Identifying Magic Items

mikerowe01 · Post by **mikerowe01** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 4:40 am

This may be a dumb question, but I have lots of rings, and weapons that say Magic item.. but I don't know what they are.. How can I get them identified?

bariumdose · Post by **bariumdose** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 8:57 am

IDing magic items

There are a couple methods to identify magic items: two expensive methods and the slightly cheaper method.

The expensive method is to go to any of the merchants in Hommlet or Nulb. When you are in the barter screen, you'll see a button on the lefthand pane that says "Identify". Click on it and then move the cursor to the item in your inventory that you wish to identify. Each time you ask a merchant to identify will cost you a 100 GP.

The other expensive method is to have one of your spellcasters cast the "Identify" spell and then selecting the item in inventory that you wish to identify. This also costs 100GP per casting of the spell.

Note: If you cast Identify you must have the magic item in the inventory of the spellcaster. You can't cast Identify on another party member who holds the magic item in question. So, if you have a lot of items to identify, be ready for a lot of inventory swapping!

The other method is to craft a wand of identify, assuming one of your spellcasters knows the Identify spell, has enough experience points and GP to craft, and has the craft wand feat. This method is probably the best because the wand stores 20 charges of the Identify spell (which is convenient if you don't want to waste your wizard's spell slots memorizing Identify) and you're not charged 100 GP per use of the wand. Plus, as with all wands, if you use 19 of the charges and you have a player with a high Appraise skill and you go to the right merchants who pay big bucks for wands, you can sell the wand for more than what it costs you to craft it - a way to earn some much-needed GP in this game.

Hope this helps.

[QUOTE=mikerowe01]This may be a dumb question, but I have lots of rings, and weapons that say Magic item.. but I don't know what they are.. How can I get them identified?[/QUOTE]

Lord Plothos · Post by **Lord Plothos** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 9:08 am

There are some patches out there that correct the full-price-for-a-wand-with-few-charges thing. D&D is not supposed to work like that, so depending on what patches you're running, you won't necessarily be able MAKE money by identifying with wands.

While we're on the topic, the wand isn't supposed to be so cheap to make, precisely because it is so expensive to cast. (The cost is due to an expensive material component, and those costs are supposed to be factored into the cost of the wand.) I don't know that there are any patches that have corrected this, however.

mikerowe01 · Post by **mikerowe01** » Sun Jun 19, 2005 5:31 am

Thanks

Thank you.. Can't believe I hadn't seen the Identify button on the screen. Now I just need to scribe all the scrolls I've been carrying around.

Lord Plothos · Post by **Lord Plothos** » Sun Jun 19, 2005 8:38 am

Remember also that you can use the 0-level read magic spell to identify scrolls, and if you're running temple.zip, you can use it to identify potions as well. Saves cash. I generally have a cleric and a wizard, and both of them memorize nothing but read magic at level 0. Usually, that covers just about all the scrolls and potions I find before I need to rest again.