Request - Fix Appraise Skill

Andarian

The appraise skill in NWN is desperately in need of repair. It's broken, and has been since it was first introduced. There is the "buy low/sell high" exploit, which actually allows characters with a high enough appraise skill to sell items back to the merchant for more than they paid for them. The way that appraise ratings are rolled and then remembered from visit to visit until your appraise skill improves encourages players to save and re-load games to try to get better shopping statistics. And an unlucky second roll can actually cause your shopping adjustment to get worse when your appraise skill improves (which makes no sense).

I've actually re-written how stores use the appraise skill for my module series, which addresses these issues. I would be happy to contribute it to the code base for Neverwinter EE. If there is interest in that, feel free to let me know.

Andarian

EDIT: I have withdrawn my comments given the criticism of them below.

Grymlorde

I suspect that there may be some confusion. The appraise skill as written, will result in a maximum increase or decrease of 30% of a price base of 100%. In other words, an item with a base price of 100gp (in the toolset) has a maximum flux of 30 gp, regardless of the actual sell or buy price. If a "hard-core rip-off artist" charges 10x (the maximum) which is 1,000gp, an epic appraise build will pay 970gp (discount of 30% of the base price). If a sympathetic craftsman sells it at cost for 50gp, the epic appraise build will pay 20gp (discount of 30% of the base price). Likewise, the epic appraise build will sell the 100gp item for an extra 30gp regardless of what the merchant sets as their buy price. The epic appraise build will always buy the 100gp item for 30gp less and sell it for 30gp more regardless of how the merchant is set up. Therefore all the builder has to do is to ensure that merchants always set their buy price at 30 points less then their selling price. It could be sell at 200% and buy at 170% or sell at 60% and buy at 30%. In both of these scenarios, the merchant never buys an item from an epic appraiser for more than what the epic appraiser would sell it for. And regardless of what the builder does, the epic appraiser cannot get a discount of greater than 30gp on a 100gp base item when selling, or a 30gp premium when buying. There is literally nothing to overcome or not overcome. If a builder such as yourself wishes to minimize the spread then set all your merchants with a sell at 100% and buy at 70% so that when faced with an epic appraiser, the merchant will break even. Does selling at 100% and buying at 70% make the merchant a "hard-core rip-off artist?" Is a 30% buy/sell spread punitive? Does this badly nerf shopping as a game mechanic?

Now if you have rewritten the appraise skill so that the discount is based on asking price rather than base price, then I think there is value in that. In that way, epic appraisers won't care if they are dealing with "hard-core rip-off artists" because they will always get a 30% discount/premium.

Now you assert that the examples of how my merchants work are "hard-core rip-off artists", that the buy/sell spread is punitive, and that by doing so I'm badly nerfing shopping as a game mechanic. I find your assertions particularly offensive and totally uncalled for. You didn't bother to ask why I chose those buy/sell percentages and instead flew off into a rant. I have tremendous respect for the work you have done and I look forward to playing your updated version of the first Sanctum module. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but to make snap judgments without bothering to gather the facts is detrimental to your reputation and to this community. We are here to help each other as well as to learn from each other.

In case anyone has made it this far, I will share my reasoning. In Grymwurld(TM), I treat the base price as the wholesale price charged by craftsmen. That is the price travelling merchants must pay to buy from the craftsman and it is the price a PC can get only if they travel to the craftsman's workshop. Years ago, when I worked in retail, it was standard to set the retail price at double the wholesale price. More recently when working with a number of dentist offices, I learned that when selling items to patients, it was standard practice to charge the patient double what the dentist paid. Hence the 100% and 200% selling prices. As for the 25% and 50% buy prices, that reflects how long the craftsmen and merchants have to keep their inventory in stock. Items which sell quickly don't need nearly as high a margin, but frankly the items that PCs buy are only purchased by adventurers which is a very small market. The turnover for adventuring need a high margin to justify stocking the items. I also wanted to take into account that items which PC's sell need to be repaired, cleaned, and refurbished before sold again. Furthermore, my research into the records of armories from the 15th-17th century make it very clear that there is a tremendous price difference from selling items in bulk (thin margins but still profitable) to selling items individually. Also a huge price difference buying from an armorer in Milan versus the same harness from a London merchant. Now you may not agree with my logic and you're certainly entitled to your opinion. But you should ask before dismissing it in such disparaging terms.

Andarian

My apologies to Grymlorde for the errors and lack of tact in my response. It was eight years ago that I looked at and coded this, but that’s no excuse for my not remembering the 30% adjustment cap (especially since he did remind me of it in his first comment), or my not thinking about what he wrote more carefully before responding.

Grymlorde

Apologies must humbly accepted, Andarian. It speaks volumes about your character and your honor which is so lacking on the Internet. And in doing so, it increases my desire to play your Sanctum series of modules.