I have a rogue that I'm playing and I ran across a cursed item that the spellcaster had identified one way, but my use of had indicated differently (to my surprise and ultimate disappointment).
It got me thinking about the wording of the appraise skill...
You can evaluate the monetary value of an object.
Check: A DC 20 Appraise check determines the value
of a common item. If you succeed by 5 or more, you also
determine if the item has magic properties, although
this success does not grant knowledge of the magic
item’s abilities. If your fail the check by less than 5, you
determine the price of that item to within 20% of its
actual value. If you fail this check by 5 or more, the price is
wildly inaccurate, subject to GM discretion. Particularly
rare or exotic items might increase the DC of this check
by 5 or more.
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.
Action: Appraising an item takes 1 standard action.
Determining the most valuable object in a treasure hoard
takes 1 full-round action.
Try Again: Additional attempts to Appraise an item
reveal the same result.
The appraise skill may be used as a poor man's identify magic item (unless you want to argue that magic items are rare or exotic, which I'd disagree with), but if applied to a cursed item... would it reveal it's true value? Namely 0. Since cursed items can't be bought, and getting within 5 of the skill DC would give you a +/- 20% accurate value.
Is this a way to identify potentially cursed items? As a rogue, this seems like the sort of thing I'd have decent experience with. I suspect ultimately it would depend on my GM's interpretation of 'rare or exotic' as to the final DC, but the skill description as listed doesn't mention any additional difficulty in identifying the true value of cursed items.
You'd display the value as if it were the item it was supposed to be made as.
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Part of the point of cursed items is you can't find it out without special magic, or discovering it in practise. A simple skill roll should not allow you to determine whether something is cursed or not (at least not until you get into epic rules, if you want to play with that brand of instanity)
Quote: Identifying Cursed Items
Cursed items are identified like any other magic item with one exception: unless the check made to identify the item exceeds the DC by 10 or more, the curse is not detected. If the check is not made by 10 or more, but still succeeds, all that is revealed is the magic item's original intent. If the item is known to be cursed, the nature of the curse can be determined using the standard DC to identify the item.
To tell if an item is cursed all you need to do is exceed the normal spellcraft check to identify it by 10.
Quote: Appraise
A DC 20 Appraise check determines the value of a common item. If you succeed by 5 or more, you also determine if the item has magic properties, although this success does not grant knowledge of the magic item’s abilities.
Appraise can only tell you if an object is magical if you exceed the normal appraise check by 5. Even then it doesn't tell you what magic the item is enchanted with.
Without knowing the item is magical you'd appraise it as if it was a non-magical item.
Quote: Magic Ring
Physical Description: Rings have no appreciable weight. Although exceptions exist that are crafted from glass or bone, the vast majority of rings are forged from metal—usually precious metals such as gold, silver, and platinum.
-If you failed to make the appraise check (DC 25) you wouldn't know a magical ring is magical. And would appraise it by its normal value (gold, silver, gems, workmanship). While I haven't seen any rules on what this value would be, I would say at most would be 1/10th and at least would be 1/1000th of the base cost. This would mean a Ring of protection +1 could be be a flashy expensive looking ring at 200gp or a plain gold band at 2gp.
-If you succeeded at the DC 25 appraise check you would know the non-magical value of the ring plus that it was magical. You'd need a detect magic and a spellcraft check to determine its value now.
-3.5 had a feat called 'Appraise Magic Value' that allowed non-spellcasters to identify magical items using appraise, but there is not such trait or feat in pathfinder (that I could find).
What we really need is a way to apply Wisdom to get a "vibe" off the item. We've all seen this before, a magical item that a character just "knows" is bad business, but he doesn't know how he knows. Essentially, we need a way to apply Intuition.
Quote: What we really need is a way to apply Wisdom to get a "vibe" off the item. We've all seen this before, a magical item that a character just "knows" is bad business, but he doesn't know how he knows. Essentially, we need a way to apply Intuition. Yeah, we call that spellcraft check.
Cursed items dont have an evil aura on them on anything, at least not always, they are just spells that went wrong and didnt give the intended effect.
Teremak wrote:
Is this a way to identify potentially cursed items? As a rogue, this seems like the sort of thing I'd have decent experience with. I suspect ultimately it would depend on my GM's interpretation of 'rare or exotic' as to the final DC, but the skill description as listed doesn't mention any additional difficulty in identifying the true value of cursed items.
No, Appraise would give you a value based on the item's APPARENT qualities. i.e. that Cursed Berserking Sword would appraise as a +2 weapon until the curse revealed itself.
The issue I have with all of these answers boils down to RAI vs. RAW. While I agree that an estimate of value would inherently work off what I perceived its value to be, I see nothing in the Appraise skill about 'apparent value', rather it explicitly states 'actual value'. This leads me to conclude that the number I get back from an Appraisal if I beat the DC is its *true value*, magical & cursed modifiers and all (or at least within 20% of it).
Splendor wrote:
Quote:
Identifying Cursed Items
Cursed items are identified like any other magic item with one exception: unless the check made to identify the item exceeds the DC by 10 or more, the curse is not detected. If the check is not made by 10 or more, but still succeeds, all that is revealed is the magic item's original intent. If the item is known to be cursed, the nature of the curse can be determined using the standard DC to identify the item.
To tell if an item is cursed all you need to do is exceed the normal spellcraft check to identify it by 10.
To tell if an item is cursed all you need to do is exceed the normal spellcraft check to identify it by 10.
I understand how Spellcraft can identify Cursed items. This +10 on the DC applies to spellcraft, not Appraise. I see nothing to indicate the difficulty in identifying the true value of an item increases if it's cursed or not.
If I were a GM and a player natural 20'ed an Appraise check of a Cursed Item, what would I tell them? Would I make something up about what I thought would be the perceived value assuming the spellcraft checks correctly identified the item sans the curse?
Teremak the problem is, alot of cursed items have a percieved value many of them look awesome. You just cant detect the curse with mundane means. A natural 20 on a skill check has no meaning it provides no extra info and does not auto succeed.
Don't try to argue this way Teremak. Attempting to follow rules to closely to the letter, in a void of all other rules is silly. The rules are supposed to be work together to provide foundation for the game.
The rules did not intend that the appraise skill should allow you to know an item is cursed. In fact, appraise doesn't even let you know that an item is magical unless you exceed the required check. Even then you don't know what that magic is. The reason cursed items are valued at 0 is because when you know it's cursed you don't want it. But that shiny ring that you believe is magic, turns out that it is. But every time you put it on it turns your clothes invisible.
Also, natural 20 isn't an autosuccess on skill checks. It's simply a 20. It does nothing that a 19 doesn't do, assuming the increase of 1 doesn't allow you to beat the DC in a more meaningful way.
If the player succeeds on an appriase check of DC 20 then they accurately know the value of a non-magical version of the item. If they get a DC 25, they know the value of the non-magical version of the item, but they also know the item has some sort of magical property. They don't know what that magical property is, and they also don't know how much the magical property increases its worth.
Appraise is pretty awful skill.
Claxon wrote: .. natural 20 isn't an autosuccess on skill checks. It's simply a 20. It does nothing that a 19 doesn't do, assuming the increase of 1 doesn't allow you to beat the DC in a more meaningful way. I know. I should rephrase to 'rolled a 35' which beats both the magical item DC & cursed item addition listed in the spellcraft checks.
Claxon wrote: Don't try to argue this way Teremak. Attempting to follow rules to closely to the letter, in a void of all other rules is silly. The rules are supposed to be work together to provide foundation for the game.
...
Appraise is pretty awful skill.
Fair enough. I suppose I was trying to find a creative use for a skill that otherwise wouldn't warrant a skillpoint. For the record, I agree with all of the comments here, but there's a lot that accepted Pathfinder interpretations allow for which don't make a lot of sense mechanically or intuitively. It seems like the general consensus is against me on this one, so I'll save my skillpoint for... swim, I guess.
Claxon wrote: Don't try to argue this way Teremak. Attempting to follow rules to closely to the letter, in a void of all other rules is silly. The rules are supposed to be work together to provide foundation for the game.
The rules did not intend that the appraise skill should allow you to know an item is cursed. In fact, appraise doesn't even let you know that an item is magical unless you exceed the required check. Even then you don't know what that magic is. The reason cursed items are valued at 0 is because when you know it's cursed you don't want it. But that shiny ring that you believe is magic, turns out that it is. But every time you put it on it turns your clothes invisible.
Also, natural 20 isn't an autosuccess on skill checks. It's simply a 20. It does nothing that a 19 doesn't do, assuming the increase of 1 doesn't allow you to beat the DC in a more meaningful way.
If the player succeeds on an appriase check of DC 20 then they accurately know the value of a non-magical version of the item. If they get a DC 25, they know the value of the non-magical version of the item, but they also know the item has some sort of magical property. They don't know what that magical property is, and they also don't know how much the magical property increases its worth.
Appraise is pretty awful skill.
Appraise is fine for what it is. It'll help you identify which of the non-magical loot is worth taking, and it can give you other clues in certain situations. It's probably not a skill the fighter should put a point in, but his rogue buddy probably has it significantly invested in.
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