Mages and gold

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I am finishing up my BG1 game and getting ready for BG2. I'm running with a half-elven mage/cleric as my protagonist. I will also be using Edwin and Imoen. I'm concerned that with such a mage heavy party that I may have gold troubles.

Between all the spell scrolls I'll need to buy and the magic items I'd like as well I'm really worried that I'll be perpetually gold starved. I know this place has some really hardcore players. Could anybody give me a few hints or tips to having enough gold for my scrolls and the various magic items I'd like to buy?

 

Invest in some potions of master thievery and use Imoen's pickpocket ability to steal scrolls. Plus, you can just memorize the scrolls and use them forever, right?

 

Ah ha! I never thought to steal the scrolls before! That answer is simple enough. I'll be sure to do that. Then I'll be able to use my gold on the other items I want to buy.

 

Better answer for you. Buy and sell expensive equipment to the fencer in the Shadow Thief Main Hall.

Sell it, steal it, sell it again.

Repeat as desired (often a number of times within a potion's dosing).


Most merchants will not buy stolen items from you but they will.

Same thing works with Roger in the Sewers and the fencer in Mae'Var's guild.



Other than that there are a few places where jewels and gems (sometimes a few magic items) can be sold and then bought back for a lower price to be sold again.

The evil shark folk underwater city is one place (think at their temple) and the smugglers in the last ToB town is another.


Do this enough and you'll have more than enough gold for scrolls and a few goodies as a bonus.

 

Or if you are going to cheat anyway just drink a few gems. (place a potion and a gem in the inventory screen, select drink potion then switch the gem for the potion and exit the screen. once the PC finishes the drinking animation repeat, you should have a stack of 65535 gems to sell)

 

Is it cheating to steal, though? I've never done it before but it seems like it is in keeping with the game's rules.

 

not to steal really but to abuse a bug to get infinite gold would be IMO. But to each his own.

 

Ah, yeah. I won't go for infinite gold. I'm guessing I'll be able to steal only as long as my potions of master thievery last.

 

I wasn't suggesting the reselling tactic, just steal them once to get them as opposed to spending lots of money for them.

Potions of master thievery are not particularly common though, so save them and drink a few at once, then go around to all of the merchants while the effects are still active. I also suggest quicksaving before each steal attempt in case it doesn't work - nothing like a hundred angry common folk to ruin your day.

 

It may be.

However, is it realistic to make it so you cannot loot a fencer's stores or treasure/gold after you attack them?

Ditto for merchants (though I figure they, unless they make some comment otherwise, are just try to get by/do a job that doesn't require harming anyone and so on). The game is unrealistic in more than one way (in spite of the credit I give it for trying in some respects).

 

Probably not, but unless you cover your thieving tracks completely, you would probably have difficulty avoiding incarceration.

Basically, the steal/sell/steal/sell routine assumes absolute stupidity on the part of the fences. "Why thank you for selling me this rare and expensive item, which is identical to an item which I recently purchased from you and which I seem to have mysteriously misplaced..."

 

There are mods to fix that stupidity of selling stolen items to fences over and over. Rogues Rebalancing mod disables the steal option from fences. Hence, you can sell a stolen item only once to a fence. It is not bad though. Get an expensive item (ie:full plate mail) sell it to a regular shop. Steal it back. Go and sell the stolen good to the fence. And you now have double the amount of gp you normally would have, but this is it. Makes sense IMHO and I use it on my games.

Also, it has a component for adjusting NPC reactions upon a failed steal attempt.

Copy+pasted from the source:

* Merchants will no longer turn hostile after a failed theft attempt. They will instead opt to report the theft to their superiors (thereby lowering the party's reputation) and refuse to have any further dealings with the party
* A PC can now talk his way out of a failed theft attempt if one of his mental attributes and/or Lore and Reputation score is high enough

In summary, whenever you fail a theft attempt, you now get various dialogue options for dealing with the situation depending on your Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, Lore and Reputation scores. The initial requirements are fairly low (12 for either of the mental attributes, 20 for Lore, 14 for good Reputation and 7 for bad Reputation). However, each merchant keeps track of how many times you've tried to talk your way out of a theft, and the aforementioned requirements exponentially rise with every further failed attempt. Also, even with the highest attribute scores, you can have no more than 3 botched theft attempts per merchant. After that, no amount of talking will be able to convince that particular merchant of your "innocence".

Waaay better than having to reload after a botched steal attempt or have half of the town hostile.

I highly reccomend this mod, it is top quality stuff!

 

Somewhat (or totally) off-topic, but I really don't understand why some mod-makers feel it's necessary to block cheesy tactics. If people want to play legitimately, they wouldn't use those tactics anyway, and if others want to use cheese, why should anyone else care, particularly in a single-player game. I can think of one mod in particular where the author is absolutely obsessed with blocking cheese, to the point where he's spending so much time on this in the next version of his mod that it's turning in to the Duke Nukem Forever of BG2 mods.

 

Can anybody tell me how to thieve from a merchant? I had Yoshimo chug a master thievery potion but when I talk to Deidre there is no theft button. What am I missing?

 

There are certain merchants you can't steal from (and thus the theft button isn't accessible). Deidre is one of them.

 

Ah, okay. No filching the Robe of Vecna, then!

 

Why yes I know which particular mod you are adressing. Shame about that, really.

However, I still enjoy a rounded up, bug and cheese free game. I am not a total perfectionist, but still it is good to know that some people are working hard to perfect such a beautiful game as BG2.

 

Considering the number of unsolved or investigated killings, kidnappings, and mugging attempts that appear to occur the game doesn't always promote confidence in the abilities its law enforcement.

Plus with fencers you already have people who have taken efforts to avoid the notice of the law which makes it that much harder to look into crimes done to them. Which guardsman is a fencer going to report the theft of his already stolen merchandise to?

I know, after buying the same thing back for the 25th time a fencer would probably get a bit curious. That said, in addition to gold, doing it sometimes still gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling.

 

I am well familiar with the mod. However, IMO the definition of what is 'cheesy' and what is not varies greatly between different players. For example, that particular mod in question even in its present version has some extremely unrealistic enemy abilities (like human wizard or cleric opponents with absurdly high natural resistances/ immunities to slashing/ blunt/ piercing/ missile/ elemental damage which can in no way be explained by normal game or D&D rules).

However, I do like the modification which makes all merchants non-stealable. It is realistic, and adds more to the tactical challenge.

Back to the unmodded game: there are at least 3 ways to obtain infinite gold without relying on pickpocketing skill or 'gem drinking' exploit, however I'm going to reveal only two of those, since the last one may still not be corrected in Improved Anvil 6.0, thus left opened for exploitation.

The first option is: go inside Firkraag's lair level 2, and rest infinite times. Kill any Skeleton Warriors interrupting your sleep and loot their +1 two-handed swrords and other items. They may drop rare and valuable mage scrolls too.

The second option is: lowering your reputation to 3 or below, then killing groups of Amnish Guards. They have full plate mails, and drop other random items (including valuable spell scrolls).