Okay, so I came across a bolt-from-the-blue epiphany earlier this evening. Roll Appraise, a skill people rarely if ever use, into Craft (X), a skill that people use, but not that much. It won't fix ALL the problems with both skills, but it's a start.
However, a Craft skill has limited power to appraise. You're a craftsman, so you know when someone's made something valuable or useful, and you've probably been to the market enough times to know what other people are selling, and how much these other things go for, but you're not an expert on that other material/craftsmanship. So while Craft (alchemy) might give you its full bonus to identify the liquid in that bottle or some other alchemical ingredient, it'd take a -5 penalty if you wanted to analyze a gold statuette.
A friend I discussed this with also brought up that it could fix the discrepancy of "Craft high, Appraise low: I can craft X, but I have no idea what it's worth".
Thoughts? Am I being silly, or is this a good idea, or could it be taken even farther?
Honestly, I rolled Appraise and Craft into Profession. Instead of Craft (alchemy) you got Profession (alchemist). Instead of Appraise, you got Profession (merchant).
I also rolled crafting into professions. It just felt like there was too much overlap.
However, I would not suggest just rolling Appraise into Craft. I do allow players to use their craft bonus on appraise rolls that pertain to their craft, but not other areas. For instance, what does a dentist know about appraising shoes?
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I have done the other side; put more things on Appraise, basically anything revolving economics.
I would allow someone to use a craft or profession to appraise items or services specific to their trade, but the appraise skill should remain superior. I would prefer appraise was renamed to something more broad, and did what Alaryth suggests. Buying, selling, bartering, trading, raw materials for crafting, certain aspects of kingdom running. The benefit of the skill doesn't need to be significant, but should be worthwhile to someone who invests in it. When you compare appraise to broad skills like perception and acrobatics, its pretty lame.
I need to remember to check in on things more often. XD
Ciaran Barnes wrote: I would allow someone to use a craft or profession to appraise items or services specific to their trade, but the appraise skill should remain superior. I would prefer appraise was renamed to something more broad, and did what Alaryth suggests. Buying, selling, bartering, trading, raw materials for crafting, certain aspects of kingdom running. The benefit of the skill doesn't need to be significant, but should be worthwhile to someone who invests in it. When you compare appraise to broad skills like perception and acrobatics, its pretty lame. That could work too. I was trying to add applicability to both Craft AND Appraise, by rolling them together (like Hide and Move Silently became Stealth), but you've got a good point.
Okay, let's make this thread more general then. I'll edit the title (if I can) and the OP, and we'll make this thread about how anyone else might houserule making Appraise more useful.
New Thread starts below!
EDIT: Dang, I can't edit either. POO >:C Well, let's see what we can do anyway.
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Machaeus wrote: I need to remember to check in on things more often. XD
Ciaran Barnes wrote: I would allow someone to use a craft or profession to appraise items or services specific to their trade, but the appraise skill should remain superior. I would prefer appraise was renamed to something more broad, and did what Alaryth suggests. Buying, selling, bartering, trading, raw materials for crafting, certain aspects of kingdom running. The benefit of the skill doesn't need to be significant, but should be worthwhile to someone who invests in it. When you compare appraise to broad skills like perception and acrobatics, its pretty lame. That could work too. I was trying to add applicability to both Craft AND Appraise, by rolling them together (like Hide and Move Silently became Stealth), but you've got a good point.
Okay, let's make this thread more general then. I'll edit the title (if I can) and the OP, and we'll make this thread about how anyone else might houserule making Appraise more useful.
New Thread starts below!
EDIT: Dang, I can't edit either. POO >:C Well, let's see what we can do anyway.
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DM's can make appraise more useful by having the results effect the sale price. If you appraise the gem at 150gp but its actually worth 200gp you'd happily sell it for the price you think its worth.
So if unsuccessful appraise checks cost you upwards of 20% of the profits from the sale of gems, art and other non-magical goods. It'd make the skill more attractive
I am experimenting with allowing Appraise, and Profession(Merchant), to be used for bartering. Here are the preliminary mechanics:
Bartering can be accomplished using either Appraise or Profession (Merchant), but only one Skill can be use per Bartering attempt. In a large, competitive market, the DC of bartering is 10 for items worth <=100gp; 15 for items worth >100gp and <=1000gp; 20 for items worth >1000gp, and <=10,000gp; 25 for items worth >10,000gp and <=100,000gp; and 30 for items worth >100,000gp. The smaller and/or less competitive a market, the DC may increase 1-5 points because there is less opportunity to find a better deal (GM discretion).
A successful Skill check against the DC would either increase the effective selling price or decrease the effective purchase cost 1% + 1% per 5 points over the DC achieved. All adjustments are based on the list price of the item, e.g. a +1% increase in selling price would mean the items sells for 51% of its list price, not 50.5%.
Additional attempts to barter in the same area (town, city, etc.) on the same day produces the same result. (In smaller markets, the result may stand for days or weeks.) A failure means that the character is unable to get a better deal than the base deal. This is a Circumstance bonus.
Quorlox wrote: I am experimenting with allowing Appraise, and Profession(Merchant), to be used for bartering. Here are the preliminary mechanics:
Bartering can be accomplished using either Appraise or Profession (Merchant), but only one Skill can be use per Bartering attempt. In a large, competitive market, the DC of bartering is 10 for items worth <=100gp; 15 for items worth >100gp and <=1000gp; 20 for items worth >1000gp, and <=10,000gp; 25 for items worth >10,000gp and <=100,000gp; and 30 for items worth >100,000gp. The smaller and/or less competitive a market, the DC may increase 1-5 points because there is less opportunity to find a better deal (GM discretion).
A successful Skill check against the DC would either increase the effective selling price or decrease the effective purchase cost 1% + 1% per 5 points over the DC achieved. All adjustments are based on the list price of the item, e.g. a +1% increase in selling price would mean the items sells for 51% of its list price, not 50.5%.
Additional attempts to barter in the same area (town, city, etc.) on the same day produces the same result. (In smaller markets, the result may stand for days or weeks.) A failure means that the character is unable to get a better deal than the base deal. This is a Circumstance bonus.
I do something similar to this, but failure imposes a loss to the player (essentially they were "out foxed") and is measurable in the same way as a success is. Except in the event of a Natural 1, autofail and a larger portion of loss in cost (typically 25%).
I lock the players in on these "bargains" too. No walking away when you have decided to try and get a better deal. This becomes a method of gambling essentially.
Alaryth wrote: I have done the other side; put more things on Appraise, basically anything revolving economics. like what?
I'm honestly considering removing Appraise entirely. I don't think it has ever come up once in any game I've run.
I would be amenable to switching it's functions to Profession:Mercantile though.
At one time I would have taken Cyrad's answer and called it good.
You might look at limiting Appraise-with-ranks checks to things the PC would know about - things related to his profession/craft skills. You would call these Appraise-craft checks and, for the purposes of Appraising, the appropriate profession/craft skill ranks would be used.
Then they can Appraise anything else too but the check is as if "untrained".
Also, you might add Appraiser as a profession in and of itself. So that an Appraiser-profession check is to Appraise-craft check as an Arcana check is to a Spellcraft check. Which is to say, Appraiser as a profession is of a more general nature than being able to Appraise things related to one's trained profession/crafts.
So a Wizard could appraise a masterwork scrivener's set better than a professional appraiser (who wasn't also trained as a scribe) but wouldn't have a clue about the value of a piece of religious art (unless said Wizard had ranks in Knowledge - Religion).
A little fluffy but it roleplays better than how my previous group did it. Pure crunch. Everyone would Appraise a piece of loot and we would take the average appraised value after throwing out any outliers. It worked really well and not as Meta as it first seems (we had long discussions on this), though really light on the fluff for sure. :)
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