Talk:Appraise

From NWNWiki

Hmmm... being a fairly new player to NWN, I don't have a good sense of how many points I would need to invest in Appraise for it to have a useful impact (and, considering the 30% cap, how many points would be going overboard).

Can anyone provide a generalization or estimate about the Appraise skills of merchants in the OC and Expansion Campaigns? How high do they go? Would a modified skill check of 5 be handy, or would I need to reach 15+ points before I get good savings? Would I regularly rub against the 30% cap if I had, say, 20+ points?

p.s. I realize the general consensus is that Appraise isn't worth the points anyway due to the abundance of gold in Bioware's campaigns, but I am curious all the same.

-Marco

172.165.109.47 23:40, 27 September 2006 (PDT)

Since Appraise was introduced with SoU, none of the merchants in the OC have any ranks in Appraise (but their intelligence is a factor). You'll start hitting the 30% cap at times with an Appraise of 21, and always hit the cap at about 40. Personally, I think a skill of 5 is enjoyable in the OC. That should give you a favorable reaction from at least one merchant in each chapter, but is not so high that a favorable reaction is guaranteed. (A skill of 10-12 would guarantee favorable reactions.) Don't forget that the OC was balanced before Appraise, and has not been rebalanced since. (This is most notable in chapter 3 with Barun -- it was intended that you not make a profit off of him, but you can with a high Appraise skill.)

I haven't checked all the merchants in the expansions, but from the few I looked at, it appears the highest Appraise among the merchants is a 20 in SoU chapter 2. You can either go with a few ranks in Appraise to give you an advantage with the 0-Appraise merchants, or max the skill to compete with these uber-merchants. --The Krit 16:06, 29 September 2006 (PDT)