Gems

[hollyfant]

Would it be possible and/or desirable for gems to be excluded from the ±50% buyback rate? Because right now, finding a gem is just bad luck. They have no use (apart from the soon to be implemented diamonds to raise the dead), they're just as weightless as gold but unlike gold take up inventory space. And since PCs can't discern their book-value, gems are useless as bartering material.

The only thing you can do with a gem, is sell it to an NPC merchant. And at 50% of it's value, that means you just got "cheated" out of half your loot without at least the fun of wondering what that Goblin was doing with a padlock in its pocket...

[danielmn]

*coughs* THere are PC's that do buy gems for MORE than stores will...and that can give a realistic price for them to boot....so some PC's CAN discern their book value.

[Brokenbone]

That's actually a pretty damn smart analysis Hollyfant. That is, most loot is "useful", but you can sell it off as surplus at a discount if desired. Example, if you find a dagger, you can sell it. Or you can stab someone with it.

SRD gives a decent guideline for what things should sell for in NPC merchant-land:

Selling Loot

In general, a character can sell something for half its listed price.

Trade goods are the exception to the half-price rule. A trade good, in this sense, is a valuable good that can be easily exchanged almost as if it were cash itself.

Trade goods are things like a cage full of chickens, a bundle of velvet, crate of carpenter's tools... but in PnP or my own campaigns I've typically treated gems and all other objets d'art the same as boring agricultural / merchantile trade goods. One copper for a one copper bag of seeds, 100gp for a 100gp pearl, 250gp for a 250gp gold plated bust of an elfmaid.

That said, finding a figure somewhere between 50 - 100% may be something to toss into Standards. Every dirtfooted PC knowing instantly that his 100gp pearl is worth precisely 100gp is silly... especially if PC concepts already exist where skill points, RP choices, and other "investments" have been made into expertise. Note that merchant / shop dialogues aren't the only way to trade in loot, scripted systems where an NPC has a "nose" for certain tagged items and is willing to treat them as scavenger hunt items are tried and true NWN1/2 tricks. An art gallery patron who notices the string "_art_" mixed into a resref or tag and is willing to offer sick amounts of money for things he detects in your backpack, or a lapidary who notices "_gem_" in a tag... whether those conversations are also gated against any kind of skill or ability checks to see if he'll try to hoodwink your dumb PC or be kept honest by your skilled PC, etc., all doable bells and whistles.

[paazin]

I had thought this was already the case? I recall some merchant has like 75% buyback in TSM.

[Keryn]

--- Moved to Standards ---