item examining

[morgurth]

hi, I'm new to MAngband, but not to the rougelike genre. I've played ADOM,  Nethack and few others, but mostly adom. I've chosen MAng because of multiplayer. As for my question, there it is (disclaimer: I read help and went through few other documents, but couldn't find the answer or maybe I missed it)
In key commands there is clearly stated " I-observe an item", this is what I've been looking for actually, so I press 'I' and what do I get? "Press '?' for help"... well, is there some way to exam items?

I use version 0.70 of client and server.

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morg

[Berendol]

Sadly, the I command is not implemented in MAngband. You'll have to read a scroll of *IDENTIFY* every time you want to see what your equipment gives you. Those are around $5,000 at the Black Market. Most equipment doesn't have special powers, so save your money for when you find something really good. We don't have any kind of nice object descriptions in MAngband anyways, so if you really want them go look at ToME's object files or something. Or wait for some lazy coder to be motivated to add support, and someone else to write descriptions. There was a Japanese MAngband that had the I command, but it didn't work with our server and the whole thing was in Japanese.

A good way to keep track of things is to inscribe your equipment with abbreviations for the random extra powers. (Some rare kinds of equipment are guaranteed to have a few specific powers in the first place, and a randomly-selected power.) For starters...
FA - Free Action (Resist Paralysis)
HL - Hold Life (Resist life drain)
RG - Regen [Makes you regenerate HP & MP faster, at the cost of faster digestion]
SI - See Invisible

So you'd inscribe a Long Sword ego-item, like a Defender, that granted Regen and See Invisible "RG SI". It would look something like this... Long Sword (blah blah) {RG SI}

... does all that help? You probably won't understand much of it for awhile but when you start finding these things it will be useful to come back and re-read this.

[morgurth]

Sadly, the I command is not implemented in MAngband.

hmm... I see. oh well, I have to wait I guess. Thanks for fast reply.

You'll have to read a scroll of *IDENTIFY* every time you want to see what your equipment gives you. Those are around $5,000 at the Black Market.

That's strange. Even IF I played 2 days for now, I had multiple occasions to wield Identify scroll. I've seen it in shop (not BM) and they weren't that expensive. where's the catch?

... does all that help? You probably won't understand much of it for awhile but when you start finding these things it will be useful to come back and re-read this.

As a matter of fact, yes, it does. Or at least clarifies everything, since there was no word in docs that 'I' command is n/a. I've read about inscriptions, but had no use for them, yet. Thanks for tip.
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morg

[Ashi]

The normal scrolls of Identify are regularly stocked in shop 5 and cost less than 100 gold. A new feature in Angband is the more powerful versions of some scrolls, potions, and staffs, indicated by the asterisk before and after the name. The *Identify* scroll is usually stocked in the Black Market and costs 3000-5000 gold, depending on your charisma. It provides you with a full list of an item's powers. Usually they are used to find out the random high resistance given by one of these pieces of equipment:
Amulet of the Magi
Armor of Elvenkind
Cloak of Aman
Shield of the Avari
Gloves of the Istari

[morgurth]

O_O, ooohhhh...
Learned something new, thanks.
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morg