Credit cloning
The strategy of credit cloning is simple:
- Move all objects in the shop to a single pile. Drop a cursed item to prevent your pet from moving on to it, and engrave Elbereth in case monsters get spawned over times.
- Drop gold into the shop. The shopkeeper will give you credit for the gold.
- Let your pet steal the gold for you (a leash or magic whistle is very helpful here).
- Go to the pile and buy as much as you can from your credit.
- Sell all the recently bought items, even items that you own. It helps to put all the merchandise in single bag and drop it at once.
- You may need to buy and sell several times before you can exhaust your credit if you had a lot of starting credit.
- Drop the old + new gold in the shop and repeat from letting your pet steal it.
Repeat the technique till the shopkeeper has no gold--you will know this because the shopkeeper offers you credit instead of gold when you try to sell the item--and you have enough credit to buy everything that you want from the shop.
The technique is very time consuming and should not be done if you don't have slow digestion or a good amount of food. The slowest part is waiting for your pet to steal the gold, so a good starting quantity helps, too.
Credit cloning is more effective if you have a sack--or still better, a bag of holding. You can put all your gold into the sack, along with as many items as your pet can carry (preferably expensive ones). You can then have your pet carry the bag outside the shop and resell the items over and over to get all the shopkeeper's gold very quickly.
The point is to steal gold instead of merchandise, which has the highest weight-to-value ratio of all non-artifact items in the game. However, in the beginning, you might need to have your pet steal items.
The best shops for credit cloning, therefore, are ones with lightweight expensive items like rings, wands and identified gems. Delicatessens are probably the safest, because they stock food, but are also very time-consuming because the items are so cheap until you make much holy water. General stores are also good because you can sell many of your own items at the beginning, increasing the size of the initial pile of gold.
Be careful that your pet doesn't starve to death while credit-cloning. If you are just starting a game and plan to credit clone, try not to let your pet pick up any items until you have reached a shop. By keeping the pet's apport from decreasing prematurely, you optimize its shoplifting ability.
Sometimes your pet will not pick up your "stealing bag" because it is too heavy. Base monster carrying capacity is equal to human maximum carrying capacity, or half human maximum if not strong. This is then modified by the ratio between the monster weights and human weights. Corpseless monsters are given a capacity proportional to their size instead of weight.[1] Weight unit is 100 gold.
| Pet type | Corpse | Can carry unassisted | in uncursed bag of holding | in blessed bag of holding |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| kitten | 150 | 52 | 72 | 145 |
| housecat | 200 | 69 | 106 | 213 |
| large cat | 250 | 86 | 140 | 281 |
| little dog | 150 | 52 | 72 | 145 |
| dog | 400 | 138 | 244 | 489 |
| large dog | 800 | 276 | 520 | 1041 |
| pony | 1300 | 449 | 866 | 1733 |
| horse | 1500 | 500 | 968 | 1937 |
| warhorse | 1800 | 500 | 968 | 1937 |
