A monetary question

HalfOrcBeastmaster

What do you guys do when you need to raise money for something expensive in this game, like the Robe of Vecna or forging Crom Faeyr or whatever, and can't bypass it? I ask because unlike in the first game there's no way to turn in Bandit Scalps at 50g a pop and only three strongholds allow you to raise funds (fighter/monk/blackguard, bard and thief) and I'm considering playthroughs where I wouldn't be any of those classes.

jmerry

Selling junk. There's a lot of it. For best results, sell to a merchant that doesn't have any instances of that item in their inventory. Use your bag(s) of holding to sell a bunch of stuff at once, and minimize the impact of depreciation.
There are a few merchants in later chapters that give you better prices when you sell to them - the Priestess of Sekolah, Ribald's special stock, Reirra, several in ToB.

Also, don't buy when you can steal. Filling your spellbooks? The two main scroll merchants in the Promenade, and many others, can be shoplifted from. With enough skill, this can be done with no risk.

On my last run, after buying and forging everything I wanted, I had enough gold left over to buy 2000 scrolls of freedom (Ribald's special stock has an infinite supply), and scribe/erase my way to the experience cap party/wide. In chapter 6.

If you're not too worried about exploits, you can sell items to a fence and shoplift them back. Repeatedly. With something expensive like a wand, this can earn you a massive amount of gold very quickly.

sarevok57

usually when i finish SoA ( without doing any ToB stuff ) i will end up with around 400 000 - 500 000 gold and nothing to spend it on because i have already bought all the cool stuff

SoA is loaded with goods, just keep doing more quests and your money will start to go up, completely finishing the copper cohornet quest has some decent dough

taking on the slave lords ( in the temple district ) they have lots of magical items on their person and no doubt you will be selling some of their stuff ( plus their compound has some assorted magical weapons )

the whacky little group of dudes in the north west sewers ( from the temple district ) can also dish out some decent loot

or if you are up for some mage battles, killing the cowled wizards can be quite rewarding GP wise as they have pretty decent chances of dropping laerel's tear necklaces which you get 1800 GP per pop

or, if you like to steal in town and get the guards summoned on you, every amnish soldier that gets summoned comes packing full plate mail which you can sell for some good moola, plus some assorted treasures

also, if you finish de arnise hold with nalia in your group she will give you 10650 gold for completing the quest ( if you leave her outside and finish the quest you will only get 650 )

plus if you want to make things cheaper, check out your reputation and charisma scores, to get the best price from items at stores you need 20 CHA and 20 REP, which give a combined total of 50% off all goods ( make sure whoever has the highest CHA is in the top slot on the right and talking to the store keep )

Maurvir

Yup, I was about to say that it is dead easy to accumulate a vast fortune in these games. In a table-top game, your party would be able to afford their own flipping castle somewhere nice by the end of ToB.

I can't say I've hit the 500k mark, but I am almost always north of 300k by the end of the series, and that's despite buying all the toys.

ThacoBell

You'll get so much money from selling gems and generic magic items that you'll eventually be able to buy whatever you want.

Skatan

I always exploit the old trick to steal everything and sell/steal back from the fence in the docks, usually with Jan Jensen who is the first NPC I go get (then I scribe scrolls until I reach a too high level for the content, then get bored with the character and quit. Yepp, I'm that stupid). Ain't nobody got time for playing the game it's supposed to be played after numerous playthroughs.

iosfrustration

There are some good “easy money” quests early in the (vanilla) game
1) slavers in the copper coronet - as others have mentioned. this one is much easier with a good theif, you can get quite a powerful 2H sword here
2) de’arnise keep - as others have mentioned you get a lot more money if Nalia is in your party, you’ll need fire/acid, you can get a very powerful flail here
3) Trademeet - this is probably the largest and most interesting village in the game, you’ll need fire/acid, you can get Belm here which looks useless but is one of the best swords in the game