Alternatives to Identify for D&D Magic Items

If a fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons spell could be considered a public enemy, identify would probably be No. 2 on the list for anybody trying to tell captivating stories. It’s no secret there are some spells in D&D that kill storytelling opportunities without really providing necessary and interesting mechanical solutions. More often than not, these are divinations. These spells reveal information, usually in a simple, straightforward fashion. This kind of convenience is great for some (if not most) D&D games, but sometimes a Dungeon Master wants a little more flavor in revelation. When this kind of sentiment arises, identify is one of the main problem spells making a DM get frustrated. If you’re that kind of DM and are looking for a way out, this is the piece for you. If you haven’t really thought about identify that much (like most normal people), here’s the gist.

Identify pros

• Easy bookkeeping for people handling magic items
• Allayed anxieties for players and characters worried about adverse properties in a newly-discovered item
• All-purpose (usable for any property on any magical weapon) and easily accessible (it’s a level 1 spell, for goodness sake) divination spell that can’t fail

Identify cons

• Absolutely no more magical item mystery in any form without serious DM fiat (i.e., no more “wonder” about magical item functions)
• Storytelling, roleplaying, worldbuilding, and tension-escalating encounters that could follow the discovery of a magical item are tossed aside in favor of convenience

 

With a hungry wolf pack bearing down on you, does it really matter if it’s magical or not?

Storytelling spice

There are three themes we should always nurture as a storytelling DM: discovery, achievement, and wonder. Divination magic will usually kill two of those with extreme prejudice, namely discovery and wonder. This isn’t always a bad thing, of course. Shortcuts are sometimes necessary to keep game pace and player interest. One could argue divinations satisfy the players’ desires for discovery and wonder. They can wonder about something, cast a spell, and discover the solution. For some, that’s perfect. For others (like me), that’s a rather cheap way to tell a story.

Picture this. A halfling Rogue thief emerges from the goblin caves and finally reunites with his fourteen companions after a perilous separation. He approaches the wizard who has been dumbfounded by the appearance of the halfling, who then reaches into his pocket and produces a golden band thence. “Can you Identify this?” says the halfling. The wizard waves his hands and reveals the magic of the ring, which, he discovers, is the last vestige of the dread Dark Lord. The wizard, knowing immediately what they are dealing with, suggests the ring be taken posthaste to Doom Mountain and cast into the lava therein. Gee, wasn’t that easy?

Also picture this: a warrior – ragged, tired, and desperate for respite from a pack of wolves – stumbles into a cave. It is the burial chamber of a great conqueror long since forgotten, whose skeleton now sits atop a chiseled throne on the far side of the earthen cavity. He approaches the honored dead. His eye catches the glint of steel – a sword in the grasp of the conqueror – flickering in the light from inexplicably burning torches.

The skeleton’s stature – though silent and motionless – beckons the ragged warrior forward with the allure of a blade he may use to fend off the wolves at the mouth of the cave. The desperate warrior obliges the dead and satisfies his curiosity. He moves towards the cold steel and inspects the now-rusted blade more closely. He can see this is no ordinary blade. Beneath the crust of the ages glints purer steel crying for freedom and for the taste of blood again.

The howl of the wolves seems distant now, though he knows they will spring upon him as soon as he leaves. He extends a hand towards the grip of the sword. He knows this is exactly what he needs to kill his hunters. Suddenly, he recoils. “Too bad I can’t use this. It could be cursed,” he muses to himself. He backs away from the blade and from the skeleton’s throne and reclines in the cold cave until the howling stops, at which point he leaves. He is promptly met by four wolves. The fight does not go well.

In both completely original cases above, we have the discovery of the item and the character wondering about its purpose, but we have no escalation of these concepts, no exploration of the plot point, and no heightening tensions. It’s shallow, bland, and unfulfilling. If storytelling is not a focus for you and your party, don’t sweat it. Capitalize on the convenience and carry on. If you are really into telling stories at the table, think about just how shallow this kind of mechanic really is when compared to what you could be doing…

Alluring alternatives

Whether you’re interested in optimizing your story or you’re just interested in running a low-magic campaign and can’t figure out how players will identify the magic items they manage to find, there are a lot of great, flavorful alternatives to the identify spell, many of which can be achieved with minor tweaks to established mechanics based on old concepts.

Beefy bardic lore: The most obvious and established alternative springing to mind is to let bards use their class features to determine some of the general effects of the magic items in question. It’s more fun for the characters to have heard and regaled stories of the fantastic magic items in question, even if it’s imprecise, than for someone to spell the effects out for you on a piece of paper. After all, you have to nurture some kind of wonder in the game. Mechanically, simply adapting bardic lore over to the legend lore spell is all you really need to do if you want a seamless transition.

Knowledge-based skills: Another great and simple alternative is to allow players to use knowledge-based skills – namely, Arcana, History, Nature, and Religion – to remember things about the item in question. This will function similar to the adaptation above (namely, making these kinds of attempts into a legend lore invocation), albeit available to all characters. A fun stipulation to add is the knowledge gleaned about the item is based upon the quality of the roll: high rolls glean most – if not all – of the information available, average rolls glean enough to capture their interest, poor rolls simply mean the character doesn’t know anything, and a catastrophic roll means the character is certain but wrong about the item.

A homebrewed lore skill: If the above option interests you but seems too open as most characters will have one of those skills, consider adding an entirely new skill to the game: Lore. Though the specifics of the skill can be left up to the DM, the general gist is this: the players can attempt to identify items, places, and people based on stories that circulate through a culture (or perhaps many cultures). Again, based on the quality of the roll, the players could get all of the information, some of it, none of it, or all the wrong stuff.

Local historians/shamans: This is a great option for DMs who like to have a bevy of NPCs in the wings. If the players return from their conquest with an onyx crown emanating magic and that crown just so happens to be tied to a wizard who lived in that hamlet a century ago, mayhap an old sage would notice (or perhaps recognize) the item. Having an old sage stop them for a brief conversation about the piece and about their adventure is a great alternative for the measly identify. There can be a whole roleplaying encounter wherein the party follows the hobbling sage to his study, where he reveals to them the history of the crown and of the wizard – or at least the history according to the locals. This alternative is great for games where character interaction is in the forefront, but only if the historian gives them useful information in determining probable properties of the item. This can be easily done through quick, simple stories (possibly from journals the sage has collected) from eyewitnesses. Don’t get so caught up in the history that you lose sight of the purpose of the encounter, though. Give them some useful, accurate knowledge.

Books: A fun option that requires a bit more prep from the DM, the utilization of books in-game (or 5-10 page pamphlets out-of-game) provide a great way to get players involved in your game world. Writing and presenting five pages of history on a particular place – including a few bullet pointed events, people, and items of note – gives the players the option to dig a bit more into the game world you’ve prepped as well as a stellar mechanic of identifying items. It does take more prep work from the DM, but the outcome is so good!

“Hey, Lady Ophelia of the Most Noble Order of Awfully Lawfully Good Goodwives, you found a sword with a spherical emerald pommel. It just so happens I recently read about a great paladin who owned one of those in life. He died defending this very village from an orc invasion! He must have been buried nearby. I wonder how it came to us. We should find out more somehow!”- Example PC conversation

Boom. The story seed is planted, the players are all a-wonder, their anxieties of curses are somewhat relieved, and you’ve expanded on the local lore of the game setting in one move. That’s some powerful dungeon mastery. Use these sparingly and tactically, though, unless you really love writing a whole lot and the players spend time reading everything in-detail.

Item triggers: A familiar alternative to identify is to have a telltale trigger reacting to environmental conditions built into magic items. Say your party uncovers a golden ring that somehow turns its wearer imperceptible to the eye. Mayhap the bard in the party heard tales of a magical ring which could have this effect on its wearer, but it was made by the lord of darkness and destruction in his volcano forge. The only way to know for sure is to hold it over a roaring fire, after which Elvish runes bright as wildfire appear on the surface. Sound familiar? Nobody has to cast identify to uncover anything. This discovery is natural and flavorful and the wild wonderings of your party will fuel it even more.

Item triggers can be tricky to conceptualize but pay big dividends for heightening suspense around an item. They mesh seamlessly with other suggestions listed here. Perhaps your wizard has a book of famous wands and must perform acts like the one above in order to discern his own particular wand’s properties (i.e., a catalogue of famous wands, their properties, their descriptions, and how one may expose their magic without using it). Perhaps they consult a local shaman on the nature of a staff they discovered in a nearby druid circle and are advised to dip it into still moonlit waters. If they act thusly, they may see odd shapes swirling around it in the water, some vague moonlit orbs which revolve around the head of the staff in perfect segment and rhythm.

If you have a hard time coming up with item triggers, consider a few reliable options. Making the item’s imperceptible magic blatantly visible in the right circumstances, like moonlit water, smoke, high noon sunlight, etc. is probably the easiest method here because you simply have to present one of the properties in a visual fashion. Words which have been magically concealed also work exceptionally well and may tell the character outright what the item is. A concealed maker’s mark is a more esoteric option and can lead to more exploration (and thus heightened tensions). If you are interested in something a little more intense, instead of having a visual effect trigger, have the item itself activate in a visually stunning but effectually benign way. You can’t go wrong.

Contextual clues: This is some next-level stuff. My personal favorite alternative to identify is to craft the scenes in which the party discovers the items in such a way that an identify spell would be seen as purely a formality in any other game. Nailing this technique is tricky and the gauges are slight, but getting it right is extremely satisfying. It only works well if the players can glimpse and understand layers of context. It works best if they can solve immediate problems with it.

Perhaps your party discovers a hammer in the hall of an ancient dwarven warlord who gave his life in defense of a large mining town assaulted by an orcish raiding party. In the midst of purging his long-lost hall of the foul goblins who now reside therein, your brave party is ambushed by elite goblin warriors who quickly overwhelm some of your party members and leave the group reeling as a unit. You are forced to retreat into an unexplored portion of the mountain keep and stumble into a hall hewn straight from the mountain rock itself. Every square inch of wall space is filled with scenes of battle and heroism, particularly of a dwarven warlord literally flattening goblins with a gilded warhammer (possibly an embellishment but no other such embellishing images are seen anywhere).

On the far side of the stone hall you spot what appears to be a warhammer (how convenient!) untouched by the ages resting upon a cracked pedestal. Suddenly you hear the goblins smash through what remains of the rotten door and poor through the doorway towards you, only for them to stop wide-eyed merely paces beyond the threshold. They, though previously blinded by the scent of blood, now quake at the sight of the hammer.

What might players reasonably surmise and/or posit from this one dreadfully small excerpt without the use of identify?

1. Goblins greatly fear the hammer. It’s possible this is not just limited to them and may include other goblinoids as well.
2. The hammer is resistant to the wear of the ages, as evidenced by the contrast between cracked and crumbling pedestal and the pristine hammer.
3. According to the mural on the wall, the hammer hits with remarkable power, although that may just be against goblins and it may even simply be hyperbole.
4. The people of the mining town believed his weapon to be worthy of its own decorative hall. Normally, warriors are buried with their weapons, but this hammer was kept separate in a place of respect (and also, access). Perhaps the players could infer it wasn’t truly his weapon; he was simply its most notable wielder, as Arthur was to Excalibur.

If you want to take this idea next-level, have seers and fortune tellers who can scry revelatory scenes available to your party. Perhaps your players hire a seer to look into a sword’s past, wherein the seer observes a blade wrapped in bright blue flames plunging into the heart of a monstrous troll in a cornfield. A heavily-armored elven knight pulls the sword from the monster’s chest and kisses a holy symbol. What might the players glean from this one scene they watched in the crystal ball?

1. The sword likely has magical fiery properties in some fashion.
2. The sword probably belonged to a paladin, meaning this may be a holy sword requiring attunement (and all of the rigmarole that involves paladins and attunement, too).
3. The sword probably wasn’t cursed as the knight appeared to have his faculties and managed to best the monstrous troll on his own.
4. It likely belonged to a charitable paladin adventurer, as agrarian areas usually don’t have troupes of paladins protecting them as a city would and they usually can’t afford to pay them. Maybe this guy was a local hero and some historian in a nearby village would know more.

Your players discovered some avenues to pursue. They observed a few properties of the item and a little history along the way, but nothing is for certain as they may have made a few assumptions. What has the DM nurtured? A little discovery and a whole lot of escalating wonder. Jackpot.

Importance of improvisation

I know what you’re thinking: either “b-but my players would never pick up on that stuff and would just be confused,” or “what if there is a miscommunication or misunderstanding at any point? Then the whole thing is ruined!” Not so, fellow storyteller. Most of the problems folks have with this kind of storytelling approach can be solved with two simple guidelines: understand fixed items and scenes which are critical to the campaign, keeping a rigid world and story in the process; and improvise items and scenes which are not critical to the campaign, adjusting as necessary to preserve narrative tension/flow and player involvement. As long as you know what the weapon does as though you yourself had identified it in-game and the players are thinking and talking about what they are seeing, the issues will sort themselves out.

As far as actual mechanics of the item are concerned, you can implement the effects every time they act even if they aren’t aware that you are applying bonuses behind the screen. And if you’re worried about them rabbit-trailing a dozen different ways, just take note of their curious/paranoid ramblings and use some of their ideas. The best part is your scene (and likely the whole session) becomes extraordinarily tasty if these kinds of contextual clues land with people but you can still improvise around it if they don’t. Win/win, anyone?

What could still be

All of this is great, but sometimes players just like to have some definitive knowledge of a few key points and want to use identify to get them. Sure, it kills all mystery and is a lazy storytelling vehicle for everybody involved, but some things are just important to know regardless of game flavor. I hear you and I agree with you.

In my games, identify can still determine if attunement is necessary, the presence of intelligence within the item, the presence of curses, and the general type and strength of magic within the item. For example if it steals life on a critical hit, identify could sense the presence of oft-inconsequential, intermittently-powerful siphoning magic. This covers most bases for player anxieties and will, in most cases, let them in on some extra perks about the item if they think it through (i.e, if it requires attunement, it’s probably at least a +1).

Now it’s a beefier, more precise detect magic that can make sure magic items won’t screw a character into next week. Some poor folks are just cautious because they have been screwed by lousy DMss who enjoy screwing people. If you nurture some trust like a responsible DM and implement the above methods, identify should never be necessary, but this way your players can have it as a security measure just in case.

Speaking of which…

What should never be

There are a plethora of reasons why a DM might get frustrated with identify being spammed in a session like it’s a cantrip. Many such motivations (the desires for more game flavor, more mystery, more roleplaying, etc.) are reasonable. Let’s briefly talk about the one that isn’t valid: the screwjob.

If you want players to leave something unidentified so something dangerous – or worse, embarrassing – happens to one of your player-characters, ask yourself if this is going to be enjoyable for the folks at the table (hint: it probably won’t be). Players should never feel screwed in the first place. If you want to eliminate or reduce identify so you can nail them with more gotcha moments, take a moment to realize you’re the reason why this lousy spell has to exist.

The game opens up for you and for the players when you trust one another. It might be worth a chuckle when that player unwittingly picks up the Sword of Phlegm, but that player might be less likely to take a risk later in the future. Observing curses can be funny but players can very easily feel screwed over and not participate as much going forward. A few humiliations and minor gags aren’t worth harming the trust between the players and the DM. Removing identify from your game so you can hoodwink your players is downright damaging for the structures you’ve been trying to build. Avoid it.

Summary

Whether you’re looking for some low-magic alternatives to identify or you just want a little more zest in your game, you can come up with some truly great material if you simply house-rule the spell a bit to suit your storytelling goals and soothe your players’ anxieties (or tickle their curiosities). Just as there’s more than one sensible reason for removing identify from your game, there are a plethora of ways to replace it in a fashion most fun for your players. In the end, that’s what it’s really all about.

Some alternatives to identify include:

• Beefing up bardic lore if you want to keep identification completely specialized
• Knowledge-based skill checks if you want something a vague and accessible
• A homebrew Lore skill for something specialized without requiring multiclassing
• Consulting local historians or shamans in-game for more NPC interaction
• Introducing books for a truly immersive identifying experience
• Including item triggers to heighten the tenets of discovery and wonder in conjunction with another option
• Collecting contextual clues for an amazing gaming experience centered on discovering and utilizing an item

What alternatives to identify have you used? Did you come up with one that I missed? Let me know in the comments below!

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