Bargaining rules in Ultimate campaign


Rules Questions


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Hello every one.

Recently, with my group we used the Ultimate Campaign downtime rules. We enjoy these rules but I have an issue with the bargaining rules. We found the "sell at half price" rules quite boring and we tried the bargain rules on the selling of our previous loot. We rolled the dice and my character managed to earn some extra money. We are about to sell our current loot and I have a deeper look on the bargain rules.

There is something striking: unless I do not understand correctly the rules, the only way for a seller to earn some extra money is that the buyer fails his Appraise check. If the buyer succeeds his check, we will have initial and final offer bellow the price of the item.

So I have a couple of questions. In the PRD, there is the sentence: "The buyer chooses to attempt either an Appraise check to estimate the item's value or a Sense Motive check opposed by the seller's Bluff check (with failure meaning the buyer believes the seller is being fair)."

My understanding is that the buyer should try an Appraise check first. The DC is a flat 20 and nearly any NPC above level 5 should manage such a DC with a Take-10. Am I correct ? Or does the above sentences mean the Appraise check is opposed by the Bluff check of the seller. This is important because only if this check is a failure it is possible to have a deal with a price above the value.

Let's do an example. I try to sell a magic item with a value of 10000 gp. The market value to sell it is 5000 gp. I try to sell it at 7500. If the buyer manage his appraise check (DC 20), he knows the item's value is 5000 gp and make an offer of 4600 or so, and he will never go above 4900 gp. If he failed his Appraise check and if I manage to bluff him, then I can sell this item at something like 7000 gp.

Is my understanding of the process correct ?

Link to the given rule


Maybe I should rephrase.

In the sentence "The buyer chooses to attempt either an Appraise check to estimate the item's value or a Sense Motive check opposed by the seller's Bluff check (with failure meaning the buyer believes the seller is being fair).", does the Appraise check opposed by the seller's Bluff check or not ?


The Appraise check would apply to the item in question. The Bluff check only applies to the Sense Motive check if you choose to make one. It seems to me that, RAW, the Bluff check only happens when an Appraise check isn't made.


This is also how I understand this sentence RAW. But in that case, that means it is only possible to sell an item above his market value if this Appraise check is a failure, which is pretty rare because most Appraise check are DC 20 and so easily made with a take-10.


Wow that is a strange find. Was the bargaining rules even meant for PCs to haggle magic item selling?

As for the rules, I think you got it wrong, the magic item value is not 5,000, it is 10,000. So if you tried to sell it for 7,500, and the the buyer beat your Sense Motive with their Bluff, they can undercut you for that 7,500 but you'd most likely still end up selling more than 1/2 price (which is 5,000).

Who wrote the bargaining rules anyway? They need to clarify this or an entire system is worthless.


You try and sell your pre-loved 10k item.

Step 1 - You determine the price.
Market price for said item is 5k.
The maximum you can get for it is 7.5k (150%)

Step 2
The potential buyer makes their appraise OR sense motive check (GM may also allow relevant knowledge check) which will reveal to the the market value.

If they hit this, they know its a 5k item, not a 7.5 and the deal might fail there.

If they FAIL this, the deal continues to step 3.

***

Note also the parts about flooding the market, that could start prices crashing pretty quick as well.

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