On appraising

[Skan]

Having been playing ADOM on and off for well over 6 years now, almost exclusively as thieves and weaponsmiths, I've come to learn a lot about appraising. And everywhere I've been to ADOM-related, appraising has generally been maligned or ignored. Well, no more.

Appraising turns out to be very useful, but sadly misunderstood. Players expect appraising to at least tell them if an item is cursed, but they find themselves disappointed. But that's not the point of the skill!
The point is to slowly pseudo-identify your unidentified items. Letting you know, passively, what items are total junk and what's either blessed or has unusual bonuses (it even seems to take into account positive and negative ego mods correctly!).

A common complaint is wands of wishing appraise "mediocre". Appraising, sadly, doesn't deal with wands unless they have an extremely high number of charges (~10). However, it _does_ work with all other items. Even though it doesn't work with wands, I find a lucky "good" appraise on that unID'd blessed scroll of identify works well for emergency life-saving measures

But, what about all those good-appraised cursed items? I've found this very rare, albeit noticeable to some extent in every game. This happens when weapons and armor have not one, but two bonuses (e.g. an armor having +3 to PV above the default alongside some other bonus, or a weapon having both a hit and damage bonus).
The two positive numerical bonuses (or a combo of a numerical bonus and positive ego mod, or even two ego's!) counteract being cursed to result in a "good" appraisal. As long as one is aware of this, simply not equipping the "good" items that wouldn't be a improvement is fairly trivial.

I've found the skill incredibly useful overall, particularly early-game when your largest stack of unID'd scrolls (identify is pretty typical) has a single outlier of that type appraised "good", telling you it's blessed, or even more obvious for pre-ID'd watery potions. Alongside my typical use of periodically discarding mediocre weapons/armor to free up carrying room, saving having to burn a scroll of ID to not risk dropping anything useful.

For all those attempting one of the harder classes that start with appraising, hope this is informative. I've found on all of my (inevitably heir-less) thieves, I could use all the help I can get!

[Maul]

I also like appraising, and since it raises so far (I keep seeing +4d5 dice on it) I usually raise it in the early game when I have no other useful skills to raise. My favorite application is for weapons, myself - if I get a load of battle axes or orcish spears, I just wait a while (if I can) and then wear-ID the best of them. It almost always ends up being above average. The problem is just that its usefulness is in the short term, and by Dwarftown, one can usually ID his stuff (guaranteed holy water and a likely scroll of ID providing the source) and then the skill has lived its purpose.

[gut]

> But that's not the point of the skill!
> The point is to slowly pseudo-identify your unidentified items


My observation is a bit different. I think it works exactly as advertised
and it's great. Problem is, people expect the wrong thing from it, they
want it to value items the way they do, like a cursed invis potion is
more valuable than a pair of -1 gloves of smiting. I think an item's
appraisal is it's sale price, nothing more. That IS what appraisal is
all about, after all, estimating an item's monetary value.

Sadly, this skill isn't very useful for players that don't already have a
good understanding of shop prices for different items. From years of
playing, I know shopkeepers hate wands of wishing, yet consider
boomerangs and smiting gloves worldbeaters.

[garyd]

I play bards. Anything you can learn from appraising you can get from simply offering similar items for sale at any shop. Now keep in mind various shops will offer different prices for the exact same item. Lowenthal regardless of race is a cheap skate HMV will pay very well Waldenbrook doesn't pay as well as HMV but better than lowenthhol. Any shop is worth visiting even if you buy nothing You might identify much of your equipment just by examining the stores wares. They are however far more useful for identifying scrolls potions, rings, and wands than weapons and armor.

[gut]

> Anything you can learn from appraising you can get from simply
> offering similar items for sale at any shop

true enough, but do you really wan't to lug all your gear around
until the next shop visit. also, you prolly don't wanna to enter
lawenilothel while strained.

[Skan]

I think an item's
appraisal is it's sale price, nothing more. That IS what appraisal is
all about, after all, estimating an item's monetary value.

Sadly, this skill isn't very useful for players that don't already have a
good understanding of shop prices for different items.

My experiences suggest that's not what appraisal works on, exactly.
I think appraisal gets its ratings not directly from the gold value, but rather the difference in value between an uncursed "vanilla" version of an item of the same type as the one being appraised. While this might sound little different than shop ID, the key is that shop ID needs two items of the same type to compare (or knowledge of the price), where appraising just works off the single item.

As far as I'm aware, different rings (say fire resist vs wedding ring) have notably different sale values, yet both of these rings will appraise "fair" at uncursed status.

I find being based on the difference in value is what makes appraising useful, especially to a newer player who might not be familiar with shop prices. Particularly the ability to drop equipment judged mediocre, as it's either cursed or has below-average stats. Even later in the game when scrolls of identify are plentiful, "good" appraised items can be equip-ID'd with little risk, and promptly dropped to save weight if not useful.

[garyd]

Gut I do it all the time. Lowenthol not just strained but Strained! I've died in Lowenthol after the first level exactly once. I made the rookie mistake of trying to take the head bandit and his body guards up close and personal with a fighter who didn't have an uber weapon. After about level 10 the average character in Lowenthol is all together willing to leave you alone at least if you are of neutral alignment.

[gut]

> but rather the difference in value between an uncursed
> "vanilla" version of an item of the same type

Gauntlets of peace are ranked bad, regardless of modifiers.
Also, boomerangs, standard eternium swords, and 1d4-1
phase daggers as good, if memory serves.

Still, as you say, it can't rank items just on total gold value,
there must be some other factors taken into consideration.

[Skan]

Gauntlets of peace are ranked bad, regardless of modifiers.
Also, boomerangs, standard eternium swords, and 1d4-1
phase daggers as good, if memory serves.

Right, I've noticed this too. There's a couple things I suspect.

Perhaps some items (particularly I've noticed non-ego pre/suffixed equipment; eg gauntlets of peace, mace of disruption, etc) have additional info baked into the item, setting the base appraising level to something other then fair. Such as artifacts at superb, or rings of doom as poor (IIRC).

For high-metal items, I'm guessing the baseline item used to get the appraising value is always counted as iron. An eternium longsword with a standard +7 damage bonus is huge compared to no bonus, and minus a damage die to boot.
I'd hazard it's a minimum of ~2-3 points in bonuses above the default to appraise an (uncursed) piece of equipment at good. I'm unsure if there's an amount to move an item up to the next level above good, since I only recall seeing artifacts higher.