In my Legacy of Fire game, my PCs have finally made it to Katapesh, one of the largest open markets in all of Golarion. The amount of loot collected through the three adventures ran so far is pretty substantial, and the time has come for buying and selling. In both the Dark Markets sourcebook and Pathfinder #21, haggling is mentioned numerous times as a the method of interaction between merchant and buyer, yet I've never seen anything in either 3.5 or Pathfinder that covers this. To my knowledge, other than Diplomacy, I've never seen a rules system that covers getting a merchant to raise or lower his prices. Have any DMs done anything in their game to make the marketplace more interactive than simply getting out the magic item list? Pathfinder #21 has some suggestions for unique stalls and vendors, but due to the amount of goods my PC's possess, I need a more systematic approach to selling goods that still involves the social aspect of haggling. Thus, here's what I've come up with:
-Buying and Selling in Katapesh-
(A new optional rule system for Appraise)
Characters may add the appropriate Craft skill bonus or applicable Knowledge skill bonus on Appraise checks to determine an item's value. The item's Appraise DC is also the Diplomacy DC to locate a specific item in a large open market like Katapesh. Each check requires a number of minutes equal to the item's Appraise DC x 5, and then d% is rolled to determine the type of merchant selling the item.
Item's Cost: Appraise DC/ Haggle Attempts:
1 gp or less- 5/ 0
2gp-10gp- 10/ 1
11gp-50gp- 12/ 1d2
51gp-100gp- 15/ 1d3
101gp-500gp- 18/ 1d2+1
501gp-2,000gp- 20/ 1d3+1
2,001gp-5,000gp- 25 / 1d2+2
5,001gp-20,000gp- 28/ 1d3+2
20,001gp-50,000gp 30/ 2d2+1
50,001gp-100,000gp- 32/ 2d3+1
100,001gp-200,000gp- 35/ 2d2+2
200,001gp-500,000gp- 40/ 2d3+2
501,000gp-1,000,000gp- 45/ 3d3+1
1,000,000+ 50/ 3d3+3
Buying and Selling:
d% Merchant Type Ware Prices/ Buyback Prices
01-10 Fixed(No Haggle)- -------/ ------
11-21 Distributor- -d4x5%*/ +d3x5%
22-51 Typical- +d4x5%/ -d3x5%
52-70 Shrewd- +d6x5%**/ -d6x5%
71-89 Guildsman- +d2x5%**/ +d3x5%
90-100 Down on Luck -d3x5%***/ -d8x5%
*Distributors have a 25% chance of providing a cursed item when selling wares.
**Shrewd Merchants and Guildsmen incur a -5 penalty made on rolls to haggle against them.
***Down on Luck Merchants provide a +5 bonus made on rolls to haggle against them
Getting a Merchant to lower his prices requires an initial successful Appraise check on the item in question's true value. Success allows the PC to Haggle in one of three ways, with a number of haggle attempts made as listed above. PCs can attempt to force an additional haggle check beyond this, but each extra check incurs a cumulative -5 penalty on the roll.
A)Diplomacy: The most common method of market persuasion, the PC uses charisma to sway the merchant. The DC of this check is typically equal to the Appraise DC of the item in question, but unique or illicit items can raise the DC from 2 to 10, at DM's discretion. Each successful check lowers (or raises, if selling) the initial ware price by 5%. Reduce the price an additional 5% for every 5 above the DC on a success. Failing by 5 or more, causes the merchant to raise (or lowers for selling) his price by 5%, plus an additional 5% for every additional 5 rolled below the DC. Three consecutive failures requires an immediate transaction to be made or business to be concluded.
B)Intimidate: To make a merchant nervous enough to lower his prices without openly robbing him requires an intimidate check. The DC of this check is equal to the item's Appraise DC+10. Success and failure works as Diplomacy, except after any two failures, the transaction must immediately be concluded. Anyone who uses Intimidate suffers a -5 on any further Diplomacy checks made to haggle with that merchant.
C)Bluff: Lying about an item's true worth or spinning tales about a market item being cursed, using friendly bluffing or outright deceit to raise or lower a price. The DC of this check begins at the Appraise DC minus 5, but each additional Bluff check adds +5 to the DC of further checks. Success and failure works as Diplomacy, except that failing by 10 or more or failing any three checks requires the transaction be concluded immediately.
-A Merchant will never sell an item for less than a percentage equal to the Appraise DC (beyond comes close to robbery, especially in the case of Intimidate checks), and inversely won't buy an item for more than an additional percentage equal to it's Appraise DC beyond half it's worth.
Any thoughts?
I don't have any specific rules but I'd do it more as a skill challenge and try to involve the whole party not just the diplomacy centered characters. Some decent guidelines for skill challenges:
http://charlesmryan.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/skill-challenges-again/
Some other skills:
KS: Local = to find the good stalls
Spot/Perception = to avoid the thieves/pickpockets
Appraise = to know the correct price
KS:Arcana = when selling magic items, others for other things
I don't have any specific rules but I'd do it more as a skill challenge and try to involve the whole party not just the diplomacy centered characters. Some decent guidelines for skill challenges:
http://charlesmryan.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/skill-challenges-again/Some other skills:
KS: Local = to find the good stalls
Spot/Perception = to avoid the thieves/pickpockets
Appraise = to know the correct price
KS:Arcana = when selling magic items, others for other things
That's really awesome that someone has converted the skill challenge system from 4th E; it was one of the few features I kind of liked, thanks for the link!
The only real problem I have with the skill challenge system in this situation would be having to settle on an exact percentage above or below the market price that would accurately reflect the degrees of success present in the system (which as far as I can tell are 3: success, exceptional success, and failure).I figure in the instance of appraising items characters could certainly add their knowledge: arcana ranks to their appraise roll to identify if an item really is what it is. AS far as pickpockets, that's something I prefer as a separate encounter. Spoiler:
Degrees of success could be:
Skill Challenge Failure: 10% penalty on buy/sells
Success: 10% bonus on buy/sells
Critical Success in a round: +10% a round.
Since there are three rounds, you end up with 10% penalty, no penalty (failure with 1 critical), 10% bonus, 20% bonus, 30% bonus, 40% bonus.
So, we tried it both ways. I originally was going to do it as just a skill challenge,but the other DM playing in our group wanted to see if my system worked. We therefore took about a quarter of the gear and attempted to sell it as part of the skill challenge. I used the degrees of success represented, with the party getting about 5 rolls per PC with 10 successes needed. For the most part, a law of averages seemed to rule the challenge, as 12 successes were acquired allowing only a 10% blanket increase to all their goods. Overall, we found that the Skill Challenge system is good for covering a lengthy process with fewer rolls at the cost of narrative roleplaying, as I found myself basically describing their skill roles to complete the challenge. The main problem for its use in this instance was the lack of hard definition of how long the whole process was taking, as assigning different amounts of time needed to the degrees of success rolled didn't seem plausible since this degree of success already determined the percentage of the wealth earned.
On the other hand, while not for some, our group enjoyed individually haggling over their hard earned wares on both the buying and selling end of the scale, and I was able to accurately predict how much time the whole process was taking. Since there's another DM in our group, he enjoyed seeing a codified system for time spent, percentage gained, and so forth for the various transactions. Additionally, between and during the various transactions, I got to describe the Nightstalls and their wares in great detail, peaking the interest for items the players never knew they wanted.
I guess this all sort of depends on play-style. Selling our gear took about half a session (and four days in game-world time), so if its important to speed up the buying and selling in lieu of moving on with the story, I would run going to the market as a skill challenge. For us, it worked better to spend the time haggling over all the items and allowed some pretty neat role-playing encounters.
