Arcana Skill vs Detect Magic vs Identify

Post date: Jan 27, 2017 4:51:40 PM

Identifying Magic Item Houserule: 

• Identifying a Magic Item: A magic item can only be identified by using the identify spell or between game sessions.

Arcana Skill: Your Intelligence (Arcana) check measures your ability to recall lore about spells, magic items, eldritch symbols, magical traditions, the planes of existence, and the inhabitants of those planes.

Example use: Identify a free floating black sphere as a sphere of annihilation. Analyze a ritual rune puzzle and disable it. Determine the history of a magic item.

Detect Magic ritual: For 10 minutes, you sense the presence of magic within 30 feet of you. If you sense magic in this way, you can use your action to see a faint aura around any visible creature or object in the area that bears magic, and you learn its school of magic, if any. The spell can penetrate most barriers, but it is blocked by 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt.

Example use: Realize that illusion magic is covering a wall. Determine that a person is being affected by enchantment magic. Determine that a necklace is magical.

Identify ritual: After 10 minutes, you choose one object that you must touch throughout the casting of the spell. If it is a magic item or some other magic-imbued object, you learn its properties and how to use them, whether it requires attunement to use, and how many charges it has, if any. You learn whether any spells are affecting the item and what they are. If the item was created by a spell, you learn which spell created it. If you instead touch a creature throughout the casting, you learn what spells, if any, are currently affecting it.

Example use: Determine a magic items properties. Discern that a prisoner is possessed by a magic jar spell.