Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Does Anyone Else Miss The Identify Mechanic From BG1 & 2?

It might just be me, but I really felt it added to the interest and excitement of new magic items not knowing exactly what they did from the get-go. I haven't got a big D&D background but I did see that Identify is still a spell in 5e; I was thinking it could be an option to right click an item and choose Identify for an Arcana check to reveal its secrets, or pay a fee at some traders like Ethel to discover their properties.

It is still a thing in Solasta at least. I can’t say I really notice the impact of not having to identify items, but I found it to be nice roleplaying feature of older RPGs.

Edit1. Thinking about it though, I think identify has a subtle positive impact on my gameplay experience. In RPGs it is common for me to not know what is in my inventory.

BG1&2 are different. I don't think identify is the sole reason (relatively humble capacity, a good pacing of acquiring items, meaningful progression, unique items that don't blend together) but I think it is a reason. When player acquires an item he needs to invest resources to learn what it is - in per-rest cast, item, or money.

I remember reading about Devil May Cry progression, where the designer said that when player pay for a skill, one or two at the time, they are more likely to see them as valuable and try them out.

I tend to remember items in Baldurs Gate games better then in other RPGs - where I found them, and what they do. I think this is part of it - you pick items which is clearly marked as magical. Then you need to pay to see what it is. After that I read carefully lore and see what I got. I think that paying for reveal makes playera pay more attention and think what they can get out of the investment they just made.

On the other hand, I must admit I don't know BG3 items very well. They just collect dust in my inventory, and even if I equip them I can't tell you what each character is carrying. On the other hand, I know pretty well who in my current BG1 play through is carrying and each item I found so far.

yes and the way better lore items had... two liners we get just don't cut it.

BG 3 does have a nice examine/inspect option though that's cool loosk nice. They could have used that way better for different things. From item lore to maps txts and quest related things..

It has been suggested on Larian Discord, looks like it is quite unpopular there.

In BG1 early on you find items like Ring the Princes with hand drawn illustration and history, and a substantial +1 AC and Saving Throws. Or a Wand of Fire with a couple charges left. Identifying those is exciting. They're cool and powerful, and you don't feel let down at all when you ID them.

In BG3 having to ID the 15th Ring of "if you are below 50% and Dash, your heals give target Disengage" crap wouldn't be very exciting. The magic items in general are not exciting in BG3. They're just gamey magical MMO style junk where grinding for gear is the entire purpose of the game. That's not the purpose in an RPG. It's much more important the items are cool and unique. Less is definitely more, and I hope Larian will get that.

To the OP yes I do miss it. The necessity to investigate the provenance of rare items created a sense of discovery, rather than everything being served on a plate. Why would a Warrior be able to work out what a magical ring does? Only a specialist should be able to identify the abilities of rare items.

Also, the BG3 item descriptions like ‘this sword emanates a dark power’ cannot compare to the lovely anecdotes of items in BG1 & 2, like who owned it and what it was used for.

Hmm, pluses and minuses.

I actually found it a bit irritating in BG1 when every spell slot counted so using one for Identify seemed a waste and it basically encouraged rest spamming. Or given that I recognised the items even if my characters didn’t, I just used those Arrows of Fire, etc without identifying them. I know temples could identify but again the cost was so high it was prohibitive for early game characters. It was better later in BG1 and in BG2 when characters had higher lore and could identify more without spells, level 1 spell slots were less precious, or there were those glasses in BG2 that gave you three identifies a day. But the fact every single magical item required identification and had to be examined specifically by a character with high enough lore still meant some annoying inventory shuffling, and identification felt less consequential once the only real cost was in slightly irritating make-work.

But I agree that, at least initially, it did build up the anticipation and excitement around finding magical items. If it were used sparingly (eg for unique items only) then it could be a fun touch.

I think identify should be in the game. It was pretty neat in BG1 when I was playing it, and I actually enjoyed it in Solasta, I thought it was a pretty cool inclusion.

It makes the items seem more mysterious, and generates anticipation, which to me is fun. They could tweak how much Identify's cost depending on how powerful the item is, there's a lot of trash items in BG3 presently, and some would be less enthused to pay for their identification. In 5e, the 100 gp pearl is not consumed in the casting of Identify, unlike 2e D&D, so I think the price for identify should be reduced anyway.

Not to mention, Identify has other uses besides identifying magic items, it can be used for problem solving relating to what spells are operating/were used to create with regard to items and creatures.

The Identify spell can be ritually cast in 5e, so it no longer takes up a spell slot. This would remove some of the anticipating gotten from needing to use a valuable resource to identify items, making it more busywork-like. That said, I still enjoy the process of finding a clearly-magical item in Solasta, theorizing about what it could be based on its name and gold cost, then casting Identify on it to see what it is.

I agree that magic items would need to be much rarer and more impactful (description and mechanic-wise) for Identify to be a positive in BG3. We get so many of them, and their effects are so...weird, that having to Identify each one individually would probably just end up being tedious.

Personally, I'm fine with it being automatically identified. In Solasta and BG1&2 it feels more like a chore after a while, when you start to recognise the basic model for things, and a party slot tax. Solasta added an Arcane Appraiser feat in the last DLC to automatically identify stuff and picking it up made the experience feel so much better.

Not having to identify stuff is a definite quality of life improvement. It wouldn't be a huge deal to have to do it, but it is mostly busy work.

its part of D&D so yes id like it part of the game... and not just couse of the identify aspect... Properly identifying a magic item shows cursed or nasty side effecs that a lore/arcane check could miss... but hey, its not a huge thing, but its one of those old spooky effects, you just dident equip a magic item couse that could be severly dangerous...

So while QoL features is nice, it also takes away from the world, it gets more streamlined and mundane... and ultimatly why do we play fantasy games, isnt it to escape from just that ?

It depends on the general game mechanics. If magic items are RARE and powerful then it brings the excitement of discovery but if the game has lots of trash tear magic items in every corner then it will be just a busywork that no one will appreciate. Right now the game is trending towards lots of magic trash route. For instance, if you can get a magic item only by completing some quest and no more than a couple at a time, then identifying separately would make sense.

One thing that might alleviate some folks aversion to an 'identify' mechanic might be what was done in the original Baldur's Gate series. Basically, classes had a Lore stat that went up with level, allowing one to identify basic items fairly easily, it was just the more powerful items that needed you to cast the spell or pay a vendor to identify the item. I don't remember how it was actually implemented, but Bards had the highest increase in Lore per level, then wizards, then Clerics and Rogues, and so forth.

Yes. IIRC, when a character examined an unidentified item a check was done against their lore, and if passed the full item description would pop up and the item would be classed as identified. But you still had to manually examine the items and, for harder to identify items shuffle them to a bard or other high lore class. If the lore check had used the best score in the party and executed when the item was picked up rather than examined that would have been less of a faff.

I'm not sure whether 5e has an equivalent for items. I guess an Arcana check for magical items would make sense.

Yeah, I thought about Arcana, and it makes the most sense, but then 'identifying' would then always default to Wizards. I suppose players could still use Gale for it. Since, even if they were proficient in Arcana, they wouldn't be too good at it, given they're not intelligence based classes.

For what it worth, there is something about the identify spell in the game's code.
I guess the system as a whole is not implemented (yet?) but there is an icon, there is a spell description and so on.

I really like having to identify magical items in DnD games. It makes the break in towns/villages you have during your adventures appealing.
I like spending time in towns or villages to take/end quests, sell my stuff, identify and equip new items, buy ammunitions or new equipments and so on.

But I'm not sure how it would work in BG3 considering that :
- there are currently a ton of magical items
- there aren't any ritual spells
- having breaks that last for more than a few seconds does not seem to be an objective (don't need to buy ammunition, not so many things to buy because merchants have less magical items than goblins, not so many quests, don't need to be at camp to prepare your spells,...).

While I do understand why people like the idea, I'm not eager to add any more busy-work to this game.

Auto-identifying items works fine for me. Inventory management is a big enough time sink already and we haven't even met all the companions yet.

This is a weird one - I know we haven't seen it in the game at all, but Swen did say Identify was going to be at the initial AMA (See point 12):
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/fhk1u3/im_swen_vincke_creative_director_at_larian/fkbrh94/


But who knows, long development, maybe priorities shifted / design goals changed.

If you asked me if it's going to be in the game, I'm thinking 50/50

Good news, or old news, i havent see that quate, thanks !