Do you make identifying magical items easy? Do you let players roll investigation or arcana to discover their properties? how high does the player need to roll? Do you drop cursed items into the game and how does that work mechanically?
If they don’t have the identify spell, RAW says that they can just fiddle with any permanent magic item over the course of a short rest and know what it does (except for curses). I think that’s dumb as it renders that spell useless, so instead I have them roll an Int (Arcana) check. The DCs I use are 11 for a Common item, 13 for Uncommon, 15 for Rare, 17 for Very Rare, 19 for Legendary, and 21 for Artifacts. The other alternative is they can figure it out by FAFO, which is entirely up to their creativity and RP.
Just to recap the official rules: the Dungeon Master's Guide mentions 1) using the Identify spell, 2) spending a short rest studying the item or focusing on it, and 3) experimentation, as three methods of identifying an item. But it also offers a suggested rule variant, that you can eliminate the "short rest" option if it seems uninteresting (I forget the exact wording). As far as I know, there is no reliable way to tell that an item is cursed, except by using it. The Identify spell does not identify curses.
After DMing and playing in games that used various methods of identifying items, I kind of feel like it's not really a question of "will changing this rule break the game" as much as it is a question of "how do I want to build my world." If your world has a lot of "minor" or "common" magic items (a cloak that changes color, boots that clean themselves, etc.) then making things difficult to identify might just turn into a headache for the players after a while -- unless there's also a thriving business of "item identification services" for a reasonable price when the characters get to the nearest town. You could even turn that into some minor side-stories... if the party found a magical suit of armor crafted from stitched-together demon skin, is it really an option to just walk into a shop and say "tell me what this does" or would they have to look for a more discreet option (and can they trust the shady wizard who asks no questions)?
I actually use a few different rules for identifying magic items, based on the intentions of the creator. If it's a very minor item, like the cloak or boots I mentioned earlier, the creator would want people to know how to use it, and just studying it over a short rest would be enough. For more complicated items, I call for an Arcana roll (like IamSposta's post above with difficulty based on rarity). And once in a while, some items actually require the Identify spell: if Arcanist's Magic Aura has been used on the item, for example.
I do use cursed items in my games, but very rarely. Every time my players pick one up, they get really paranoid about everything they find for a while, so if I use too many it distracts from the adventure. Also, I've found it difficult to predict whether a cursed item will be interesting and fun, or just annoying and inconvenient for everyone. As a challenge for the players, a cursed item is really only useful if the characters fall victim to it in the middle of a dungeon anyway. So, if the players acquire a cursed object outside of a dungeon, I usually make the curse effect something that's not obvious, so it gets noticed later and the players have to experiment to figure out exactly what's causing it.
Hey there Thoughtwire. If you don’t mind I’d like to chat a little shop and compare some notes with you about some stuff you mentioned in your post.
Out of curiosity, what DCs do you use for the various rarities? Also, when and by what criteria do you determine if a check will be sufficient or they must use identify to figure out what an item is and/or does? Where do you draw that line for the cutoff? I’m curious about that too.
Also, you’re absolutely right about how even a single, slightly cursed item can totally put a temporary hitch in a whole campaign, or at least in an adventure. Between the instant paranoia it instills in the players for a while, and the possibility that they’ll even put something as significant as saving the world on pause to trek off for a way to remove that measly little curse right away, it can lead to some degree of headaches if one is not careful. What sorts of curses do you usually put on items? I always try to hit a Goldilocks zone right in the middle to where the item is so useful that they re—ally wanna use it despite its curse, at least for a while anyway. To that end, I always try to make sure that the juice really seems like it’s worth the squeeze for them. I’m also a big fan of curses that put some onus on the player as much as their character. So I like to incorporate personality traits, bonds, and/or flaws that they then have to roleplay as part of their character’s character so to speak. Nothing too crazy mind, but like, maybe they become somewhat obsessed with their appearance and become a bit vain for example. Or perhaps they become a little paranoid (or maybe a little more than a little), and are convinced something is out to get them in some way.
Ooh ooh, another one of my favorite curses (though not on an item) was one where the character became haunted by the ghost of a very young woman (14ish) NPC that he had inadvertently bashed to death with a coal shovel (don’t ask), but only that character could see or hear the ghost. She kept pushing him harder and harder to visit her mother and deliver her a goodbye message on her behalf. But he (the PC, not the player) was so ashamed of what he had done and afraid of what he would say and how she might react that every time he had an opportunity he would chicken out and run away. So, for about a half a year’s worth of weekly sessions he would periodically interact with her and the rest of the party though he was loosin’ it big time. (To be fair, everyone was loosing it bit by bit since it was a Cthulhu inspired campaign and we were using the Sanity and Madness rules and the campaign had already gone on for over a year and a half so they were all slowly going a bit 🤪.) It wasn’t until the very end of the campaign during the epilogue session that he finally divered the good y and was freed of his curse. It was awesome!!
Just to recap the official rules: the Dungeon Master's Guide mentions 1) using the Identify spell, 2) spending a short rest studying the item or focusing on it, and 3) experimentation, as three methods of identifying an item. But it also offers a suggested rule variant, that you can eliminate the "short rest" option if it seems uninteresting (I forget the exact wording).
Can someone give me the page number in the DMG for this? I can't seem to find it.
In chapter 7 of the DMG “Treasures,” after all the treasure hoard tables for mundane items, there is a the beginning of the portion about Magic items. The first three subsections of that part are labeled in order as:
Hey there Thoughtwire. If you don’t mind I’d like to chat a little shop and compare some notes with you about some stuff you mentioned in your post.
Out of curiosity, what DCs do you use for the various rarities? Also, when and by what criteria do you determine if a check will be sufficient or they must use identify to figure out what an item is and/or does? Where do you draw that line for the cutoff? I’m curious about that too.
Quick question- how do you create a link out of somebody's username? I was going to do that in my post but I couldn't figure it out.
I have had 3 situations where I ruled that a skill check wasn't enough, and made the characters actually use the Identify spell on a magic item.
One was when Arcanist's Magic Aura was used on an item to mask its purpose (and they had no caster to dispel that), and being able to just study the item closely for an hour to identify it, even with a skill check, would basically make that spell useless. They did study the item and make a skill check, because they had enough reason to believe it was magical-- and the check was enough to tell them that the item was indeed magical, but its purpose and use had been intentionally concealed. That specific example was a necklace that allowed a nonhuman wearer (a vampire, in this case) to register as "humanoid" instead of "undead" for the purpose of spells and abilities used by others (like the Protection from Evil spell or a paladin's Divine Sense).
Another time was with divine artifacts, that weren't crafted by mortals but gifted by deities to their most loyal followers. One example was a large funeral bell from a benevolent god of death, that the party determined could "affect the barrier between worlds," for various effects. It was more of a "MacGuffin" than an item to be carried around and used regularly. I ruled that since the item was created only for the highest clerics of a long-dead religion, the best possible result of a skill check (Religion, in this case) was to know where more information might be found concerning the proper rituals/chants/prayers for using the item, otherwise they could either attune to it, or use Identify.
The last time I ruled that way was not with a crafted item, but with magical crystals that were formed naturally out of concentrated magic energy from proximity to a powerful magical location. They're a homebrewed item I created inspired by the concept of wild magic. As an example, one might be charged with magical fire and have a specific effect (a fire spell, fire resistance, or it might just explode, or set everything in a 50-ft radius on fire -- I have a whole random chart for it), but they're unstable and handling them is likely to just trigger the magic immediately-- so an Arcana check to study one without setting it off might tell a character, "this will have a fire-related effect," but to get more specific an Identify spell is needed.
So yeah, I think that about covers the exceptions... sorry this post got so long already. For everything else (magic items crafted by mortals, who weren't specifically trying to hide the item's purpose) I have a rough "rarity" scale similar to what the book uses, but because I homebrew about 90% of the magic items in our game I usually just pick a number that feels right. I'd say DC 10 for a common magic item if it's not automatic success, then 13 for uncommon, 16 for rare, 19 for very rare.
I feel like "legendary" and "artifact" items would probably fall into special cases, and they'd be rare enough to not specifically put them on the scale, and that a check would not necessarily tell you how to use the item, but it's more likely to tell you where you'd need to go or what you'd need to do, to learn about it. Plus, at a point in a campaign where players are picking up a Legendary item, having it require an Identify spell probably isn't much of an obstacle anymore. Although to be fair, I haven't had to deal with that situation yet, because my group hasn't picked up any Legendary items, so I'm kind of speculating. I guess I'm fortunate that my group is just as happy with an "interesting" magical item as a powerful one.
As for curses, first let me say I love the example you mentioned. I'd be tempted to steal it for my game but I have some younger players who aren't really into grim storylines. I usually keep the curses pretty simple- for example, you put on a magic ring to find out that it uses up an attunement slot, gives no benefit, and can't be taken off without Remove Curse. Then it's a question of whether that's worth burning a 3rd-level spell slot, vs just living with it for a while. For something more subtle, I've had a player get cursed with an effect sort of like the Hex spell, where anytime they took damage, +1d6 necrotic damage was added to it. That one doesn't get noticed until they start taking damage. There was also a crown made of bones that would transform the wearer into a wraith-like form, with some special abilities (magical flight, passing through solid objects)... but it drains HP over time, prevents them from speaking, and anyone who dies while wearing it becomes a wraith. One of my favorites is a belt that grants several fire-related powers, including immunity to fire damage, but it also surrounds the wearer in magical flames that will burn anything they're wearing or carrying, and its power comes from a fire elemental imprisoned in it. So the player who got that spent the next fight running around trying to hug all his enemies, but he's planning to find someone to send the trapped elemental home (removing the magical effects from the belt).
My players' favorite cursed item is probably the one I thought would be the least interesting: a ring that allows you to cast Charm Person once per day, but as a "curse" side effect, it also extinguishes any nonmagical flames within 10 feet (and can't be taken off without the Remove Curse spell). I figured that would be interesting and inconvenient but ultimately meaningless... and I was wrong. Nothing got noticed until the party tried to get rooms to spend the night, and then there were lamps and fires getting put out all around them. They panicked and thought it was some kind of attack, before finally figuring out that the fighter was just wearing a cursed item. Some time later, some of their allies were hiding in a building, with magical wards that kept their enemies out, so the enemies set the building on fire to force them out. The fighter, who was outside for a reason that was a total coincidence, put the ring back on and started running laps around the building. They still have the ring.
Hey there Thoughtwire. If you don’t mind I’d like to chat a little shop and compare some notes with you about some stuff you mentioned in your post.
Out of curiosity, what DCs do you use for the various rarities? Also, when and by what criteria do you determine if a check will be sufficient or they must use identify to figure out what an item is and/or does? Where do you draw that line for the cutoff? I’m curious about that too.
Quick question- how do you create a link out of somebody's username? I was going to do that in my post but I couldn't figure it out.
I have had 3 situations where I ruled that a skill check wasn't enough, and made the characters actually use the Identify spell on a magic item.
One was when Arcanist's Magic Aura was used on an item to mask its purpose (and they had no caster to dispel that), and being able to just study the item closely for an hour to identify it, even with a skill check, would basically make that spell useless. They did study the item and make a skill check, because they had enough reason to believe it was magical-- and the check was enough to tell them that the item was indeed magical, but its purpose and use had been intentionally concealed. That specific example was a necklace that allowed a nonhuman wearer (a vampire, in this case) to register as "humanoid" instead of "undead" for the purpose of spells and abilities used by others (like the Protection from Evil spell or a paladin's Divine Sense).
Another time was with divine artifacts, that weren't crafted by mortals but gifted by deities to their most loyal followers. One example was a large funeral bell from a benevolent god of death, that the party determined could "affect the barrier between worlds," for various effects. It was more of a "MacGuffin" than an item to be carried around and used regularly. I ruled that since the item was created only for the highest clerics of a long-dead religion, the best possible result of a skill check (Religion, in this case) was to know where more information might be found concerning the proper rituals/chants/prayers for using the item, otherwise they could either attune to it, or use Identify.
The last time I ruled that way was not with a crafted item, but with magical crystals that were formed naturally out of concentrated magic energy from proximity to a powerful magical location. They're a homebrewed item I created inspired by the concept of wild magic. As an example, one might be charged with magical fire and have a specific effect (a fire spell, fire resistance, or it might just explode, or set everything in a 50-ft radius on fire -- I have a whole random chart for it), but they're unstable and handling them is likely to just trigger the magic immediately-- so an Arcana check to study one without setting it off might tell a character, "this will have a fire-related effect," but to get more specific an Identify spell is needed.
So yeah, I think that about covers the exceptions... sorry this post got so long already. For everything else (magic items crafted by mortals, who weren't specifically trying to hide the item's purpose) I have a rough "rarity" scale similar to what the book uses, but because I homebrew about 90% of the magic items in our game I usually just pick a number that feels right. I'd say DC 10 for a common magic item if it's not automatic success, then 13 for uncommon, 16 for rare, 19 for very rare.
I feel like "legendary" and "artifact" items would probably fall into special cases, and they'd be rare enough to not specifically put them on the scale, and that a check would not necessarily tell you how to use the item, but it's more likely to tell you where you'd need to go or what you'd need to do, to learn about it. Plus, at a point in a campaign where players are picking up a Legendary item, having it require an Identify spell probably isn't much of an obstacle anymore. Although to be fair, I haven't had to deal with that situation yet, because my group hasn't picked up any Legendary items, so I'm kind of speculating. I guess I'm fortunate that my group is just as happy with an "interesting" magical item as a powerful one.
As for curses, first let me say I love the example you mentioned. I'd be tempted to steal it for my game but I have some younger players who aren't really into grim storylines. I usually keep the curses pretty simple- for example, you put on a magic ring to find out that it uses up an attunement slot, gives no benefit, and can't be taken off without Remove Curse. Then it's a question of whether that's worth burning a 3rd-level spell slot, vs just living with it for a while. For something more subtle, I've had a player get cursed with an effect sort of like the Hex spell, where anytime they took damage, +1d6 necrotic damage was added to it. That one doesn't get noticed until they start taking damage. There was also a crown made of bones that would transform the wearer into a wraith-like form, with some special abilities (magical flight, passing through solid objects)... but it drains HP over time, prevents them from speaking, and anyone who dies while wearing it becomes a wraith. One of my favorites is a belt that grants several fire-related powers, including immunity to fire damage, but it also surrounds the wearer in magical flames that will burn anything they're wearing or carrying, and its power comes from a fire elemental imprisoned in it. So the player who got that spent the next fight running around trying to hug all his enemies, but he's planning to find someone to send the trapped elemental home (removing the magical effects from the belt).
My players' favorite cursed item is probably the one I thought would be the least interesting: a ring that allows you to cast Charm Person once per day, but as a "curse" side effect, it also extinguishes any nonmagical flames within 10 feet (and can't be taken off without the Remove Curse spell). I figured that would be interesting and inconvenient but ultimately meaningless... and I was wrong. Nothing got noticed until the party tried to get rooms to spend the night, and then there were lamps and fires getting put out all around them. They panicked and thought it was some kind of attack, before finally figuring out that the fighter was just wearing a cursed item. Some time later, some of their allies were hiding in a building, with magical wards that kept their enemies out, so the enemies set the building on fire to force them out. The fighter, who was outside for a reason that was a total coincidence, put the ring back on and started running laps around the building. They still have the ring.
This is great stuff. I really dig ambivalent items
If they don’t have the identify spell, RAW says that they can just fiddle with any permanent magic item over the course of a short rest and know what it does (except for curses). I think that’s dumb as it renders that spell useless, so instead I have them roll an Int (Arcana) check. The DCs I use are 11 for a Common item, 13 for Uncommon, 15 for Rare, 17 for Very Rare, 19 for Legendary, and 21 for Artifacts. The other alternative is they can figure it out by FAFO, which is entirely up to their creativity and RP.
this seems fair to me. I just found a magic item in a campaign and the DM is insisting that because the item is "ancient" i need to take it to be evaluated by an expert before I can use it, (unlikely to happen in time to make any practical use of it) the short rest system isnt too bad if it requires attunement since its going to take you one rest to learn about it, a further rest to attune and then depending on your intended use of the item, there may be a further step necessary (like in the case of taking 8 hours to transfer the magic to a different medium for some items) thats essentially 3 in game days to wield it - assuming theres no interruptions or more pressing tasks.
I use the "harder magic identification" variant rule.
Magic items can be identified in one of three ways.
1. Someone tells you about the item, or you observe someone using the item. For example, you see a foe point a wand and say "cotumo" and a fireball comes out. You now know its a wand of fireballs. For example, your patron gives you a sword and says "this does more damage against undead".
2. You experiment. You put a ring on and try to swim, only to find you are walking on top of the water. You do some sparring with a sword and notice you are fighting a little better.
3. You cast identify. This tells you the item and how many charges it has (it's the only way to learn number of charges).
None of these methods reveal curses. If the item is cursed then method 2 probably activates the curse.
None of these methods is foolproof. Particularly powerful items (especially intelligent ones) resist identification. Sometimes a character will cast identify and be told "you sense that this is a magic item, but something or someone is blocking your identification. You realise it's the item itself! An item this powerful must have a history. Maybe you should head to a library and do some research."
You can use an item, and attune to it, without identifying it. If you are willing to risk it…
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Do you make identifying magical items easy? Do you let players roll investigation or arcana to discover their properties? how high does the player need to roll? Do you drop cursed items into the game and how does that work mechanically?
The Identify Spell is supposed to make identifying magic items easy. Besides a few items with curses, it should all come easy.
If they don’t have the identify spell, RAW says that they can just fiddle with any permanent magic item over the course of a short rest and know what it does (except for curses). I think that’s dumb as it renders that spell useless, so instead I have them roll an Int (Arcana) check. The DCs I use are 11 for a Common item, 13 for Uncommon, 15 for Rare, 17 for Very Rare, 19 for Legendary, and 21 for Artifacts. The other alternative is they can figure it out by FAFO, which is entirely up to their creativity and RP.
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Just to recap the official rules: the Dungeon Master's Guide mentions 1) using the Identify spell, 2) spending a short rest studying the item or focusing on it, and 3) experimentation, as three methods of identifying an item. But it also offers a suggested rule variant, that you can eliminate the "short rest" option if it seems uninteresting (I forget the exact wording). As far as I know, there is no reliable way to tell that an item is cursed, except by using it. The Identify spell does not identify curses.
After DMing and playing in games that used various methods of identifying items, I kind of feel like it's not really a question of "will changing this rule break the game" as much as it is a question of "how do I want to build my world." If your world has a lot of "minor" or "common" magic items (a cloak that changes color, boots that clean themselves, etc.) then making things difficult to identify might just turn into a headache for the players after a while -- unless there's also a thriving business of "item identification services" for a reasonable price when the characters get to the nearest town. You could even turn that into some minor side-stories... if the party found a magical suit of armor crafted from stitched-together demon skin, is it really an option to just walk into a shop and say "tell me what this does" or would they have to look for a more discreet option (and can they trust the shady wizard who asks no questions)?
I actually use a few different rules for identifying magic items, based on the intentions of the creator. If it's a very minor item, like the cloak or boots I mentioned earlier, the creator would want people to know how to use it, and just studying it over a short rest would be enough. For more complicated items, I call for an Arcana roll (like IamSposta's post above with difficulty based on rarity). And once in a while, some items actually require the Identify spell: if Arcanist's Magic Aura has been used on the item, for example.
I do use cursed items in my games, but very rarely. Every time my players pick one up, they get really paranoid about everything they find for a while, so if I use too many it distracts from the adventure. Also, I've found it difficult to predict whether a cursed item will be interesting and fun, or just annoying and inconvenient for everyone. As a challenge for the players, a cursed item is really only useful if the characters fall victim to it in the middle of a dungeon anyway. So, if the players acquire a cursed object outside of a dungeon, I usually make the curse effect something that's not obvious, so it gets noticed later and the players have to experiment to figure out exactly what's causing it.
Hey there Thoughtwire. If you don’t mind I’d like to chat a little shop and compare some notes with you about some stuff you mentioned in your post.
Out of curiosity, what DCs do you use for the various rarities? Also, when and by what criteria do you determine if a check will be sufficient or they must use identify to figure out what an item is and/or does? Where do you draw that line for the cutoff? I’m curious about that too.
Also, you’re absolutely right about how even a single, slightly cursed item can totally put a temporary hitch in a whole campaign, or at least in an adventure. Between the instant paranoia it instills in the players for a while, and the possibility that they’ll even put something as significant as saving the world on pause to trek off for a way to remove that measly little curse right away, it can lead to some degree of headaches if one is not careful. What sorts of curses do you usually put on items? I always try to hit a Goldilocks zone right in the middle to where the item is so useful that they re—ally wanna use it despite its curse, at least for a while anyway. To that end, I always try to make sure that the juice really seems like it’s worth the squeeze for them. I’m also a big fan of curses that put some onus on the player as much as their character. So I like to incorporate personality traits, bonds, and/or flaws that they then have to roleplay as part of their character’s character so to speak. Nothing too crazy mind, but like, maybe they become somewhat obsessed with their appearance and become a bit vain for example. Or perhaps they become a little paranoid (or maybe a little more than a little), and are convinced something is out to get them in some way.
Ooh ooh, another one of my favorite curses (though not on an item) was one where the character became haunted by the ghost of a very young woman (14ish) NPC that he had inadvertently bashed to death with a coal shovel (don’t ask), but only that character could see or hear the ghost. She kept pushing him harder and harder to visit her mother and deliver her a goodbye message on her behalf. But he (the PC, not the player) was so ashamed of what he had done and afraid of what he would say and how she might react that every time he had an opportunity he would chicken out and run away. So, for about a half a year’s worth of weekly sessions he would periodically interact with her and the rest of the party though he was loosin’ it big time. (To be fair, everyone was loosing it bit by bit since it was a Cthulhu inspired campaign and we were using the Sanity and Madness rules and the campaign had already gone on for over a year and a half so they were all slowly going a bit 🤪.) It wasn’t until the very end of the campaign during the epilogue session that he finally divered the good y and was freed of his curse. It was awesome!!
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Can someone give me the page number in the DMG for this? I can't seem to find it.
In chapter 7 of the DMG “Treasures,” after all the treasure hoard tables for mundane items, there is a the beginning of the portion about Magic items. The first three subsections of that part are labeled in order as:
You can’t miss it: (https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dmg/treasure#IdentifyingaMagicItem).
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Quick question- how do you create a link out of somebody's username? I was going to do that in my post but I couldn't figure it out.
I have had 3 situations where I ruled that a skill check wasn't enough, and made the characters actually use the Identify spell on a magic item.
One was when Arcanist's Magic Aura was used on an item to mask its purpose (and they had no caster to dispel that), and being able to just study the item closely for an hour to identify it, even with a skill check, would basically make that spell useless. They did study the item and make a skill check, because they had enough reason to believe it was magical-- and the check was enough to tell them that the item was indeed magical, but its purpose and use had been intentionally concealed. That specific example was a necklace that allowed a nonhuman wearer (a vampire, in this case) to register as "humanoid" instead of "undead" for the purpose of spells and abilities used by others (like the Protection from Evil spell or a paladin's Divine Sense).
Another time was with divine artifacts, that weren't crafted by mortals but gifted by deities to their most loyal followers. One example was a large funeral bell from a benevolent god of death, that the party determined could "affect the barrier between worlds," for various effects. It was more of a "MacGuffin" than an item to be carried around and used regularly. I ruled that since the item was created only for the highest clerics of a long-dead religion, the best possible result of a skill check (Religion, in this case) was to know where more information might be found concerning the proper rituals/chants/prayers for using the item, otherwise they could either attune to it, or use Identify.
The last time I ruled that way was not with a crafted item, but with magical crystals that were formed naturally out of concentrated magic energy from proximity to a powerful magical location. They're a homebrewed item I created inspired by the concept of wild magic. As an example, one might be charged with magical fire and have a specific effect (a fire spell, fire resistance, or it might just explode, or set everything in a 50-ft radius on fire -- I have a whole random chart for it), but they're unstable and handling them is likely to just trigger the magic immediately-- so an Arcana check to study one without setting it off might tell a character, "this will have a fire-related effect," but to get more specific an Identify spell is needed.
So yeah, I think that about covers the exceptions... sorry this post got so long already. For everything else (magic items crafted by mortals, who weren't specifically trying to hide the item's purpose) I have a rough "rarity" scale similar to what the book uses, but because I homebrew about 90% of the magic items in our game I usually just pick a number that feels right. I'd say DC 10 for a common magic item if it's not automatic success, then 13 for uncommon, 16 for rare, 19 for very rare.
I feel like "legendary" and "artifact" items would probably fall into special cases, and they'd be rare enough to not specifically put them on the scale, and that a check would not necessarily tell you how to use the item, but it's more likely to tell you where you'd need to go or what you'd need to do, to learn about it. Plus, at a point in a campaign where players are picking up a Legendary item, having it require an Identify spell probably isn't much of an obstacle anymore. Although to be fair, I haven't had to deal with that situation yet, because my group hasn't picked up any Legendary items, so I'm kind of speculating. I guess I'm fortunate that my group is just as happy with an "interesting" magical item as a powerful one.
As for curses, first let me say I love the example you mentioned. I'd be tempted to steal it for my game but I have some younger players who aren't really into grim storylines. I usually keep the curses pretty simple- for example, you put on a magic ring to find out that it uses up an attunement slot, gives no benefit, and can't be taken off without Remove Curse. Then it's a question of whether that's worth burning a 3rd-level spell slot, vs just living with it for a while. For something more subtle, I've had a player get cursed with an effect sort of like the Hex spell, where anytime they took damage, +1d6 necrotic damage was added to it. That one doesn't get noticed until they start taking damage. There was also a crown made of bones that would transform the wearer into a wraith-like form, with some special abilities (magical flight, passing through solid objects)... but it drains HP over time, prevents them from speaking, and anyone who dies while wearing it becomes a wraith. One of my favorites is a belt that grants several fire-related powers, including immunity to fire damage, but it also surrounds the wearer in magical flames that will burn anything they're wearing or carrying, and its power comes from a fire elemental imprisoned in it. So the player who got that spent the next fight running around trying to hug all his enemies, but he's planning to find someone to send the trapped elemental home (removing the magical effects from the belt).
My players' favorite cursed item is probably the one I thought would be the least interesting: a ring that allows you to cast Charm Person once per day, but as a "curse" side effect, it also extinguishes any nonmagical flames within 10 feet (and can't be taken off without the Remove Curse spell). I figured that would be interesting and inconvenient but ultimately meaningless... and I was wrong. Nothing got noticed until the party tried to get rooms to spend the night, and then there were lamps and fires getting put out all around them. They panicked and thought it was some kind of attack, before finally figuring out that the fighter was just wearing a cursed item. Some time later, some of their allies were hiding in a building, with magical wards that kept their enemies out, so the enemies set the building on fire to force them out. The fighter, who was outside for a reason that was a total coincidence, put the ring back on and started running laps around the building. They still have the ring.
This is great stuff. I really dig ambivalent items
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this seems fair to me. I just found a magic item in a campaign and the DM is insisting that because the item is "ancient" i need to take it to be evaluated by an expert before I can use it, (unlikely to happen in time to make any practical use of it) the short rest system isnt too bad if it requires attunement since its going to take you one rest to learn about it, a further rest to attune and then depending on your intended use of the item, there may be a further step necessary (like in the case of taking 8 hours to transfer the magic to a different medium for some items) thats essentially 3 in game days to wield it - assuming theres no interruptions or more pressing tasks.
I use the "harder magic identification" variant rule.
Magic items can be identified in one of three ways.
1. Someone tells you about the item, or you observe someone using the item. For example, you see a foe point a wand and say "cotumo" and a fireball comes out. You now know its a wand of fireballs. For example, your patron gives you a sword and says "this does more damage against undead".
2. You experiment. You put a ring on and try to swim, only to find you are walking on top of the water. You do some sparring with a sword and notice you are fighting a little better.
3. You cast identify. This tells you the item and how many charges it has (it's the only way to learn number of charges).
None of these methods reveal curses. If the item is cursed then method 2 probably activates the curse.
None of these methods is foolproof. Particularly powerful items (especially intelligent ones) resist identification. Sometimes a character will cast identify and be told "you sense that this is a magic item, but something or someone is blocking your identification. You realise it's the item itself! An item this powerful must have a history. Maybe you should head to a library and do some research."
You can use an item, and attune to it, without identifying it. If you are willing to risk it…