Talk:Price identification

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Revision as of 13:04, 20 March 2021 by Phol ende wodan (talk | contribs) (Double dupe penalty: reply)
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What other factors need to be accounted for in price identification? My character with 10 Charisma just bought a potion priced at 444, thinking it had to be one of the most expensive tier, and hoping for gain level. It turned out to be an uncursed potion of oil, which is listed on this wiki with a base price of 250. That should have cost (250 x 1.33) = 333, so there must have been some other modifier operating. (I know I wasn't hungry, so it wasn't subject to the hunger tax for food items.) -- 99.183.213.175 06:12, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

-- It's the random 33% markup, tied to object id when buying. Tjr 16:10, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I picked up a scroll for 400gp. It's unidentified (+33% cost) and my charisma is 9 (+33% cost). This would make it cost ~240gp. There are no scrolls that cost ~240gp. So what is wrong in my calculation? --Havvy 10:20, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
The 33% unidentified markup is random. If you only factor in the 33% charisma markup (which is always applied), the base price comes out to 300gp, and there are four 300gp scrolls. -- Qazmlpok 12:48, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Double dupe penalty

I have a 1st level Tourist with 17 charisma and who is wearing only his Hawaiian shirt. He dropped a scroll in a shop on dungeon level 2 and the shopkeeper offered him 20zm for it. He dropped another scroll in the shop and the shopkeeper offered him 27zm for it. I identified the first one and it was enchant weapon. It looks like I'm being charged an extra penalty for being a double dupe.

Haven't read the 3.6.1 code to see whether that's true for sure. --JMike (talk) 12:49, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
The sell price tables don't account for dupe penalties, but as said elsewhere, "When you sell an item, the price will be one half the base price of the item, or one third the base price if you are a dupe". Enchant weapon is $60, so 20 is one-third of that, and there are $80 scrolls where 27 is one-third of that. Doesn't seem like a bug of any sort and I don't think a double-penalization is happening here. The table doesn't list sell prices for dupes, is all. (The reason they don't is because instead of two numbers they'd have to list four - one for all possible combinations of dupe/nondupe and shopkeeper taking 25% off the sell price or not - and two of those are rare cases.) --Phol ende wodan (talk) 13:04, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Kicking walls to use-test regeneration

Of course you can kick a wall, but that will wake up and attract nearby monsters. You don't want a nymph waiting for you right outside the shop. Let's propose safe alternatives if there are any. If you want to re-add kicking, please discuss it here, too. --Tjr 00:53, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Advice to wish for a wand of death from early wands of wishing

Can we remove this for once and for all, everywhere it appears? If you're that worried about dying before you get 1000 gold, you can seriously just wish for 2 scrolls of charging and 5000 gold (the shopkeeper doesn't claim it). To a character that's about to get at least three of magic resistance, reflection, speed boots, and an artifact weapon, not to mention good AC from whichever DSM, a wand of death is something of a waste of a wish - so is 5000 gold, but it's a hell of a lot less risky. The wand of death is only really useful against Rodney later on, and by then you'll have more wishes from the castle wand, not to mention Orcus' wand.

The other advice in that paragraph isn't terrible. Zapping a shopkeeper with an early wand of death - that's not horrible advice. It's of course just as risky, but an early wand of death is not so great a find that you'd care too much about losing that game, and the early gold and inventory can indeed be useful. As for wishing for a figurine of an Archon, that's not bad advice if you were already planning to do it - since you run that 10% chance of a hostile one no matter when you wish for it. -Ion frigate 07:04, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Why is price identifying potions so down played?

I find it critical in categorizing potions, wands and rings. A hell of a lot more can be done in any early game and also in illiterate games with regards to potion identification than just avoid polymorph and go bananas with 300 zm potions. It is the method of categorizing them for further analysis when needed, e.g. all 50 zm potions can be diluted early when water is needed, 100 zm are easy to close up equally after seeing some monster usage, 150 zm potions have gain energy and that's it, 200 zm is an interesting category but also contains only 5 potions with speed and full healing used by monsters frequently, 250 zm is again trivial as is 300 zm) --Kynde (talk) 20:38, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Potions are heavy and not that useful (in normal games), that's why. However, things change once you do conducts.
This is a conduct-proof way to identify potions of each price group:
50 -- sell at food store (booze & juice), mine's end amethyst (booze to juice), unihorn (sickness to juice), dip unpoisoned missile (sickness), alchemy products (juice, booze, see invisible)
100 -- dip poisoned arrow (healing, full healing), monster starting inventory (confusion, healing, xhealing, sleeping), unihorn (confusion, hallu). Only restore ability does nothing on all tests.
150 -- unihorn (blindness), wield it and blind yourself (blindness), monster starting inventory (blindness, invisibility), nymphs and mine's end (object detection). Only gain energy and monster detection seem to be indistinguishable, which wastes precious alchemy input. If nothing else, quaff candidates when both possibilities would be useful.
200 -- dip a wand of polymorph first (only potion of polymorph will say "Nothing happens."), monster starting inventory (full healing, speed, polymorph (the latter is much rarer)), alchemy products (full healing, enlightenment), dip poisoned missile (full healing). But multi-step alchemy is not a good way to distinguish levitation and enlightenment because you usually start that only once you have enough levitation. (Recall pacifists do not get death drops, and levitation cannot be alchemized.) Suggestions are welcome.
250 -- drop anything that can be applied (except the potion), and press a.
300 -- monster starting inventory and monster usage (gain level, paralysis).
Any other fully conduct-proof methods that don't waste potions are more than welcome. Monster starting inventory also means monsters will drink or throw those potions (except object detection in case of nymphs). --Tjr (talk) 20:49, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
err... I can assure you monsters aren't going to quaff blindness, confusion, and sleeping. :P Wooble (talk) 12:36, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
My bad, they throw them. Fixed. --Tjr (talk) 18:56, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Price identification of wands

I don't think that price iding wands should be so downplayed. If your wands are already price ID's it wake engrave IDing easier and potentialy take less charges.

--Tourist Supremacy (talk) 18:10, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't make engrave IDing significantly easier, and then you have to walk around with an un-IDed and potentially useful/life-saving wand between where you pick it up and a shop that can price it for you. The article doesn't really downplay anything; it specifically mentions the very few cases where price ID might save a charge (death/sleep and the vanishing wands). Wooble (talk) 18:25, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Potion identification

I don't think this is the appropriate page for a long discussion of potion ID that is not related to price ID - it would fit better in Potion#Identification. --Phol ende wodan (talk) 16:30, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

OK, moved it --Nethacker (talk) 17:50, 11 September 2017 (UTC)