In my current campaign magic is mysterious and powerful force so when characters find an item I don't like to tell them exactly what it does until they go though some means to find out what it does. So I think it would be awesome to have unidentified versions of items that the DM could send players then reveal them when they identify what the item is!
That would be cool. Maybe having a trigger that would be set off once they met the requirements to see what the new item is. (i.e. you roll a natty 20 using arcana or you say the phrase that would activate the weapon or item.)
I like your idea and adapt it into my games in the future. Thanks.
Even if there's no support for this. It would probably not be hard as DM to make two versions of an item, one unidentified one with a mysterious description and another identified one which displays the stats that you can just swap out the prior version for.
There are a couple of things that go along with magic items:
1) The DM should know what it really does and how it effects the character's rolls. The player just needs to know what they see or what happens when they hit/miss. if they can gather enough info, then you can let them know if it works like the player suspects. This can cause a small problem because it relies on the DM to keep track of what everybody has.
2) Inexperienced adventurers would have to a: divine it's abilities magically or b: pay somebody to tell them what it is/does.
if there was an unidentified magic item for inventory purposes or as a sub-type of a known quantity, it might alleviate the problem [ I.e: potion (unidentified), Longsword (unidentified), or Magic Item (unidentified)].
I use hand written index cards for unidentified items and typed cards for identified items.
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In my current campaign magic is mysterious and powerful force so when characters find an item I don't like to tell them exactly what it does until they go though some means to find out what it does. So I think it would be awesome to have unidentified versions of items that the DM could send players then reveal them when they identify what the item is!
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That would be cool. Maybe having a trigger that would be set off once they met the requirements to see what the new item is. (i.e. you roll a natty 20 using arcana or you say the phrase that would activate the weapon or item.)
I like your idea and adapt it into my games in the future. Thanks.
first rule of D&D: keep the cleric alive!
Even if there's no support for this. It would probably not be hard as DM to make two versions of an item, one unidentified one with a mysterious description and another identified one which displays the stats that you can just swap out the prior version for.
There are a couple of things that go along with magic items:
1) The DM should know what it really does and how it effects the character's rolls. The player just needs to know what they see or what happens when they hit/miss. if they can gather enough info, then you can let them know if it works like the player suspects. This can cause a small problem because it relies on the DM to keep track of what everybody has.
2) Inexperienced adventurers would have to a: divine it's abilities magically or b: pay somebody to tell them what it is/does.
if there was an unidentified magic item for inventory purposes or as a sub-type of a known quantity, it might alleviate the problem [ I.e: potion (unidentified), Longsword (unidentified), or Magic Item (unidentified)].
I use hand written index cards for unidentified items and typed cards for identified items.