I'll do a high open ended roll upon successful cast for determining level of detail given. This is based on the character's knowledge, e.g. demon law, symbol lore, if they know the spell themselves etc. This is for a 'medium' magic game, not high powered stuff everywhere and the details given are fairly brief anyway.
Other detecting lists/spells could be Holy Vision, Detect Curse (this has been used in a game I was in).
I suppose it depends on the specific game at hand and how far you want to take it, but research in an Alchemy lab as a type of 'reverse engineering' to determine an item's purpose could be allowed. Although I've never tried that.
Maybe high level evaluation/scholar type characters could help shed light on an item's magical properties as well.
One of the characters in my campaign picked up a magic item. The magic is a (Channeling) spell that was researched by a secretive sect, and generally unknown to others. I'm trying to figure out what can be learned with the various spells and skills - an area I always feel RM2 makes way too complex.
- A Staves/Wands roll, blind, may allow attunement. Does the player have to then use the power to understand just what it does?
- Detect [Realm] only shows that it is or is not enchanted with [Realm] magic. Or do others allow it to identify the exact spell? (In which case, why have Perceive Power and Detect Spell at higher levels?)
- Dark or Light Lore? Does knowing "the nature" give details or just say something like "enhances your defenses"?
- Item Analysis, Detect Spell both run into the issue that the spell being detected is unknown to others. Does this reveal it?
- Force Analysis? While I am a bit amused at the idea they have to ask a demon what the item does, that seems an extreme step, and limited to an evil magician.
In general, I'm curious how much information other DMs dole out for the various detection spells. It might help if you note whether your campaign is high- or low-magic. (Mine's pretty low magic.)
Jengada
