation of character and players knoewledge.
@@MrGinp in dnd, you have passive scores. Especially passive perception, because you aren't actively looking all the time. It was a way to prevent the "I'm checking each and every square for traps" shenanigans and bogging the game down with roll after roll,and for what? Your eyes are always on. And so is your brain. Which is why I pose the question
Yeah "Recall Knowledge" First word "Recall", you may know the information, you just need to recall it. In a real Life situation you may of had a baby sitter as a 8yr old child, what was their name? You must Know it? You can TRY to "Recall" it. Its the same here, specially Society; when you "Society: Recall Knowledge " you are trying to Recall if there is anything you learnt from YOUR society about a topic.
@@jibbyjackjoe Those passive scores are just Difficult Checks of each skill, they are present in Pathfinder too. For the same reason you mentioned. A players only rolls dice when he tries to do something. In a conversation the character lieing make the check VS the hearers Perception DC (passive perception in DnD) [for the same reason you mentioned]. Same things happens to traps, the player says he's looking for hazards (an exploration activity) and the traps make a stealth check VS the player Perception DC. It's the same in both systems, just diferent names, you're just not using those rules in your games. Which is completely fine and I also do sometimes.
Want to help support the channel?
Get you name listed at the end of my videos by joining my Patreon :
▶️ www.patreon.com/HowItsPlayed/
Thank me with a cup of coffee!
▶️ ko-fi.com/HowItsPlayed
Great work as always. You have great summaries. Like the house rule section as well
Thank you very much!
I'm watching the whole series of Magic/Casting today, and this got reference, and I'm glad I stopped and watched this one. It is great!
Thanks!
Rarity and Cursed are both Circumstance Penalties, so they wouldn't stack, merely take the worse.
I really love secret checks as the GM but my PLAYERS don’t, I usually tell them for stuff like this, I won’t tell them the DC, just have them roll, and relay information based on the roll without the DC. It’s essentially a secret roll in the open.
Those are some damn good house rules, thanks! 🍻
Ok, my question is: Is there a way to discover what trait (tradition) an item has prior to identifying it so that you know which recall knowledge skill is best? Otherwise you're potentially spending 40 minutes attempting to identify it if you keep getting failures and then repeating day after day.
Great job! Question: Once detected, can anyone (other then the detecting spellcaster) with an appropriate trained skill attempt to Identify?
The rules only say that the identifying character needs to know the item is magical before they can attempt a check to identify it. But, of course, GMs ultimately decide when that criteria has been met. I would imagine that most would allow someone else in the party to identify it if the spellcaster tells them that the item registers to Read Aura or Detect Magic. But others might say "Well, you don't actually *know* it unless you cast it yourself... your teammate might be lying or made a mistake."
Basics4Gamers thanks for your thoughts! That is more or less what I was thinking. I could see going either route based on the style of campaign one is playing.
I like the House rules!
If my players find a +1 mace, do they need to identify it some way to know it's magic? Or do the runes give it away? I'm confused because if there is no obvious way to see the difference between a mace and a + 1 mace besides casing a detect magic spell I can easily see my players not even looking twice at it and assuming it's just a normal weapon.
In a case like that, I'd probably describe it as a "nice-looking mace", and my players would likely take the hint. In my games only top-tier items can be enchanted with runes... it would have to be a quality mace and not some rusty piece of junk for it to hold magic runes.
@@HowItsPlayed awesome. Thanks. New to PF so your videos have been a god send.
I have made a Story related book of sorts. Under Pathfinder's 4 magic sources, it's of the occult magic. Now it's Highly Cursed, it's basically my version of Evil Dead's Necronomicon that unleashed all of the deadites (or however that's spelled) and Ash (not the Ash from Pokemon just to be clear) eventually get's a chainsaw for a prosthetic hand.
Now what *MY* Book of Calamities does, is normally a prison for beings who bring disaster and death wherever they go. Now people CAN attune to it or whatever the term is here, but it slowly drives them into a form of hysteria or mental instability. For example, this book was first found by a ordinary scribe (originally a Warforged now Android) clerk. Poor bloke was picked on and harassed by his superior daily, he stumble on the book and then gain the "Backbone" needed to stand up to him, however that lead to his moral compass to go haywire. Initially he took this job for the good pay, but under the effect of this book he went from making money by working to "If I want more money, I'll just take it!" mentality. Thus he became a Pirate called Captain Infernos, as he leaves all the towns and ships in his wake ablaze with nearly nothing standing, but what of the "Calamities" said to dwell within the book? Well, for our Clerk to gain his power, he needed to open the book as one would a door.... (If this idea intrigues you, by ALL means use it! I'm giving you all who likes what you're reading here permission to just use this idea in whatever way you want!!) My point is, as it's cursed and based on what you head here, what DC would you advice me using?
I use a VTT, so the level of success rules for identifying items are too much of a hassle, as items are actual things the players can look at. I will give full information on a normal success, and it's too hard to give false information without having a substitute immediately at hand for every item, so instead I'll say that the critically failing character can *never* identify the item, and if no one else in the party can do it, they'll have to get it done in town.
Do you let them try again at a new level?
@@Zuginator Maybe if it's going to be too long before they could get it appraised otherwise.
Do +1 Magical items require identification? Per RAW the magical items with a +1 has "etched runes" visibly showing. Does it mean it grants the wielder the +1 bonus regardless of whether they identified it or not? Also, assuming that they required identification in the first place.
I saw someone saying online that they do not need to take Read Aura as a cantrip to determine that an item is magical for the Identify Magic activity. Instead, they could identify if an item is magical in less time than it takes to use Read Aura through the process of elimination. This could be done by placing all the items they find into a bag of holding and then taking each one out and casting detect magic once per round until they detect nearby magic.
Does this make Read Aura unnecessary? Would you allow this and if not how would you prevent this or encourage taking Read Aura as a cantrip?
In my group this is even lower-tech. "I place the mystery items on the ground within 30' of the mage one at a time"
The unfortunate reality is that even though Detect Magic no longer explicitly tells you if an item is magic or not, it takes only a small amount of creativity to exploit its magic radar and negate pretty much the entire function of Read Magic. I'm not sure precisely what is the best thing to do about it, whether remove Read Magic as a spell and grant its effect as an alternative cast feature of Detect Magic, or come up with a solid in-character justification why Detect Magic doesn't work for that without sounding like a cop-out, and/or giving Read Magic a minor buff to increase it's utility beyond confirming item magicality.
Yeah, and in my own games I've completely stopped enforcing the "you must know an item is magical before you can identify it" rule. I let my players try to identify anything they like and if it's not magical, then they automatically fail. I find the whole process of dealing with bags of holding or walking 30 feet away or having an ally carry the item away from the caster to be completely tedious, non-heroic, and does nothing to enhance the story. There are better ways to spend time at the table than all of that.
I couldn’t find any rule that states that you must adjust the DC for cursed items by 10. I treat them as rare, and requiring a critical success. That’s +15 to standard difficulty, and makes it incredibly hard to notice the curse. I felt that was hard enough. If I interpreted your video correctly, you suggest +10 and then critically succeed at that, so effectively a +20, right?
Yes, that appears to be correct by RAW. The bit about using an Incredibly Hard DC can be found on page 505 under "Identify Magic or Learn a Spell".
Basics4Gamers ah cool, I hadn’t seen that.
It’s funny, on page 505 it doesn’t say that you require a critical success, and in the cursed items section in the GMG it doesn’t say that you should adjust the DC by “incredibly hard”. Which makes me wonder if these might not be conflicting rules.
@@stefontheair Yeah, this has been the topic of some debate, but the Devs haven't changed anything with the errata, so I guess this is they way it's supposed to work? Obviously, do whatever is best for your group and table, but I like it being this difficult to identify cursed items... because I'm evil and enjoy tricking my players! LOL
I use the first 2 homebrew rules in my game, why bog down the game with checks to identify something is known to the party.
I tend to treat cursed Items DCs as the DC of the item they are Trying to pretend to be. If however they HIT the DC of the cursed Item they know it's cursed. Its almost like the items has 2 DCs. The Fake one and the "real" one.
That is a hard DC at lvl 2 if they weren't trained in anything that would help them, Then it would only be identified on a roll of 19 or 20. way to hard, would never set it that high as a DM myself.
How is the automatic success for future identifications of the same item any different than, let's say, using recall knowledge to get info on something. I agree: you ID it once, you should really know it. Because the ID process is an action. You wave the sword, search for inscriptions, poke and prod with it. It's an action.
This is my rub with RPGs that tie knowledge to die rolls. You either know something, or you don't. There is no active action that you squint and your brain mechanically does something. I have yet to run a PF2E game, I'm mostly speaking from 5e. But I don't roll knowledge checks. A player walks up to an altar, they either recognize it or they don't.
Maybe I'm thinking about it wrong, but the Recall Knowledge action really just makes me not want to play this system.
Not really, how would you know everything a player character knows? Have you mapped all the 500 years the elf wizard did before you started your adventure?
Recall Knowledge is a way to "remember" things your character knows but the player dont. Your character having very high points in Arcana and not being able to identify some obscure/rare Arcane magic makes no sense. You character lived in Neverwinter for the last 100 years and the player is not aware of its lore? Recall Knowledge society and get a brief lore explanation about what you character knows.
In DnD 5e there is very similar skills checks, they are History/Religion/Arcana/Etc... a Claric of Mystra can simple use a History/Religion check to see if in her training/travels she learned something about this weird altar... in PF2 it would be a Recall Knowledge check in Society/Religion.
In the end its just an separation of character and players knoewledge.
@@MrGinp in dnd, you have passive scores. Especially passive perception, because you aren't actively looking all the time. It was a way to prevent the "I'm checking each and every square for traps" shenanigans and bogging the game down with roll after roll,and for what? Your eyes are always on. And so is your brain. Which is why I pose the question
Yeah "Recall Knowledge" First word "Recall", you may know the information, you just need to recall it.
In a real Life situation you may of had a baby sitter as a 8yr old child, what was their name? You must Know it? You can TRY to "Recall" it. Its the same here, specially Society; when you "Society: Recall Knowledge " you are trying to Recall if there is anything you learnt from YOUR society about a topic.
@@jibbyjackjoe Those passive scores are just Difficult Checks of each skill, they are present in Pathfinder too. For the same reason you mentioned.
A players only rolls dice when he tries to do something. In a conversation the character lieing make the check VS the hearers Perception DC (passive perception in DnD) [for the same reason you mentioned]. Same things happens to traps, the player says he's looking for hazards (an exploration activity) and the traps make a stealth check VS the player Perception DC.
It's the same in both systems, just diferent names, you're just not using those rules in your games. Which is completely fine and I also do sometimes.