Hile and well met,
I'm relatively new to the PF scene and currently rekindling my (and my gaming group's) love for fantasy RP in general. Via Pathfinder of course. I've stumbled my way through GMing a couple of games already and my players are (rather scarily!) hungry for more. I'm having a blast too.
Hopefully a simple question and probably a non-issue but: How does a character "identify" the above properties in an item?
Do they know at a glance? Must they wield, wear or otherwise use said item? Appraise check? Craft: Weapons in-a-knowledge-kinda-way check?
If they walk into an armoury, who spots the better quality weapons first and how?
Sorry if this has been discussed before but a Messageboard and Google search avails nothing. And yes, I took 20.
Long days and pleasant nights.
Hile and well met,
I'm relatively new to the PF scene and currently rekindling my (and my gaming group's) love for fantasy RP in general. Via Pathfinder of course. I've stumbled my way through GMing a couple of games already and my players are (rather scarily!) hungry for more. I'm having a blast too.
Hopefully a simple question and probably a non-issue but: How does a character "identify" the above properties in an item?
Do they know at a glance? Must they wield, wear or otherwise use said item? Appraise check? Craft: Weapons in-a-knowledge-kinda-way check?
If they walk into an armoury, who spots the better quality weapons first and how?
Sorry if this has been discussed before but a Messageboard and Google search avails nothing. And yes, I took 20.
Long days and pleasant nights.
A lot of it is DM style. In my games, I dont bother with making the players identify items, it's too much work for what amounts to a small amount of roleplaying. I think RAW uses Spellcraft to identify magiv items and Appraise for mundane normaly though.
Hile and well met,
I'm relatively new to the PF scene and currently rekindling my (and my gaming group's) love for fantasy RP in general. Via Pathfinder of course.
And why's that? I bet it's because of Ultimate Combat, an upcoming book featuring, among other things, the gunslinger class. And lots of other goodies, too, of course. Enough to fill your basket!
Hopefully a simple question and probably a non-issue but: How does a character "identify" the above properties in an item?
For magic items and their magical properties, there is detect magic (or identify) combined with the spellcraft skill.
The rest is not covered by the rules, it's up to the GM. Personally, I rule it that adventurers can easily recognise whether a weapon is masterwork or not, and whether it's made of special materials like cold iron.
Long days and pleasant nights.
And may you have twice the number.
|
If they walk into an armoury, who spots the better quality weapons first and how?
Another vote for GM style on non-magical stuff. I worry about this stuff, if at all, during low level phases. Later on, it kinda breaks the sense of the moment for upper level characters to be scratching their heads over whether something is cold iron or not. :)
And may you have twice the number.
Ah KaeYoss. My heart swells, dear. My heart swells.
Thanks for the replies folks. As I say, it's not too big a deal, just that my players are... competitive. A walk into the hypothetical armoury would likely result in a scramble so skills and dice rolls offer a measure of control. Yes, veteran role-players are the hardest to handle.
I'd have liked some RAW to fall back on but I'll just house rule this for now, probably with Appraise or a relevant Craft or Profession check. As you say, Howie, it's more a low-level kind of issue anyway.
Thanks again, cullys! *tips hat*
I'd have liked some RAW to fall back on
Can do!
A DC 20 Appraise check determines the value of a common item. You can also use this check to determine the most valuable item visible in a treasure hoard. The DC of this check is generally 20 but can increase to as high as 30 for a particularly large hoard.
So if they walk into a standard shop, they can spend a full round action to make an Appraise check. Beat DC20 and they know what the most valuable item is. Assuming they don't want it (Why would they want his antique jewel-encrusted blunt shortsword?) they can look at whatever individual items that appeal to them, and spend a standard action to make a DC 20 Appraise check to find out how much it's worth. If it's worth a bit over 300 gold, hey, it's masterwork, and is probably easier to hit things with than the plain looking one over there that's worth 7gp.
Oh hey, the appraise check says that sword he's checking out is magical. Time to cast Detect Magic, and focus on the sword. First round: Yep, it's magical. Second round: there's a bunch of magical stuff behind the glass case there, one of them has a moderate strength aura. Third round: This particular sword has a moderate aura. Make a Knowledge (arcana) check, DC 18, to identify it as Moderate evocation. Pretty good. Now, since it's a magic item, you can use Spellcraft to identify it. Three rounds later, make a DC 25 Spellcraft check to determine that you're looking at a +1 Flaming Longsword. Since you were successful in identifying the magical properties using detect magic, you know the command word is "Flambeauticrux." 8,315 gold later, and he's strutting about the dungeon with a sword that can erupt into magical flame.
In my games, someone always has a Spellcraft skill of +15 or so, So taking 10 with someone else assisting means any item with a caster level of 12 or less is ID'd with no rolling, so I just hand wave it unless it's a weird, rare, or special item. ("You guys spend some time looking over the treasure, here's what you've got...") The worst part of 3.5 was spending pearls to ID stuff.
Thanks, Grick.
With magic items that's how I've been running it, glad to have confirmation I'm doing that part right at least!
It was more to do with non-magical properties like Cold Iron, Mithral, Adamantine etc. I just felt it was a bit incomplete simply assuming any character would be familiar with these metals for example. I know our group's Dwarven weaponsmith would expect to be the expert when it came to evaluating this kinda stuff so I was wondering if I'd missed something. Appraise seems closest to what I'm looking for.
Anyhow, not a game-breaker. I guess it's a hang up from the old Rolemaster Weapon Eval and Armour Eval skills, with Attunement a seperate entity.
Say thankya.
A walk into the hypothetical armoury would likely result in a scramble so ... I'd have liked some RAW to fall back on...
RAW, read the sections on traps. I animated an armory once...