Identify Spell

Identify Spell is an Information-type Knowledge spell that identifies a spell if it has been cast recently (in about the last five seconds), or is being cast at the moment, on or by the subject.Magic, p.102 
* Cost: 2
* Prerequisite: Detect Magic
Identify Spell works on all spells that are being cast on or by the subject. If the spell is completely unknown to the caster, the GM can still provide a vague description, e.g. "They have some kind of spell of physical protection" or "they can definitely see through the fog". 
It does not identify enchantments on a permanently enchanted item, nor detect spells that were cast a while ago (see Analyze Magic for that).
== As an Enchantment ==
Staff, wand, or jewelry. Energy cost to create: 1,100.
== Setting Considerations ==
In a setting with complex variations on spells, Identify Spell can be useful for learning what techniques a mage is using, similar to a martial artist determining their opponent's fighting style. Likewise, settings with "Big and Obvious" spellcasting, Identify Spell might only be useful for detecting subtle or underhanded spellcasting.
== Solutions? ==
=== Specialty ===
To reflect people who are better at identifying spells than casting them, but still wanting to have Identify capped by skill in that spell, you could do an optional "meta specialty" of any spell (hard becomes average) where it is for non-casting purposes (identifying, countering, suspending, etc). To actually cast it would be -2 (net -1 to base: effectively +1 to identify/counter/suspend vs -1 to cast)
=== Familiarity ===
Familiarity rules might be related in some way. If you "have the skill" it takes 8 hours "practice" to gain familiarity.
*since lack of familiarity is -2, the natural option to allow reduction to -1 (half familiar) after 4 hours occurs.
*this is intended for "equipment" but B345 Equipment Modifiers could be ENTIRELY appropriate for magic if using the Magic Ingredients option. It's a healthy middle ground to allow non-ingredient casting at -5 rather than not allowing it at all
B292 requires 200 hours "learning" to get 1 skill point, B293 describes 4 hours "on the job" as 1 hour of learning. This is the least efficient ratio: 800 hours to get 1 skill point. This is 100x as much time as it takes to gain Familiarity, so Familiarity might be thought of as 0.01 character points.
*rate of familiarity gain could be doubled by self-teaching or quadrupled by teacher-teaching, but then you can't be working!
GMs do not normally award bonus points in such small increments, but nothing stops it.. .and they could certainly note 0.01 values of Familiarities on a character sheet if they wanted to.
The rule of 6 makes the value of 7+ somewhat diminishing though.
=== Dabbling ===
Dabbler notably allows subdivision of a character point: for example using 8 slots, 25% per skill, four defaults could be +2. Allowing that 25% to buy 25 familiarities could one option, though it is extremely generous.
Another approach might simply be to require at least a 1/8 Dabbler spot to represent spell familiarity. This would mean you must know the spell at slightly better than default (if even +1) to be familiar with it. This is cheaper than requiring a minimum of 1 point to be put into it.
Since Dabbler requires defaults, this requires using either the T38 spell Defaults option, or the Wizardly Dabbler option.
The latter is meant to be "entry level" dabbler, because you don't know any other spells in the college for it to default to.
It essentially treats all non-prereq spells as defaulting to IQ-7 since per standard dabbler ratios +1 is iq-6 / +2 is iq-5 / +3 is iq-4
*there is no way for WD to give hard spells iq-3, and 1 point in a hard skill buys it up to IQ-2 per M170
**WD for Least of Spells otoh since they are average, would probably default to iq-6, giving them 5/4/3 dabble forms .. still creating a hole for them at iq-2, since 1 point in average buys to iq-1
***the solution might be something like allowing somewhere between 5 and 7 slots as buying +4 to default: not 4 because that's the price of +3 and not 8 because that's like a full point in the skill
=== DEFAULT solution ===
A less restrictive approach would be rather than requiring a Dabbler investment, to just require that you COULD buy Dabbler for it: namely that it has a default ability. You could cast it.
=== Standard ===
For standard magic, this requires one of two approaches:
*T38 Spell Defaults: you have "heard of" every spell in a college if you know 1 spell in that college. You would know "less about" spells you could not cast very well, so using the cap system is better here.
**if this is not a basic rule, such default would only be possible with the Magical Styles perk which allows it
*the reverse-engineering of Wizardly dabbler which implies an IQ-7 default (as with Thaumatology) for all Basic Spells (hard)
**Least of Spells defining Trivial Spells as average implies they would have IQ-6 defaults
=== Ritual ===
Since in theory you can CAST all spells (even if you take Incompetent for your path!) this creates a problem.
Another problem is that there is generally little use for the Spell Defaults approach (even if techniques can default to each other, you're probably better off using the path's penalty.
There is also no "Dabbler" incentive here. In fact, specialization is really discouraged by making it a 2-point entry Hard technique. There is an approach to solve this:
*first, make them Average, this means it's just 1 point to buy off the first -1 of the technique, 2 points to buy off -2, etc.
**this is just easier bookkeeping
*make the no-points default an extra -4 (-4 for 0 prereqs, -5 for 1 prereq, etc).
**1 full point buys this off, then allow 4slots/2slots/1slot dabbler to buy off 3/2/1 respectively
This way 1 slot dabbler (giving PRC-3 to path) could represent familiarity and a very limited capacity at casting it.
Since this approach makes the techniques 1 step easier to master...
The introduction of "average" spells in Least of Spells probably means THEY should be the new "default" use of it.
*add an extra -1 for hard spells (this offsets making Hard>Average tech)
*add -2 for VH spells
*add +1 for easy spells
Easy spells do not exist (even in TLOS) but could be an "optional specialty" of the new Trivial Spells called Specialized Trivial (like for example, just for countering/identifying but not casting, which is at -2)
== References ==
category:spells