Item Identification
Item Identification
Item Identification (often shortened to Item ID or ItemID) is one of UO's longest-running skills, originally a critical tool for revealing the hidden magical properties of weapons and armor. As of the Age of Shadows expansion (2003), magical-property visibility became automatic — every item shows its properties on hover-tooltip — and Item Identification's primary function disappeared. The skill survives in UO with two narrow roles: NPC vendor pricing (telling you the gold-value an NPC merchant would pay) and imbuing-unravel preview (revealing what magical residue / enchanted essence / relic fragment an item will yield when unraveled). It is otherwise classified as a Useless Skill and used mainly for roleplay.
Professional details
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Maximum skill | 100.0 |
| Professional Title | Merchant |
| NPC Trainers | Gambler, Gypsy, Jeweler, Merchant Guildmaster, Miner Guildmaster |
Active use — the modern role
To use Item Identification, set a macro or click the skill icon. Cursor and prompt: "What do you wish to appraise and identify?" — target an item.
Possible outcomes
| Outcome | Message |
|---|---|
| Failure | "You have no idea how much that item might be worth." |
| Success — value reveal | "[Name of Item] — You guess the value of that item at: [amount in gold]" (the NPC vendor price) |
| Imbuing skill not high enough | "Your imbuing skill is not high enough to identify the imbuing ingredient." |
| Successful unravel preview — too weak | "this item can not be magically unraveled. It possesses little to no magic properties." |
| Successful unravel — Magical Residue | "will magically unravel into: Magical Residue" (item is below the Enchanted Essence threshold) |
| Successful unravel — Enchanted Essence | "will magically unravel into: Enchanted Essence" (requires Imbuing > 45.0) |
| Successful unravel — Relic Fragment | "will magically unravel into: Relic Fragment" (requires Imbuing > 90.0) |
The unravel-preview outcome is the only modern reason any serious player builds Item ID. For an Imbuing crafter, knowing a chest of loot's unravel yield before clicking it through one item at a time is genuinely useful — Relic Fragment items are 100x rarer and more valuable than Magical Residue items, and being able to spot them at a glance is worth the skill investment.
Training
Use the skill repeatedly on items. Each attempt has a chance to raise the skill.
Anti-Macro Code: if no skill is gained on an attempt, the same item will not yield a gain on subsequent attempts until you successfully gain on a different item. This forces target rotation. Practical training requires a stack of varied items — different rarities, different graphics. A bag of mixed magical loot from a champion spawn rotation works well; cycle through every item, return to top.
History — what Item ID used to do
Before the Age of Shadows expansion (2003), magical properties on weapons and armor were hidden until identified. Players hauled crates of loot to NPC merchants, used Item ID, and only then knew whether the rust-coloured sword was a +1 Damage Ruin or a +9 Damage Vanquishing. The skill was load-bearing for the entire loot economy.
Identification Wands also revealed magic properties for players lacking the skill — a pre-AoS workaround.
The pre-AoS magical property roster — the table that Item ID once revealed — is preserved here as historical record:
Magic Armor (pre-AoS)
| Prefix | Bonus |
|---|---|
| Durable | +5 to armor HP |
| Defense | +5 to AR |
| Substantial | +10 to armor HP |
| Guarding | +10 to AR |
| Massive | +15 to armor HP |
| Hardening | +15 to AR |
| Fortified | +20 to armor HP |
| Fortification | +20 to AR |
| Indestructible | +25 to armor HP |
| Invulnerability | +25 to AR |
Magic Weapons (pre-AoS)
| Prefix (Accuracy) | Bonus |
|---|---|
| Accurate | +5 to weapon skill |
| Surpassingly Accurate | +10 to weapon skill |
| Eminently Accurate | +15 to weapon skill |
| Exceedingly Accurate | +20 to weapon skill |
| Supremely Accurate | +25 to weapon skill |
| Prefix (Damage) | Bonus |
|---|---|
| Ruin | +1 Damage |
| Might | +3 Damage |
| Force | +5 Damage |
| Power | +7 Damage |
| Vanquishing | +9 Damage |
| Prefix (Durability) | Bonus |
|---|---|
| Durable | +10 to item HP |
| Substantial | +20 to item HP |
| Massive | +30 to item HP |
| Fortified | +40 to item HP |
| Indestructible | +50 to item HP |
A weapon could carry one Accuracy + one Damage + one Durability prefix simultaneously. "Indestructible Supremely Accurate Vanquishing Katana of Force" was a real, possible loot drop — the kind of thing that justified an Item ID character on every account.
Why the skill became "Useless"
The Age of Shadows expansion replaced the prefix-based magic system with the modern percentage-based property system (e.g. Damage Increase 50%, Hit Chance Increase 15%, etc.) — and made all properties automatically visible on the item tooltip. The Item ID skill could no longer reveal anything that hover-text wouldn't.
The unravel-preview function (Imbuing introduced 2010) gives the skill its only modern use. Even there, an Imbuer can simply unravel and see, sacrificing the item — Item ID is a non-destructive pre-check. Convenient, but rarely build-load-bearing.
See also
- Imbuing — the modern reason to keep Item ID
- Forensic_Eval — investigative companion skill
- Arms_Lore — assesses weapon condition; was paired pre-AoS
- Taste_Identification — sister "Useless Skill"
- Vanquishing — the pre-AoS damage prefix
- Slayer — pre-AoS slayer-prefix loot
- Age_of_Shadows — the expansion that obsoleted the skill's primary role