Appraisal skill

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Appraisal can tell you the value of your items, the stats on your equipment, and skills of your opponent and much more.

Use

APPRAISE will give you an assessment of something's abilities. COMPARE will give you a relative assessment of two items' attributes.

Appraisal, at least for comparing creatures, is based on base skills rather than factoring Agility. However, it does take your current STANCE settings into account.

When comparing armor, it will give an assessment of the armor's overall maneuvering and stealth hindrance, as well as how hindering it is with everything your are currently wearing after factoring in the relevant armor skill.

Appraisal can also give you an idea of how well you can swim or climb something, and can even provide a bonus to the swim or climb contest on a particularly good appraisal success.

You will begin to see (at first very inaccurate) damage and protection appraisals at precisely 50 ranks.

You can appraise cambrinth items to determine their capacity. Appraisal is the primary factor, but arcana also contributes to the accuracy. As with weight, holding the cambrinth makes it easier to appraise its capacity.

Training

There are many ways to train this skill. The first way is to appraise items. The quickest way to learn is to appraise something very valuable that has many parts, like a full gem pouch, a really nice bundle, weapons, or armor. If you can't do this, the next best option is to appraise all of your inventory, the more valuable, the better.

The second way to learn is to appraise critters. One can appraise a beast multiple times without regard for a delay between appraisals to quickly learn the ability. Besides being a good way to gain appraisal experience, this is a good habit to develop. It's useful to know in advance how a critter's skill compares to yours.

The third way, possibly of greatest use to new adventurers, is to appraise swimming locations. In a room where a swimming contest is necessary to exit, you can appraise water or direction. It's not clear how well this trains, as a new character can learn very little in the Crossing sewers but very well in the Arthe Dale swimming hole. It may be dependent on water depth and current. You can also appraise climbing barriers, but this seems to teach little or nothing at lower ranks. Successfully appraising a swim or a climb may give you a bonus ("You think you have determined the best route to take") to climbing or swimming the appraised barrier.

The fourth way to learn is through the creation process of several items. Usually when you are creating an item you will gain a little appraisal as well when you determine the quality of the item. For example, when braiding grass/vines, you will learn appraisal. Every time you braid you are automatically appraising the item to see the quality of the item. Another example is Moon Mage sigil scrolls, every time you read a scroll you appraise the quality of the scroll. This way is good for learning appraisal while also learning other skills. (In the case of Moon Mage sigil scrolls, you will learn appraisal faster than you will learn astrology or scholarship, but possibly might have a limit. I have tested with 267 in astrology, 241 in appraisal, and 324 in scholarhsip, I am locking appraisal first, then astrology, then scholarship).

Traders get a bonus to Appraisal.

Accuracy

The accuracy of your appraisal depends primarily upon the number of ranks that you have in appraisal. (Traders have a bonus.)

When appraising weapons or armor, the number of ranks that you have in that weapon or armor type affects the accuracy, at least for non-Traders. For example, if you were appraising a claymore, you find it easier to appraise if you had 200 ranks in twohanded edged weapons than if you had only 50 ranks.

Only when "you are certain" about some property can you be sure that your appraisal is an accurate assessment. Otherwise, the more confident you are about the accuracy, the closer your assessment is to the truth.

Accuracy Levels (from best to worst)

• are/feel certain that
• are/feel confident that
• think that
• believe that
• are pretty sure that
• think it is likely that
• estimate that
• guess that
• wonder if

Appraisal Values

Weapons

Damage	Min Value	Max Value
no	0	0
dismal	1	5
poor	5	10
low	10	15
somewhat fair	15	20
fair	20	25
somewhat moderate	25	30
moderate	30	35
somewhat heavy	35	40
heavy	40	45
very heavy	45	50
great	50	55
very great	55	60
severe	60	65
very severe	65	70
extreme	70	75
very extreme	75	??
mighty
very mighty
bone-crushing
very bone-crushing
devastating
very devastating
overwhelming
annihilating
obliterating

Balance/Power	Min Value	Max Value
not	0	0
terribly	1	9
dismally	10	19
poorly	20	29
inadequately	30	39
fairly	40	49
decently	50	59
reasonably	60	69
soundly	70	79
well	80	89
excellently	90	99
superbly	100	?
incredibly	?	?
unbelievably	?	?

Brawling Gear Damage	Min Value	Max Value
no	?	?
poor	?	?
fair	?	?
some	?	?
moderate	?	?
a lot	?	?
quite a bit	?	?
heavy	?	?

Brawling Gear appraise as "some" or "quite a bit of" damage. This is a separate scale from normal weapons.
The values for Damage and Balance/Power were derived from Copernicus' Storebought Guide. Copernicus derived the weapon values through an intensive process of comparing storebought weapons with forged weapons having known values of damage, balance, and power. Some information is still missing or incomplete.

Armor & Shield

Hindrance

The hindrance system is slated for rewrite with armor changes. The rank values are those required to work maneuvering hindrance down to the lowest level.

• 4/15/09 - Minimally hindered is now within the range of Insignificant. Unhindered truly means unhindered by your armor.

Hindrance	Min Ranks	Max Ranks
Unhindered	0	4
Insignificant	5	9
Lightly	10	19
Fairly	20	29
Somewhat	30	39
Moderate	40	49
Very	50	59
Highly	60	69
Greatly	70	79
Extremely	80	90
Overwhelming	90	99
Insanely	100	?

Armor Protection and Absorption

1. None
2. Poor
3. Low
4. Fair
5. Moderate
6. Good
7. High
8. Great
9. Extreme
10. Incredible
11. Impressive
12. God-like

Shield Protection

Paladins see more specific shield protection ratings than non-Paladins.

Paladin	Non-Paladin
very poor	very poor
poor	very poor
rather low	rather low
low	rather low
fair	fair
better than fair	fair
moderate	moderate
moderately good	moderate
good	good
very good	good
high	high
very high	high
great	great
very great	great
impressive	impressive
very impressive	impressive
tremendous	tremendous
incredible	incredible
god-like	god-like

Equipment Construction and Condition

1. extremely weak
2. very delicate
3. quite fragile
4. rather flimsy
5. particularly weak
6. somewhat unsound against damage
7. appreciably susceptible to damage
8. marginally vulnerable to damage
9. of average construction
10. a bit safeguarded against damage
11. rather reinforced against damage
12. quite guarded against damage
13. highly protected against damage
14. very strong
15. extremely resistant to damage
16. unusually resilient to damage
17. nearly impervious to damage
18. practically invulnerable to damage

Condition	Min Health	Max Health
in pristine condition	98%	100%
practically in mint condition	90%	97%
in good condition	80%	89%
rather scuffed up	70%	79%
some minor scratches	60%	69%
few dents and dings	50%	59%
several unsightly notches	40%	49%
heavily scratched and notched	30%	39%
badly damaged	20%	29%
battered and practically destroyed	0%	19%

Creature

• Can start appraising creatures with 10 ranks of Appraisal.
• In order from low threat to high threat

Difficulty

Difficulty	Difference
completely beneath
wipe the floor with
tear to shreds
you'd kill quickly
harmless
very easy
well beneath
simple
easy
relatively easy
definitely less skilled
less skilled
slightly less skilled
worthy	Perfectly at range ??
something in your skill range
challenging
solid
difficult
rather difficult
quite difficult
very difficult
truly skilled
well above
couldn't hope to hurt
master that's well beyond
mythical being

Statistics

Strength	Min Difference	Max Difference		Agility / Reflex	Min Difference	Max Difference
				Great deal less	?	-30
				Significantly	-29	-25
				Quite a bit less	-24	-20
				Definitely less	-19	-15
				Rather less	-14	?
				Somewhat less	-10	-6
				Not quite	-5	-1
				About as	0	0
				A little more	1	5
				Somewhat more	6	10
				Definitely more	11	15
				Quite a bit more	16	20
				Significantly more	21	25
				Great deal more	30	?

Condition

• Dead or horrible injury to perfect health

Health		Injury
Dead		?

"Minor Wound" with bleeding injury "Major Wound" occurred with badly bleeding injury.

Cambrinth

Difficulty

Capacity	Verbal Description
<50	a little mana
<108	a moderate amount of mana

See Also

Play.net Posts

Click here to search for related posts.

Scripts

• See 'n Say Appraisal (script): Genie script that appraises any weapon, shield, or armor and then echoes the appraisal in IC and OOC ways
• See 'n Say Comparison (script): Genie script that compares any weapon, shield, or armor and then echoes the comparison in an IC way.