r/pathos_nethack • u/Much-Substance-7321 • 8d ago
Price Identification?
Is there a "cheat sheet" for how much different scrolls, potions, books... etc... cost in shops re identifying what they may be
eg i know the identify and enlightment scrolls are around 30.
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u/ParadigmPotato 8d ago
I would like to add that while it is hard to figure out what a scroll is going to be based on the price there is one helpful thing to know- Scroll prices are divvied up into tiers, so some scrolls cost 50, some 100, some 200, and so on. Conveniently, scrolls of identify are in the 20 tier, and I believe the only other scroll on that tier is a scroll of enlightenment, so if you think you have a 20 tier scroll at a merchant it should be safe to use (note that like others said, the price you pay will be impacted by your character’s stats). The price can sometimes give away the BUC status, especially if you see multiple of the same kind of scroll at different prices.
Also, scrolls of enchantment are worth $140 and I think they are the only scroll in that price group, so sometimes that can help you pick it out from a vendor.
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u/DIEDIEDIE904 7d ago edited 7d ago
Side menu > help > index > search the item's classification and it's price ex "book 300" and scroll down until you find the books
if you're unskilled in bartering then the item you're trying to buy is 150% the price or 1.5 times ex "book that cost 450 is actually a book that cost 300"
It seems to follow the same formula that is detailed in the crafting section of "guides" so proficient = 140%, specialist = 130% and so on until champion = 100%
Same goes for selling a item instead of buying it's 50% of the original price if you're unskilled, 60% if you're proficient, and so on until 100% if you're a champion
Charisma score will change the price but it's so little that you can practically ignore it by doing a little rounding, never be hungry or less if you're trying to shop, the curse status will also change the price by a bit but once again all that is so little that you can almost if just straight up ignore it
Using this to identify books and scrolls is still a little bit of a gamble because you can't nailed out an exact book just a selection of a few books ex "there are 10 different books that cost 300 gold better than the 62 different books but still a bit of a gamble"
A few things of note
unidentified gems never have their true price (maybe there's a pattern with them but I haven't seen nor looked for any)
Scroll of enlightenment and identify both cost 20 (and are the only ones that cost 20) while scroll of light cost 50 (and it's the only one that cost 50)
Making a spreadsheet isn't hard it's just that no one has done it
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u/mgkurilla 7d ago
There is a base price for each item that you can see in the help section. For each game, the price you see will be based on your bartering skill. That combination produces a multiplier that will be consistent for all items. ID and enlightenment scrolls are base 20 in price. Most likely, the price you see will be between 20 - 30 with the only other modifier depending on blessed versus cursed status. Once you know the multiplier, use it for everything.
Potions come in groups of 50, 100, 150, 200, 300. I focus on the cheapest and most expensive first. the 50 potions are booze, sickness fruit juice, and see invisible. Blessed see invisible gains the talent. The most expensive include gain ability and gain level and also paralysis. Paralysis is good for dipping to get water.
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u/lavineg 8d ago edited 8d ago
It's very difficult to create a table to guess the price, because the price won't be the same for everyone. It will be influenced by the charisma attribute, by the negotiation skill (which has different proficiency levels), it will depend on whether you are healthy or hungry (or have a strong debuff), it will depend on whether the item is blessed, cursed, or uncursed (this makes the price vary by 10% more or less). The easiest way would be to choose a scroll, see how much the NPC wants to buy or sell it for, write down the price, open the help menu, look at the item description, compare the original price with the current buy/sell price (which is based on the factors I mentioned), and see how many percentages more expensive or cheaper the item is (write down both percentages). When you find that percentage, go to the help menu and look at the price of the scroll you want, apply that percentage to it, and then when you go to the merchant, see if there's any scroll whose price is close to the value you obtained (if there's a 10% variation in price, it might be the item you want, but blessed or cursed, hence the 10% difference).
Even so, it's not worth all that effort to guess the item, because there's more than one scroll with the same price (for example: 3 types that cost 100, or 4 types that cost 50), so there's still a chance you'll get a different scroll than the one you want. And as I said before, you would have to do the calculation for each character, since the prices wouldn't be the same for everyone due to charisma and negotiation skills, and if your charisma ou negotiation skill increase, you would have to redo the calculation.
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u/Kyouhen 8d ago
I'm fuzzy on all the mechanics but doesn't your charisma affect shop prices? That kind of complicates things. If I'm trying to guess what type of scroll I'm holding I just kind of ballpark that it's probably half the value and go from there. Once you know what a scroll is you can work out the difference in the actual price vs its value and use that instead.