Lucky finds on level 1 (poll)

[Timo Pietilä]

yeah a good cap of telepathy could conceivably last you through the whole game, and is particularly useful if you're playing a warrior or priest class.
at DL1, i think 3 speed is still preferable to a fancy dagger or a nice bow, though.

ESP over RoS +3 any day.

However this is something I actually have found with Priest very early at town from Battle-scarred Veteran drop:

Dagger (Holy Avenger) (1d4) (+15,+15) (+4) (about those to_hit and to_dam. IIRC to_dam was higher than that)

Which one then? +4 to WIS is huge help at the start of the game for priest.

+10 RoS probably would still win, but I would at least think twice.

[Hariolor]

I almost went with the telepathy, just because having telepathy makes diving just as easy as having =speed. Then again, the =speed lets you win more battles, rather than just avoiding them, so it won out.

If your rod was of curing and not of healing, I may have gone for it instead. 20k gold on DL1 could buy speed items at the 7, a nice plussed weapon, a couple stat potions, etc etc...