Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spatzimaus" data-source="post: 528858" data-attributes="member: 3051">Well, since I think that 500/CHA=margin thing was mine, I'll comment.  As always, these are simply my views on this.A> Merchant's.  He doesn't KNOW what the players think it's worth, after all.  This is part of the haggling process, and ties nicely into the roleplaying side of the game.Let's say the players are trying to sell an item.  The merchant thinks the item is worth 100, while the players think it's worth 120.  The merchant offers 75 for it.  The players, outraged, respond that it's worth far more than that.  They think he should be offering 90.  You can either decide for yourself based on the roleplaying, or have them do an opposed Charisma check and tweak the price based on the result.Besides, if the situation were reversed (merchant thinks 120, players 100), and he offered 90, the players would take the deal, even though they think he should have offered less.Also, the merchants should have more ranks of Appraise than players, so they'll have a far better estimated value.B> That variant was for when the players were actively trying to bluff the guy into a better price.  All haggling involves a little of this, but this was for using Bluff to convince the merchant his appraisal was too low.  That is, to try and shift his STARTING bargaining position.The CHA modified is the player's.  The merchant's CHA didn't have anything to do with these equations.Also, doing this should have a drawback.  If you try to Bluff the storekeeper and fail, he won't deal with you at all.  White lies in haggling are one thing, outright manipulation is another.You see, this whole thing was abstract to begin with.  Think of it this way:(Examples use CHA 10 customer)Selling a 100gp item to the merchant: player wants 100, merchant offers 50, haggle to 75Buying items would work the same, except that the merchant starts at 150% and haggles down.If you have a lower CHA than that, the haggling won't meet at the midpoint.  For selling, it'd be more like 100-50, 90-55, 80-60, 70-65, final price 66.7(it'd take CHA of 7.5 to get that, but you get the point).  The merchant is changing his price less than you are.A high CHA, on the other hand:100-50, 95-60, 90-70, 85-80, final price 83.3(That's for CHA 15).  You're giving up less ground than he is.I wanted something that wouldn't require constant rolling but that would be different for different people.  The Bluff/Sense Motive opposed check shouldn't be used on EVERY roll.One change I was thinking of making was to allow Diplomacy ranks to add to your CHA for these purposes, but this'd only work if you allowed merchants some counterbalance, like subtracting their Sense Motive from your CHA.</blockquote>

Verification