Identify on merchant

[Eltsac]

Hello,

Just a good addition I would find in game.
With time, there are some magical items being sold by merchant (seeing their price, I hope they are magical )
This will be more and more frequent with +X weapons and armors being more present in game.

But who would pay a great price for an item without knowing what it does?
And it is IC to think that a merchant knows what the items he sells do. If not, he would not sell magical items at such price without knowing what is magic :p

So I would add 2 things :

- first, what do you think of showing automatically the magic flag in the merchant items list for magical items? (IC, it is like the merchant telling you those items are magical)

- second, is : is it possible to add on merchant an identify command :
identify <merchant> <item> (or item number in the list)
It would cost the price of the identify components. For that price, the merchant tells you what the item does (it shows the identify result to the player).

It won't help you identify your own item, only what then merchant items.
It is IC to have the merchant telling you what the item does, and so why he sells it at that expensive price.
And it is important to be able to know what a magical item does before spending a lot of coins buying it.

Just my idea

El

[Raona]

I could see folks selling their item and then having the merchant identify it for them...though that would be expensive. If that turns out to be a point of abuse, perhaps they can be made to be unwilling to re-sell items at random. I like this suggestion.

[Eltsac]

Yes! One who like the idea
Nearly thought I was alone

Well I have thought about the abuse too, but then considenring magical items are expensive, the cost for sell / buy back would be much more expensive than asking a mage for it.

[Nysan]

It is not so much a matter of like/dislike of this idea, for me. It is more a distrust of identify and its failure to identify a number of magical items. Until that issue is worked out, I have been avoid identify related ideas. I'm not against shops offering free identifying on items, I'm against the dreaded "magic flag without information".

[Lathlain]

I'm in favour of this idea, completely. Having to buy an object in order to find out what it does isn't a lot of fun - finding out that it isn't magical is less so! Given the number of items passing into the hands of NPC merchants, I can see this being a valuable addition to the game.

As for the limitations of the identify spell - this is more an issue with certain items than it is with the spell. Make sure you send all improperly flagged items and objects that can't be identified to the bug forum!

[Selveem]

It's always annoyed me that sometimes something can be very expensive and you still don't know whether or not it's magic. I was thinking it might be nice that if you contract a wizard to look at the list for you while he or she has detect magic on, they would be able to tell.

Currently, we have a space to the left of an object when typing list. I was thinking we could add a light blue ~ or something to the left of that object.

[Adabelle]

Agreed!

[Cret]

Like.

[Zorinar]

Actually, that is a nice idea. Lots of times I wonder if I buy items from a shop because its expensive and think it just MUST be magically to be so pricey only to find out its not..

I would love it if list on a merchant showed the buyer the detect magic flag.

[Melusine]

I just had to say that I really love this idea. It'd make a lot of sense, as any possible buyer would want to know all about what they're buying. And it'd really simplify things when it comes to the high-priced items!

[Eltsac]

I had posted another idea on the subject here a while ago :
Another thread

El

[Selveem]

Then I'll take it that you are in support of the idea! ;D

[Raona]

<Topics merged>

This idea has a lot of support, so lets turn it into an "enhancement request" (like a bug report for Mask, but it asks for something new to be added to the game).

How should this work, in detail?

* LIST gives a light blue ~ to the left of magical objects if someone uses it with detect magic on?
* CAST IDENTIFY can target items in a merchant's list?

-or-

*Merchants do it for you: the blue ~ is automatic, and if you ask about an item in a merchant's inventory, they give you the identify results?

[Eltsac]

Well, as I said, I don't have any problem having merchant doing it automatically as I find it IC for him to know what he sells... would help having all the new random rewards being sold and bought

(And considering the price of a magical items, you won't sell yours for identification :p)

El

[Gwain]

<Topics merged>
* LIST gives a light blue ~ to the left of magical objects if someone uses it with detect magic on?

Not all casters recieve identify, I would use detect magic as the requirement.

[Selveem]

They may not all have it, but in reality the merchants should all have high enough skill in appraisal to have good suspicion as to whether or not it's magical even without being wizards themselves. Include the fact that they will likely utilize wizards within cities and the towns to validate the worth of an item, I don't see why it matters if the individual user has detect magic or identify spells.

[Harroghty]

Hm. I disagree with that, Selveem.

The denizens of what is now South America knew that the Spanish ships were important, but could not begin to tell you why except that they were large (they believed them to be gods). In other words, I can tell something is expensive without knowing exactly why - or knowing the correct reason.

I believe that PCs affected by Detect Magic should see which items are magical when they use the 'list' command. If a PC can use Identify (cast it, read it from a scroll, etc.) then they may be able to identify an item in the merchant's inventory. I do not believe that the identification should be provided by the merchant. Melgard, for example, is a leather worker and he would probably not know a thing about the potential of a magical sword even though he might sell one.

[Selveem]

Then I give you the reverse if you want to look at it that way, Harroghty.

Why would he be trying to sell a blade under the magical price if he doesn't know it's magical? Why would it become even more expensive if it was a +2 weapon if he can't tell the difference between a masterwork and a magical item to begin with?

Realistically, it's like Pawn Stars; if they see something they think is expensive but aren't sure whether it's not authentic or even 'magical.' Then, they consult their experts (wizards) to find out for sure. If they didn't, they are idiots and deserve to be taken.

[Harroghty]

If I found a big shiny sword then I would charge you through the nose for it and I'd probably tell you that it was magical whether I knew or not. I would have no motivation to go through the trouble of identifying it because the average adventurer would buy a big shiny sword just because it was big and shiny, especially if I told him it was magical. If he or she is not pleased with their purchase then they can shop at the other most highly trafficked merchant in Waterdeep.

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the [Faerunian] public."

[Selveem]

No one's talking about glowing. Many magical items aren't even noticeably magic with detect magic spells. In fact, none of the magical items I have noticed have a glowing flag. Certainly, a masterwork sword is noticeably different, but that doesn't make it magical and based on your explanation/justification, they wouldn't know it from any other really-well-made sword. So, why would they charge more for it? Why would they offer to pay more for it?