NOTE: This blog post was intended to go up several days ago. However, I had to go into surgery, and therefore had to delay the posting of this entry. It also prevented me from properly editing it...there aren't any images, clever captions, and it might come off choppy. That said, I hope you all enjoy.
I think my last post betrayed the fact that I have a deep and abiding love for cool magic items. I love peppering enemies' inventories and weapons-stores with neat little trinkets.
I think my last post betrayed the fact that I have a deep and abiding love for cool magic items. I love peppering enemies' inventories and weapons-stores with neat little trinkets.
I
think the designers of D&D 5e love them, as well, based on some
of their design decisions. Traditionally, you see, discovering and
identifying magic items boiled down to, mostly, a single spell.
Detect Magic.
This was the case all the way back in AD&D, and remains the case
in modern games like Pathfinder. A group of adventurers comes across
a chest full of treasure, and they immediately cast detect
magic
to see if any of it glows with the light of potentially-cool powers.
D&D 5e changed this. In 5e, everyone knows that a magic item is
magic as soon as they pick it up. It radiates an aura that can be
felt
by anyone, like a magical sixth sense.
So,
then...what's the point of detect
magic?
Why does it still exist?
