Identify
In the game: help identify
identify <item> [worn | carried | here]Anyone can identify an item, at no cost and at once: something worn, carried or lying here. With no place named, it looks at what you wear first, then what you carry, then what is here. In the Character pane's Gear tab, clicking an item (its icon or its name) does the same. The facts open in a card of their own, with the item's icon, what looking at it says and its buttons (wear, drop...); Escape or ✕ closes it.
The ID is a table, row by row:
| Row | What it tells |
|---|---|
| Keywords | The words that name the item in commands. |
| Type | Weapon, armor, worn, potion, wand and so on. "special" means the item has powers of its own. |
| Rarity | How rare and good the item is: poor, common, uncommon, rare, epic or legendary (below). Only things you wear, wield, hold or light have one. |
| Worn on | Where it goes. An item with no Worn on row is not worn. |
| Weapon, Damage | The kind of weapon (see WEAPONS), the damage dice with their average roll, and the kind of damage it does (slash, pierce, pound...), which is what a monster's resistances refer to. |
| Armor | What the armor is made of, from cloth to full plate, and its AC (0 to 9, 9 being excellent). Worn items are clothes: they have no AC but are worn instead of armor. |
| Spells, Spell, Charges | A potion's, scroll's, wand's or staff's spells and the level they are cast at. A spell that gives back points says how much at that level, for example "mana (120 mana)". None of them takes you past your maximum. |
| Condition | How worn something you wear or wield is, from 100% down: fighting, breath and acid wear it down, and at 0% it falls apart (see REPAIR); a repairman restores it. The item's icon shows the same as a bar along its foot, amber, or red when it is nearly gone. |
| Gives | What wearing it does for you, like sanctuary or infravision. |
| Is | What it is made of and what it does: glow, hum, magic, brittle (scraps easily), artifact (does not scrap)... |
| Not for | Who cannot use it: classes, an alignment, men or women. |
| Only for | The only classes that can use it (below). |
| Levels | The levels it serves. |
| Weight, Value, Rent | Its weight, its value, and its rent a day (none means free; unrentable items, such as keys, are left on the ground when you leave the game). LIMITED is below. |
| Affects | What it changes while you wear it. Green helps you, red hurts. |
Who can use it
You must have at least one class the item is not for. For instance, if you are a mage/warrior and an item is not for mage or warrior, you cannot wear it. But if you are also a cleric, and it is not barred to clerics, you can.
Only for turns this around: you must have only the classes listed. An item only for mage can be used by single-class mages only. An item only for mage and cleric can be used by mages, clerics and mage/clerics, but not by a mage/warrior.
Levels
An item that serves "20 to 30 only" can be worn only by a character whose average level is in that range. If you drop below its range, it falls off. "Gods only" items are for immortals.
Rarity
An item's rarity weighs what it gives against how scarce it is. The bonuses players chase count most: resisting blunt, then slash, extra damage and hit points, weapon spells and slayers, big damage dice, true sight and sanctuary. An item the game allows only one of, or with a high rent, counts as scarcer, and one that is never saved counts less. Any item that resists blunt and can be rented is legendary. Rarity also shows as the colour of the item's icon border: grey poor, green uncommon, blue rare, purple epic, orange legendary (a common item keeps the plain border).
Limited
A LIMITED item is one the world holds only so many of (or one with a rent over 10,000 a day). A new one loads only while fewer than that many exist, counting the ones players keep in rent. If you stay away more than 30 days, the limited things you kept go back into the world (see RENT), and when you are rented out (after going idle), you can keep only so many of them, more as you rise in level. LIMITED is not the same as rarity: a limited item can be of any rarity.
Affects
- armor: a negative number is better armor.
- saving: a negative number protects you. Saves are as in D&D.
- hit means hitpoints; hitroll means 'to hit'; hit-n-dam is both 'to hit' and 'to damage' combined.
- mana-regen is how much mana you get back each tick (game hour).
- spellfail is your chance (1 to 100) to fail a spell: casters want negative numbers.
- resists means half damage, weak to double damage, immune to no damage.
- slays a race (see ALLRACES) or an alignment: double total damage to them.
The Item Database (a link under the message of the day on the character list, or /items on the game's web address) shows the ID of every item in the world, and which monsters and shops have it.
Game data
- Level: any
- Position: any (even asleep)
The whole help guide, every topic on one page, searchable.
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