Detect Magic and Identifing Magic Items

[walter mcwilliams]

Two questions regarding the subject.

First - Do items discerned during the casting of detect magic phiscally glow or is there presence simply known to the caster?

My take - As there is nothing in the description of the spell to indicate they do (PRD only at this moment)therefore they do not.

Second - Can you take 10 or 20 when using detect magic and the spellcraft skill to ID magic items.

My take - Since the use of detect magic requires a knowlege (arcana) check, and you can not take 10 or 20 on knowledge checks, it seems to me that RAW indicate that you can not.

Opinions / comments?

Thanks

[Maezer]

walter mcwilliams wrote:

Two questions regarding the subject.

First - Do items discerned during the casting of detect magic phiscally glow or is there presence simply known to the caster?

My take - As there is nothing in the description of the spell to indicate they do (PRD only at this moment)therefore they do not.

Magical objects have an observable aura when viewed under the effect of detect magic. The intentsity of said aura varies with the power of the magic item. Perhaps glow is the wrong word, but I think this aura would be distinct enough so that under the influence of detect magic, you could pick the magical pin out of a pile of pins.

walter mcwilliams wrote:

Second - Can you take 10 or 20 when using detect magic and the spellcraft skill to ID magic items.

My take - Since the use of detect magic requires a knowlege (arcana) check, and you can not take 10 or 20 on knowledge checks, it seems to me that RAW indicate that you can not.

You can take 10 unless in immediate danger or distracted. You cannot take 20 because there is penalty for failure (ie if you fail once you cannot attempt to identify the item again that given day).

I am not aware of any restriction with knowledge checks that bars you from taking 10 either though, so perhaps whereever this rule is coming from would bar both.

Thanks

[Mynameisjake]

walter mcwilliams wrote:

First - Do items discerned during the casting of detect magic phiscally glow or is there presence simply known to the caster?

Thanks

No, they do not physically glow. Only the caster can "see" that they are magical.

[tejón]

It's Spellcraft, not Knowledge (arcana). You can take 10 but not 20.

[azhrei_fje]

Maezer wrote:

Magical objects have an observable aura when viewed under the effect of detect magic. The intentsity of said aura varies with the power of the magic item. Perhaps glow is the wrong word, but I think this aura would be distinct enough so that under the influence of detect magic, you could pick the magical pin out of a pile of pins.

Agreed. Imagine a deck of playing cards nicely stacked and aligned. Now imagine that one card had a different color edge. That one card would obviously stick out when the deck was viewed from the side, but pulling out that specific card would still involve a little manipulation of the cards on either side of it.

Here's an auxiliary question: the detect magic is blocked by certain types of materials, such as 3 feet of wood. So a potion inside a chest should have an aura visible to the caster if the chest doesn't have sides that are 3-feet thick (I would think most chests have sides only a few inches thick). What does the caster see? Does the chest appear to "glow"? Does the glow leak out through the sides of the chest as though the wood isn't there? Or does it leak out only through the seams in the wood?

And if 3-feet of wood or 1-foot of stone completely blocks the spell, would 1.5-feet of wood AND 6 inches of stone also completely block it? (Being that those amounts are 50% of each material.)

[nidho]

tejón wrote:

It's Spellcraft, not Knowledge (arcana). You can take 10 but not 20.

It's both. Depending on what you're doing.

On the 3rd round of a Detect Magic casting a Knowledge(Arcana)(DC = 15 + spell level) is called to identify the magic school involved.

A spellcraft check(DC = 15 + item's caster level) is required to identify an item's properties using Detect Magic. It takes 3 rounds and you need to be able to thoroughly examine the object.

[tejón]

nidho wrote:

It's both. Depending on what you're doing.

Right, but check out the thread title. ;)

[walter mcwilliams]

Thanks for the comments everyone.

[Caineach]

Maezer wrote:

walter mcwilliams wrote:

Two questions regarding the subject.

First - Do items discerned during the casting of detect magic phiscally glow or is there presence simply known to the caster?

My take - As there is nothing in the description of the spell to indicate they do (PRD only at this moment)therefore they do not.

Magical objects have an observable aura when viewed under the effect of detect magic. The intentsity of said aura varies with the power of the magic item. Perhaps glow is the wrong word, but I think this aura would be distinct enough so that under the influence of detect magic, you could pick the magical pin out of a pile of pins.

My personal take on this is that you can identify that there is a magical pin in that pile, and what type of magic used, but you would not be able to identify the exact pin unless you moved them arround and still searched for it. I would give a bonus to the search DC, but would not give it to you automatically.

Likewise, searching a body would result in you being able to see how many magic items he has on him, and what magic, but it would not identify exactly which ones are magical without you spending time to look at each one.

[nidho]

tejón wrote:

nidho wrote:

It's both. Depending on what you're doing.

Right, but check out the thread title. ;)

Somehow I was expecting this. xD

OP wrote:

Two questions regarding the subject.

First - Do items discerned during the casting of detect magic phiscally glow or is there presence simply known to the caster?

My take - As there is nothing in the description of the spell to indicate they do (PRD only at this moment)therefore they do not.

Second - Can you take 10 or 20 when using detect magic and the spellcraft skill to ID magic items.

My take - Since the use of detect magic requires a knowlege (arcana) check, and you can not take 10 or 20 on knowledge checks, it seems to me that RAW indicate that you can not.

Opinions / comments?

Thanks

The OP knew which skill to to use already. ;)

[voska66]

I'd say you can take 20 on magic items. Since taking 20 assumes you will fail many times. When you fail you can't try till the next day. So that puts the base time as 1 day and since taking 20 make it 20 times longer you could take 20 to identify a magic item by doing so over 20 days. So they could do it but they won't get the results for 20 days.

[Loopy]

My players and I have a Detect Magic compromise.

I think I ended up on the win side of things. ;)

http://www.harvestmooncampaign.com/spells.php?id=690

compromise wrote:

This is a clarification and compromise of the basic Detect Magic rules made between the players and the Dungeon Master. This reconciliation has brought the following resolutions:

Detect Magic displays a glow in the third round of concentration if the caster has line of sight to the item which means that, in the third round of concentration, all visible magic items in an area can be determined as such and looted accordingly. If there is no line-of-sight (such as within a chest or in the stomach of a beast), then the exact location of the aura in a 5' square is impossible.

Detect Magic is naturally resisted by all illusions. For example, if a person is concealed by Disguise Self, their disguise would be impervious to Detect Magic since their disguise is an illusion. Any magic items on the character would still be detectable with Detect Magic. Furthermore, if an illusion of a false wall is erected, physically concealing a magic item, the aura of the item will be noticed, but a pinpoint will not be possible since the caster would not have line of sight to the item.

Additionally, invisibility-type spells completely conceal any magical auras. If the same person from our previous example were to cast Invisibility on themselves, then they would have no auras whatsoever as far as Detect Magic is concerned.

Finally, Shadow illusions which duplicate spell effects detect as the base spell's school of magic. Magic Aura must still be cast in order to make other illusions more magically believable to have different auras.