Angafirith
2007-05-06, 06:31 PM
I decided to have a little fun the last time I passed out treasure in my campaign. I gave them a bunch of good items and dangerous items. A cursed Siangham that turned the monk into a Dwarf, a couple flasks of an elixir out of MIC, a couple flasks of ingestion poison (!!), a few healing potions, and the like.
Here's the problem: no one in my campaign has any way to identify an item. I was thinking of introducing the following wondrous item to my campaign to try to make things less annoying. The idea is that you can only figure out the exact purpose of one item per day, but it can also be used to tell you whether that flask of liquid is a potion or a powerful ingestion poison.
Honestly, I have no idea if it's anything even close to balanced. I was hoping that I could get some input on it.
Identifying Glass
Price: 1,000 gp
Body Slot: -- (held)
Caster Level: 3rd
This magnifying glass is made of gold and has five rubies along the edge of the handle.
On a successful DC 20 Appraise check, the glass is revealed to be made of fool's gold with five pieces of carefully cut red glass along the handle.
These glasses are of great importance to those who deal in magic items.
An identifying glass has 5 charges per day, which are renewed each day at down. Spending 1 or more charges as a standard action allows you to get an idea of the purpose of an item. Any attempt to use an identifying glass on an artifact fails and wastes the charge.
1 charge: You find out the classification of an item within 5 feet of your position. For example, using 1 charge to examine a mundane breastplate will tell you that it is Mundane Armor, where looking at a +1 Breastplate will tell you that it is Magical Armor. It does not give any information on the nature of the enchantment. If the item is cursed, it is identified as magical.
2 charges: You find out the classification of the item as above. It also gives a basic idea of the use of the item, such as "healing potion" or "dangerous mundane poison". If the item is cursed, it also gives an idea as to the nature of the curse.
3 charges: You find out the classification of the item and its exact use, including command words.
4 charges: You find out the classification of an item within 30 feet as if you had used one charge.
5 charges: You find out the classification and basic purpose of an item within 30 feet as if you had used two charges.
Prerequisites: Craft Wondrous Item, identify
Cost to create: 500 gp, 40 XP, 1 day
An aside: I've just switched to the WYSIWYG editor and it's really great: I get to copy and paste the pre-formatted items and creatures directly from my wiki to this post.
Here's the problem: no one in my campaign has any way to identify an item. I was thinking of introducing the following wondrous item to my campaign to try to make things less annoying. The idea is that you can only figure out the exact purpose of one item per day, but it can also be used to tell you whether that flask of liquid is a potion or a powerful ingestion poison.
Honestly, I have no idea if it's anything even close to balanced. I was hoping that I could get some input on it.
Identifying Glass
Price: 1,000 gp
Body Slot: -- (held)
Caster Level: 3rd
This magnifying glass is made of gold and has five rubies along the edge of the handle.
On a successful DC 20 Appraise check, the glass is revealed to be made of fool's gold with five pieces of carefully cut red glass along the handle.
These glasses are of great importance to those who deal in magic items.
An identifying glass has 5 charges per day, which are renewed each day at down. Spending 1 or more charges as a standard action allows you to get an idea of the purpose of an item. Any attempt to use an identifying glass on an artifact fails and wastes the charge.
1 charge: You find out the classification of an item within 5 feet of your position. For example, using 1 charge to examine a mundane breastplate will tell you that it is Mundane Armor, where looking at a +1 Breastplate will tell you that it is Magical Armor. It does not give any information on the nature of the enchantment. If the item is cursed, it is identified as magical.
2 charges: You find out the classification of the item as above. It also gives a basic idea of the use of the item, such as "healing potion" or "dangerous mundane poison". If the item is cursed, it also gives an idea as to the nature of the curse.
3 charges: You find out the classification of the item and its exact use, including command words.
4 charges: You find out the classification of an item within 30 feet as if you had used one charge.
5 charges: You find out the classification and basic purpose of an item within 30 feet as if you had used two charges.
Prerequisites: Craft Wondrous Item, identify
Cost to create: 500 gp, 40 XP, 1 day
An aside: I've just switched to the WYSIWYG editor and it's really great: I get to copy and paste the pre-formatted items and creatures directly from my wiki to this post.