Shops and haggling

Everyone trades, whatever their class. A shop turns an item’s base value into a price in two steps: the shop’s own figure, then a haggle that your Mercantile and Personality skills move. The shop price calculator does both steps for you.

§The shop’s figure

Take the item’s base value (see Items).

1. Multiply by the region’s price index and divide by 1,000. The index starts at 1,000 and drifts day by day, never below 250 or above 4,000.
2. Add or take off 1% for each point the shop’s quality is above or below 10. Quality runs from 1 to 20.
3. Double it.

A weapon, armour piece or book you are selling is also scaled by its condition first, never below a fifth of its value. A piece you are buying is not.

§The haggle

Your Mercantile and your Personality both count, in the same way, on both sides of the counter:

• Buying: both lower what you pay. Mercantile carries about three quarters of the effect, Personality the rest.
• Selling: both raise what you are offered. Mercantile carries a little under four fifths of the effect.

The shop’s quality also sets the shop’s own haggling skill, so a better shop is a tougher haggle for you. A buyer always pays at least 1 gold per piece.

§Online

The haggle changes online, so that nobody can make gold by buying and selling back.

• Skills count between 0 and 100. Gear that raises Mercantile or Personality past 100 changes nothing.
• A shop never pays more than half of the least it asks anyone. The best possible haggler, at 100 in both skills, is paid exactly that half. A seller with no skill gets about three quarters of it, so skill still helps a little.
• A repaired piece sells for no more than the condition it was found at. Mending loot to sell it does not pay.
• Essentials cost half. Potions, campfire kits, firewood, tavern rooms and meals, a temple’s disease cure and travel fares all cost half online, rounded up and never under 1 gold. Repairs, training, spells, houses and ships keep their price.

Offline, the classic haggle stands, and skills past 100 go on lowering prices.

§Trade skill

Mercantile rises by use. Each completed deal trains it once, however many items changed hands, so one big sale trains it as much as one small one. See Levelling and skills.

§Festivals and letters of credit

• On the Merchants Festival everything you buy outside a guild costs half. The Warriors Festival halves weapons the same way, and Tales and Tallow halves what the Mages Guild sells its members.
• If a sale would push you over your carrying limit, the shop pays by letter of credit instead of coins. See Banking, loans and letters of credit and Weight, bandages and training.

§Look it up

• Base values and weights: Items.
• What each enemy drops, and so what you can sell: Loot and drops.
• What a smith charges to repair: Repairs and armour.