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Is there, or has there been, an official list of what aura magic items give?

The sensing of auras has been pretty universal throughout many editions of D&D. In a campaign I'm building, the schools of magic will play an important role. Each school is represented by a color, is diametrically opposed to another, and so forth. Because of this, I'd like to adjust my descriptions accordingly. Instead of:

The wand radiates Enchantment and some Necromancy.

The wand is glowing orange with black veins pulsing to the beat of some unknown heart.

However, in all my research, I've never seen a list where magic items have been matched up to the aura they radiate. Some I could guess as being what spell they replicate, but there are too many that wouldn't match up easily. I understand that the description states, ". learn its school of magic, if any." I would prefer not to rule, "If it doesn't cast a spell, it doesn't have a school of magic." That just seems like a cop out, but it may be the only answer. I'm not asking for how to match items up; that would be opinion-based and likely "needs focus". I am asking for something WotC (or an affiliate) has put out with a table/ruling. Obviously, if the list came from an older edition, things won't match up exactly, but would give me a good starting point. And if it turns out, that non-spell casting items have no school, then so be it.

\$\begingroup\$ As for the "if any"; I wouldn't say it's a cop out, but then I may understand schools of magic differently. If the known spells can't approximate the effect, nor understand how they work, they can't be classified in one of the schools of magic. E.g. let's say you had an item that did time travel (ignoring that 5e has a time magic school now, because a) I don't like it, and b) I can't think of another example off the top of my head). If you therefore had a device that dealt with time travel, it wouldn't be one of the 8, but would be magic. So it wouldn't have a school. No school = weird stuff. \$\endgroup\$

\$\begingroup\$ @sharur: "ignoring that 5e has a time magic school now" – To be fair, Chronurgy Magic is a wizard subclass from EGtW, and has some exclusive spells, but it isn't an actual "school of magic" like abjuration or conjuration. The spells from EGtW each still fall into one of the 8 schools of magic. \$\endgroup\$

\$\begingroup\$ @V2Blast Fair enough, it appears you are right. I was trying to think of something that wasn't covered by the 8 schools, and time travel came to mind, and then "they made a school for this in EGtW, didn't they" popped into mind, and I couldn't think of another example, hence my disclaimer. \$\endgroup\$

\$\begingroup\$ @sharur The Dunamancy spells from EGtW were each given one of the conventional spell schools, for the purpose of being compatible with non-Wildemount games, but if your game is taking place in Wildemount, labeling these spells "dunamancy" instead of the listed schools would be appropriate, and probably preferable for the setting. \$\endgroup\$

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2 Answers 2

I keep a "world inventory" of magic items in my campaign notes that contains this information.

Is there an official list? No, at least, not for 5th Edition. But I have to make this answer more interesting than that, so I'll tell you how I handle exactly this issue in my campaigns.

First, and I think everyone should do this for longer campaigns, keep an inventory of the magic items that exist or could exist in the world. This doesn't work so well if you use random tables for giving out loot, but I don't do that. At any given time, this list will have the party's existing magic items and information about those items, any magic items owned by significant NPCs and information about those items, and a pool of items I've hand selected for adding to loot or shops. The biggest this list has ever gotten for me is 15 or 20 items, thereabouts.

As I mentioned before, there is no official list for this. But because I have had my players ask me several times what school of magic a magic item was, I started adding that information to the details I include in my magic item inventory. The way I determine the school for a particular item is to compare to spells of similar effect, and consult the brief school descriptions given in the Wizard class description. For example, I give basic +X armor and weapons the Transmutation school, since magic weapon is a Transmutation spell and the description of Transmutation is about magically altering natural things.

I do this for every magic item I add to the world, so when a player inevitably detects magic on an weapon in a shop, or the sword on the king's side, I've already taken the time to think through it and don't have to give an off-the-cuff answer.

What Does Detect Magic Detect?

Note: I apologize for the lateness of this article and for the topic change. I also apologize for not having a Proofreadaloud to go along with this one. It has been a very difficult time for me personally. I’ll have a further update next week.

Today, I’m rambling about magic and rules and magic rules. Why? Because it’s a miserable, gray day and it’s the last day of a miserable kind of month. And because, a few days ago, someone asked a really interesting question in the Angry supporter Discord about rules and magic. These are topics that have been on my mind lately: magic, the rules of magic, detect magic, and identify. And because the discussion that ensued in the Discord server — most of which I missed because I’ve been away for the better part of a week now — led me to read the dumbest-ass official answer to a rules question I’ve ever read. So far.

Not that I read a lot of them. Seriously. I don’t waste my time reading shit like Crawford’s Twitter feed or the Sage Advice column because I literally don’t give a crap about official rulings on the rules as written and the rules as intended. In fact, I consider those to be the worst answers to any GM’s question about how to run the game. But that’s only because the official answers have a really crappy track record of being the best answers.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The point is, I’m rambling about magic and rules and magic rules and detect magic and identify because that’s what I want to do today. And because I think there’s a very useful lesson for Game Masters to learn here.

Besides, it was either jumping in on the topic of detect magic and identify or discussing — for the fiftieth freaking time — why d20 swinginess is not a problem and why the problem that people keep mistaking for swinginess can’t be fixed with numbers or math. And I’ve got to hold something back for next month.

What Does Detect Magic Detect; What Does Identify Identify?

Angry Discordian mAc Chaos recently posed a question in the Angry supporter Discord server.
In mAc Chaos’ Dungeons & Dragons 5E game, there are substances — like ectoplasm and magical flower sap and whatnot — that have properties that make them useful in crafting magical items. And they also have magical effects on creatures when consumed or rubbed on the skin or whatnot. mAc Chaos wanted to know how those items interact with the detect magic and identify spells. What would those spells reveal about the items in question?

Go ahead and think about how you’d answer that question. Take a minute. Then read on.

There followed a very long discussion — like it went on for more than a day — that basically amounted to a bunch of rules analysis. I’m going to call them rules lawyer answers. Because they’re based on reading the rules and interpreting them. And nothing else.

I’m not going to go through all the answers. I will, below, give the correct and official, “by the book” answer which is pants-on-head retarded and shows everything that’s wrong with the rules lawyer approach. But it also shows some pretty piss poor underlying game design.

But first, I want to talk through all the ways there are to answer that question. The methods by which any Game Master might arrive at an answer.

Describe the World or Design a Game

Given a question like that above, one that arises from the players taking an actual action in the game world that isn’t wholly described in the rules — or one whose rules answer isn’t easy to remember to find — there are basically three ways to answer the question. First, you can pick apart the rules and try to an answer by interpreting the exact wording of every rule. That’s the rules lawyer answer I mentioned above. Second, you can think about how the fictional game world works and then give the answer that best describes that world. And, third, you think about which answer would lead to the best gameplay experience.

I don’t think anyone here doubts that the second and third approaches are the best because, in the end, as a Game Master, you’re trying to provide the best narrative and gameplay experience you can. So, whenever you have to make a call, you should always aim for one of those.
But we also tend to assume that the rules lawyer’s answer will lead us to an answer that maximizes the narrative or gameplay experience or both. After all, isn’t that precisely what game designers should do?

More to the point, in a well-designed game, all three answers should be in the same ballpark, right?

But, check this out: if the answer isn’t immediately obvious from the rules as written — if it requires any interpretation or discussion — then the rules aren’t going to give you the best narrative or gameplay answer. And I can prove it.

First, the best narrative answer — the answer that best describes the game’s world — should be reasonably intuitive. That is, if you understand the world of the game the way a Game Master should, then the descriptive answer should just reveal itself with a little thought.

Second, the best gameplay answer is the one that is logical and consistent. It’s the one that players can predict so that they can make good choices. This means, again, it should logically follow from the question with very little thought. If you have to think about it for too long, you probably don’t have a logical, predictable, consistent answer.

In other words, if the rules aren’t obvious and intuitive, they’re not leading you to the right place.

And you shouldn’t trust them.

Intuition is the Opposite of Looking Things Up

There is, as it turns out, an official answer about what detect magic actually detects. And it is batshit insane. It’s a terrible answer. It’s found in the Sage Advice Compendium under the question “Is the breath weapon of a dragon magical?” Because it gives you the conditions under which something counts as “magical.”

I’ll let you read the answer for yourself. But, in summary, there are two types of magic in the world of Dungeons and Dragons. There’s the magic that exists as part of the world. Part of the fiction. And there’s the magic described in the rules of magic. The game’s rules, not the world’s rules.

If you doubt that’s what’s being said — if you want to get finicky and nitpicky about my summary — note that the conditions for something to count as “magical according to the rules” can only be assessed by reading the names and descriptions of the things in the rulebooks. Either it’s a named magical item or a named spell or it uses spell slots or the description explicitly uses the word “magical.” And if you troll through the Monster Manual, you’ll discover how few obviously magical things are actually magical. And the few magical things are bizarre because they’re the sorts of things most Game Masters — incorrectly I might add — would say detect magic and dispel magic shouldn’t touch. Things like the visual illusion that displaces displacer beasts and the altered shapes of lycanthropes can, conceivably, be detected and dispelled.

The problem here is similar to the biggest problem with the saving throw mechanic. And that is that it suggests that the Game Master can only determine what can and can’t be detected or dispelled by referencing the rules. That there is literally no way to intuit the answer. Apart from spells and magical items, a Game Master cannot judge whether any given game effect is or is not “magical enough to interact with effects that interact with magic.”

Not only is it nonintuitive, but it’s also really confusing. Because it gives the word “magical” two different meanings. There is a sense in which dragons are magical creatures, right? They’re impossible beings. They couldn’t exist without magic. They are raw elemental fury wrapped in a mortal shell. And many, many creatures in the Dungeons & Dragons universe are inherently magical.

But they’re not “magical” in a rules sense. Because the word “magical” — as it’s used in detect magic and antimagic shell and dispel magic and in the description of certain abilities — has a very narrow, specific meaning. And that meaning actually isn’t really clear. The Sage Advice answer doesn’t really define “rules magical” except as “whatever the rules say it is.”

And this demonstrates an essential problem with Dungeons and Dragons. Especially its modern incarnation. It isn’t really concerned with describing a world. This is a problem because the world has to function as a world. Otherwise, you don’t have a roleplaying game. You have a game. Maybe. If the Game Master and the players don’t have some intuitive understanding of the world, they can’t make consistent judgment calls and decisions. They can’t guess how anything works that isn’t described in the rules. And roleplaying games are supposed to let you do anything you can imagine. Not just what’s programmed in the rules.

The Problem with Magic

Magic in tabletop roleplaying games is a thorny issue. While magic does have real-world analogs in the sense that there are magical systems defined in myths, legends, and stories and there are even some pretty complex real-world magical systems you can study — like astral theory or alchemy or vodun — most people aren’t well-versed enough in any of these subjects to say they’re intuitive.

So every tabletop roleplaying game in which magic features must first define and describe magic well enough that Game Masters and players have at least some sense of what it is, where it comes from, and how it works. In-universe. Let me give you an example of what that might look like.

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