Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Stealing from vendors is way to unbalanced.

For once vendor SHOULD NOT have all sellable items in his personal inventory. Put them in the chest nearby, with extremely hard to lockpick lock. Vendor should have only gold in his/her inventory, and items like personal weapons and such.
In fact you've already done similar management in DOS2.
There are of course exceptions when you trade/barter with common folks, but they usually don't have much on them anyway.

It is also should take way more time for vendor to replenish their stock and gold. Right now it's just ridiculous, as they replenish it EVERY DAY! That makes mini-economy-game, with planning on what to loot, what to steal and so on - obsolete. With such fast replenished gold you can sell absolutely everything that is not nailed.
And mind you, even in EA there is already several situation where you can murder vendor without consequences, loot everything you sold to them, and then sell it again to another vendor. Would be better balanced if vendors could not restock so quickly.

And finally i'v noticed that vendors "auto-level-up" their inventory when you level-up. IMO their stock should fixed, and upgraded only if you do something very beneficial to them, or to settlement where vendor located.

As far as i know, if you kill any Vendor, part of his inventory (usualy the most interesting part) dissapears somehow ...
Kinda pisses me off to be honest. :-/

I understand its can unballance the economy, but it simply dont make any sence. :-/

For me so far i could loot absolutely everything i sold to them, and what they had for sale initially.

Vendors should realistically have defenses proportional to the value of their inventory.

- A merchant just selling food and simple weapons? Sure they can be alone and easily rob-able.
- A merchant selling valuable potions and/or magic equipment? Some combination of them being personally powerful, hiring guards, and/or having their inventory locked in a chest with a high DC to open.

Vendors in a camp/city could rely on the presence of others (e.g., aggro'ing the entire camp or dedicated city guards) to help protect their wares instead of the above. But it should still be more difficult to steal from them. An actual stealth role should be required to steal from them, instead of just hiding outside of vision cones to automatically succeed on stealth. Hearing circles - instead of just sight cones - would help fix this.

I like the idea of some merchants having a guard, maybe even along with a vicious looking guard dog.

If you use non-lethal damage and just knock them out you can loot everything including all the gold.

Stealing is ridiculously easy in this game. And it's a prime candidate for save scumming to just get whatever you want for free. Far too exploitable. I think it should be much harder or more restricted. Like only available on Ironman mode or something so it actually has consequences. You can literally walk up to anyone in broad daylight with people all around you and just take what you want, including big weapons and suits of armor.

Was the same in D:OS2.

I even planned whole act 1 around stealing everything and maxed all characters for that so I could steal as much as possible.

I am afraid it is one of those Larian's "it breaks the game but is FUN" things. Merchants have been a joke since D:OS1.

I suppose to some it is "if you don't like it, don't use it", to me: "can't roleplay as a thief or the game falls apart".

Economy often falls apart in RPGs, unfortunately, but here one doesn't have to try hard.

Or something that one would have to heavily invenst into, to make it worthwhile. Don't know how DnD 5e works, but in BG3 one of my issues is that every run feels the same. Checks can be brute forced easily even by characters not trained in the field.

What happens if you go to jail for stealing?

Let's say that you go to jail and you don't want to break out. Rather, you want to do your time and wait for your trial. Does that day ever come? Or is your character forever sitting in the jail room?

IN DOS2 you at very least eventually encounter problem where you can't sell anymore, because all vendors are out of gold. Makes you plan stealing more carefully. And stealing from vendors overall was harder. Especially in second act, where there was just too many eyes around on market square.

I guess they could create a system where you develop a reputation as an infamous thief even if you don't get caught on the spot.

Hostile guards and merchants should make your life more difficult in the long run.

Also for me it's the opposite of fun because it makes playing a thief a cheap and tired exploit that is not satisfying or rewarding in any way.

I know that, and im using it often ...
It still feels wrong tho, if you forget to click on non lethal attack. :-/


I like this idea ...

That and i would like to see Vendors use their items in battle ...
Vendor offered +1 weapon? Let him attack with it!
Vendor offered Potion of Speed? Let him drink it!
Vendor offered Scrolls? Let him use them!

Are you suggesting the vendors should get high on their own supply?

I could see the goblin trader doing that, but not the zhent or most others

Yes i do ...
If this is matter of self preservation, they certainly should.

Maybe if there will be some guards, this "script" should play once either vendor drops to 50%, or one of guards is killed ... like "oh shit" situation.

As someone else said, the best design is something like Driftwood from DOS2, where merchants have a ton of eyes on them. At least then you have to put in a little effort if you want to steal.

What effort? You just Tele Steal everyone while Locking them in Dialogue lol. There was no such thing as effort in D:OS2. It was all Cheese let loose from Lvl 1. You only had to start with Telekinesis. This was a Game completely built around Cheese not D&D Rulesets. You didn't have to learn any Class or Deep Ability Mechanics just the Cheese. Not even the Gods could stand the Mighty Undestructible Container or Barrel Nuke. Don't forget the Out of Combat One Shot Snipers.

please bear in mind that at this stage in the game we are in the backwaters of faerun... I'm sure once baldurs gate eventually gets made yes there will be what you ask for as they are large communities with crime, not a druid grove in the middle of nowhere where everyone's preoccupied with a ritual....

Other than that, if you stuff up a pickpocket in the goblin camp on either of the traders you're in for some trouble, even if you succeed they come looking for you.... there's no reason for what you're requesting at this stage in the game, you just need to think about things a bit more.

I disagree that vendors shouldn't be pickpocketable, that's a staple of larian design since divinity original sin 1 afaik and it is fine, tho it might be too easy to pickpocket ~some~ vendors. it should be kept in. However their stock should 100% be unique and not scale with player levels and refresh whenever players level up, that's not good design, this makes it so that players know that next level a whole slew of new upgrades will be readily available, it incentivizes metagaming to avoid the 'mistake' of buying a good looking weapon for your character only to level up when handing in a quest to that same vendor and then finding that now there is an even better sword available that is no longer purchasable because of the gold loss from the first purchase.

being able to pickpocket a full refreshed inventory is not a good workaround to this design problem I feel. It is also just not as immersive as a static stock of items being offered to the players, I hate to say it but I feel that it highlights the bad aspects of video games more than the good in this case.

yes because vendors never get new stock in ever or sell what they have. Personally I'd prefer it if it was altered every few days or rests.