Price identification

Price identification is the tactic of using the price of an item to try to identify it. One can use the "buy price," the price of an item in shops, or the "sell price," the price that a shopkeeper offers when you try to sell an item. The sell price is easier to use because it is not affected by your charisma. Even if you have enough scrolls of identify and no conducts in mind, pricing lets you use those scrolls earlier, before you can bless them, because it points out the most important items.

The sell price will normally be half the "base price" of the item (one third the "base price" if you're wearing a dunce cap, a level 14 or lower tourist, or wearing a shirt with no armor or cloak over it), but there is a 25% chance that you will only be offered 3/4 of the normal sell price (3/8 of the base price overall.) . You can get around this by repeatedly dropping an item and refusing to sell it, until you have been offered two different prices for it. If the shopkeeper has no money, you will be offered 90% of the normal sell price as store credit.

The buy price of an item depends on your charisma and the base price as follows:

Charisma:	< 6	6, 7	8–10	11–15	16, 17	18	> 18
Buy price:	+100%	+50%	+33%	base price	-25%	-33%	-50%

An additional +33% "sucker" markup is applied for level 14 or lower tourists or anyone wearing a shirt with no armor or cloak over it or a dunce cap. Unidentified items will also sometimes be marked up by a further +33%; unlike when selling, the random markup when buying is tied to the object ID, so picking up the item and dropping it again won't change its price (but merging or splitting stacks of multiple objects eventually does - try dropping a cheap one on an expensive one).

General stores are very useful for price identification because they will offer to buy all types of items. However, you can still price-identify any object (unbreakable or in a bag of holding) in any store by throwing the item in to the shop from outside. Be aware that this will relinquish ownership of the item to the shopkeeper, who will then try to sell it to you. You will need to pay the asking price or steal the item to get it back, but in a pinch, this can provide a price point for an object that the shopkeeper would not normally be interested in.

Further strategies

Common uses

The item which is most commonly price-ID'd is the scroll of identify, which is far cheaper than the other scrolls.

Also, magic lamps cost more than oil lamps, and enchanted armor costs more than the +0 version.

Price-iding can also be useful to identify bad items. The scroll of amnesia has a base price of 200 zm, ten times as much as a scroll of identify. A potion of sickness has a base price of 50 zm, a potion of hallucination 100 zm, and a potion of blindness 150 zm.

Spellbooks are useful to price-identify as a non-Wizard, to determine whether they are low enough difficulty level to safely read. The base price for a spellbook in zorkmids is 100 times its difficulty level.

Powerful wands stealing

An expensive wand (base price 500 zm) is either wishing or death. In general, you should have a pet steal such an item; if you don't have a pet, both wands are well worth buying. If you have neither a pet nor the gold, either should be pretty easy to obtain: throw a tripe ration at a wild dog/cat, or just sell junk to the shopkeeper.

One might be tempted to zap the wand (wishing for a wand of death if it's a wand of wishing) at the shopkeeper, but for early characters, this is a bad idea: the death ray might miss, which can easily lead to a quick YASD, given shopkeepers' speed and damage output. Furthermore, wishing for a wand of death from a wand of wishing is generally a waste anyways, given that by the time you really need one, one is guaranteed to exist. If you're truly concerned about your character's ability to survive long enough to buy/steal the wand, wishing for 5000 gold is a safe way to be able to do so, though it is also a waste of a wish. If you really want to kill the shopkeeper, wish for a blessed figurine of an Archon, though be aware that this has a 10% chance of backfiring.

Identifying scrolls

The most useful scrolls to price-identify are the cheapest scrolls. The scroll of identify is the cheapest, with a base price of only 20 zorkmids. The scroll of enchant weapon is the only 60 zorkmid scroll that has a randomized appearance (the scroll of blank paper is also 60 zm). The scroll of light is the only scroll with a 50 zorkmid base price. Both scrolls with base price 80 zorkmids, the scroll of enchant armor and the scroll of remove curse, are very useful.

Scrolls with base prices of 100 zm or higher might be unsafe to read, and should be identified by scroll or spell, or by read-identifying with proper precautions (100 zm scrolls are safe to read if you have identified the scroll of teleportation, are fire resistant, carry no burnable items, and are wearing no armor, for example).

Identifying rings

Base Cost	Cha<6	Cha 6-7	Cha 8-10	Cha 16-17	Cha 18	Cha>18	Selling price	Ring types
100 (133 with random markup)	200 (266)	150 (200)	133 (177)	75 (100)	67 (89)	50 (67)	50 (33)	adornment, hunger*, protection, protection from shape changers, stealth, sustain ability, warning
150 (200 with random markup)	300 (400)	225 (299)	200 (266)	112 (149)	100 (133)	75 (100)	75 (50)	aggravate monster*, cold resistance, gain constitution, gain strength, increase accuracy, increase damage, invisibility, poison resistance, see invisible, shock resistance
200 (266 with random markup)	fire resistance, free action, levitation, regeneration, searching, slow digestion, teleportation*
300 (400 with random markup)	600 (800)	450 (599)	400 (533)	225 (299)	200 (266)	150 (200)	150 (100)	[[ring of conflict	conflict]], [[ring of polymorph	polymorph]]*, polymorph control, teleport control

An asterisk (*) indicates that this ring is generated cursed 90% of the time.

The most useful rings to price-identify are the most expensive and most powerful rings: the 200 zm and 300 zm rings.

All 200 zm rings, provided they are non-cursed, are useful and safe to wear. These include the ring of free action, the ring of slow digestion, the ring of searching, the ring of levitation, the ring of regeneration, the ring of fire resistance, and the ring of teleportation. It is important to only wear rings from this group known to be non-cursed, since uncontrolled teleportitis or a cursed ring of levitation may be hazardous. The ring of levitation auto-identifies on wearing; the effects of the other 200 zm rings, with the probable exceptions of fire resistance or teleportation if you already have the intrinsics, will eventually become clear if you wear the rings. The ring of regeneration can also be quickly tested for: wear it, throw a non-breakable, shop-owned object up to lose a few hit points, and watch if you re-gain them every turn.

The 300 zm rings include the ring of conflict, the ring of teleport control, the ring of polymorph, and the ring of polymorph control. The first two are among the most coveted items in the game and are frequent wish targets, however the ring of polymorph means that 300 zm rings are not generally safe to wear. Conflict can still be easily identified by wearing it for a turn or two around a peaceful monster (remember that a shopkeeper, aligned priest, or your Quest leader are probably not wise choices.) Teleport control can also be identified by putting on the ring and triggering a teleport (via trap, scroll, wand, etc.) If your 300 zm ring is neither of these, do not wear it; use a scroll, spell, a handy sink or a source of enlightenment to reliably identify the other 300 zm rings. Alternately, a riskier method of determining whether a 300 zm ring is safe to wear is simply to wear it for a few hundred turns without wearing a shirt, cloak, or body armor (or wearing junk armor): that way, if you polymorph you will not break your useful armor.

Identifying wands

It is usually better to engrave ID wands to determine their identity, however base 175 zm wands found in shops are all useful (wand of cold, wand of sleep, wand of fire or wand of lightning), price identification can distinguish a wand of sleep from a wand of death without using another charge, any wand that makes engravings vanish that has a base price of 150 zm is a wand of make invisible, and any wand that gives no message when engraved with a base price of 100 zm is a wand of nothing.

Identifying potions

Potions may be price-identified however it is generally less useful. It is good to know that a 200 zm potion might be a potion of polymorph, therefore not safe to #dip your only unicorn horn into or to indiscriminately quaff. Also, the 300 zm potions (the potion of paralysis, potion of gain level, and potion of gain ability) are all powerful and situationally useful.

Identifying magical armor

Fumble boots and levitation boots are both 30 zm, but are of different weights. They are often cursed.

Speed boots, jumping boots, and water walking boots are all priced at 50 zm. They are easily identified once worn: speed boots auto-identify if you are not already very fast (potion of speed or spell of haste self), jumping boots allow you to jump, and Boots of water walking are otherwise mundane.

All magical helms and gloves cost 50 zm.

The cloaks of displacement and protection both cost 50zm, and are the only ones at that price with a randomized appearance. If the cloaks cost 60zm and come with a randomized appearance, then they are either invisibility, magic resistance, or perhaps an enchanted cloak of the first two types.

Positive enchantment on a piece of armor increases the base price by 10 zm per point of enchantment. In theory, a +2 or better pair of fumble boots might be confused for one of the much more useful 50 zm boots, but the probability for positive enchantments on harmful items is too low to be worth bothering.

External links

• Clippy is a handy tool to identify an item.
• Determine Objects by their Price works similar. It is more accurate because takes some more corner cases into account, but less broad because it works for the magical items ? ! / = + only.
• The consolidated item tables lists the base price of every single item.
• NetHack Shopping Spoiler