Talk:Tome of Prowess (3.5e Sourcebook)/Arcana

Multicategory spells

This project splits divine spells into two groups — divine for religious casters and primal for nature casters. So we have arcane, divine, and primal spells, each with their own skill for identifying them. The problem is that these classifications depend more on what class is casting a spell than the spell itself. Many, many spells are found on multiple spell lists, so how do the split-up Spellcraft skills deal with a spell (or, Boccob help you, a magic item) that could be arcane, divine, or primal? --Luigifan18 (talk) 13:08, 15 November 2017 (MST)

There is no 'or', only 'and'. If a spell or effect is on multiple lists, it is all of them and you get the best applicable bonus and the most applicable information from your check result.

Edit - Eh, this is probably worth an example. Let's use SRD:Obscure Object, because it's annoying (and we'll ignore the Bard list for now). This can be identified with a DC 20 Arcana (Wiz 2 spell -> 16 + 2 x 2) or a DC 22 Thaum check (Clr 3 spell -> 16 + 2 x 3). If you just have one skill, you roll and check against the relevant DC. If you have both, the skills say to just roll once and add the bonuses separately to create two checks. So if you had a +5 to Arcana but a +8 to Thaum and rolled a 14, you'd have a 19 Arcana result and a 22 Thaum result that told you more information. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 18:12, 20 November 2017 (MST)