The NetHack Object Identification Spoiler
By David Damerell
Version 1.4.1 - all versions 1.4.* are for NetHack 3.4.3
This spoiler details techniques for identifying objects in the face of a
shortage of identify scrolls; it's actually possible to sort out nearly every
object in the game without risk of adverse consequences. I am keen to have
submissions on additional methods of identifying objects, or corrections to
any errors in this spoiler. I am not keen to be told that I use British
English spellings; you wouldn't think I'd have to mention that, but
unfortunately that is not the case. I deal only with vanilla NetHack, but the
techniques will be useful in variants.
This spoiler is really long; you have been warned. You may freely distribute
and modify this spoiler under the terms of the GNU General Public License. It
is by no means all my own work; I must acknowledge assistance (in no
particular order) from Dylan O'Donnell, Klaus Kassner, David Goldfarb, Raisse,
Zack Weinberg, Kathrin Paschen, Michael Hedera, Eva Myers, Rob Elwood, Kate
Nepveu, Marisa Lohr, Gregory Bond, "Chris", Jaakko Salomaa, Kieron Dunbar, Dan
Sheppard, Tina Hall, George Fleming, Ian Jackson, Lotta Loytonen, Topi
Linkala, Jukka Lahtinen, David Throop, Keith Hearn, Trebor Rude, Colin Watson,
Seraphim, Wes Irby, Jakob Creutzig, a mystery contributor, and no doubt one or
two I've forgotten (sorry).
Contents
* General comments and techniques
* Potions
* Scrolls
* Wands
* Rings
* Amulets
* Spellbooks
* Weapons
* Armour
* Tools
* Gems
General comments and techniques
If you do have some identify scrolls, you should always bless them and ensure
you have as many unidentified objects in your inventory as possible before
reading them; there is a one in five chance that a blessed scroll will
identify everything in your main inventory.
It is vital that you understand the use of the #name command; either to name a
specific object (this particular potion is uncursed) or a class of objects
(these scrolls cost 50 zorkmids in shops.) #name is also useful to sort out
objects with identical appearances; if you #name the first kind of lamp you
find 'lamp 1' and then find an unnamed lamp, you know one of the two kinds is
magic, or if you #name a red gem 'red gem 1' and find an unnamed red gem, they
can't both be worthless glass. Where the object has not been completely IDed
it is best to include the appearance in the name; for example, if a scroll
type is named "READ ME costs 100" it can be distinguished from a second scroll
type named "YLOH costs 100", or if a wand is named "uranium vanisher" it can
be distinguished from a second wand named "iron vanisher". It's worth noting
that you can blot out an existing name by #naming the object to ' ' - this is
extremely important because when you have a vague name for an object (like
"orange costs 100") and want to actually try one out, you'll only get the
'call' prompt if it's unnamed; and that when the game asks a question like
"Call an orange potion?" that's equivalent to #naming it.
An awareness of item probabilities helps; if you find six of 'lamp 1' and one
of 'lamp 2', it's not hard to guess which is magic.
A lot of techniques demand that you know the blessed/uncursed/cursed
(henceforth "b/u/c") status of an object, or at any rate that it's not cursed.
Dropping items on altars works (or being a Priest), but your pet will not walk
on a cursed object (unless you displace it, there's food there, or it "moves
only reluctantly"); if you leave your pet behind, I've no sympathy. Watching
monsters use weapons and take off armour is also instructive; cursed wielded
weapons are noticed as such (if you see the monster actually wield it), any
item (including potions) that 'slips' or 'misfires' as a monster throws or
fires it is cursed (but a cursed item will not always slip), and any armour a
monster removes is not cursed.
Some objects are always generated uncursed (otherwise, objects are usually
uncursed, but sometimes blessed or cursed with roughly equal probability,
unless noted otherwise): non-tin food; gems other than loadstones; tools other
than light sources, grease, crystal balls and figurines; armour and weapons
with positive enchantments (may be blessed); statues and boulders. But beware
bones piles, where all bets are off. There are also some mentions of messages
from cursed items, in case you really do have no way of determining b/u/c
status.
Some objects give you the message "You have a strange feeling for a moment,
then it passes" if flags.beginner is set; roughly speaking, this is the case
if you have never had more than 500 XP (250 for wizards). If you don't have
showexp on, a level 6 Wizard or a level 7 anything qualifies, provided you
have not gained XP from potions of gain level, wraith corpses, or sex (which
don't count). This is important because you cannot always distinguish objects
when this happens.
Some objects can be identified if you zap a wand (or drink a potion) of
enlightenment while wearing/carrying them, but the possibilities there are too
great to number - for instance, one can distinguish flint stones and
luckstones, but this technique is most useful on uncursed rings and amulets.
Various classes begin already knowing certain objects - gems for
archaeologists, weapons and armour for combat wombats - and, of course, you
always have your starting inventory identified.
There are some guaranteed objects at various points in the dungeon. Primary
amongst these are the gem piles in the Gnomish Mines and in Fort Ludious (see
'Gems' below); the 'statue of a knight named Perseus' on the Medusa's level,
which may contain a cursed shield of reflection, levitation boots, a blessed
+2 scimitar, and/or a sack; the top level of Sokoban contains either an amulet
of reflection or a bag of holding (on the space marked "Elbereth"), and the
two scrolls found in the bottom left corner of the bottom level are always
scrolls of earth; Vlad's Tower contains an amulet of life saving, amulet of
strangulation, water walking boots, crystal plate mail, and a spellbook of
invisibility on the middle level, and a long sword, lock pick, elven cloak and
blindfold on the bottom level; Orcus always carries a wand of death; and the
Wizard will bring a spellbook of dig to the Plane of Earth.
The most basic technique for a lot of classes of objects is grouping by price
in shops. Everyone knows that identify scrolls are the cheapest (don't they?);
but a lot of other objects can be reduced to two or three possibilities by
price grouping. This technique is useful for things like potions and scrolls,
where you want to know (say) what scrolls marked ELAM EBOW are; less useful
for things like weapons where you know what long swords are but you want to
know what this particular long sword is. Hence, I'm going to open with a
discussion of how the sale or purchase price of an object is determined from
the base price - the cost listed in objects.c.
For most objects, the price is the base price multiplied by a few fiddle
factors for things like Charisma. First, though, the base price is hacked
about for a few things. If you're hungry, food is much more expensive (but you
don't need to price group food items.) An empty unrechargeable (possibly
cancelled) wand is worthless (but if you're buying, the base price of a
'worthless' object is 5 zorkmids); so is an uncursed potion of water (always a
'clear potion', so easy to identify.) The base price of armour and weapons is
increased by ten zorkmids for every point of positive enchantment. Used
candles are worth less, but identifying candles isn't really important.
Unidentified gems are cheap if selling or pricey if buying; the details have
been relegated to the gems section.
If you're buying, one in four objects (based on the object ID number, so
consistently for a given object) has its price increased by a third. This is
awkward and nearly unavoidable, especially if it prevents you distinguishing
an object with a base price of (say) 60 from one with a base price of 80.
Where base prices are so positioned, you may need to see several objects of a
given type before you can determine what's really going on; since this is the
only surcharge that's unpredictable and applies to some but not all objects of
a given type, references to being fooled by the surcharge refer to this one.
If there is a second object of the same type in the shop, but only one is
surcharged, and they stack, I am told you can get both at the lower price by
dropping the cheap one on the expensive one and picking them up again, not
that this really pertains to identification.
A dunce cap, a visible shirt (no body armour or cloak) or being a tourist of
level 14 or less carries a surcharge of another third, as does an angry
shopkeeper (but then you may be more concerned with not dying.)
Now we've got all these avoidable things out the way, there's an adjustment
for Charisma; Cha below 6 doubles the price, 6-7 adds one-half, 8-10 adds
one-third, 16-17 subtracts one-fourth, 18 one-third, and 19+ subtracts
one-half.
If you're selling, the base price is first of all divided by two - three if
you're a low-level tourist, wearing a visible shirt or a dunce. 1/4 of sales
(at random) have the price reduced by 1/4, but (unlike the random purchase
surcharge) you can circumvent this by getting 2-3 quotes on the same object.
Sale prices are also not influenced by Charisma, making identification of an
object's price group much easier when selling - of course, if you can afford
to buy an object, you can do so and get a sale quote immediately afterwards;
and if you don't have an object of your own to get sale quotes on, IDing is of
less interest (although you might find one later, obviously, and want to use
it without returning to the shop; or simply be planning to rob the shop in a
way that angers the shopkeeper).
A shopkeeper who has insufficient cash will offer 'only n gold pieces' for an
object (where 'n' is all the gold he has); clearly this limits the deduction
possible about the sale price. However, a shopkeeper with no gold at all will
offer credit equal to 90% of the sale price (as ever, the surcharge may
apply), which is just as good.
It is worth noting that throwing an object into a shop makes it the
shopkeeper's (as does killing a monster that drops it, greasy fingers, etc.),
and even if the object is not one normally sold in that shop, you can now get
a purchase quote for it. Of course, this is expensive.
Here's a table of some common base prices and the effective purchase prices.
There are two rows of Charisma scores; one for prices where no surcharge
applies and one for a price with one surcharge; you then find two prices
below, one surcharged and one not. Why like that? So you can locate your
Charisma score (in the second row, if you have an unavoidable surcharge) and
simply look down the two columns to find all possible prices. Sale prices are
equal to the purchase prices for a Cha 19+ with no surcharge. There are
probably some rounding errors; sorry. It's split in two to fit into 80 columns.
+--------------------------------------------------------------
| Cha (no | | | | | |
| surcharge) | | 3-5 | | 6-7 | 8-10 |
| | | | | | |
|------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+--------+
| Base | Cha | | | | | |
|Price |(with| 3-5 | 6-7 | 8-10 | | 11-15 |
|(down)|sur) | | | | | |
|------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+--------+
|20 |53 |70 |40 |53 |35 |46 |30 |40 |26 |34 |
|------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---+----+
|50 |133 |177 |100 |133 |88 |117 |75 |100 |66 |88 |
|------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---+----+
|60 |160 |213 |120 |160 |106 |141 |90 |120 |80 |106 |
|------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---+----+
|80 |213 |284 |160 |213 |142 |189 |120 |160 |106|141 |
|------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---+----+
|100 |266 |354 |200 |266 |177 |236 |150 |200 |133|177 |
|------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---+----+
|150 |400 |533 |300 |400 |266 |354 |225 |300 |200|266 |
|------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---+----+
|175 |466 |621 |350 |466 |311 |414 |262 |349 |233|310 |
|------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---+----+
|200 |533 |710 |400 |533 |355 |473 |300 |400 |266|354 |
|------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---+----+
|250 |666 |888 |500 |666 |444 |592 |375 |500 |333|444 |
|------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---+----+
|300 |800 |1066|600 |800 |533 |710 |450 |600 |400|533 |
|------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---+----+
|400 |1066|1421|800 |1066|711 |948 |600 |800 |533|710 |
|------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---+----+
|500 |1333|1777|1000|1333|888 |1184|750 |1000|666|888 |
|------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---+----+
|600 |1600|2133|1200|1600|1066|1421|900 |1200|800|1066|
|------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---+----+
|700 |1866|2488|1400|1866|1244|1658|1050|1400|933|1244|
+--------------------------------------------------------------
+-----------------------------------------------------+
| Cha (no | | | | |19+ | |
| surcharge) | 11-15 | | 16-17 | 18 | or |19+|
| | | | | |sale| |
|------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+--------|
| Base | Cha | | | | | |
|Price |(with| 16-17 | 18 | | 19+ | |
|(down)|sur) | | | | | |
|------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+--------|
|20 |20 |26 |17 |22 |15 |20 |13 |17 |10 |13 |
|------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+----+---|
|50 |50 |66 |44 |58 |37 |49 |33 |44 |25 |33 |
|------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+----+---|
|60 |60 |80 |53 |70 |45 |60 |40 |53 |30 |40 |
|------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+----+---|
|80 |80 |106|71 |94 |60 |80 |53 |70 |40 |53 |
|------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+----+---|
|100 |100|133|88 |117|75 |100|66 |88 |50 |66 |
|------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+----+---|
|150 |150|200|133|177|112|149|100|133|75 |100|
|------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+----+---|
|175 |175|233|155|206|131|174|116|154|87 |116|
|------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+----+---|
|200 |200|266|177|236|150|200|133|177|100 |133|
|------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+----+---|
|250 |250|333|222|296|187|249|166|221|125 |166|
|------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+----+---|
|300 |300|400|266|354|225|300|200|266|150 |200|
|------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+----+---|
|400 |400|533|355|473|300|400|266|354|200 |266|
|------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+----+---|
|500 |500|666|444|592|375|500|333|444|250 |333|
|------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+----+---|
|600 |600|800|533|710|450|600|400|533|300 |400|
|------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+----+---|
|700 |700|933|622|829|525|700|466|621|350 |466|
+-----------------------------------------------------+
Now, onto some sorts of objects;
Potions
Potions can be identified in several ways, not least because monsters tend to
use them; once you have somehow found some of the more harmful ones, you can
just drink the (non-cursed) things, especially if you have a unicorn horn
available and/or have done some price grouping - but even without price
grouping you can probably start quaffing eventually.
Clear potions are water, but you knew that, right? No other potions have a
fixed description, but using the (a)pply command will only present potions of
oil as potential targets for the command, so they can also be easily
identified.
The special functions of smoky and milky potions (djinn and ghosts) are not
related to what type they are, but it is worth saving and blessing smoky
potions regardless of whether they are a type you would normally drink.
Dipping a missile weapon (arrow, crossbow bolt, &c.) into a potion of sickness
will poison it (and now you know what the potion is; it 'forms a coating' on
the weapon). Dipping anything into polymorph polymorphs it. It's a smart plan
to test potions that might be polymorph with a missile weapon, unless you have
a spare unicorn horn; and it's a cheap way to ID sickness before you have a
unicorn horn at all. Don't #name them before making this test; polymorph IDs
itself, and sickness will prompt for a name.
If you have a unicorn horn, #dipping it into potions of hallucination,
blindness or confusion will turn them to water, and turn potions of sickness
to fruit juice (which is one way to distinguish fruit juice and see
invisible.) Unless you want to keep potions of confusion for use before you
wear out a spell, this is a very valuable tactic; #name all potions 'harmful
<colour>' and dip a unicorn horn into them; if they don't clear or go a new
colour, #name them back (if they go a new colour, #name them 'fruit juice',
obviously.) The gotcha here is that you can't identify paralysis or sleeping
like this, so you can't get rid of all massively harmful potions; however, Eva
Myers points out (amongst other things) that a ring of free action negates the
harmful effects of either, but they are still identified.
If you have an amethyst (easy to find if an archaeologist, or if you have
three violet gems with different #names - one is worthless, one is fluorite,
one is amethyst), it will turn booze into fruit juice.
Monsters may drink the following types of potions; healing, extra healing,
full healing, gain level, invisibility, speed, polymorph. Pestilence may drink
potions of sickness, but that's kind of obscure. Nearly all these cases
identify the potion for you; the only exception is cursed gain level ("
<monster> rises up, through the ceiling!"), where you are called upon to
supply a name.
Monsters also throw paralysis, blindness, confusion, sleeping and acid.
Paralysis, sleeping and blindness identify themselves; confusion ("You feel
somewhat dizzy.") and acid ("This burns!") ask you to supply a name. There are
some cases where a monster might throw a potion that hits another monster; my
reading of the source is that you are not called upon to supply a name (unless
you breathe the vapour), but if you can guess it right and have another sample
in your inventory you could #name that (even if you can't guess, it must be
one of those five, so can be #named "thrower" or whatever.)
In theory you could go chucking unided potions at monsters to see what they
do, but that is normally pretty daft (or dangerous, in some cases, especially
polymorph.)
There are guaranteed to be six potions of booze in the Gnome King's Wine
Cellar, so if you get that mine ending you can effectively eliminate booze
from consideration; also the southernmost pile will contain a potion of object
detection (and only that), which is handy if you haven't killed a lot of
nymphs yet. (The Gems section discusses which mine ending is which, but
providing layouts is beyond the scope of this spoiler). There is always an
amethyst in any mine ending, so a little work with violet gems lets you write
off fruit juice, too.
Nymphs often (one in two) have potions of object detection, but they also can
have other random potions. Shopkeepers often have healing and extra healing
(in their own inventories, not their shops.)
A delicatessen stocks and buys only potions of fruit juice, booze, and water
(but, like any shop, will sell any item that happens to land in it - thrown
in, dropped by a dying monster, or whatever.)
Now, by price group;
5 - uncursed water. It's clear, anyway, but this lets you know which of your
potions of water are uncursed. If you really have no altars, you can sort your
potions of water into three groups (which will refuse to merge in inventory);
having eliminated uncursed by price or probabilities, you can dip a useless
object (or see below) into one of the other two stacks and see what happens to
it, to determine which stack is holy water. This makes it more practical to
head for Sokoban before Mine Town.
It's best to dip a cursed useful object if you have one. If you picked unholy
water, nothing happens ("Interesting..."); if you picked holy water, you were
going to use it up uncursing that object anyway. Hence, you avoid a wasted
potion.
50 - see invisible, booze, sickness, fruit juice.
The presence of sickness in this one is a bit of a nuisance, since monsters
won't identify it for you, but testing with missile weapons makes it easy
enough to sort out. Blessed sickness does nothing, so blessed potions in this
group are safe; healers are immune in any case; if the damage won't kill you,
a ring of sustain ability will prevent the stat loss, or you might know and
have a stock of restore ability - or you might have started with a potion of
sickness.
It's worth noting that non-cursed see invisible (but not fruit juice) will
unblind you if you are blind, which may help to pick them apart if there isn't
something invisible about.
If the potion is cursed, fruit juice and see invisible both say "Yech! This
tastes rotten." Booze makes you pass out; sickness does more damage.
Note, above, that a deli helps you sort this lot out - not just by what it
sells, but by what it buys.
100 - restore ability, confusion, hallucination, healing, extra healing,
sleeping, blessed/cursed water.
Sleeping and confusion are quite irritating, but can usually be safely drunk
in a locked room. Hallucination is the real stinker here, without a unicorn
horn - also, the monsters won't sort that one out for you. Whether it's worth
going through all that to find restore ability by elimination is up to you,
but if you're really hurting for it, go ahead. Restore ability, which does not
auto-ID, will make you feel 'great', 'good', or 'mediocre', but never 'tastes'
of anything.
150 - blindness, invisibility, monster detection, object detection, gain
energy.
Once you've had blindness thrown at you or unicorn-horned it out or have a
means of curing it (and have a mummy wrapping, if planning to shop), go ahead
with this group, if uncursed. Cursed invisibility gives you aggravate monster
- also, you can't identify it if you're already invisible, so you may need to
see a monster drink it.
Monster detection; it's wise to check there's a monster around if
flags.beginner is set, since otherwise you won't ID it for sure; if you're not
a beginner, "You feel threatened." (or "You feel lonely", if blessed).
Cursed gain energy makes you feel "lackluster", but is still identified.
Also, annoyingly, if you get surcharged buying these potions, they look like
the ones in the next group.
200 - speed, levitation, enlightenment, full healing, polymorph.
Without polycontrol polymorph is likely to make your life miserable regardless
of b/u/c status. If you must try potions in this group, do it without shirts,
body armour or cloaks in a locked room, on a level with a sink (which eases
the effects of unblessed levitation; cursed levitation causes you to hit your
head on the ceiling but is no worse than uncursed thereafter). Enlightenment
and full healing can be identified even if cursed (enlightenment makes you
feel "uneasy"); speed will normally be identified for you, but a non-cursed
speed will heal wounded legs and need to be #named 'speed', or if you are
already very fast your legs will 'get new energy' (but no auto-ID.)
250 - acid, oil.
Since you can use the (a)pply trick to identify oil, weeding out acid is also
trivial once you can price-ID. Acid "explodes" when immersed in a pool or
moat, but since this would possibly destroy other potions this is only useful
after an accident, if you can remember what you had beforehand...
300 - gain ability, paralysis, gain level.
This group's quite tricky, and often better left. Gain ability is a bit wasted
if not blessed ("tastes foul", if cursed); gain level is wasted at low levels,
or if cursed, or if unblessed at intermediate levels; and paralysis is nasty,
blessed or cursed. Once you've got paralysis out the way (by having it thrown
at you?), it's probably worth hanging onto the others to bless them.
Scrolls.
Scrolls are trickier than potions; monsters don't use so many of them, and
amnesia will always ruin your day, so there's nothing much to be done but
identify scrolls that might be amnesia. Sufficiently lucky wizards with magic
markers and a stock of blanks can always try writing the scrolls they are most
worried about (as can any class, but with only a 1/3 chance with maximised
Luck, so you'd need a large surplus of marker charges for this to be
sensible).
A scroll by itself in a one-space corridor 'closet' in the wall is practically
always teleportation (and, if there are multiple scrolls, one of them is
practically always teleportation), as is a scroll in a corridor next to a room
in general.
Like clear potions, an unlabelled scroll is always blank, but can be read (and
not consumed) to identify it. But who cares?
Monsters may use scrolls of teleportation, create monster, fire and earth, but
the latter two are quite unlikely.
Conversely, the fact that many scrolls have different effects while confused
can let you weed out some of the harmful ones relatively unscathed.
The fact that scrolls of scare monster will crumble to dust when picked up, if
cursed, and go one step towards cursed otherwise, makes them easy to spot -
but if you are in a shop and you are really broke, you may want to take care
to get scroll prices via #chat.
As mentioned earlier, there are always two scrolls of earth on adjacent
squares in the lower left corner of the first level of Sokoban.
Now, by price group;
0 - mail.
Enough said.
20 - identify.
This one is easy; it's also very common - with twice the item probability of
the next most common scroll, although the various special cases that create
teleportation probably mean it is created still more frequently. If you really
don't have any suitable shops, accumulating a vast mass of scrolls and reading
the common ones may be the only thing to do.
50 - light.
Also unique in cost and auto-identifying when read; but, unlike identify,
largely useless and a prime candidate for blanking.
60 - enchant weapon, blank.
This group would be easy if a surcharge didn't make it look like one of the
next group. If you don't know the b/u/c status, you could get confused and
read it while using unrustproof (or fireproof) weapon and armour; cursed
confused enchant weapon removes rustproofing, but there will be none to
remove. However, if it's blessed remove curse it'll still ruin your day.
Another approach would be to try unconfused with expendable armour and weapon
- if you can uncurse things affected by remove curse.
80 - enchant armour, remove curse.
These are not so easy unless you know the b/u/c status, because a confused
remove curse randomly curses or blesses some of the objects it would otherwise
have operated on. Oddly enough, that means (if you are wearing no rustproof
armour) that cursed confused is safe; remove curse just "disintegrates".
100 - destroy armour, confuse monster, scare monster, teleportation, gold
detection, food detection, magic mapping, fire.
The presence of fire and destroy armour in this group make it harder than it
might be. If you're fire resistant or can take the damage and don't have any
flammable objects, fire's OK; destroy armour can be handled by not wearing any
armour (but you get a "strange feeling" instead of "Your skin itches." if
flags.beginner is set) or by wearing a piece of junk (but uncursed) armour.
These two are more easily mitigated by being confused (fire sets light to your
hand, destroy armour makes a piece of armour glow purple and potentially
changes its rustproofing status), but the effects of some of the others are
more severe if you are confused.
Confuse monster confuses you if cursed; if you are confused, it un-confuses
you if blessed ("a red glow surrounds your head"), or makes you more confused.
Scare monster gives you "sad wailing" or "maniacal laughter" (but, if cursed
or confused, attracts monsters). Teleportation will level teleport you if
cursed or confused (eep!). Gold detection detects traps if confused or cursed
- looking like gold, if cursed. Confused or cursed food detection detects
potions; the best way to handle this one is to ensure there are some food
items (and a potion, if it's not known uncursed) around to be detected.
I think the best way to handle scrolls in this group is to eliminate
teleportation and then read them while confused and wearing no rustproof
armour. Failing that, wearing junk armour and having no other inflammable
items around may do the trick; but teleportation can still blast you across
the level (into a sticky situation, naked.)
200 - create monster, taming, amnesia, earth.
Amnesia must be identified somehow, making scrolls in this group a prime
candidate for whatever identifies you do have - but note, above, that one can
identify earth from Sokoban. Assuming that's been done, earth does nothing in
the endgame (other than on the plane of Earth) or on the Rogue level, but
creates at least one boulder anywhere else regardless of b/u/c or confusion.
If you aren't equipped to deal with a potentially large number of monsters,
confused create monster creates acid blobs, which also guarantees you will be
able to see the results and so know what you got. That leaves taming as the
one that might do nothing visible (but then you know what it is, anyway);
interestingly, the effects of taming cover a much wider area if confused.
Wasting a scroll of taming is irritating, but you have a 50% chance of
identifying it before amnesia anyway.
300 - genocide, punishment, charging, stinking cloud.
Stinking cloud pays no attention to confusion, and always identifies itself.
Beware that the cloud's radius may be as large as 4, if blessed; don't poison
yourself.
Uncursed confused genocide will kill you very dead indeed. Cursed confused
genocide sends in 4-6 of your own role, which can be nasty. Blessed confused
genocide functions normally, which means you can do confused testing of this
group if you know the scroll is blessed (but then you might as well just use
it while unconfused.)
Punishment is easy; if confused or blessed, "You feel guilty.", and if you
have a pickaxe or a pit to hand and a boulder, you can ditch the iron ball in
no time (arrange to push the boulder into the pit while the ball is in it.)
Charging makes "You feel charged up!" if confused (increasing your Pw), but
otherwise identifies itself.
I'm inclined to feel scrolls in this category are usually best saved; a spare
blessed charging spares you a wish on your first WoW, and genocide is best
used in pant-browning emergencies. Bless 'em and save 'em; when you find that
WoW, you can always wipe out liches if you happen to read genocide first.
Wands.
The traditional method for identifying most wands is to engrave with them
after first writing something else with your fingers in the dust; by and
large, this either identifies the wand or gives a message you can use to
identify the wand. However, four wands give no result; one group of three and
one of two give identical messages; and, if wands are found in a shop, you
will be charged usage fees for the charges you consume.
See also the spoiler at <
http://www.steelypips.org/nethack/wand_id.html>.
Light, enlightenment, create monster, digging, fire, lightning and wishing
will identify themselves immediately, as will secret door detection if by some
chance there is a secret door in the room. Lightning blinds you while you are
doing it - exercise caution. The following wands give unique messages;
* striking; "The wand unsuccessfully fights your attempt to write!"
* slow monster; "The bugs on the floor slow down!"
* speed monster; "The bugs on the floor speed up!"
* polymorph changes the engraving to a randomly selected one.
* magic missile; "The floor is riddled by bullet holes!"
* cold; "A few ice cubes drop from the wand."
The following wands give no message; Nothing, undead turning, opening,
locking, probing, secret door detection (normally). If you can be bothered,
you can line up a locked door/chest, an unlocked door/chest, a corpse, and a
live monster; all these wands do something to that lot, except nothing and
secret door detection; and nothing prompts for a direction where secret door
detection does not.
Death and sleep both give "The bugs on the floor stop moving!"; find some nice
monster to volunteer for testing purposes (beware bounces). The odds are ten
to one that it's sleep (unless Orcus dropped it).
Make invisible, teleportation and cancellation all cause the previous
engraving to vanish (actually, a teleported engraving is elsewhere on the
level, so if you find it you know which wand you had), which is a bit awkward,
especially as you can hardly zap them at yourself.
Lining up a monster and a junk object does for this; if both vanish, it's
teleportation; if the monster vanishes, it's make invisible. Alternatively,
you can use a slow-moving monster, since you can just nip across to its space
and try to smack it if it disappears - Raisse suggests a floating eye, because
if it doesn't disappear you had cancellation and you can kill it with
impunity. A third approach is to use an object that changes with cancellation
- if it goes away you had teleport, if it changes you cancelled it, and
otherwise you had make invisible. A fourth technique is to stuff the wand into
a spare bag of holding and see if it explodes - although personally I find it
hard to envisage a situation where one would be that desperate to identify
teleportation.
Price groups are included mostly for their utility when shopping, and also
because you can sort out some of the previous differences with prices.
100 - light, nothing.
This lets you eliminate the wand of nothing from those others that do nothing
when engraved with (but the rest of them all cost the same.)
150 - secret door detection, enlightenment, striking, make invisible, slow
monster, speed monster, undead turning, opening, locking, probing, digging,
magic missile.
There's a lot of wands in this group, and to make it more irritating the 1/3
surcharge can confuse them with wands in the next group but one; and you
obtain wands so rarely that it's unlikely you'll have more than one to try.
However, you can pick one of the 'engraving vanishes' wands out by price; make
invisible.
175 - fire, cold, sleep, lightning.
These wands are a good choice when shopping, because they are readily
identified, relatively inexpensive, and all deal effectively with monsters.
200 - create monster, polymorph, cancellation, teleportation.
Here's the other two 'vanishers'.
500 - wishing, death.
If you find one of these wands in a shop, you can line up the shopkeeper (but
not yourself on the rebound) and attempt to let them have it. If it's death,
fine; if it's wishing, wish for 2 blessed scrolls of charging and a wand of
death, and let them have it anyway. If you're not concerned about killing
shopkeepers, this is no bad plan, and it gives you about a 50% chance of
netting a wand of wishing.
Rings.
Rings are difficult, because monsters never use them. Conversely, you can
always try on a non-cursed ring for one turn and see if anything happens; the
odds of (say) polymorph kicking in during that one turn are very small. Don't
try this next to a powerful friendly (shopkeeper, say?) that will whip the
snot out of you if it's conflict; do try it next to a wussy peaceful monster,
or with several monsters in view next to each other. Do try to do it when you
have a wand of enlightenment to zap and see what changed.
If you do not know the spell of "teleport away" and you are below experience
level 12 (8 for Wizards), press ^T while trying out an uncursed ring. If it's
teleportation, you will be told "You are not able to teleport at will." rather
than "You don't know that spell."; this behaviour does seem to be intended.
The following rings will be identified by putting them on; see invisible, if
you are invisible and can't already see invisible; invisibility, if not
already invisible; adornment, gain strength/constitution and protection, if
not +0; and levitation, if not levitating anyway. Some other rings - like
conflict - can be identified by observation of the effects and then #named
appropriately.
If you have two of a given ring, dropping one on a sink will give a message
that can identify the ring to you (you don't need two, but since you usually
lose the dropped one there's not a hell of a lot of point otherwise); this is
very effective one you have a decent collection of rings. You will need to
have a junk object on the sink, in case the ring is hunger; and many of these
effects do not work, if blind.
These messages are as follows;
searching: "You thought your ring got lost in the sink,
but there it is!"
slow digestion: "The ring is regurgitated!"
[these are the two cases where you get the ring back]
levitation: "The sink quivers upwards for a moment."
poison resistance: "You smell rotten <fruit>."
aggravate monster: "Several flies buzz angrily around the sink."
shock resistance: "Static electricity surrounds the sink."
conflict: "You hear loud noises coming from the drain."
sustain ability: "The water flow seems fixed."
gain strength: "The water flow seems stronger/weaker now."
gain constitution: "The water flow seems lesser/greater now."
increase accuracy: "The water flow misses/hits the drain."
increase damage: "The water's force seems smaller/greater now."
hunger: "Suddenly, <junk object> vanishes from the sink!"
meat ring: "Several flies buzz around the sink."
[Effects from here demand that you are not blind.]
adornment: "The faucets flash brightly for a moment."
regeneration: "The sink looks as good as new."
invisibility: "You don't see anything happen to the sink."
free action: "You see the ring slide right down the drain!"
see invisible: "You see some air in the sink."
stealth: "The sink seems to blend into the floor for a moment."
fire resistance: "The hot water faucet flashes brightly for a moment."
cold resistance: "The cold water faucet flashes brightly for a moment."
prot. shape changers: "The sink looks nothing like a fountain."
protection: "The sink glows black/silver for a moment."
warning: "The sink glows white for a moment."
teleportation: "The sink momentarily vanishes."
teleport control: "The sink looks like it is being beamed aboard
somewhere."
polymorph: "The sink momentarily looks like a fountain."
polymorph control: "The sink momentarily looks like a
regularly erupting geyser."
That said, price grouping still has some value for rings; if you can ID the
real nasties in a group, you can try the rest on.
100 - adornment, protection, stealth, sustain ability, hunger, warning,
protection from shape changers.
If only hunger wasn't in this group! Nothing else in here can hurt you by
being worn long-term even if cursed (although beware the problem where you try
on shape-changers in a shop and all the mimics whip you), and some of them
will easily identify themselves to you.
[However, sustain ability can be awkward to identify - it's hard to generate a
stat change on demand. If uncursed, you can become satiated, wait until the
turn after you stop being satiated, eat something with a known nutrition
value, and see how long you are satiated for - this lets you pick up on
hunger.]
150 - gain strength, gain constitution, increase accuracy, increase damage,
aggravate monster, poison resistance, cold resistance, shock resistance,
invisibility, see invisible.
This risks confusion with the next group - but once you've got aggravate
monster out the way, you may as well wear noncursed rings in this group
(provided you didn't uncurse them - otherwise, there you are with -3 uncursed
increase damage...)
200 - regeneration, searching, levitation, fire resistance, free action, slow
digestion, teleportation.
Noncursed rings in this group; go for it. Teleportation is no problem if you
can take it off, and see the ^T trick above. Just ensure you're down some HP
for prompt identification of regeneration.
300 - conflict, teleport control, polymorph, polymorph control.
Without polycontrol, polymorph is a killer, since it will quite likely trash
all your armour.
Amulets.
There's relatively few of these. The bad news is that they all cost the same.
The good news is that, provided you are not polymorphed, trying on non-cursed
amulets is pretty harmless. You might change gender (which is irritating),
fall asleep (do it in a controlled environment) or be strangled (but then you
just remove the amulet; uncursed strangulation is not dangerous); but this is
well worth it for the possibility of donning life saving, and in any case
these harmful types are nearly always generated cursed. Again, the wand of
enlightenment technique is very useful here.
Of the non-harmful ones, ESP becomes known pretty well right away. Reflection
is bound to become obvious after a while. Magical breathing can be tested for
by stripping and jumping in a pool - you'll crawl out, if it's not (beware; if
you can teleport, you often will, if not wearing AoMB). In theory you could
also test for magical breathing by overeating and seeing if you die, but this
has an obvious drawback. Versus poison is hard to identify if you're already
poison resistant, and life saving is hard to put to the test (but you often
find them round monsters' necks, the standard way of IDing them - hence, an
amulet dropped by an intelligent necked monster is probably not life saving -
but it's not impossible.)
As mentioned above, Vlad's always has life saving and strangulation.
Spellbooks.
Of course, the 'plain' spellbook is blank paper, and the 'papyrus' spellbook
is the Book of the Dead. Vlad's always contains a spellbook of invisibility,
and the Wizard will bring a spellbook of dig to the Plane of Earth.
Any blessed spellbook can be read successfully, and any spellbook granted you
by your god will be blessed. Of course, there is no guarantee that you can
cast the resulting spell. :-)
The base price of a spellbook is always 100 times the spell's level, making
for easy identification of those one can safely read; obviously, however, the
surcharge can confuse a level 3 spell with a level 4 spell.
The effect of reading a cursed spellbook is the same as that of failing to
comprehend an uncursed spellbook, so normally you need to check cursedness
before doing anything with a spellbook.
The question, then, is what level of uncursed spellbook you can safely read.
It's easy for wizards, who receive a warning if they might not succeed, but
the rest of us have to chance it. The effects of a too-hard spellbook are very
severe, and I prefer to shop-ID the level of all spellbooks and only read safe
ones. You will fail to read a spellbook if a random number between 1 and 20 is
greater than (Intelligence + 4 + half XP level - twice level of book); hence,
you can only read safely if this total is 20 or more.
Odd XP levels are useless for reading books; a level 3 character is equivalent
to a level 2 one (and a level 1 character might as well be level 0). With that
in mind, a level 0 character needs an Int of 18 to read a level 1 spellbook
safely. Every 2 XP levels past that lowers the Int requirement by one, but
each extra level of the spell increases it by 2. The chance of failure is 5%
for each point of Int you are short. A moment's thought will reveal that
there's not much point in spellbooks unless you have a high Int or a high XP
level; at the high end of the spectrum, a level 7 spellbook requires an XP
level of 24 to read safely even with Int 18.
If you can't be bothered to do the numbers, there's a table at <http://
www.steelypips.org/nethack/spellreading.html> you can refer to.
That said, a low-level spellbook cannot paralyse you for very long (but more
than long enough for a cockatrice to stone you), but although the worse
spellbook aftereffects are generally seen at higher spell levels, the
'teleport' effect is most likely at low levels - a level 1 spellbook will give
it every time - and being *bamf*ed across the level when paralysed is a good
way to get killed. There is a sharp increase in paralysation times at spell
level 3 and above; levels 1 and 2 can only immobilise you for 1-3 turns at
most, which you may be willing to chance, especially since the probability of
failure will be low. The particularly bold may even want to try level 1/2
spellbooks of unknown cursedness.
Unless you have monstrous Int and XP level, or are a wizard, reading unblessed
books of unknown spell level is asking to be killed.
These price groupings are pretty useless, to be frank; if you identified every
other spellbook in a group, you can probably read the last one safely anyway.
* 100 - sleep, light, detect monsters, healing, knock, force bolt,
protection, jumping.
* 200 - magic missile, confuse monster, cure blindness, drain life, slow
monster, wizard lock, create monster, detect food.
* 300 - cause fear, clairvoyance, cure sickness, charm monster, haste self,
detect unseen, extra healing, remove curse, identify, stone to flesh.
* 400 - fireball, cone of cold, levitation, restore ability, invisibility,
detect treasure.
* 500 - dig, magic mapping.
* 600 - turn undead, polymorph, teleport away, create familiar.
* 700 - finger of death, cancellation.
Weapons.
There's not much to say about weapons, save that - like armour - a shopkeeper
will increase the base price by 10 zorkmids for every point of positive
enchantment. If you know the base prices for every weapon and piece of armour
(which I am not, no, going to list here), you can easily determine which these
are. Better yet, no weapon or armour generated with positive enchantment is
cursed; just fling 'em down in a shop and pick up the expensive ones. Beware
items from bones piles!
If you have several stacks of objects that stack, like daggers or arrows, the
largest stack is probably uncursed +0.
Naturally, a named weapon (not found in bones) is always an artifact weapon,
which are occasionally randomly generated.
If a throwing weapon or piece of ammunition 'slips' or 'misfires' when you
throw or fire it, it is cursed; but cursed weapons and ammo will not do this
every time they are used. Exception; any greased item may also slip or
misfire.
Armour.
Armour is much easier, since you can discover the +/- status just by trying it
on (once you know it's not cursed, and with the exception of the autocursing
types of headgear; of course, the enchantment pricing technique above helps
spot blessed armour); but there are a few types of armour with shuffled
descriptions. Positive enchantment can obscure price groupings, but that's OK
(again, apart from those kinds of headgear) because such items are then always
non-cursed and can be removed (and as soon as you try it on and learn the +
status you know what group it's really in.)
Nearly all fumble boots, levitation boots, helms of opposite alignment, and
gauntlets of fumbling are generated cursed. Not all, alas, so one may still
get uncursed helms of opposite alignment. Nevertheless, if you (as I do) #name
a known cursed armour item "cursed once plumed" or similar, and then find a
second piece of the same type also cursed, the odds are good that it is one of
these; conversely two noncursed items of the same type (without also finding
cursed ones) suggest that the item is not of this type (but if it's not a
helmet, you might as well just try it on.)
One type each of magical gloves (gauntlets of power) and boots (kicking) is
made of metal, not leather, and so rusts and corrodes where the others burn
and rot; this might be useful if found in a bones pile or if you have spares
and can change into a monster that eats metal or leather. You might also try
wearing non-cursed boots and looking for changes in your spellcasting chances
(a lack of a change does not guarantee non-metallic boots - a full discussion
of these chances is beyond the score of this document). This is useless for
gauntlets of power, because they automatically ID when worn. Also, you could
immerse the item repeatedly and see if it rusts (or wear boots and let a rust
monster pound on you, I suppose). Beware; if your Luck is high, many
immersions may be needed.
If you use a stethoscope on monsters, you can gain a good idea of the
enchantment of their armour.
The most straightforward of these are the 'conical hats'; the corunthaum and
dunce cap. If you're not a wizard, you don't care; if you are, you can either</pre><pre id="faqspan-2">
be prepared to uncurse the dunce cap (not with the spell of remove curse), or
use the fact that the base cost of a corunthaum is 80 and that of a dunce cap
is 1.
Next, the plain helmet, helm of brilliance, helm of telepathy, and helm of
opposite alignment - plumed, etched, crested and visored. Plain helmets are
cheaper (base cost 10 vs. 50), often found on soldiers and minetown guards,
and known to those classes that start with knowledge of armour types, so
that's pretty easy. The other three are hard to tell apart, and opposite
alignment autocurses and blows away your divine protection; but, if you're
willing to take a chance on it, telepathy is pretty handy. (If one of these
helms doesn't do anything, it's most likely +0 brilliance. Or you forgot to
take off your amulet of ESP? Or a +4 plain helmet...)
A 'slippery cloak' is always oilskin; a 'faded pall' is always elven; an
'apron' is an alchemy smock. The cloaks with shuffled descriptions are
protection, invisibility, magic resistance and displacement; the tattered
cape, opera cloak, ornamental cope, and piece of cloth. Protection and
displacement both immediately ID themselves when you wear them. If you're
already invisible, it can be hard to tell invisibility from magic resistance
(if you have the HP, zap yourself with a wand of magic missile or striking).
It may be sensible to try on these cloaks even if not known uncursed; they all
do useful things, and a cursed cloak only prevents you from changing body
armour (or shopping, if invisibility.) Note that protection and displacement
have a base cost of 50 where the other two have a base cost of 60.
A polished silver shield is always reflection; if blind, it's a 'smooth
shield'.
Four kinds of gloves are shuffled; leather (again, classes who recognise
armour get a bonus here), fumbling, power, and dexterity; these are old,
padded, riding and fencing gloves. It's hard to justify trying these unless
known uncursed; fumbling is awkward and +0 dexterity is useless. You can't
tell +0 dex from leather if you don't already know leather, which is a
nuisance. Gauntlets of power are made of metal. Leather is very much cheaper;
base cost 8 versus 50 for the others. Guards and soldiers, again, often have
leather gloves.
Boots are pretty awkward, because there are many types. 'Walking shoes', 'hard
shoes' and 'jackboots' are just low boots, iron shoes and high boots,
respectively. However; speed, water walking, jumping, elven, kicking, fumble
and levitation boots are shuffled into jungle, combat, hiking, mud, buckled,
riding and snow boots.
Elven and kicking boots are cheap, with a base cost of 8. Fumble and
levitation boots cost 30 (and are nearly always cursed), and the others 50.
Since fumble are the only harmful kind (and the cost 50 boots do their job
just as well if cursed), this can be useful.
Elven monsters are very likely to start with elven boots.
Levitation, elven and speed boots ID themselves right away, unless you are
already levitating, stealthy or very fast; not being stealthy can be hard to
arrange, though. Jumping boots can be trivially identified by trying to jump;
fumble boots (uncursed, I hope) by wandering around in them.
Kicking and water walking boots are more difficult. Kicking boots may be
distinguished because of the fact that you will always kick down doors when
wearing them (if you have a lot of doors to spare - obviously, you can never
be quite sure), but a more straightforward method if you are not a monk,
samurai or sasquatch is to kick any object with and without the boots on; with
kicking boots on it will move between 1-3 further spaces. Kicking ranges are
also increased on ice, so don't compare on-ice with off-ice ranges. Monks,
samurai and sasquatches can still try kicking doors, but they are quite likely
to kick down doors anyway. As mentioned above, jumping into pools IDs water
walking right away, and will also sort out kicking boots when they rust.
Tools.
There is relatively little potential for confusion amongst tools, but there
are a few complicated types, and the question of whether the tool you have is
cursed is always interesting.
4 objects are described as 'bag'; the sack, oilskin sack, bag of holding, and
bag of tricks. The sack is considerably cheaper (2 vs. 100), and you may well
start with one; the bag of tricks is trivially identified by #looting or
applying it (be equipped to handle the results. #looting will do at most 10
damage, where applying may summon an arbitarily nasty nasty and will cause a
shopkeeper to charge you for that use, if it's not your bag.) The other two
can be sorted out by finding a bunch of junk objects (rocks, say) that just
make one Burdened and stuffing them into the bag; if you aren't Burdened, it
was holding. Take them out, drop two (now un-Burdened), and put them back in;
if you are Burdened, it's cursed holding. If objects disappear upon applying,
it's cursed holding, and you want to take out all the remaining objects now.
Use #name appropriately.
If you find a bag in a bones pile, it is mostly likely cursed and full of
juicy loot. You don't want to chance its being holding (and losing half the
loot), so if you can lift it at all, it's probably a good idea to uncurse it
first; if not, clear other objects away and give it a zap of cancellation (if
possible) - this doesn't harm the contents. It's not clear to me that cursed
holding can be generated outside of a bones pile.
Another way to sort out the bags which are not tricks is to put
water-damageable objects such as junk potions and scrolls into them (be sure
it's not cursed holding, but since holding's easy this is best for oilskin
sacks and plain sacks in the absence of price-ID) and immersing it repeatedly,
checking to see if the contents are damaged. With high Luck you may require
many immersions.
There are two objects called 'lamp'; the oil lamp and magic lamp. Oil is
cheaper (cost 10 vs. 50), and magic is inexhaustible - either kind may
'splutter' and fail to light if cursed. Four approaches; check the price,
bless one and try #rubbing it, just light the first you find and see if it
ever gets used up, or try to refill it with a potion of oil (but you might as
well wait and see if it gets exhausted, unless you have 2 kinds of lamp and
want to know which is which right away). Regardless, it's worth #naming the
first lamp you find 'lamp 1' or something, so you can tell if you've actually
got both flavours.
There are two 'whistles'; tin and magic. Apply them; a high whistling noise is
tin and strange is magic. Easy. You may not need to #name magic, if you have a
pet to be summoned. (These objects are unlikely to be cursed, but
'high-pitched humming' is magic, 'shrill' is tin.)
For all musical instruments, you should improvise unless you are trying to
open the Castle drawbridge (not that you get a choice with drums).
Two 'flutes'; magic and wooden. Magic flutes, if charged, produce 'soft music'
(and put monsters to sleep); if not, they are like wooden flutes - they
'trill' or 'toot' (and charm snakes, in the former case, which is likely if
you have good Dex or XP level). However, magic flutes are never generated
uncharged, so this should not normally be an issue.
Four 'horns'; tooled, frost, fire and plenty. Frost and fire ask for a
direction (same issue that an uncharged one is like a tooled horn); a horn of
plenty makes food (an uncharged one does nothing, but it's the only horn that
does, so you know what it is.) Beware; tooled horns awaken monsters.
Two 'harps'; magic and wooden. With the usual proviso about the uncharged
magic version looking like a normal one, the magic harp produces 'very
attractive music' (and charms monsters) and the normal one 'produces a lilting
melody' or 'twangs' (and charms nymphs, in the former case.)
Two 'drums'; leather and earthquake. If charged, it's not hard to work out
which one you have.
All bells and bugles are normal, except the 'silver' Bell of Opening.
Various tools are easily identified, but you may be unsure as to their
cursedness status (although, as mentioned above, only light sources, grease,
crystal balls and figurines will normally be generated cursed). With a cursed
camera, you will photograph yourself half the time. A cursed towel or
blindfold cannot be removed, and (a)pplying a cursed towel covers you in gunk
(useful in emergencies if you have no other way of blinding yourself). A
cursed stethoscope may well cause you to hear "your heart beat" (even if you
are polymorphed into a heartless monster, alas). A cursed leash will strangle
your pet - potentially fatally. A cursed mirror will fog up and not reflect.
Cursed bells summon nymphs; the cursed Bell of Opening summons undead. Cursed
tinning kits make cursed tins. A cursed unicorn horn gives you one of several
nasty conditions, potentially fatally. Cursed grease greases your hands.
Cursed land mines and bear traps tend to go off on you. Wax candles burn for
400 turns where tallow candles burn for only 200, so if you have some obscure
need to identify candles (perhaps to eat wax candles without breaking
vegetarian conduct) you could light one, wait for it to burn down, and #name
others that stacked with it. That's about all the interesting ones.
Gems.
Rocks are technically 'gems', as are gray stones. Gray stones come in four
flavours; flint stones, luckstones, touchstones and loadstones. They can be
price-IDed; luckstones have a base value of 60, touchstones of 45; the other
two are worthless. Loadstones are always generated cursed; other gems,
uncursed, so apart from bones files you need not fear carrying around a cursed
luckstone.
You can only kick a loadstone across the floor if your Strength is at least 22
and you are either wearing kicking boots or are a samurai, monk or sasquatch;
even then you will not move it reliably. If you are on ice, an extra 1-3 is
added to all kicking ranges (which might otherwise be negative); if you can
kick a gray stone on ice, it's best to kick it to a non-ice space before
deducing anything. A gray stone that cannot be kicked owing to an awkward
position presents a difficulty; so does one in a chest or box. If you can, you
can try locking the box and #forcing it with a blunt implement to destroy the
box; but if you break the lock, you are out of luck unless you have the spell
of wizard lock or a wand of locking. If you have the patience you could count
up your total weight and arrange matters so that the weight of the box and a
loadstone would take you to a different burdening status to that produced by
the box and a harmless stone. If you can afford to uncurse the thing, you can
always pick it up and see if it's really heavy; remember to #name it before
dropping it again if it is a loadstone. To my knowledge, there's no way to #
name a loadstone without picking it up, so even if you kick-test one you've
got no way of marking it unless you have holy water to burn.
Touchstones are easily identified provided you're not blind; #rub any unknown
gray stone on a hard object that is not gold, silver or wood, like an iron
weapon. If it's a touchstone, you will hear "scritch, scritch". Once you have
a blessed touchstone - uncursed if you are a gnome or an archaeologist, the
latter of which begin with a touchstone - you may rub it on any gem or stone
to identify it, which certainly helps with the other gray stones.
As for flint and luckstones, #name any gray stones you can't kick-test or
determine are touchstones by #rubbing; once you have two flavours, you know
you have a luckstone. Alternatively, only flint stones and touchstones are
generated in piles of more than one; you may use enlightenment to tell that
there is a luckstone in your inventory (you will always have "extra luck" or
"reduced luck"); or see the discussion of the guaranteed items in the Mines
below.
Gems come in two flavours; soft and hard. You can engrave in the floor with
hard gems, but only write in the dust with soft ones. All hard gems are
valuable (but not all soft gems are worthless). This provides sufficient
information for most purposes; you don't need every valuable gem to get all a
shopkeeper's goodies (but you _will_ need scrolls of identify to actually ID
your valuable gems and sell them) or to get luck out of unicorns. If you are
interested in IDing gems at all, this is the technique that reveals the
maximum information for the minimum amount of effort.
You can identify amethysts with the trick in the 'potions' section.
A second way to identify classes of gems is by flinging them to unicorns. This
also has an effect on your luck - however, it's equally likely to be negative
as positive if the unicorn is not coaligned, so best to stick to coaligned
unicorns. The unicorn keeps the gem if it's valuable and you haven't #named
it, so I usually #name the target gem 'valuable red' and fling it; if I get it
back, I can then #name it 'worthless red'. If it's not #named, the unicorn
'graciously' accepts glass, and you need another one to actually #name.
Glass golems, when killed, create worthless glass but not valuable gems. I
should add a disclaimer here; I've never seen a glass golem drop anything, and
I don't see why one shouldn't happen to be carrying a valuable gem, which
might confuse the issue.
The gems in the 4 corners of Fort Ludious are always diamonds, emeralds,
rubies and amethysts. In 3.4 the Gnomish Mine bottom has become considerably
more complicated, alas. There are three randomly selected endings, two of
which have layouts from familiar versions of NetHack. Portions of these next
paragraphs are quoted directly from Dylan's Dungeon Gazetteer.
In general, each gem or piece of glass (or flint or touchstone) listed below
may become a pile of 2 at generation time, with a 1/6 chance.
The first of these is "the Mimic of the Mines", a variation on the only mine
ending in still older versions of NetHack; this is the ending where you
descend into an irregularly shaped area which is dark. There are seven awkward
or secret spots on this level, six of which (randomly assigned) will contain;
* A worthless piece of violet glass, an emerald, a diamond, and a mimic
imitating a luckstone.
* An amethyst, a worthless piece of green glass, a diamond, and a mimic
imitating a flint stone.
* An amethyst, an emerald, a worthless piece of white glass, and a mimic
imitating a loadstone.
* A worthless piece of violet glass, an emerald, a worthless piece of white
glass, and a mimic imitating a touchstone.
* A loadstone, a ruby, and a worthless piece of red glass.
* A luckstone, a worthless piece of red glass, and a ruby.
The good news is that all but two of the spots are kickable, so it is highly
unlikely that you will be unable to sort out the loadstone from the luckstone.
If you can tell some of the various worthless gems from their valuable
cousins, you might be able to differentiate some of the stacks by the initial
ordering of items and hence make some more identifications.
The second ending is the Gnome King's Wine Cellar; in this one you start in a
wide short lit rectangular room with a single doorway in the right-hand wall.
Here the gems are in a 2x2 rectangular hole in the rock you can dig out; this
contains at least two diamonds, two random gems (NW); two emeralds, two random
gems (NE); one ruby, one emerald, two random gems (SW); two amethysts, one
ruby, one random gem, and a luckstone on top (SE). Often the random gems will
not interfere with colour-based ID of the valuable ones; if you find two gray
stones in the south-east pile, the top one is the luckstone (but kick it off
anyway out of paranoia?)
The new ending is the Catacombs, where you begin in a lit square room with
only secret entrances. Randomly placed on the level are two diamonds, three
emeralds, two rubies, and two amethysts; and there are three secret spots -
one empty, one with a level teleport trap and a luckstone, and one with a
level teleport trap and a flintstone. Getting the stones off the traps is left
as an exercise for the reader.
Gem pricing in shops is curiously complicated. Selling prices (where the gem
is un-IDed) leak a little information in a way I still believe is an
inadvertently possible abuse, and hence I am not going to document this -
especially since any compilation option that changes object ID numbers will
invalidate the whole list. However, the buying price of each worthless gem is
randomly set (each game, not each gem or each purchase) to that of one of two
valuable gems of the same colour; hence if you find a soft gem of a given
colour with a price that does not match one of the possible worthless glass
prices, you know it is still valuable - in particular, the dilithium crystal
qualifies here and sometimes the various variable-colour gems (see below). The
table below has a '*' next to the name of all gems that have a duplicate price
for worthless glass.
Colour grouping can help sort out gems - unfortunately, various gem colours
are shuffled at game start time, to make our lives miserable. The table below
indicates the chance that the listed gem is of the listed colour (but a given
gem will always be the same colour in a particular game - if one turquoise is
green, they all are.)
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Colour | Hard | Soft |
|-------+-----------------------------+--------------------------------------|
|white |diamond* 4000 |dilithium 4500, opal* 800, |
| | |fluorite 400 (25%) |
|-------+-----------------------------+--------------------------------------|
|red |ruby* 3500 |garnet 700, jasper* 500 |
|-------+-----------------------------+--------------------------------------|
|orange |jacinth* 3250 |agate* 200 |
|-------+-----------------------------+--------------------------------------|
|blue |sapphire* 3000, aquamarine* |turquoise 2000 (50%), fluorite 400 |
| | 1500 (50%) |(25%) |
|-------+-----------------------------+--------------------------------------|
|black |black opal* 2500 |jet* 850, obsidian 200 |
|-------+-----------------------------+--------------------------------------|
|green |emerald 2500*, |turquoise 2000 (50%), jade* 300, |
| |aquamarine 1500 (50%) |fluorite 400 (25%) |
|-------+-----------------------------+--------------------------------------|
|yellow | |citrine* 1500, chrysoberyl* 700 |
|-------+-----------------------------+--------------------------------------|
|y.brown|topaz* 900 |amber* 1000 |
|-------+-----------------------------+--------------------------------------|
|violet | |amethyst* 600, fluorite* 400 (25%) |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
[In addition, there's one kind of glass for each colour.]
