The Bardic Appraisal has one component. It adds a single, at-will ability for any bard, kitted or unkitted. The ability will prompt a dialogue which will allow you to appraise any identified item in the party's possession. Note that the prices reported by the skill will likely not reflect the actual value you can sell an item for due to the following factors:
- Merchants have a fixed markup, e.g. most will only offer to purchase the item starting at 60% of its value.
- Merchants will also adjust prices up or down depending on your charisma and reputation.
- For charged items, merchants will pro-rate prices based on the remaining charges, e.g. you will only be able to sell a half-charged wand for half of the price of a fully-charged wand. This also means that merchants generally only offer 1 gold for an item that is fully discharged, including X-per-day items that have already been used.
- Merchants will also start to depreciate items after they have a certain amount of them, e.g. after a merchant has five short swords in stock, they will start offering you lower purchase prices for additional short swords.
- Items that are flagged as plot-critical, generally, cannot be sold except in a handful of stores (the BG series has no stores that will take them). When appraised, you'll get feedback indicating that the item is special and that you may not be able to sell it.