We were playing a completely random dungeon crawl tonight just as an experiment to see where the dice would take us. One of my players ended up getting a deck of many things (rolled on random loot table) then he drew the sun card (50,000 XP and a wondrous item). All perfectly fine because it was just a crazy weird night. The book fell open to a page of loot and the first wondrous item I saw was the bag of devouring.
My question is, would his character know it is a bag of devouring? I think it would be kind of fun if he had to deal with it trying to eat him or something, but if he knows what it is, or can easily find out, it might kill any chance for odd hijinks when we finish the experiment next weekend.
I am perfectly fine with it not attacking him, or being bad for him, just think it would be a silly thing for a silly game, so don't focus on that. I just want to know if I should treat this like a cursed item, where the character doesn't know it might eat his hand, or, if he just meditates on it like a normal magic item and can learn that it will try to devour him?
Personally, I am leaning towards ruling it as a normal magic item, so he can learn its properties during a short rest.
(Either way I know something will be getting eaten, either his ridiculously lucky character who just got 50,000 XP, or maybe the Orc War Chief that ran away from the first fight in the dungeon.)
Best Answer
A Bag of Devouring isn't a cursed item so it's identifiable the same way as any other magic item:
If the PC takes the time to "learn its properties" then yes, they know what it is. Otherwise, they know it's a bag but don't know it's a Bag of Devouring.