Merchants - Buying Stolen Goods

[Rusty]

Standards has briefly mulled over this idea, suggested by dergon.

Giving PCs a Bluff check to successfully sell items tagged as Stolen to merchants who would not normally buy them. DC would relate to value; a successful check would give a full (i.e. normal 20% +-5%) buyback sale; a failed check would prevent the wannabe vendor being able to deal with the merchant again.

How do the teams feel about implementing such a check as part of their merchant conversations?

Would this interfere with any team's plans?

If implemented, I'd like it to be global

Pro:- realism of being able to pass off stolen goods
Pro:- more CHA-based skill use!
Con:- lack of realism in guards not checking markets for stolen goods, etc
Con:- implementation
Con:- stolen tag used as a method to control sale of items, not simply for stolen items

[psycho_leo]

Con:- lack of realism in guards not checking markets for stolen goods, etc

This could be handled via DM if someone floods teh market with stolen goods or starts selling high priced items. Maybe it would be a hard thing to keep in check, ut could also lead to interesting developments.

[Rusty]

Yep, definitely.

One of the arguments for retaining the Stolen restriction though is that it is a sort of prior-representation of this.

[psycho_leo]

Yep, definitely.

One of the arguments for retaining the Stolen restriction though is that it is a sort of prior-representation of this.

Hang a couple of PCs or extort the heck outta them and suddenly others will start being more careful.

[ç i p h é r]

It's got my support. That and haggling, both of which I would like to see in an urban module like 01.

Con:- stolen tag used as a method to control sale of items, not simply for stolen items

Can you elaborate a bit on this please. Was this intended to regulate crafted or high end/unique items?

[Rusty]

The Plot tag can take care of unique items, but generic items such as poisons can make use of the stolen tag to ensure that only the shadier (stolen-enabled) merchants purchase them.

[ç i p h é r]

Ok so it still works in principle. The bluff check for selling poison to a regular merchant would then equate to persuading the merchant that it's really not poison. Possible I suppose but difficult.

If we're going to add bluff scripts though, we can also check item properties/tags/vars to exclude certain items if necessary.

[Audark]

As long as there is a way to easily handle mistakes on the part of PCs it seems good. A PC may be given an item from a friend or quest that is tagged as stolen, then later go to sell that item without having any knowledge of it being stolen.

In a situation like this a PC could be instantly given a bluff check and refused service from that shop again, even if that person is an upstanding PC just selling off some bit of loot from here or there.

Also we need to take into account vendors that will buy stolen goods no questions asked, there are at least 2 of those in the Myth Drannor area.

I guess my suggestion is that this script is not put on 'every' merchant since it may be inappropriate for rogues guilds or shady businesses. I would also suggest that some kind of dialogue box pops up if you try to sell stolen goods.

"These goods seem to be stolen property, try to sell them anyways" with a yes or no

this way at least upstanding PCs can avoid mistakenly selling something off that would affect them negatively.

[Rusty]

Firstly, I'm not sure I see something wrong with an upstanding Paladin getting into trouble for selling stolen goods his Rogue chum has passed onto him; if anything, it seems like a rather amusing proposition... (The mechanics are likely to involve a persistent reference on the PC dictating the period of time a merchant would treat that PC with suspicion.)

Secondly, the 'Buy Stolen' tag would bypass the bluff script allowing shadier merchants to operate normally. Thus, the cheeky chap attempting to pass off the stolen goods has a choice - play it safe, but get less money; or risk exposure for the chance of more coin.

[psycho_leo]

One thing that got me thinking is how the tagging is handled in NWN2. I remember that in NWN recovered traps were tagged as stolen and you could not sell those to most merchants. This was probably done to avoid rogues getting too rich too early due to the copious amount of traps employed. I don't know if that's a default thing or not or if its handled the same way in NWN2.

[Rusty]

It is still possible to restrict buy-back by item type.