Shopkeepers and Prices

[Shadowblade]

Do all the shops generally buy and sell for the same price?

I have noticed that if I sell a bunch of the same item, and later sell another bunch of the same item, their buying price has dropped.

But to get the most gold, should I move back and forth between Friendly Arm, Beregost, High Hedge and Nashkel to sell my booty? I have the Bag of Holding now, so it's easy to stack up 40 or 50 Composite Longbows and Halberds and so on.

Is there a resource for the best prices at the in the game?

Cheers!

 

[jmerry]

Shop prices can vary, and there are three parameters that matter in the store file. Though they're pretty standardized in the BG1 campaign.

- Sell Markup: the base (percentage) multiplier for the price that the shop will sell items to you at. This is set to 150 for most BG1 stores. To arrive at the final price multiplier, combine this multiplicatively with your reputation/charisma adjustment. For example, a character with 20 charisma (25% discount) and 19 reputation (25% discount) for a total 50% discount, shopping at the Nashkel store (sell markup 150), will buy items at 75% of their base price. A composite longbow (base price 100) will be sold to you for 75 gold under these conditions.

- Buy Markup: the base (percentage) multiplier for the price that the shop will buy items from you at. This is set to 50 for most BG1 stores. You get this much if the store has no instances of that items in stock, or less depending on the Depreciation parameter. For example, selling a +1 sling (base price 100) to that same Nashkel shop (buy markup 50) will net you 50 gold since it doesn't have any of those in stock.

- Depreciation: the amount to reduce the buy markup by for each instance of the item already in stock. For example, the Nashkel shop has depreciation 5 and five composite longbows in stock. Selling another composite longbow to that shop will result in a markup of (50-5*5)=25, so you get only 25 gold for it. Note also that depreciation cannot reduce the markup below 20, and jewelry (rings, amulets, gems) is not subject to depreciation. Also, selling multiple instances of an item at once gets you the first one's price for all of them. Depreciation, unlike the other two price parameters, is not standardized across BG1 shops.

[Endarire]

How can we use scripts to change a merchant's buy and sell percents and depreciation mid-game?

[Shadowblade]

23 hours ago, jmerry said:

To arrive at the final price multiplier, combine this multiplicatively with your reputation/charisma adjustment. For example, a character with 20 charisma (25% discount) and 19 reputation (25% discount) for a total 50% discount...

Thanks for all that! I appreciate it!

So high CHA, as well as reputation, does actually affect prices? Excellent!

Is this based on the character who speaks to the shop keeper, or just the Protagonist?

Cheers!

 

[jmerry]

It's based on the first character in the party order - whoever has the top portrait on the right side of the screen has their charisma used. And technically their reputation, though that's normally the same for everyone in the party. If your protagonist dumps charisma, be prepared to assign someone else to that slot or shuffle someone in when shopping. In my recent first run through SoD, I swapped Safana with my protagonist a bunch of times for shopping purposes.

The charisma benefit is 0 for 15 or less charisma, then improves by 5% per point up to a cap of 25% at 20 charisma. The reputation modifier increases prices at reputations below 10, and decreases them at reputations above 14.

18 hours ago, Endarire said:

How can we use scripts to change a merchant's buy and sell percents and depreciation mid-game?

The following script action should do it.

ChangeStoreMarkup(S:Store*,I:BuyMarkup*,I:SellMarkup*)

I just searched the IESDP's "Script Actions page for "store". It wasn't hard to find. There is no script action to change depreciation modifiers.

[Shadowblade]

1 minute ago, jmerry said:

It's based on the first character in the party order - whoever has the top portrait on the right side of the screen has their charisma used.

So it's based on Party leader. OK, I'll remember that.

My Protagonist is a Fighter-Druid with 19 CHA due to the Tome, but I sometimes put Ajantis in charge, like when the Nereid uses her Death Kiss, or when fighting Basilisks, in case they aim for the leader first.

 

Cheers!

[jastey]

7 hours ago, Shadowblade said:

but I sometimes put Ajantis in charge, like when the Nereid uses her Death Kiss, or when fighting Basilisks

I sense a liiiitle Ajantis-dislike...

On topic: very interesting read, I wasn't aware of the detailed mechanics.

[Shadowblade]

14 hours ago, jastey said:

I sense a liiiitle Ajantis-dislike...

LOL!! 

No, I like Ajantis a lot. It's just when the Protagonist dies, it's GAME OVER.

When Ajantis dies, I can just have him Raised. And if he has above a certain hp threshold, the Nereid's kiss doesn't actually kill him, just hurts him a lot.

A huge lot!

Actually, I always thought that Shoal the Nereid might go for the male with the highest CHA. So maybe when she went for Ajantis, my Protagonist was a female Gnome Illusionist/Thief, so Ajantis had the highest male CHA in that party anyway.

 

 

[jastey]

I'm sure he'd agree to your reasoning and do these things voluntarily.

And Ajantis having the highest male CHA in the group is what I'm telling for years! (Yes, Ajantis fangirl here. )

[jmerry]

Shoal's actual AI:

- Look for "StrongestOfMale", same as what Shar-Teel cares about. If they're in sight and not too far away, walk over and initiate dialogue. I think that's the strength score being checked.

- If the "strongest" male character isn't available, look for any male PC that's visible and within range. Walk over and initiate dialogue.

- If no male PCs are available, look for the strongest PC of any gender. Walk over and initiate dialogue, if they're visible and within range.

So ... it's not charisma that Shoal cares about. Strength is what matters. She'd rather talk to Minsc or Kivan than to Ajantis.

Oh, and in the EE there are two versions of Shoal's kiss. Both have a breath save to negate the effect, but one kills and the other merely reduces to 1 HP. If she's talking to player 1, she'll always use the nonlethal version. If she's talking to another party member, it's 50/50 which version she uses.