Inventory Sheet Information

Get used to seeing this because you're probably going to be in here more often than in any other part of your journal. Note that you will always be able to see your current encumberance, armor rating (note that your rating apparenlty cannot be more than 85 without modding) and available gold.

Enchanted items will have a little blue circle next to the icon that tells you what kind of an item it is (as in the case of the Dispel scroll here). Stolen items will have a red hand icon on them. Stolen items cannot be sold to most merchants, but the Thieves Guild fences will buy them. A green teardrop indicates a poisoned weapon. A broken red circle means that the item is broken and cannot be used until it is repaired.

The four columns on the right half if the screen (the last two are not showing here because there isn't anything on the screen with those characteristics):

• the item's base value: in the best of all possible worlds, how much could you expect to get by selling the item - not that you'll ever get that much, but it will at least let you know that you shouldn't sell this item to merchants that have a price cap lower than this. Items with a zero value are usually either junk or quest items. If you try to sell an item with a zero value, you'll be asked if you'd like to give it away. If you say yes it will be removed from your inventory.
• the item's weight: in pounds; maybe kilos in overseas editions. Items with a zero weight are generally important quest items (notable exceptions are keys, lockpicks and torches). When you're over-encumbered, drop the items with the lowest weight/value or weight/utility ratios.
• depending on which item you're looking at, the third column changes
  • armor value: how much will it protect you
  • combat value: on a scale of 1 to 10 (with a 1 being "oh, puleeeze" and a 10 being "I'll do whatever you want, just spare me"), how badly will it hurt the other guy
  • quality: how high is the quality of the item in the case of other stuff
• the item's health: as a percentage, how badly does it nead to be repaired (100 means perfect condition).

At the bottom of the screen are five tabs that help you find things in your inventory.

• The red tab shows you ALL items in your inventory, starting with Weapons, followed by Armor (meaning "wearable items"), followed by Alchemy (equipment, potions and ingredients), followed by Miscellaneous (books/scrolls, keys, stones, and Miscellaneous stuff).
• The yellow tab shows weapon items only
• The blue tab shows wearable items only
• The green tab shows alchemical items only; your alchemy equipment will be the first thing on the list. Just click the Mortar and Pestle to start making potions.
• The currently selected tab shows miscellaneous items only

Items in your inventory are arranged alphabetically within each category, so your S00pr R1ng of L33tn3ss will be down in the wearable items section below the items that start with R and above the items that start with T, and since it's a wearable item, it will also show on the Armor tab.

All items in your inventory can be hotkeyed. To hotkey an item, hold down a number key until the hotkey slots show (1 through 8 are the available slots by default - this may be subject to modding, though) and then click on the item you want to hotkey. It will be assigned to that slot and can be equipped or used directly by simply pressing the appropriate number key rather than having to go back through the inventory screen. I would recommend hotkeying at least four items: your favored melee weapon, your favored bow, repair hammers and your favored healing spell. Your needs may be different, but that's a good starting list.

I've tried hotkeying torches, but using them means also hotkeying the shield so that you can unequip it. Otherwise you can't use torches. Inefficient, in my opinion, so I've abandoned that strategy. Instead, I just equip a torch and then only hotkey the shield. When I want the light, I unequip the shield. When I don't want the light, I equip the shield again. When a torch burns out, I just go in and equip another one. Once you find a wearable item with a Night Eye effect, you can abandon the torch thing altogether and replace the hotkeyed shield with the Night Eye item.

Removing a hotkeyed item can be a bit frustrating at first because you'd think that simply clicking on the hotkey slot would clear it. But noooo! Once an slot is associated with an item, the only way to clear it is to either associate another item with that slot, drop the hotkeyed item from your inventory (you can always pick it up again) or use them up (like potions, for example). If you have hotkeyed a spell, you can clear it by replacing it with an item and then dropping the item.