Tips for Identification

[Sky]

earlier on a leather armor of resistance or - even better - a wicker shield of resistance are preferable. They weight much less, allowing you to carry more, not slowing you down, and do not risk encumbering you thus reducing you max mana points (if you are a spellcaster).
The additional AC is good, but not great. the effect ("resistance") is what really makes the difference.

Once you get to DL30+ and start finding potions of stat increase, you will be able to easily carry a lot of weight.

[Estie]

Originally Posted by Mondkalb

Looking at you, potion of contemplation.

You should play more priests (and look at potions of intellect, instead).

[whartung]

Originally Posted by bughunter

Selling exceptional items to shops is the most expensive way to ID them, but it works quite well with scrolls and potions.

99% of the stuff you sell to the shops is junk. Selling an exceptional item is a great way to learn about a bunch of runes.

At low level, none of these items is a game changer. So, I just wantonly sell everything.

[DudeMan]

One very cheap way to learn basic runes is buying amulets and rings (Things like amulet of resist acid, amulet of slow digestion etc.) from the magic shop. They cost next to nothing and you can sell them back immediately to get back some of your money. If you had bought an amulet of resist acid and an amulet of resist lightning you would have been able to guess that you have found a resistance armor. Only non draconic, non special armors that have two basic resistances are armor of resistance and armor of elvenkind. Elvenkinds always give you stealth which is immediately identified on wearing the item.

When you find basic slay weapons you should first try them atleast against an animal and a person and something evil. This way you will learn slay animal, slay evil, fire brand, cold brand, acid brand, poison brand... runes. If you are strong enough and deep enough you can also try it against trolls, orcs, dragons, demons etc.. Usually when my @ is strong enough to engage these creatures I have already learned these runes by other means.

Many times it is a good idea to buy a weapon with a rune you dont yet know and then sell it back immediately. If the weapon costs less than about 1300 gold you will identify it for a lot less than if you use scroll of identify you bought from the black market.

Identify scrolls can be found from the black market. They cost 600 gold pieces so they are a little bit expencive for a starting character. Normally maby 70% of my scrolls of identify are from the black market.

[Sky]

if an armor has: rFire {??}

it can be either
1. Resistance
2. rFire + curse

if it has: rFire rCold {??}

it can be
1. Resistance
2. Resistance + curse

once you are deeper, they could be Elvenkind, but by that time you generally know all the runes. It will take a while to learn all the tricks to selling for max profit, unfortunately.

For instance. If you have an unidentified weapon, you can
1. sell it
2. use it and discover what bonuses it has
3. use it, NOT discover what bonuses it has, at which point the store will likely pay much less than Op1 or Op2 because it thinks it may be cursed.
after Op3, you can 4. leave it at home, sell later, after you ?Identify or learn the rune.

Op1, selling can lead to losing some money, but you will learn the runes. Op2/3 can also lead to a lower sell value, to the point where it may be a bigger loss.

In Angband in general there will be a lot of permanent loss early on - you lose stat points to draining, stat-swap potions, you lose AC points to acid, weapon bonus to disenchantment, potions and scrolls to fire and acid etc ..

Once you go deeper and get higher in level, this will stop happening; artifacts, rDisenchant, *Acid, *Fire, sustains ..

when i started playing YEARS ago, i would save scum and i would replace the save file FOR LOSING A SINGLE POINT OF AC FROM A NORMAL ARMOR.

dont do that.

[Pete Mack]

Oh yeah. It hadn't occurred to me, but ID is much easier if you have the 'no selling' birth option enabled. Those {??} weapons with no (near) obvious features really do have zero value in that case. Selling for ID costs nothing then.
Yes, you get somewhat less gold overall, but there are no worries about ID, or tedium of lugging stuff back to town for resale.

[archolewa]

And then, after you've mastered the ID minigame (however you choose to do so), and have beaten the game a couple of times with it, you go into the birth options, flip on "know all runes at birth" and "know all flavors at birth" and marvel at how much faster and less tedious the earlygame is when you dont have to identify anything.

Knowing everything is my antidrug.

[whartung]

Originally Posted by archolewa

And then, after you've mastered the ID minigame (however you choose to do so), and have beaten the game a couple of times with it, you go into the birth options, flip on "know all runes at birth" and "know all flavors at birth" and marvel at how much faster and less tedious the earlygame is when you dont have to identify anything.

Knowing everything is my antidrug.

Yea, actually, this is what I do. I didn't find the ID game very interesting, just more busy work mechanics to extort limited bag size.

I'm sure its different in Ironman mode, or some other limited ruleset.

[Selkie]

Originally Posted by whartung

Yea, actually, this is what I do. I didn't find the ID game very interesting, just more busy work mechanics to extort limited bag size.

I'm sure its different in Ironman mode, or some other limited ruleset.

Since we're doing dirty confessions, I also do this now. I got to the stage where the ID game was cracked and I was just finding it a bore. I feel a bit the same with the hunger games too, if I'm honest. But I suppose that has a bit more end game tactical play for stopping potion quaffing spam abuse

[archolewa]

Originally Posted by whartung

I'm sure its different in Ironman mode, or some other limited ruleset.

Honestly, it was playing without WoR that finally made me swallow my pride and turn off the ID minigame. When I could just throw things at the stores, I found the ID game a lot like the hunger game: inoffensive, and I liked the flavor enough that I had no problem with it. Having to identify runes the hard way was SOOOOO tedious that I finally said "screw it" and turned it off.

Food is a bit more interesting without a town, mostly in that it incentivizes me to keep moving even when not fully healed. Mostly though I just carry a stack of Scrolls of Remove Hunger (lighter than rations), and eat whatever I find off the floor.