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(5.7) Qualitative classification, identifying & selling items                   
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Items are classified by
-a basic item type
-a simple magical enchantment (to hit-chance, to damage, to armour class)
-an ego power (some items even have two ego powers at once),
 (some examples: resistances on armours, elemental brands on weapons,
 enhanced brightness on light sources. The item carries the names of its
 ego powers. For example an 'Acidic Long Sword of Gondolin' has been
 blessed with two ego powers: 'Acidic' and 'Gondolin'. For more information
 about ego powers see (8.4) Spoiler Files).
 In general, an item may have up to two ego powers: A prefix and a suffix.
 In the above example, "Acidic" is the prefix ego power and "of Gondolin" is
 the suffix ego power. Items with two ego powers are dubbed "double-egos".
-sometimes you may find an artifact which can have quite a bunch of
 different powers combined! Artifacts can be recognized by them carrying
 a name. Example: The War Maul 'Turmil' or The Whip of Gothmog.
 There are two types of artifact, true (also called "static") artifacts which
 are unique-existant and time out after a while, and random artifacts which do
 not have such limitations. All true artifacts are predefined and listed in ~6.
 (See (5.9b) for more information about artifacts.)

If you find an item, it's 'unidentified'. That means you see only the
basic item type.
Example:
A Whip {+,?} (1d6)
The ? indicates that you don't know yet which level is required to wield
this item. You have to identify the item to find out more about it.
(The (1d6) means that this weapon has one 6-sided die rolled to determine
its damage afflicted to your target.)

Assuming you identify it you could get one of the results below:

Example 1:
A Whip {+,1} (1d6) (+0,+3)
This is a magical whip. Magical, because its damage is enchanted to +3.
It doesn't possess any further special abilities.

Example 2:
A Fiery Whip of Gondolin {+,24} (1d6) (+8,+13) (+3)
This is an ego-weapon ('of Gondolin') with a fire brand ('Fiery'). The
base weapon type is a whip which makes it belong to the blunt weapons.
Its to-hit and to-damage are magically enchanted to +8 and +13.
Gondolin weapons increase strength and constitution (here +3).

Ego-items or excellent magical items often have varying abilities.
For example a Gondolin-weapon _can_ have HOLD_LIFE, a high resistance,
or increase your dex. It doesn't _have to_, however. Some Gondolin-Weapons
have different abilities than others. To find out the complete powers of an
item it can be neccessary to *identify* it.
*Identify* (same as *Perception*) reveals the complete ability list.
You can check the complete list of any item listed in a store by pressing 'x'
to 'Examine an item'. For items in your inventory or equipment it is the 'I'
key instead. To get a full list of an items magical abilities outside of stores
requires that you already *identified* the item or bought it from a shop.
Items that are bought from a shop are always automatically *identified*.
Some shops offer an *identify* service (see (4.5a)), for a fee, of course.

Ego items (sometimes) and random artifacts (always) have powers that you cannot
be certain about unless you *identify* the item.
If you inspect (shift+i) the item when it might still have unknown powers, you
will get a message at the bottom of the inspection screen, telling you so:
"It may have hidden powers."
In this case you should always go and *identify* it, not just to find out
whether or not it turns out to indeed have further powers, but also because its
selling value will also increase greatly in case it does!

If you want to look up what certain special items can/cannot do, see the
spoiler files section (8.4) or further explanations in (5.8) and (5.9).

If you sell an item to a shop the offer you will receive depends on
the following:

Item is not identified at all -> the offered cash will equal the value of the
                                 basic item type, eg 300 Au for a long sword
                                 or 20 Au for an unknown potion.

Item has been pseudo-identified -> shops won't buy items that have a bad
                                   pseudo-identification. 'average' items will
                                   sell for the value of the basic item type.
                                   good/excellent/special items will sell for
                                   their basic value too so you better
                                   identify them to get more money for them!

Item has been identified -> the shop will pay you fully for all those boni
                            that are either very obvious (like +STRength or
                            Extra Attacks or Life/Mana) or which are always
                            granted to this kind of ego item (for example
                            'weapons of *Slay Evil*' always give 'ESP evil').

                            However, the shop won't offer money for 'hidden'
                            abilities like resistances or ESP which aren't
                            obvious and which are randomly bestowed upon
                            this type of ego item. (Most ego items have
                            one or more random powers!)
                            To make the shop pay for these unknown powers
                            too you'll need to fully identify the item,
                            this is called *identifying* (note the asterisks).
                            To do this, there are scrolls of *Identify*,
                            staves of *Perception* as well as the spell
                            'Greater Identify'.
                            If your item turns out to lack any hidden powers
                            you wasted the *Identify* scroll, but that's not
                            a big deal.

Item has been identified and is a true artifact -> the shop will pay a fixed
                                                   price which is predefined
                                                   for each true artifact.
                                                   You don't need to *ID* it.
                                                   Note that you can actually
                                                   look up all true artifacts
                                                   by pressing:  ~ 6

Item has been identified and is a randart -> Shops will usually offer between
                                             10,000 and 15,000 Au for unknown
                                             randarts, but never more than the
                                             item is really worth. You should
                                             _always_ *identify* your randarts
                                             to discover all their hidden
                                             abilities, so shopkeepers will
                                             pay a lot more.

Item has been identified and is cursed -> the shops never buy cursed items.
                                          That might change if you uncurse
                                          it and if the item hasn't only bad
                                          (negative) boni on it.

Shop prices in general may slightly vary depending on the shop owner's race
and your character's race.

Sometimes an item turns out to be an artifact!
See (5.9b) for more information about artifacts.

If a player holds an unidentified item long enough he/she might get
a 'feeling' about it. The more points in 'Combat' skill the player has
the faster and clearer he can feel the items value. This is called
'pseudo-identifying'. Warriors are more likely to pseudo-ID than casters.
If a player pseudo-IDs an item, the 'feeling' will be appended in { }
brackets to the item name.
Note that archers or casters will also become better at pseudo-ID'ing,
if they train the 'Archery' or 'Magic' skill respectively.
'Archery' at level 11 helps to get more detailed ('excellent' too instead of
just 'good') feelings about ranged weapons and ammunition.
'Magic' at level 11 helps to get more detailed ('excellent' too, instead of
just 'good') feelings about magic items, potions and scrolls.

Items display the following pseudo-ID tags:

-Basic items, non-magical:         {average}
-Valuable / enchanted items        {good}
-Very valuable items (often ego)   {excellent}
-Artifacts (random & static)       {special}
-Cursed artifacts / Stormbringer   {terrible}
-Cursed items                      {cursed}
-Harmful items (but not cursed)    {bad}
-Useless or very cheap items       {worthless}

'Terrible' doesn't need to mean useless. Some cursed artifacts can be very
powerful, rings of power dropped by Nazgul especially. Also, heavily cursed
items, including artifacts (and excluding weapons of nothingness) will flip
their negative values into positive ones when equipped by a true vampire (ie
excluding mimicked ones) or hell knight (again excluding mimicry forms).
Note that this flipping can sometimes fail for random artifacts though!

Again - if you want to look up what certain special items can/cannot do, see
the spoiler files section (8.4) or further explanations in (5.8) and (5.9).