Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks Problem with trading

Hello,

I'm in the druid grove and sold a lot of stuff to the vendor there (the first one) and had more than 1000 gold. I wanted to buy a leather armor +1 for 600 gold, but it says, I don't have enough money. So I'm unable to buy that armor - and I want it.
Has anyone else encountered that bug?

The vendors charge way over an items value, to a low charisma person a 600 GP valued item might have a price well over double that.

It's a gold sink: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_sink

They are necessary in many game economies to balance the fact that the characters keep getting more stuff without having the day-to-day living expenses that would control more 'normal' economies.

That being said, it is a pain in the neck in the early game. I get around it mostly by stealing...

SInce I'm a warlock, I have 17 charisma, shouldn't be too high, but that explains it. I couldn't see any other price than the 'official' one.

With a 13 charisma, they were charging a total differential of 5.75 - meaning the difference between what I sell for and buy for. It really is a HUGE game flaw that needs to be addressed. If I go buy gas, the gas station attendant doesn't charge me more based on whether or not he likes me - though if I'm selling something my charisma may come into play. The values are given as the midpoint between what they will pay you for it and what you will pay them for it - but that is basically useless for human comprehension. No one buying something is thinking of selling it at the same time in the game and you literally couldn't sell it for a profit to make anyone want to do that. Essentially, it is a poorly thought out solution to a problem that Larian manufactured. In the previous Baldur's Gate titles you follow the standard half price sell rule and you just eventually stopped muling every damn item you come across - but you are forced to mule in this game.

This gets especially annoying when you are where I am - I literally have no merchant I can sell to right now. I've come across three actual merchants - two are dead, one of which was by my hand but not by my choice - and another is inaccessible for now and possibly forever. I have to throw every item I can find to my camp, which means I'll have to mule it all to some merchant at some point in the future to be able to possibly purchase some overpriced piece of equipment.

And think of this... if I made a trade with Volo - which I couldn't do in this last playthrough but I know I did before and it might have been taken out - I could offer him two things he wants worth a lot more than one thing he wants to get rid of and he would turn it down saying it's not enough. That's not how the real world works and it isn't a valid suspension of belief for a fantasy scenario. I suspend my disbelief in people throwing flames from their hands and travelling across planes of existence, not that people are suddenly so greedy that trade would be essentially impossible. With a 13 charisma, my character has above average charisma for the general population and still has that 5.75 factor.



When trading, at least if you are on barter - it will show the value of what each side is giving above the lists of what is on the table. You hit the scales and gold flows to equal things out, you just have to be sure not to hit the trade button before it's equal or you risk giving them stuff for free.

I'm going to do more testing this weekend when I'm outta work but here is what I've found so far.
Tested with CHA of 12(CHA affects are one of the things I need to test).

Vendors buy items for 42% of the value listed on the item if you look at the tooltip.
Vendors sell items for 240% of the value listed on the item if you look at the tooltip.

If you donate free stuffs to the vendor they will buy for more and sell for less. This caps out after donating 200 gold or equivalent value in items(NOT tooltip value but actually adding items to the trade window until it says value 200).
Once done the vendor will buy for more and sell for less.
Maxed out:
Vendors buy items for 53% of the value listed on the item if you look at the tooltip.
Vendors sell items for 190% of the value listed on the item if you look at the tooltip.

As said I'm hoping to do more testing this weekend and will do a full write up once I've done so.

Edit: Spelling

I only did some quick testing, but it's the attitude of the vendor along with charisma that determines what they pay/charge. You can see the attitude of the vendor toward each character by right-clicking on them and selecting Examine. We all start out with an attitude of 0, but if you were caught stealing from them you may be in a negative number. 100 is the highest attitude, which you increase by donating to them, like you said. For purchasing, the difference between 0 and 100 attitude is 50% of the listed price of the item.

I used my ranger as a test. His charisma is 10 vs. Will's charisma of 17. With the vendor's attitude at 0, Will was charged 66 gold for a 30 gold item. Bumping the vendor's attitude for Will up to 100 brought the price down to 51 gold. That's a savings of 15 gold, or half the face price of 30 gold. With a vendor attitude of 0 my ranger was charged 75 gold for the same 30 gold item. Bringing the vendor attitude for him up to 100 dropped the price to 60 gold. That's a 15 gold savings again. So it looks like the price difference between 0 and 100 attitude is 50% face value, regardless of charisma. Though charisma still affects the overall price.

I didn't have time to verify that the percentage was the same for selling items. I'll look into that later.

But I did verify that only the character who donates the items gets the attitude boost. So it looks like you always want to use your highest charisma character for all vendor sales/purchases, even if you have to swap someone out for Will. And have that character make the donation needed to max their attitude with each vendor.

I'll also have to check to see if any spells increase charisma.

First off Wyll's charisma is only 16, not 17 IIRC. How do you raise the Vendor attitude? If it's by donating the stuff to him that we originally wanted to sell to him then how would we get gold to purchase other items like healing potions, revivy scrolls, or weapons, and armor? As for charisma, I had a feeling that was one aspect when it came to a vendor and selling and buying I didn't know that there were others.

I did notice that when something was in the Vendors area and I've yet to select to purchase it and then when I move it into the area for purchase the price does change though and it is in fact different when it comes to charisma

I didn't create a new character just to do this test. My Will is level 4, so that's why he's 17 charisma. The point was that raising the vendor attitude from 0 to 100 gave the same discount (50% of the face value) off the vendor price, regardless of charisma. It was the same discount for a character with 10 charisma as it was for one with 17 charisma. Though the initial vendor price was higher for characters with lower charisma.

To raise the vendor's attitude toward a character, you have to have that character be the one to donate items to the vendor. It does not change the attitude toward the other characters. So there is no point in donating on any character other than the one with the highest charisma. Just donate enough to max out their attitude toward Will, and them make sure Will handles any trades with that vendor. Unless your player character has a higher charisma. Though right now warlocks are the only class in Early Access that uses charisma as their main attribute. Once they add bards, sorcerers, and paladins, there will be more options.

Also, if you just donated and want to check what the attitude changed to, you have to switch to a different character then switch back, for the examine screen to refresh. That's probably a bug.

The idea is that if you donate some items early on, you will reap the benefits over time, both buying and selling with that vendor. And since this is a vendor-by-vendor mechanic, you need to decide which vendors are worth donating to. Aaron's a good source for heath potions and revivify scrolls, but Damon's got some nice equipment that changes each "day." But Damon goes away after you clear the goblin camp, while Aaron sticks around to sell things to. Though I have a feeling Damon will show up again in Baldur's Gate.