Skills/Taste Identification

« Back to Skills

Taste Identification is the skill of tasting food to find out whether it's safe to eat. A careful taster can spot food that a poisoner has tampered with before taking a bite, and can sample potions and potion kegs to learn what's in them.

This page explains how Taste Identification works in New Bradford. For making poisons, see Alchemy. For poisoning food and blades, see Poisoning.

At a glance

Skill category	Crafting & gathering
What you need	Nothing. Just the skill.
What you can taste	Food, potions and potion kegs
What it tells you	Whether food has been poisoned, what a potion is, and what's in a keg
Skill cap	100 (Grandmaster)
Starting gear	You can pick Taste Identification as a starting skill. It doesn't come with any items.

How to taste

1. Use Taste Identification from your skills list: "What would you like to taste?"
2. Target a piece of food, a potion or a potion keg within 2 tiles of you. Food on a player vendor counts too.

You can use the skill again after 1 second.

Food

Apple

Tasting food is a skill check. Your chance of success is your Taste Identification (50% at 50.0, always at 100.0).

• Success, and it's poisoned: "It appears to have poison smeared on it." Don't eat it.
• Success, and it's safe: "You detect nothing unusual about this substance."
• Failure: "You cannot discern anything about this substance." You learn nothing. Try again.

Tasting doesn't eat the food or use it up.

Potions and kegs

Potion keg

• Potions: every potion already shows its name, so tasting one just repeats it: "You already know what kind of potion that is."
• Potion kegs: an empty keg tells you "There is nothing in the keg to taste!". A full one tells you "You are already familiar with this keg's contents."

What you can't taste

• People and creatures: "You feel that such an action would be inappropriate."
• Anything else: "That's not something you can taste."

Why it matters

Food can be poisoned with Poisoning, and poisoned food looks exactly like any other. Whoever eats it is poisoned with whatever poison was used, up to deadly poison. If you buy food from other players, or leave it lying around where others can reach it, tasting it first keeps you safe.

Training Taste Identification

• Taste food to train. Every attempt on food can raise your skill, whether it succeeds or fails, until you reach 100.0.
• Below 10.0 you gain on every attempt. Above that, each attempt has a chance to gain 0.1.
• The same piece of food works forever, since tasting doesn't use it up. One apple (3 gold from a provisioner or farmer) is all you need.
• Tasting potions and kegs doesn't train the skill.
• Reaching 100.0 adds Taste Identification to the Skills Mastered count on your achievements.
• Town cooks, bakers, farmers, alchemists, glassblowers and herbalists will also teach you the basics for a fee.

Messages you'll see

Message	What it means
What would you like to taste?	Target food, a potion or a keg.
It appears to have poison smeared on it.	The food is poisoned.
You detect nothing unusual about this substance.	The food is safe.
You cannot discern anything about this substance.	You failed. Try again.
You are too far away to taste that.	Get within 2 tiles.
That's not something you can taste.	Only food, potions and kegs can be tasted.
You feel that such an action would be inappropriate.	You can't taste people or creatures.

Tips

• Taste before you eat anything you didn't cook or buy from a town shop yourself.
• Train on a single apple. It never runs out.
• Pair it with Cooking or Alchemy. Cooks and alchemists in town teach it too.