Identify

[CivBesch]

It's time I find a rod, wand, staff, or book with prayers with which I can identify. I just made the shopkeeper very happy by selling an unidentified potion for 13, which turned out to be a potion of intelligence, he is now selling for 8000.

The game keeps surprising!

[Derakon]

You are expected to identify consumables by just using them.

[CivBesch]

That sounds very risky!

Do you mean to say, that using a scroll of identify won't identify them?

[Derakon]

Correct, scrolls of identify are for equipment runes only. There are no Potions of Death or similar in Angband; about the worst that can happen to you is that you get teleported off the level by scrolls of Deep Descent or Teleport Level, or that you blow up your surroundings with a Scroll/Staff of Destruction (which is harmless to you, but destroys loot on the ground).

[CivBesch]

Well, that sounds fascinating, particularly the Deep Descent one. But I understood it is possible to reset depth of the Word of Recall to the chosen depth. So if that happens, it is possible to use a Word of Recall back to the town.

I understood that eating mushrooms is not so safe, so the best thing to do is identifying them by selling them.

[Mondkalb]

Regarding potions: There are only a few left with harmful effects, most of them show up very early, these are potions of poison, sleep, confusion, blindness, and salt water.
Mildly annoying are the early stat boost potions, that reduce a random other stat instead (if one of your main stats get lowered) - potions of brawn, intellect, contemplation, nimbleness, toughness.

In earlier versions of the game there were devastating potions like potion of ruination, explosion, death. These are gone for good.

[CivBesch]

Thanks for that extra information

[Pete Mack]

With potions, the very worst that can happen is you gain a point of worthless stat while losing one you care about. It's certainly not worth worrying about. In any case, selling un-IDed potions at DL 30 and below is almost certainly a losing proposition.

[Mondkalb]

With potions, the very worst that can happen is you gain a point of worthless stat while losing one you care about. It's certainly not worth worrying about. In any case, selling un-IDed potions at DL 30 and below is almost certainly a losing proposition.

OTOH selling potions of *Healing* of Life might be better than to quaff them, because you could buy them back.

I would prefer a method of identifying everything without trying.