Scroll of identify
? 
| |
|---|---|
| Name | identify |
| Appearance | random |
| Base price | 20 zm |
| Weight | 5 |
| Ink to write | 7–13 |
| Monster use | Will not be used by monsters. |
The scroll of identify is a somewhat common scroll that identifies items in the player's inventory, with a chance based on its BUC status.
Contents
Effects
Scrolls of identify are always safe to read, but noncursed scrolls are far more beneficial. When read, the scroll reveals the full identity of at least one unknown item in the player's inventory. If the scroll is blessed or uncursed, it will identify 1, 2, 3, 4, or all items in the inventory, with the probability of each number given in the table below.[1] If this is less than the number of unidentified items in the inventory, the player chooses which items to identify first.
| Scroll BUC |
Number of items | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | all | |
| Blessed | 1⁄5 | 1⁄5 | 1⁄5 | 1⁄5 | 1⁄5 |
| Uncursed | 21⁄25 | 1⁄25 | 1⁄25 | 1⁄25 | 1⁄25 |
| Cursed | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
If the player's Luck is positive, a blessed scroll has a 2⁄5 chance of identifying 2 items, and will never identify just one.
If the scroll is read while confused, the scroll's type is identified with no further effect. ("You identify this as an identify scroll.")
Strategy
The scroll of identify is recognized by price identification, being the only scroll with a base price of 20zm.
It is advantageous to make holy water and bless scrolls of identify, which significantly increases their chance of identifying more items. Price identification can point players to the most important items to identify and thus give them the tactical flexibility needed to get the most use out of a blessed stack. It is also a good idea to gather many unidentified items into the open inventory before reading the scrolls, due to the 20% chance of identifying the entire contents of the inventory.
Make sure the items you want to identify are in open inventory. Even if your scroll identifies your entire inventory, it will not identify items in containers.
Whether or not this is better than learning the third-level identify spell depends on the ability to train and reliably cast divination spells. If your character is a Priest, Wizard, or another class that can at least reach Skilled in divination, the spell may entirely supplant the need for identify scrolls. The identify spell in combination with the Eye of the Aethiopica lets you identify any object soon after you discover it, even if you only want to know the BUC status.
xNetHack
In xNetHack, to counterbalance the removal of the identify spell, scrolls of identify are made more reliable. Blessed scrolls always identify 7 items, and uncursed scrolls always identify 4. Like vanilla, cursed scrolls only identify 1 item.
References
This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.
It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.4.3. Information on this page may be out of date.
Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-343}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.
