Identifying objects or items!!!

My priest has ancient lore trait and artifact of vine spell. I still can't identify, or I am doing it wrong. Help, I got loads of booty just waiting to be identified. What am I missing?

[thoon]

You need to increase your artifact skill. Each item ha a level, and you can identify it if your artifact skill is up to that level. Artifact of Vines is for blessings, not identification.

Thanks for the tip. I've got ancient lore, but have not seen any artifact skill training yet, and I am at level 3. What am I missing.

give all similar items to one character and pay to have em id, all items the same will be id for the price of one. then sell all those lovbely rusted swords. 90% of the loot you find is rubbish. The best gear comes later and is the gear dropped by characters.

[Laurence]

Once you have acquired the Ancient Lore Trait, you will get a new option to train in Artifact skill at the Priest guild in the Temple.
Right click unidentified items and choose the first icon to ID. You will need about level 5 in the skill to ID valuable stuff like ankhs.
(It helps if the character to do this has a fair bit of strength, so he can pick everything up in the first place).

Yes, do tell about that merchant thing so I know that the "pass it on to Dingal to ID, then to Mussy to sell" waltz I do is worth it! I do like the fact if I have 10 of something on the fellow it ID's them all but it would be nice to have my characters squat down around a large pile of items before entering town and ID all the ?swords? they are carrying at once. Nice explanation Regis . . . Algebra in Action!

[thoon]

Actually, you don't need the strength. Even though you get the red numbers, the identify still works fine. Then give the items back.

Also, unidentified items work fine. To find out what things are out of curiosity, go outside the village gate, save game, come back in, spend all your money identifying. Then reload the game. That way you at least know what things are.

But don't you get more money for ID'd items?? Maybe I was bleary eyed but at the beginning I thought I got a better price for ID'd items, even after I paid the ID cost. Tee-hee, another crusty sward! At least once you can ID, if you get full you know what to dump and what to keep. I finally sold some of those scrolls.

[Regis]

At the very worst, you break even...it's based on this theory:

x = sell-back price of fully id-ed item.
½x = cost to id
½x = sell-back price of un-id-ed item.

If you just sell the un-id-ed item, you get ½x in gold.
If you pay to id it, then sell it, you get (x - ½x), or ½x gold.

The profit comes in the way the algorithm is set up to handle having multiple numbers of the same item in one character's inventory when they pay to id the item. The real equation is this:

x = sell-back price of fully id-ed item.
½x = cost to id
½x = sell-back price of un-id-ed item.
y = number of items

Total Gold = (y * x) - ½x.

When y = 1, you break even, but as y increases, you make more profit because the original cost to id does not go up in relation to the number of items. So, if you have 5 Rusty Swords on one character at a (total id) sell-back value of 100 gold, you would get:

(5 * 100) - ½(100) ---> 500 - 50 ---> 450 gold.

If you had 10 in one character's inventory, you would get:

(10 * 100) - ½(100) ---> 1000 - 50 ---> 950 gold.

Now that I've lost half of you on this explanation, I'll throw in the exception...that being that if your character has the Merchant Trait, they make even more on sell-back...that should confuse the rest of you to the point of giving up the whole thing and just going back and playing the game .

[carg]

Sorry Regis, you haven't lost me yet.
But I give you another chance: how does the merchant trait affect the ID price? And the buy price (as a function of x of course)?

P.S. I'm going back to the game now to search for the shop that offers 100 for rusty swords! (Although if I can believe the interview of Shinwiki with Bradley, all those swords are unique. Perhaps you found one that is more unique than the rest?)