Merchants and charisma

[Shining Wrath]

My DM often has us rolling Diplomacy / Bluff checks with merchants to set prices when unloading loot or buying stuff. And the effect of good rolls is limited, as it should be, as is the effect of bad rolls.

And here's why it needs to be limited.

I'm playing a sorcerer this time around, with a snake familiar ...
Consider my sorcerer at level 20.
Charisma ought to be 30 or more because of all the reasons casters raise casting stat and using all the tricks people use to raise a primary stat through the roof.
Bluff is going to be max ranks (23) because we house-ruled that any PC gets at least 4 skill points per level and there's no reason for me to put any of them into craft or profession.
And then +3 from my snake.

That's a Bluff skill of 46. Add a potion of Glibness for another +30, and that's 76. Take 10 for 86.

Now consider the best merchant in the biggest city. Expert 20, full ranks in appraise and sense motive, INT and WIS raised high (but not to 30). Say 35 ranks in each. Rolling 20 on sense motive gives 55.

I propose that my sorcerer, Glibed-up, can talk her way into the best (and richest) merchant's house, into the presence of the best merchant, and sell him or her a pebble picked up off the street as a magic diamond that casts Wish once per day in exchange for a Handy Haversack full off the best loot in this wealthy merchant's home, because beating someone's sense motive roll by 31 leaves them utterly and completely convinced that every word you just spoke is pure truth.

And if you think the best merchant will have spent the coin to have sufficient protections against that sort of shenanigans, there's always the 3rd best merchant in the 4th biggest city. That is, there's still a world full of rich people who can be separated from their coin by a Bluff roll of 86 without them being able to do much to stop me.

Therefore, it seems that any merchant in a world with epic (or even high) level characters must somehow be immune to the effects of Diplomacy and Bluff and Intimidate. Not just the super rich ones, but anyone capable of buying and selling +3 weapons (18,000 GP) could be turned into revenue stream that makes selling the salt from a Wall of Salt look like chump change by high social skills.

Question to DM folk: what's your justification (in-game) for why an arbitrarily high social skill can't result in treating rich people like gold mines?

[ChocoSuisse]

1st- I don't let this arbitrarily high social skill thing happen.
2nd- The merchant might be persuaded you're sincere about the goods you want to sell him, but that won't prevent him to double-check by himself the item's quality. Before acquiring any goods of high value, I wouldn't see any reason for a merchant not to proceed with appropriate checks, so that no matter how high you roll Bluff/Diplo he'll do this. He can also have guidelines not to accept "too big" deals (for this I would allow Diplomacy roll).

[John Longarrow]

4, actually...
1) Even if you totally believe someone, anyone with some fair amount of wealth will always have everything verified by an independant source. With your "Wish pebble", detect magic and Identify will reveal the truth.
2) I add modifiers based on how believable a claim is/how well known the source is. A Paladin with a code of conduct that requires total truthfulness will be believed over the highest bluff Rogue out there. Course with a good disguise that can be used to the rogues advantage. Likewise if you give a merchant a deal that is too good to be true, they get a circumstance bonus to sense motive.
3) +skill items. 20th level merchant should have a +20 to sense motive item, along with +20 to appraise and +20 to diplomacy. Not as good as your potion, but longer lasting.
4) Recourse for cons. If your high bluff character is caught in a lie, the vengance should equal the loss incurred. You walk out of a merchant's shop with 100K worth of gold, expect the local guild to pony up 10-100K for someone to teach you a (probably permanent) lesson. Small thieft/cons don't draw a lot of heat. Talk the king out of the royal jewels and you have problems.


Over all, if you can keep ahead of those you con and stay away from areas you are known, this can work for a while. Once you start running into previous marks (or get caught by someone who does see through your con) you run into a LOT of problems you would rather not have.

[Slipperychicken]

Maybe that'll work the first time, but word would quickly spread that your Sorcerer is a fraud, the merchant will want his stuff back (the ramifications of this can cause all manner of trouble for your Sorcerer), and any reputable vendor will refuse to deal with such a notorious liar. The GM can also add adjustments higher than +20 for truly unbelievable lies, or if the character has a reputation for being a fraud. Or the Bluff might last only 1 round before the merchant realizes he should cast Identify on the rock to verify your claim.


Also, you can't make Glibness into a potion. It has Range: Personal.

[Deophaun]

That's a Bluff skill of 46. Add a potion of Glibness for another +30, and that's 76. Take 10 for 86.
Man, this is the fourth time this has cropped up in the last two or three days that I've seen (and I was the first to make the mistake in that counting). Glibness is Range: Personal, and so cannot be made into a potion. So your Bluff caps out at 56 for taking 10. Add in the penalties for an almost unbelievable lie, and that gives you an effective 36.

[Shining Wrath]

1st- I don't let this arbitrarily high social skill thing happen.
2nd- The merchant might be persuaded you're sincere about the goods you want to sell him, but that won't prevent him to double-check by himself the item's quality. Before acquiring any goods of high value, I wouldn't see any reason for a merchant not to proceed with appropriate checks, so that no matter how high you roll Bluff/Diplo he'll do this. He can also have guidelines not to accept "too big" deals (for this I would allow Diplomacy roll).

1st - how? A character can't max out their charisma if it's their prime casting skill? A character with Bluff as a class skill can't put max ranks into it? Please explain
2nd - yeah, that's what I meant by "protection". For example, I'd expect any merchant dealing in magic items to ask the PC to pay for the Identify spell. It'd be similar to the appraisal when you buy a house. Part of the Bluff process, then, is talking the merchant out of doing what (s)he routinely does.


4, actually...
1) Even if you totally believe someone, anyone with some fair amount of wealth will always have everything verified by an independant source. With your "Wish pebble", detect magic and Identify will reveal the truth.
2) I add modifiers based on how believable a claim is/how well known the source is. A Paladin with a code of conduct that requires total truthfulness will be believed over the highest bluff Rogue out there. Course with a good disguise that can be used to the rogues advantage. Likewise if you give a merchant a deal that is too good to be true, they get a circumstance bonus to sense motive.
3) +skill items. 20th level merchant should have a +20 to sense motive item, along with +20 to appraise and +20 to diplomacy. Not as good as your potion, but longer lasting.
4) Recourse for cons. If your high bluff character is caught in a lie, the vengance should equal the loss incurred. You walk out of a merchant's shop with 100K worth of gold, expect the local guild to pony up 10-100K for someone to teach you a (probably permanent) lesson. Small thieft/cons don't draw a lot of heat. Talk the king out of the royal jewels and you have problems.


Over all, if you can keep ahead of those you con and stay away from areas you are known, this can work for a while. Once you start running into previous marks (or get caught by someone who does see through your con) you run into a LOT of problems you would rather not have.

(1) See above - part of the Bluffing is talking the merchant out of doing what they normally do.
(2) That's true, and part of the description of Bluff. So part of the Bluff is convincing the mark that you are in fact Goodguy The Righteous, Paladin of Heironeous.
(3) Yes, the richest merchant will have these things. That's one of the reasons that you might have to drop down to the not-quite-richest merchant. There's some optimal level of "extractable cash" versus "purchased protections".
(4) Assumes that they know who you are. Disguise is your friend.


Maybe that'll work the first time, but word would quickly spread that your Sorcerer is a fraud, the merchant will want his stuff back (the ramifications of this can cause all manner of trouble for your Sorcerer), and any reputable vendor will refuse to deal with such a notorious liar. The GM can also add adjustments higher than +20 for truly unbelievable lies, or if the character has a reputation for being a fraud. Or the Bluff might last only 1 round before the merchant realizes he should cast Identify on the rock to verify your claim.


Also, you can't make Glibness into a potion. It has Range: Personal.
Disguise is your friend. Giving them your real name would be somewhat silly. Looking like yourself, likewise. Part of the Bluff has to be convincing the mark that he doesn't need to use Identify this time. Agreed that the DM should, per description of Bluff, add to the DC the more unbelievable the lie becomes - but I've got lots of margin built in, and as described above, if you can't make this work on the very richest merchant, there's some optimal level of extractable cash versus merchant's protections where you can make it work.
I thought Haley drank a potion of Glibness - are you telling me The Giant varied from the strict RAW? Excuse me, where's the smelling salts? :smallbiggrin:
Scroll, then.

[Cruiser1]

Also, you can't make Glibness into a potion. It has Range: Personal.

Glibness is Range: Personal, and so cannot be made into a potion.
What's wrong with "Range: Personal"? Brew Potion (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#brewPotion) says "you can create a potion of any 3rd-level or lower spell that you know and that targets one or more creatures". The spell Glibness (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/glibness.htm) is "Target: You", which is a single creature. And if you don't believe me, ask the Giant himself (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0767.html)! :smallwink:

[Studoku]

1) Even if you totally believe someone, anyone with some fair amount of wealth will always have everything verified by an independant source. With your "Wish pebble", detect magic and Identify will reveal the truth.
I've got a buddy who's an expert in magic pebbles.

[Crake]

1) Even if you totally believe someone, anyone with some fair amount of wealth will always have everything verified by an independant source. With your "Wish pebble", detect magic and Identify will reveal the truth.

A heightened Magic Aura (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicAura.htm) with an absurdly high DC will have the detect magic and Identify thing covered. Nothing short of beating the will save will proves that a Magic Auraed item is infact fake.

That said, cheating out merchants has been a long standing tradition for dnd players. It's not the cheating that's hard, it's the get away. Not to mention, you get continuity errors. If this item is so great, why arent you using it to get whatever you want, instead of just wishing for everything. There are plenty of reasons why this bluff would fail. If you did something more subtle, then you could probably get away with it, until the merchant finds out you cheated him/her, gives you a bad name, you get a bounty, and are never allowed in that town again. But really at level 20, why are you cheating merchants for money, there are way easier ways to make it. Just hop on over to the quasi-elemental plane of gems and horde up on diamonds, or start an ambrosia/liquid pain farm.

[Urpriest]

I think the best solution for this is to decouple in-world currency from gp. WBL already screws up any realistic economy, just accept that and state that player wealth represents their purchasing power, not actual coinage, and already takes into account their ability to haggle.

[Shining Wrath]

... SNIP ... But really at level 20, why are you cheating merchants for money, there are way easier ways to make it. Just hop on over to the quasi-elemental plane of gems and horde up on diamonds, or start an ambrosia/liquid pain farm.

Because you hate merchants due to a first level experience with a hot dog vendor who refused to make your Monk friend one with everything? :smallbiggrin: Which is to say, if someone can make a lot of money doing X, someone probably will.

As for getting caught / banned / punished, if you can Bluff at this level, you can afford a hat of disguise.

I guess the point is to keep your grifts small enough that it's not worth anyone's time to cast high level Divination magic - high enough level to overcome your Mind Blank / Undetectable Location etc protections.


I think the best solution for this is to decouple in-world currency from gp. WBL already screws up any realistic economy, just accept that and state that player wealth represents their purchasing power, not actual coinage, and already takes into account their ability to haggle.

Oddly, I thought of this thread while thinking about the game Fate, where WBL doesn't really exist in the D&D sense. If you take a silver piece as a day's wage for a laborer, a player with 200,000 GP WBL is walking around with enough gear on them to feed a kingdom of two million people for a day. That's pretty absurd.

[Crake]

Because you hate merchants due to a first level experience with a hot dog vendor who refused to make your Monk friend one with everything? :smallbiggrin: Which is to say, if someone can make a lot of money doing X, someone probably will.

As for getting caught / banned / punished, if you can Bluff at this level, you can afford a hat of disguise.

I guess the point is to keep your grifts small enough that it's not worth anyone's time to cast high level Divination magic - high enough level to overcome your Mind Blank / Undetectable Location etc protections.

yeah, but the given example is probably not out of that scope. Stealing all the wealth of a level 20 NPC is probably gonna get you in some high level problems.


Oddly, I thought of this thread while thinking about the game Fate, where WBL doesn't really exist in the D&D sense. If you take a silver piece as a day's wage for a laborer, a player with 200,000 GP WBL is walking around with enough gear on them to feed a kingdom of two million people for a day. That's pretty absurd.

To be fair, there are people in the real world with the kind of wealth that could feed significantly more than 2 million people for 1 day. Hell, there are cars out there that are worth enough money that they could feed 2 million people for a day. When you look at it from that perspective, and consider that the players are then 1%ers of the fantasy society, its not so absurd.

[Sith_Happens]

The thing you're forgetting here is that you're talking about 20th level. Half the classes in the game have been able to make all of reality their bitch for the past 3+ levels, and so have the other half if they tried a lot harder. If a 20th level merchant is relying purely on his Sense Motive skill and maybe a few 1st level spells to avoid being conned by a 20th level client/customer then he deserves to fail. Going down the list:


(1) See above - part of the Bluffing is talking the merchant out of doing what they normally do.

A 20th level merchant will, at the very least, be under a Geas to always, always perform all of the necessary checks and other procedures and to immediately show you the door if any of them give unsatisfactory results.


(2) That's true, and part of the description of Bluff. So part of the Bluff is convincing the mark that you are in fact Goodguy The Righteous, Paladin of Heironeous.

You can't Bluff a Divination spell, at least not the good ones.


(3) Yes, the richest merchant will have these things. That's one of the reasons that you might have to drop down to the not-quite-richest merchant. There's some optimal level of "extractable cash" versus "purchased protections".

Any merchant rich enough to perform the kind of transactions worth a 20th level con-man's time either has all of the same security and authentication measures as the richest merchant or lost everything he had long before you showed up.


(4) Assumes that they know who you are. Disguise is your friend.

See #2.

So, to summarize:


Therefore, it seems that any merchant in a world with epic (or even high) level characters must somehow be immune to the effects of Diplomacy and Bluff and Intimidate. Not just the super rich ones, but anyone capable of buying and selling +3 weapons (18,000 GP)

Oh, it looks like we agree after all.:smallwink:

[Slipperychicken]

What's wrong with "Range: Personal"? Brew Potion (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#brewPotion) says "you can create a potion of any 3rd-level or lower spell that you know and that targets one or more creatures". The spell Glibness (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/glibness.htm) is "Target: You", which is a single creature. And if you don't believe me, ask the Giant himself (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0767.html)! :smallwink:

OotS occasionally departs from 3.5 rules whenever Rich wants to. I think he's said that he doesn't want his storytelling to be constrained by the 3.X ruleset.


Also, you're looking in the wrong place for rules.


Creating Potions (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm#creatingPotions)
The creator of a potion needs a level working surface and at least a few containers in which to mix liquids, as well as a source of heat to boil the brew. In addition, he needs ingredients. The costs for materials and ingredients are subsumed in the cost for brewing the potion—25 gp × the level of the spell × the level of the caster.

All ingredients and materials used to brew a potion must be fresh and unused. The character must pay the full cost for brewing each potion. (Economies of scale do not apply.)

The imbiber of the potion is both the caster and the target. Spells with a range of personal cannot be made into potions.

The creator must have prepared the spell to be placed in the potion (or must know the spell, in the case of a sorcerer or bard) and must provide any material component or focus the spell requires.

If casting the spell would reduce the caster’s XP total, he pays the XP cost upon beginning the brew in addition to the XP cost for making the potion itself. Material components are consumed when he begins working, but a focus is not. (A focus used in brewing a potion can be reused.) The act of brewing triggers the prepared spell, making it unavailable for casting until the character has rested and regained spells. (That is, that spell slot is expended from his currently prepared spells, just as if it had been cast.) Brewing a potion requires one day.


Glibness (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/glibness.htm)
Range: Personal

[Flickerdart]

Bluff doesn't work that way. The target acts as you want it to act for a short time, but a purchase of this magnitude is not a one-round affair. You could make the merchant believe that your pebble was valuable, but nothing in Bluff lets you compel him to buy it. He's just as likely to hire some thugs to recover the pebble from your smoking corpse.

[Sith_Happens]

Bluff doesn't work that way. The target acts as you want it to act for a short time, but a purchase of this magnitude is not a one-round affair. You could make the merchant believe that your pebble was valuable, but nothing in Bluff lets you compel him to buy it. He's just as likely to hire some thugs to recover the pebble from your smoking corpse.

You actually can attempt to instill a 10-minute-duration Suggestion by accepting a +50 DC increase, but see my previous post.

[Shining Wrath]

Bluff doesn't work that way. The target acts as you want it to act for a short time, but a purchase of this magnitude is not a one-round affair. You could make the merchant believe that your pebble was valuable, but nothing in Bluff lets you compel him to buy it. He's just as likely to hire some thugs to recover the pebble from your smoking corpse.

A short series of successful Bluffs, then; in a D&D world, con artists do exist.

[Cruiser1]

Also, you're looking in the wrong place for rules.
Wow, you're right! :smallfrown: So, I'd like to this this opportunity to remark on how haphazard 3.5's rules are, with different important pieces of information in different areas. For example, with respect to potions, its restrictions require looking in three different places:


Spell must have a casting time of 1 minute or less: Only mentioned on the general potions page (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/potionsAndOils.htm).
Spell must target one or more creatures: Only mentioned in the Brew Potion feat (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#brewPotion).
Spell can't be Personal range: Only mentioned on the magic item creation page (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm#creatingPotions).

[Slipperychicken]

Wow, you're right! :smallfrown: So, I'd like to this this opportunity to remark on how haphazard 3.5's rules are, with different important pieces of information in different areas. For example, with respect to potions, its restrictions require looking in three different places:

Hey, I don't blame you. I thought Glibness was compatible with potions until just a few days ago.

[Deadline]

Question to DM folk: what's your justification (in-game) for why an arbitrarily high social skill can't result in treating rich people like gold mines?

1. It can work fine against those who don't have protections. It's just that someone else got there before you, and now there aren't any of those fools left.

2. I threaten to make it a two-way street. You want to game WBL? Let's play.

[Afgncaap5]

Welcome to Hyper-Hive.
Though our zalesdrones care nothing for you,
Beelieve that our Mercantile Matriarch conziders
Your zervice to bee of the utmozt importanze.
Our overmind is here to zerve you.
Please refrain from cultural idioms
Or haggling techniquez appropriate to
Your local cuztomz. Our zalesdrones are
Truly mindlezz outzide of the
Ztimuluz/rezponze actions required for
Your important tranzactions.
Welcome to Hyper-Hive.

[Shining Wrath]

1. It can work fine against those who don't have protections. It's just that someone else got there before you, and now there aren't any of those fools left.

2. I threaten to make it a two-way street. You want to game WBL? Let's play.

#1 also applies to all the ways to generate uber-wealth: someone got there before you as you aren't the first Tier 1 caster.

Plane of gems? Someone got there long ago, and with the vast wealth have put in place guards you will never overcome, even at level 250.

Wall of salt? The Salt Lords thought of that trick long ago, and they don't just have wizards on their payroll, they have *gods* on their payroll, and they know you're about to try this before you even think of it, and they show up and confiscate the salt each and every time you cast the spell with intent to sell the resulting salt - which is a maximum of twice, because you get one warning before being hit by Baleful Polymorph (salt) by a wizard who was twice your level 10 millennia ago.

And so on.

#2 is of course insurmountable. If the DM tells you "stop breaking my game" you stop breaking his game. Otherwise rocks fall, everybody dies, please give me your character sheets as I may want to use you as zombies in my next campaign.

[Deadline]

#1 also applies to all the ways to generate uber-wealth: someone got there before you as you aren't the first Tier 1 caster.

You say that like it's a bad thing.


#2 is of course insurmountable. If the DM tells you "stop breaking my game" you stop breaking his game. Otherwise rocks fall, everybody dies, please give me your character sheets as I may want to use you as zombies in my next campaign.

Again, you say that like it's a bad thing. :smalltongue:

If you want a more "in-game" type of reason, I believe there is a type of Inevitable whose job is to track down people who do this sort of thing. Which basically means you need to enjoy your wealth while it lasts, because they will get you eventually (it's in the name, after all). In addition, you'll probably spend most of your ill-gotten gains defending yourself from other con-men, potent spellcasters who like the status-quo, etc., because Divination is a thing. Basically, the threat of retribution works reasonably well for people who aren't sociopaths. Your con-man supreme would also likely face an alignment shift if he wasn't already of an alignment that supported this kind of behavior. Of course, alignment shifts would be unlikely to stop someone like this, so it's neither here nor there.

[Arael666]

This is also solved by aplying a little bit of logic to the game. No matter how good you are at lying, you're not gonna convince someone that a pebble is a priceless gem.

Or even better, at some point that merchant is gonna realize that he's been swindled, and you're gonna have a really pissed off dude with vasts amount of gold, influence and connections wanting you head on a silver plate.

[Edenbeast]

Now consider the best merchant in the biggest city. Expert 20, full ranks in appraise and sense motive, INT and WIS raised high (but not to 30). Say 35 ranks in each. Rolling 20 on sense motive gives 55.

Also consider that the "best" merchant not only has good int and wis, but also has a way to deal with people. Which is a very important quality if you want to sell things and, if possible, make profit. If everyone in your world is running around with max skills on high levels, then expect that merchant to have equally high diplomacy, bluff, sense motive, profession (merchant), and appraise, and thus be very difficult to be fooled.

[ChocoSuisse]

1st - how? A character can't max out their charisma if it's their prime casting skill? A character with Bluff as a class skill can't put max ranks into it? Please explain
2nd - yeah, that's what I meant by "protection". For example, I'd expect any merchant dealing in magic items to ask the PC to pay for the Identify spell. It'd be similar to the appraisal when you buy a house. Part of the Bluff process, then, is talking the merchant out of doing what (s)he routinely does.

1st- It's natural for the player to want to max Charisma/Bluff. But I'm the one who decides what is reasonable and what is not. It's my responsibility as a DM to keep the game interesting. An optimized diplomancer leads to uninteresting games, so that does not happen. Regarding your question "how?" : I've got many in-game tools for this, but the simple solution is not to waste the player's time and discuss with him.
2nd- I wouldn't use bluff for this, but rather diplomacy. For example, the merchant would agree to pay for the Identify himself on a success. With Bluff, you could convince him that an item you sell him is "the dagger that was used by the famous assassin XXX to kill the King YYY, ZZZ years ago", by telling a colorful story about how you found it, so that the merchant would buy it for a higher, but reasonable price. The merchant has no guarantee and normally wouldn't buy it at a higher price, but your story is credible and you seem to be honest and he doesn't risk too much.

[John Longarrow]

Hmm...

Thinking this con through...

You cast a couple spells to make that pebble of wish seem legit.
Merchant trades you his sacred decanter of endless summoning.

Merchant gets a rock.
You get a loadstone. You find out its a loadstone as soon as you try using the decanter and pick up the rock that falls out...

Cons can be a two way street and if you've got a +30 potion, nothing says the merchant can't.... :xykon:

[Fouredged Sword]

You steal a massive amount of wealth from a 20th level character. Fine, you do so. You even walk out of there completely unmolested because you are a really good bluffer.

The next day the stuff is gone and you got a price on your head. The merchant realized something was off, checked the goods, found them false. He then walked over to the high church of whatever god handles merchants and trade. He buys a miracle to get his stuff returned. It costs him some serious money, but he gets his stuff back and you get nothing. The price on your head is just because you cost him the price of hiring a 20th level cleric to cast a single 9th level spell. The moment an item becomes an unattended object it is immediately teleported without concern for local conditions.

Powerful merchants and nobles have powerful friends. This guy has made more money than most kingdoms and he did it by staying in one market and making friends. You rip him off and you get blacklisted from EVERYONE, because he is way too powerful for ANY merchant to risk his ire. You can't get lodgings in an inn, can't hire a ship, can't buy spellcasting or even bread. Nobody wants to risk ending up a target of the MANY assassins chasing your bounty. The amount of money he spends going after you is larger than the loss. He knows if he fails to get you, some other yahoo will get emboldened to try as well, and that just means more cost hunting down thieves in the end.

Making the steal is easy. Getting away is really hard.

If you use a disguise or somehow hide your identity, well, that is what hiring a psion with metacognition is for, and that extra cost just makes the merchant angrier.

[Shining Wrath]

You steal a massive amount of wealth from a 20th level character. Fine, you do so. You even walk out of there completely unmolested because you are a really good bluffer.

The next day the stuff is gone and you got a price on your head. The merchant realized something was off, checked the goods, found them false. He then walked over to the high church of whatever god handles merchants and trade. He buys a miracle to get his stuff returned. It costs him some serious money, but he gets his stuff back and you get nothing. The price on your head is just because you cost him the price of hiring a 20th level cleric to cast a single 9th level spell. The moment an item becomes an unattended object it is immediately teleported without concern for local conditions.

Powerful merchants and nobles have powerful friends. This guy has made more money than most kingdoms and he did it by staying in one market and making friends. You rip him off and you get blacklisted from EVERYONE, because he is way too powerful for ANY merchant to risk his ire. You can't get lodgings in an inn, can't hire a ship, can't buy spellcasting or even bread. Nobody wants to risk ending up a target of the MANY assassins chasing your bounty. The amount of money he spends going after you is larger than the loss. He knows if he fails to get you, some other yahoo will get emboldened to try as well, and that just means more cost hunting down thieves in the end.

Making the steal is easy. Getting away is really hard.

If you use a disguise or somehow hide your identity, well, that is what hiring a psion with metacognition is for, and that extra cost just makes the merchant angrier.

Now this makes sense as an in-game explanation for not being a high-charisma con artist. Well done.

[Fouredged Sword]

Not to mention all the OTHER level 20 merchants help him out. They may cut each others purses given half a chance, but they all know it hurts EVERYONE if thieves can get away with big scores. Your name gets out to ALL the big movers and shakers, and they will make it hurt. None of the other major players will spend as much as the first guy hurting you, but they won't deal with you.

Also, for large purchases, they will use divination. "Oh god of commerce, will I be ripped off within the next X days per CL? Yes, really! By who? When exactly? Thanks god of commerce! Laura, cancel my 10:30 appointment, it's a waste of my time."

[Shining Wrath]

Not to mention all the OTHER level 20 merchants help him out. They may cut each others purses given half a chance, but they all know it hurts EVERYONE if thieves can get away with big scores. Your name gets out to ALL the big movers and shakers, and they will make it hurt. None of the other major players will spend as much as the first guy hurting you, but they won't deal with you.

Also, for large purchases, they will use divination. "Oh god of commerce, will I be ripped off within the next X days per CL? Yes, really! By who? When exactly? Thanks god of commerce! Laura, cancel my 10:30 appointment, it's a waste of my time."

Divination does screw up a good con. Of course, the person who takes the 10:30 appointment is an assassin, not a con-man :smallsmile:

[NichG]

The computation to do is to assume that if your PC can do something trivially, then everyone has been doing it trivially for hundreds of years and the way the world is structured is a result of that going to some stable endpoint. So if Bluff-boosting is a common thing, that means that basically economics doesn't work - people using Bluff-boosting have already collected all the money, and everyone else is too poor to actually have any nice things. Which means that now, in this world, you simply cannot actually find a merchant, period - they've all starved.

Or possibly what has happened is that magically enhancing your social skills has become a crime punishable by irreversible death (e.g. barghest fodder), and there is a significant amount of governmental force dedicated to preventing it from happening because it being standard practice destroys the concept of an economy and trade, which means that the governments don't get taxes and generally find it hard to govern. Which means that, as a public service, every registered merchant will leave their wealth in accounts managed by a government-assigned Inquisitor. Any exchange of goods in excess of a certain amount must legally involve going through that Inquisitor, which is equivalent to taking a stroll down to the notary's office, but in this case a notary with Detect Magic and the license to have someone executed for messing around. It doesn't mean that every loaf of bread you buy in a tavern will be watched by the Bluff police, but it does probably mean that for large transactions - large enough to make it worth bothering with this sort of scam - there's a good chance it'll be checked.

To put it another way, figure out the cost of preventing a particular arbitrary-income trick from working, and you can reasonably determine that the maximum amount of wealth you can derive from that trick will be something along the lines of that cost. If it costs 25gp to see that you're doing something shady, then you can probably scam someone for 25gp without too many problems, but if you're making deals involving amounts of gold in the 2500gp range then the 25gp counter will be standard operating procedure because thats how things settled out.