(Last updated: October 23, 2017)
Beyond Zork Title Screen

I recently played through Beyond Zork, the seventh game in the popular Infocom Zork series, apparently for the first time -- I have no memory of playing this one before, so it's possible I never got around to it in my younger adventure-game playing heyday. Which is a shame! Despite the many valid criticisms of the game, from The Digital Antiquarian, I think this is one of my favorites of the series. There's a lot of fun to be had in there!

One of the interesting things about the game is its embrace of randomization. There are many areas throughout the game which are randomized -- the location of rooms in those areas will differ from playthrough to playthrough (or even within the same game, if you restore to a point before you entered). Likewise, there are three "classes" of items which are randomized: wands, scrolls, and potions. I think that the rooms in which you'll find one of those three are hardcoded, but which one you pick up is entirely up to the game's RNG.

For wands, the type of the wand is randomized as well: cane, rod, staff, etc. (I'll just refer to them as "wands" in here, though.) For potions, the colors are randomized. For scrolls, both the scroll description and the magic word required to activate it are randomized. It makes for a pretty interesting game, since with few exceptions you can't rely on having certain items available at exact points in the game. Fortunately, as with other games in the series, there are often multiple solutions to puzzles, so you may have to do some fiddling around even if you're already familiar with the game.

Given the multiple solutions to various puzzles, though, and the fact that nearly all the magic items in the game have limited uses, I often found that I wished I knew how many uses those items permitted, and under what circumstances I should feel free to sell an item to get a few more zorkmids to spend at the shops. I'd done a bit of Googling around and never came across anything, so I figured I'd put this up to list some of the information that I'd hoped to find.

Essentially Spoiler-Free: How Many Uses for Wands/Scrolls/Other

So this first section is intended to be spoiler-free, except of course for giving away the names of all the scrolls/wands in the game, and possibly giving away one method of transportation which becomes available in the game.

I've got a page with some more general game reference, including some notes as to exactly what all the wands/scrolls do, on a more general reference page.

Scrolls

The majority of scrolls (Refreshment, Protection, Honing, Fireworks, and Mischief) follow the usual Zork pattern of only being able to be used once. There's two exceptions:

  1. Scroll of Recall - It's true that you can only use the scroll the one time, but one thing I didn't realize until after I'd solved the game was that once you've used it the once, you can use its ability a seemingly infinite number of times. This makes it a super powerful scroll! Its effect does not seem to disappear with time, either.
  2. Palimpsest / Scroll of Gating - This is a multi-use scroll which will stay in your inventory forever, but it is not infinite-use. You can actually only use this scroll a total of five times, so it's not something you can count on for easy travel throughout the game.

Wands

All of the wands in the game (Annihilation, Sayonara, Anesthesia, Levitation, Eversion, and Dispel) can only be used three times. There are various mechanics in the game which can revive certain items, but I haven't found one yet which works on the wands. So: only three times each!

Other

These could potentially be spoilers, but:

  • The Pterodactyl can be ridden a total of four times, if you take advantage of it immediately after solving its puzzle.
  • The Amulet found in the Rusted Lantern cellar can be used a total of three times.

Now for Spoilers: Uses for the Limited-Use Items

The next logical question is: what items can be used to solve which puzzles? And relatedly, what items should I, or should I not, use to solve any given puzzle. Well, it turns out that in general it's less of an issue than you might fear. So long as you don't use the items needlessly, or at least so long as you restore a savegame if you do use them and find out that your attempt didn't work, you should be fine.

Problems, and the Limited-Use Items One Can Use to Solve Them

If there's a non-limited-use option for any of these, I'll list it in italics. The "preferred" solution, if you're looking to limit unnecessary limited-use item usage, will be in bold.

  • Escaping the Cellar
    • Amulet
    • Wand of Sayonara
    • Scroll of Recall
    • Scroll of Gating
  • Improve Items: Rusty Dagger, Rusty Lantern
    • Scroll of Refreshment
  • Reach Atrii
    • Scroll of Gating
  • Kill "Regular" Enemies (Bloodworm, Crocodile, Cruel Puppet, Discipline Crab, Dornbeast, Eldritch Vapor, Ghoul, Guttersnipe, Hellhound, Rat-Ant, Slug, Spider, Wight)
    • (ordinary combat, though difficulty varies)
    • Wand of Annihilation
  • Alternate "Kill Wight" solution
    • Wand of Sayonara (though combat or Annihilation still works)
  • Put Pterodactyl to sleep
    • Wand of Anesthesia
    • (Hurdy-Gurdy)
  • Reach Ruins
    • Pterodactyl
  • Reach Castle
    • Pterodactyl
  • Escape Castle
    • Pterodactyl
  • Get Saddle
    • Amulet
    • Wand of Levitation
  • Free Unicorn
    • Amulet
    • Wand of Levitation
    • (Sea Chest)
  • Escape Idol
    • Wand of Eversion
    • Wand of Sayonara
    • Scroll of Recall
    • Scroll of Gating
  • Get Jewel from Hungus
    • Wand of Eversion
  • Free Baby Hungus
    • Wand of Levitation
  • Unleash Volcano
    • Wand of Dispel
  • Escape Bridge
    • (Umbrella, single use)
    • Wand of Sayonara
    • Scroll of Recall
    • Scroll of Gating
    • Pterodactyl

Limited-Use Items, and the Problems They Can Solve

Just another way of looking at the same data. Problems which only the item can solve are in bold.

  • Amulet (3 uses)
    • Escape from Cellar
    • Get Saddle + Free Unicorn
  • Pterodactyl (4 uses, if you count the initial ride. Escape/Reach goals can, of course, be achieved during the same trip)
    • Reach Castle
    • Escape Castle
    • Escape Bridge
    • Reach Ruins
  • Scroll of Recall (effectively infinite uses)
    • Escape from Cellar
    • Escape from Idol
    • Escape Bridge
  • Scroll of Gating (5 uses)
    • Escape from Cellar
    • Escape from Idol
    • Escape Bridge
    • Reach Atrii
  • Scroll of Refreshment (1 use)
    • Improve Rusty Dagger + Rusty Lantern (maybe truffles too?)
  • Scroll of Protection (1 use)
    • Improve Armor
  • Scroll of Honing (1 use)
    • Improve Wielded Weapon
  • Scroll of Fireworks (1 use)
    • Game Credits
  • Scroll of Mischief (1 use)
    • Just some amusing flavor text
  • Wand of Annihilation (3 uses)
    • Kill various "standard" enemies.
  • Wand of Sayonara (3 uses)
    • Escape from Cellar
    • Escape from Idol
    • Escape Bridge
    • Kill Wight
    • Teleport enemies one or two rooms away
  • Wand of Anesthesia (3 uses)
    • Put Pterodactyl to Sleep
  • Wand of Levitation (3 uses)
    • Get Saddle
    • Free Unicorn
    • Free Baby Hungus
  • Wand of Eversion (3 uses)
    • Escape from Idol
    • Get Jewel from Hungus
  • Wand of Dispel (3 uses)
    • Unleash Volcano

Some Conclusions

Obviously which wands/scrolls you come across depends on the game's RNG, but in an ideal world, if you're trying to prevent unnecessary item usage, here's what you'd use for each of the problems which have multiple limited-use solutions:
Escaping the Cellar: Scroll of Recall
Escaping the Idol: Scroll of Recall
Escaping the Bridge: Scroll of Recall
Get Saddle / Free Unicorn: Amulet (You could use the Wand of Levitation on the saddle and the hurdy-gurdy for the unicorn, preserving a single limited-use item use for both, but you may as well just have fun smashing things)

The Wands of Sayonara, Annihilation, and Anesthesia don't have to be used at any point, and could be sold as soon as you find them. The wands of Dispel (volcano), Levitation (hungus), Eversion (jewel) can be sold off once their single puzzle requirement has been solved. The scroll of Gating only has to be used the once to get access to the Implementors, and the Pterodactyl will be used twice (once to get to Castle, and once to Escape the castle and make your way to the Ruins).

Of course, as I mentioned above, there's really no reason to be so frugal with your limited-use item usage. The "Escape" problems can fully deplete the Wand of Sayonara if you choose to use that for each escape, but that's not a huge deal.

Changelog

October 23, 2017
  • Minor formatting update
October 21, 2017
  • Initial Post