If they were to come across, say weapon/armor with Spell Storing, or an unlabeled wand, or something of a similar nature, how can the PCs discover what it is?
I know a Knowledge (arcana) check will tell you the spell storing weapon/armor has an evocation aura, but is there some way they can find out exactly what it does via knowledge checks? Or do they just have to test it out and see what happens?
(And how does spell storing armor work if the wearer is unaware of the fact that a spell is already stored in it?)
I'm new at GMing, and trying to find ways to make treasure exciting and not "you found a +1 dagger and 342p worth of stuff"
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A character needs to handle the item for 3 rounds with detect magic, then succeed at a DC 15+[item's caster level] spellcraft check. This reveals the item's properties.
Artifacts are exempt from spellcraft identification. You could use a similar process as with artifacts for some magic items, having the characters run down leads, make Knowledge: history checks, do library research, etc. I wouldn't make a habit of it however.
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Here's how I run it:
1) Detect magic+spellcraft check, DC is 15+item's Caster level (as Bob bob bob said.) This identifies the magic item along with all the relevant keywords and abilities. Think of it as peering into the magic wand and discovering what makes it tick, including the keyword and how many charges it has remaining.
2)If the party doesn't have that, they can pay for someone to Identify it. Identify is a first level spell with no material component cost (anymore) that should cost 10 GP from your average first level sage (wizard/sorcerer/cleric with the magic domain) to cast.
3)Something I did back in the day, which could easily be adapted into pathfinder, is to allow PCs to go to a local sage/teacher/academy and ask for an item to be identified. It involves the person looking over ancient books of lore, taking a day, and he charges 10-20 GP, but he will identify it using his massive repository of knowledge.
If you want the straight in game method of doing it, you need detect magic and spellcraft, DC= 15+CL of the item. So with Spell storing, I think the CL is 12, so a DC 27 spellcraft check as far as I know. I would suggest rolling the check knowing their modifiers so you can determine whether they're right or not about what they identify. (Oh yessss, I found a +3 Giant bane dagger! newp, just +1 merciful).
Without casting detect magic they might know it's magic since it will be well crafted (all magic weapons are masterwork to start, giving them a tip it's magic), or it could glow... sometimes magic daggers glow.
Otherwise, I don't know of any way to identify a magic item and its properties other than possible use magic device to activate blindly? Not sure how that would work with a weapon though.
As an after thought, special effects occurring at random or when conditions are met are also good ways... for example, when fighting giants if it suddenly flairs to life and deals extra damage, or having a spell suddenly discharge from the weapon would probably tip them off that it's spell storing.
Anyways, a bit long winded, but here's Spellcraft.
Thanks! These are all good ideas. The spell craft skill seems to definitely be what I'm looking for!
If you look in the magic items chapter (GM Guide, I believe?) it describes how many magic items shed light like a torch (30% of them, at least for weapons). Many items also have designs/decorations that hint at their enchantments. I.e. Fire motif for a flaming weapon, or bone material for a wand of animate dead, that kind of thing.
Make it a cool discription so they know,
The blade has residual spores of demonic blood therefore the steel was quenched in demonic blood making the blade more bloodhirsty and easier to handle. (Aka Dagger +1_
Spellcraft is your friend, DD15 + CL isn't so hard, with all the circumstantial bonuses you can tack on (identify for +10, etc).
For the DM, I really recommend individualizing magic items as much as possible. Make them have interesting visual, sonic or olfactory effects, or have quirky powers in addition or in place of the raw spells and pluses that they give. And a history. It's far more fun, IMHO, than just having an arsenal of killing tools with only math behind them.
The Paizo item decks do a little bit of this. They are very cool.
I like to think about how magic items would work in the real world.
Most people who have spent that kind of money on a fancy thing want to show it off. In the real world, think Gucci, Rolex, Ferrari, or even silicon implants.
I think magic items in Golarion would be a bit like that. Even if all you did was drop 2,000gp on a +1 ring of protection, you want it to be flashy. Catch people's eye. You want to show it off. It's fancy. And the next guy who gets a ring of regeneration wants it to be super-duper fancy and doesn't want anyone to accidentally mistake his (Rolex) item for the first guy's boring protection item. So it will be big and fat and shiny with engravings of trolls all around, and those engravings will be filled with diamond chips or something else spectacular and glitzy. After all, he did pay 50,000 gold for it.
Weapons would not just be masterwork (300gp), but also include many thousands of GP worth of exotic gems and metals and other stuff. Anyone looking at a well made (masterwork) longsword sitting next to a +1 (magical) longsword would almost always know which was which immediately: that +1 sword has a golden hilt with dragonscale leather wrappings and surprisingly large rubies studded in the crossguard - no way it sells for just 300gp, the rubies alone are worth more than that.
And that's only for the +x qualities. If it is flaming, or some other element, then the blade probably looks like it with fancy carvings and etchings. If it is bane, the hilt is possibly made of parts of the actual creatures (bones, for example) as well as engravings to show these creatures being hacked to bits. If it's vorpal, well, those engravings would be pretty explicit too. Etc.
Wands are even more obvious. Imagine if you were making wands for yourself. You have wands of fireball, mage armor, enlarge person, cure light wounds, and flight. Now, you put all 5 of those in a small "quiver" on your belt. Do you want to make them all identical? Do you want to risk enlarging your enemy or fireballing yourself by mistake? No way. So you make them all look different. The fireball wand is covered in red and yellow flames, the enlarge person wand is skinny where you hold it and gets thicker toward the business end (like a tiny baseball bat), the mage armor looks like it's maid of tiny chainmail links, the cure light wounds looks like blood with radiant golden streaks running through it, and the flight wand looks like puffy clouds with engraved eagles.
Do you risk forgetting the activation words? If you're like most modern people who have network passwords, you probably right them down and keep them in a drawer or under your keyboard, so the wand maker probably puts the activation word right there on his wand. That way he might give it to an apprentice or a cohort, or sell it to a customer, without worrying about anyone forgetting the important word.
Must it always be like this? Of course not. Maybe some guys like to have nondescript magical stuff that doesn't look magical. I just think that's fairly rare (probably ONLY adventurers or unscrupulous criminal types). Even they don't want to run the risk of mixing up their wands or potions, but might be more discrete with their boots and cloaks.
In short, I think many items, most of them, are nearly obvious just by looking at them. Except when it makes sense that they shouldn't be (e.g. a Hat of Disguise).
Not exactly RAW, although the rules do say that many items have identifying features - I just like to run with it and make it even more obvious, more often.
I thank my wife for this "vanity" approach to magic item crafting. Mrs. Tarrasque loves her fashion and wants a Michael Kors handbag for Christmas this year (to replace her current Vuitton), just so she can wear that MK tag out in public and make all the other lady tarrasques drool...
(silly, because we tarrasques are ALWAYS drooling, but whatever)
I want my magic items dull and unassuming. Just sturdy and utilitarian. No jewels, no "bling".
I dont want attention. Every attack & thievery attempt starts with getting attention first.
I want my Ring of Regeneration to look like a simple iron ring, not really more valuable than its material price. So they might leave it on my body should i get "killed".
I want to sit down in a tavern to have a drink, without everybody and the evil kings men knowing "an adventurer with dangerously awesome equipment" just came into town and start looking to have an eye on what i do.
I dont want beggers and street urchins to constantly follow me.
Just a regular dude. And then i get the job done.
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My son (aged 13 or 14 at the time) failed UMD for a wand 3-4 times and threw down the dice in disgust, when (naturally) it rolled a 20. In response to the inevitable 'Oh, now I get the roll!' (and subsequent swearing), I came up with
"As you throw down the wand, a beam of energy shoots out and, luckily, hits the door accross the courtyard. You hear a distinct click. It seems to be a wand of knock, with the command phrase 'Bl***y well work, you bl***y stick!'. Probably not what the creator was intending."
A good rescue, I thought - you kind of have to for younger players :)
I want my magic items dull and unassuming. Just sturdy and utilitarian. No jewels, no "bling".
...
Just a regular dude. And then i get the job done.
See, you fall under the exception I already mentioned in my post. Adventurer.
Those people who live in Magnamar, or Absolom, or wherever, those rich merchants and richer nobles, they know that wealth = status and therefore ostentation = status. Standing out and showing of their wealth is extremely important to them.
And to everyone else in those cities who are trying to be like them.
Even mercenaries would benefit from ostentatious magic items: Who are you going to hire to defend your rich caravan of trade goods, the regular dude or the guy standing there with gold and diamond embossed full plate inscribed with runes and engravings depicting a heavily fortified castle and wielding a glowing green sword that drips smoldering acid on the ground when he draws it? One of those two guys is wearing his resume, the other guy might just be a farmer.
I want my magic items dull and unassuming. Just sturdy and utilitarian. No jewels, no "bling".
...
Just a regular dude. And then i get the job done.
See, you fall under the exception I already mentioned in my post. Adventurer.
Those people who live in Magnamar, or Absolom, or wherever, those rich merchants and richer nobles, they know that wealth = status and therefore ostentation = status. Standing out and showing of their wealth is extremely important to them.
And to everyone else in those cities who are trying to be like them.
Even mercenaries would benefit from ostentatious magic items: Who are you going to hire to defend your rich caravan of trade goods, the regular dude or the guy standing there with gold and diamond embossed full plate inscribed with runes and engravings depicting a heavily fortified castle and wielding a glowing green sword that drips smoldering acid on the ground when he draws it? One of those two guys is wearing his resume, the other guy might just be a farmer.
One of those guys is cleaning up acid he just spilled all over the ground and couldn't be a bigger target if his heraldric symbols were alternating red and white concentric circles. You want to strike the right balance. Remember, that guy in Magnamar or Absalom is having to hang around in areas where people can see and talk about them. Maybe talk about them to local thieves' guilds. And what's the point of having bling if you can't sleep at night without having so many rogues outside that they're sorting out a queue for backstabs?
Plus, all that money you're pouring into bling could go towards another plus.
Plus, all that money you're pouring into bling could go towards another plus.
That's not true.
A 90,000gp Ring of Regeration could just be a lump of iron, beaten into a crappy uneven rough circle, then rubbed with 45,000gp worth of Angel's Fears and Demon's Tears. Or it could be 45,000gp worth of platinum and diamonds and other precious stones, carved into a magnificent sparkling array of legendary beauty, then enchanted with a spell.
The rules don't care. Either way, you pay 45,000gp in raw materials. Call it precious metals and stone, call it workmanship, call intangible and invisible mystical magic-stuff, call it whatever you like, you just have to pay it.
I'm not suggesting spending 50,000gp on fancy metals to make a +1 sword. I'm only suggesting spending the necessary 1,000gp for the enchantment and the 300gp for the masterwork, a total of 1,300gp of base cost. I'm suggesting that if you do spend that on visibly fancy materials (gold scrollwork, precious stones), it will be visibly more expensive than a typical 300gp masterwork sword. If you spend the same 300gp making it masterwork and then the 1,000gp for the +1 enchantment could be soaking it in 1,000gp of dragon sweat or some other intangible and invisible thing that doesn't leave any visible change in the final sword, then it will look identical to any other masterwork sword and nobody will even know it's magical.
My contention is that most people who CAN afford such fancy things like to show them off - except for the afore-mentioned adventurers and criminals.