Elemental Detection (405)

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Elemental Detection (405)
Mnemonic [ELEMDETECT]
Duration Immediate
Utility Magic  
Subtype Informational
Minor Elemental Spells
Elemental Defense I (401) Defensive
Presence (402) Utility
Lock Pick Enhancement (403) Utility
Disarm Enhancement (404) Utility
Elemental Detection (405) Utility
Elemental Defense II (406) Defensive
Unlock (407) Utility
Disarm (408) Utility
Elemental Blast (409) Attack
Elemental Wave (410) Attack
Elemental Blade (411) Offensive
Weapon Deflection (412) Attack
Elemental Saturation (413) Attack
Elemental Defense III (414) Defensive
Elemental Strike (415) Attack
Piercing Gaze (416) Utility
Elemental Dispel (417) Attack
Mana Focus (418) Utility
Mass Elemental Defense (419) Defensive
Magic Item Creation (420) Utility
Elemental Targeting (425) Offensive
Elemental Barrier (430) Defensive
Major Elemental Wave (435) Attack

Elemental Detection, has many uses, depending on the target of the spell and the status of the target. If the target is a player character or a non-player character, such as a creature, Elemental Detection will reveal which spells have been cast upon the target, though, Elemental Detection will not always reveal every spell. When cast on an item, the spell will reveal if the item has been imbedded with a spell or if the item can be imbedded with a spell if one has not already been imbedded. Elemental Detection will also reveal if the item has been duplicated through the Wizard Base spell, Duplicate (918), and will give information about an item's properties relevant to enchantment. Elemental Detection is also the easiest method of determining how many layers of Ensorcell (735) are on an item.

The amount of information revealed by Elemental Detection is related to how many ranks the caster possesses in elemental spells. In the case of imbedded items, Magic Item Use also factors heavily into whether the caster sees the spell name and number of charges.

Lore Benefit

30 ranks of Elemental Lore, Air will impart the ability to detect elemental weapon flares, and if an item is enhancive (but not the properties of said enhancement).

Magical Items

Elemental Detection will detect the status of items that are imbeddable but not able to be charged with Charge Item (517). Starting with Ebon Gate 2016, special event NPC merchants can still recharge these items, but the maximum number of charges depletes by 5 (from a maximum of 40) each time the item is recharged. A common example of such an item is a mangled steel spoon, but hundreds of these items drop in the treasure system every day.

When an item has never been charged by a merchant, the following message applies (third, bold line):

You gesture at a pink topaz inset silver headband.
You sense that the headband is a magic item with an unknown spell from an unfamiliar realm of magic.
You detect that a pink topaz inset silver headband can be recharged to its original capacity.

Gold Rings

Casting Elemental Detection at a gold ring will indicate where the ring is set to:

You gesture at a twisted gold ring.
The essence swirls about the ring in a fog of meaningful patterns that indicate this is a powerful magical transference item that is attuned to teleport the person wearing it to Zul Logoth, Mine Extension
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.

Tempered Items

When a wizard uses the spell on an item either tempered or enchanted by a wizard, the combination of adjective and color of the revealed aura provides the current exact numeric enchant of the item. The color is the +5 enchant, and the adjective is the modifier to that +5. A non-wizard caster will see only: The underlying patterns of essence within the <weapon> indicate that it has been enchanted but you can determine nothing else.

As examples:

  • The muted yellow aura given by imflass can be broken down as (+15 yellow) + (-3 muted) = the +12 that is the natural enchant of imflass.
  • The hazy orange aura given by deringo can be broken down as (+10 orange) + (-2 hazy) = the +8 that is natural enchant of deringo.
Color Value
None ≤0
Red +5
Orange +10
Yellow +15
Green +20
Blue +25
Indigo +30
Violet +35
Copper +40
Silver +45
Gold +50
Adjective Value
Extremely Faint special case1
Faint -4
Muted -3
Hazy -2
Soft -1
Vibrant 0

1 The "extremely faint" adjective only applies to an aura showing no color (thus it shows only as "an extremely faint aura") when a naturally negative bonused item is enchanted by a wizard to a 0 state.

Alchemy Recipes

A rainbow-hued potion
Eastern version Western version
  1. Add water
  2. Add crimson dragonstalk
  3. Simmer
  4. Add powdered rainbow quartz
  5. Boil
  6. Chant Elemental Detection (405)
  1. Add water
  2. Add crimson dragonstalk
  3. Simmer
  4. Add powdered iridescent piece of mother-of-pearl
  5. Add myklian scale from myklians
  6. Boil
  7. Chant Elemental Detection (405)

Resources