In a low-magic campaign, identifying magic items can be difficult and expensive. These alternate rules allow anyone with the proper skills to identify items, given enough time and expertise. The process can be long and difficult, however.

First, you must spend one hour meditating to clear your mind, followed by seven hours examining the item. This time does not need to be continuous, but the hour of meditation must be repeated after any break longer than an hour.

Once the eight hours are complete, a skill check is rolled secretly by the DM. For this purpose, a Bardic Knowledge check can be used in place of any Craft or Knowledge skills, with a -5 penalty. An Appraise check can be used in place of Craft or Knowledge skills with a -10 penalty.

The skill used depends on the item to be identified:

If the modified roll is at least:

DC+15: The character can guess some of the history of the item, as per Legend Lore, in addition to learning all properties of the item as per Identify Item. Reaching this DC can also determine whether an item is cursed.

DC+7: The character learns all properties of the item, as per Identify.

DC: The character learns one property of the item, or one fact about it. This often won't be overly specific, but it will provide insight into the basic purpose of the item. For example, the character might learn that an item can create Fireballs, without learning how many dice of damage they inflict.

If the check fails by 10 or more, the character learns one piece of misinformation about the item.

This check can be re-tried on the same item, but each attempt requires two more hours of study than the previous attempt.

None of these can reduce the base DC below 15.

• By committing additional time to the study of the item, one can reduce the DC. For every doubling of the study period (not including the hour of meditation), the DC will be reduced by 1. No more than one doubling can be accumulated in any 24 hour period. Remember that, in D&D, two doublings is a tripling.
• One can accelerate the study period. For every hour the duration is reduced, the DC increases by 2, to a minumum of one hour. For every 10 minutes the duration is reduced beyond that, the DC increases by 2, to a minumum of zero. So completely eliminating a 7 hour study period increases the DC by 24.
• The meditation period can be reduced as well. For every 10 minutes removed, the DC increases by 1, to a minimum of zero (one round). So eliminating a 7 hour study period and reducing the entire identification time to one round increases the DC by 30.
• One can spend an hour concocting an alchemical solution of various rare minerals. Drinking this solution clears the mind, and decreases the DC by 4. The alchemist must succeed at a DC20 craft(alchemy) check, or the solution has no positive effect, and causes 2 constitution damage, which lasts 24 hours. The materials cost 100GP.
• Alternatively, any spellcaster can perform a ritual requiring a crushed pearl worth 100gp, which decreases the DC by 4. The materials are destroyed in the process. The time required for the ritual is included in the duration of the meditation period.

If the DM uses this optional rule, Identify will not automatically determine all properties of an item. Instead, it:

• Gives you a +15 bonus on your skill check.
• Reduces the duration of the meditation period to 1 round.
• Reduces the duration of the study period by 6 hours (minimum 1).
• May be retried without increasing the duration of the study period.
• Allows you to use your Spellcraft skill in place of the required skill, but with a -5 penalty.
• If one attempt reveals a particular property, the next successful attempt by the same caster is guaranteed to reveal a different property.

If the DM uses this optional rule, Analyze Dwoemer will not automatically determine all properties of items. Instead, it behaves like the modified Identify, above, except that it:

• Gives you a +20 bonus on your skill check.
• Eliminates the study period.