Anyone use a merchant/facilitator strategy?

[Legacy_unclejoe1917]

               I am thinking about making a run through one of the three main campaigns (or I suppose I could do it with Kingmaker too) where I focus on abilities like crafting, appraise and persuade/bluff.  He would follow along and act as the supplier and "agent" to whatever henchman it made sense to take along with me.  Has anyone else taken this approach?  Which campaign did you play?  What class did you use?  I assume bard or rogue are the logical choice though a wizard could sort of make sense also. 
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_HipMaestro]

               If any of this is spoilerish, apologies.  Seems general and high-level enough to me.

If it's RP-based approach, any CHA-based even pally & BG class would suit for Persuade/bluff checks, I suppose.  Even sorc may be better than wiz in that respect, except for INT skills.  Can't recall any bluff checks in the campaigns, though.  Maybe there are some in the premiums?  Dunno.

TBH, any class can xclass enough skillpoints into Appraise to get a worthwhile benefit.  Assassin & Harper Scout are the additional PrC's that also have it as a class skill.  You'll need to reload initial merchant encounters to get the full benefit, else any toon who reloads can easily get better deals than a high-Appraise toon that settles for the random dice roll.  There is a HUGE difference in the random percent assigned in the campaigns. Like 20% or more.  So for high-priced items it can really mount up.

But what do mean by "crafting"?  ..."crafting skills"? If crafting components are req'd, you can forget about the plague campaign.  The cosmetic changes require no skill investment so you can craft that much.  In addition, unless you are using TK's AI or equivalent, there is no hench inventory control in the OC either, so no hench to supply.  I believe SoU is the first campaign that begins providing crafting components, at least for traps IIRC.  As far as magic (feat) crafting like wands, scrolls & potions, no raw stock is available until HotU.

Persuade/bluff is not used by merchants in any of the campaigns, not for buying/selling anyway... only Appraise.  The plague campaign and HotU are both so loot- and gold-gorged that with or without an investment in Appraise, there will be plenty of stash to go around.  SoU is really the only campaign that demands some nifty resource management, so in that respect that campaign would be my choice for developing persuasion skills & merchandising..

Another issue is hiring an available hench to supply.  In both SoU & HotU, not all mercs are accessible throughout the entire campaign.  It depends on which of the initial 2 (or 3 with the Mischa fix) to use in SoU or the kobold of your choice in HotU.  But if you are not necessarily needing/wanting to drag the same henchperson from beginning to end, those restrictions are not an issue.

Sry, it's been so long since I played any of the premiums, I can't remember how loot & persuasion works in them anymore, but IIRC Kingmaker is fairly tight loot-wise.

I suppose a flexible way to achieve what you want is to choose your favorite class and then do a few skill dumps to reach the levels you want to.  Unless you prefer a single class toon.  Then bard & rogue have enough skill points to throw around... like you said.  Is this the kind of input you were looking for?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_unclejoe1917]

               Nah, don't sweat it.  There isn't anything in the OC or the other two games that I don't already know very well.  I see what you mean about the Charisma based classes like Paladin and Sorcerer, but Paladins seems to serve a higher purpose than sitting in the background peddling goods while someone else braves the danger.  Sorcerer makes more sense, though I frankly see a sorcerer getting bored with it.  Rogues seem a little more like a common merchant hustler and bards like they would be really into the exchange of neato stuff.
That's interesting what you say about the Appraise skill.  I've obviously noticed that you get a favorable/neutral/unfavorable rating.  Does it get even more specific than that?  Are there degrees of favorable based on how well you pass the skill check?
I don't really even know what I mean by crafting TBH. In all the times I have played these campaigns, I have never tried crafting a single item, not even a common dagger.  I was thinking the OC would be hard because of lack of access to hench inventory, so maybe Hordes or SoU is a better choice.  My only thoughts on crafting were that It would be one more way to supply my henchman and myself or to raise more cash by selling crafted items.
I like the Persuade or Bluff skills on the guy I have a vague picture of in my mind because he would also sort of act as the voice of the pair.  He would do all the talking because, as mentioned, he is a wheeler and dealer and will more than likely be by far the smarter of the two adventurers.
It has been quite a while since I have played Kingmaker, but I seem to remember that there is quite a bit of conversation and opportunity for persuasion in that game.  It's also not a cash haul module either as you mentioned, so making some extra money would certainly be helpful.  
Thanks for your input.  I was probably going to try to do this in the OC, but you have thankfully made me think twice about that. The one henchman I would LOOOOVE to take with me is Garm from Pirates of the Sword Coast, but I obviously can't and that module wouldn't be very good for this type of character.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_HipMaestro]

               

unclejoe1917 wrote...
That's interesting what you say about the Appraise skill.  I've obviously noticed that you get a favorable/neutral/unfavorable rating.  Does it get even more specific than that?  Are there degrees of favorable based on how well you pass the skill check?

It's an opposed skill check vs. the merchant with the merchant's skill a minimum of 1 regardless of other "influences", like being subjected to a charm or dominate spell.   The sell cost can range from a max of +30% (expensive) to -30% (cheap) of the item value depending on the difference with a d10 roll.  So the random values will always vary in increments of 10%.  With the potential of spell effects on merchants, arcanists & UMD users alike (like assassins with an appropriate scroll) can obtain better opposed check results than even those with classed skill levels with high charisma who possess no spellcasting ability.  The report onscreen refers to either neutral (check result tie), unfavorable, (merchant wins check) or favorable (PC wins check).  In any case, the same percentage applies to both selling and buying.  Once it has been established, it stays in place for all deals with that merchant until your PC's Appraise skill increases.

I don't really even know what I mean by crafting TBH. In all the times
I have played these campaigns, I have never tried crafting a single
item, not even a common dagger. I was thinking the OC would be hard
because of lack of access to hench inventory, so maybe Hordes or SoU is
a better choice. My only thoughts on crafting were that It would be one
more way to supply my henchman and myself or to raise more cash by
selling crafted items.

I'm not positive (having crafted weapons & armor very seldom and only in environments that did not offer them in stores and forced crafting to survive), but I would think that crafting items for sale to vendors would not be a cost-effective endeavor since you would need to find the components or purchase them and then the crafting skill costs GP to activate.  Unless you would use the Continual Flame exploit... but in that case you could use plain mundane items from stores.  Problem with crafting is that it can't create a magical item which means stores and drops usually will be better that what you can craft.  In ALL the campaigns, except for trap components provided in SoU & HotU, weapon.armor craftying is limitied to appearance changes only since construction components are unavailable (IIRC a few components drop in HotU but whether they can used for crafting is anyone's guess).

Not to throw cold water on your plan, but...

...you might actually be better off poking around the Vault for a module that is scripted more towards the kind of RPing you are interested in... one that utilizes all the elements of your RP idea better.  Or canvassing the "Modules" subforum, describing exactly what you have furnished here.  Just a suggestion, mind you.  BTW, Bluff is not used in the campaigns either, for what that is worth.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               I agree with HipMaestro on almost all of these issues, with maybe a couple of additional comments.

Crafting weapons and armor for sale as a way to earn some gold is very close to worthless in the three big Bioware campaigns. Most of those items cost 50% of base cost to craft and only sell for 35% of base cost to most merchants. A couple of the items do have special properties, like those craftable using bars of mithral or adamantine. But, due to the math, it's not worth crafting to sell. But, they are cheaper to craft than to buy (assuming the components can be found, rather than purchased). That can be useful for items one actually wants to keep for a PC as some items may be craftable when it not otherwise possible to get them (e.g. the mithral shield has a nice property, etc.).

The exception is crafting traps to sell. (BTW, while I don't recall that a PC can buy crafting components in most OC stores, there are some trap crafting components to be found in the OC. E.g., there are plenty of skeleton knuckles and quarts crystals to be found.) There is no direct gold cost to craft traps (unlike weapons and armor), so found components can often be turned into traps that will sell for more than the components would have. The disadvantage is that crafted traps are marked as 'stolen'. This may well be a minor game bug, where the intent was that recovered traps would be marked stolen, but the same default trap items are created when crafting, so they are marked stolen, too. That means that most merchants won't buy them and those merchants who will buy stolen items (typified by rogue shops) buy at a reduced price (usually 25% rather than 35%). Nevertheless, it is possible do a little trap crafting for profit in the Bioware campaigns.

Having your PC be the mouthpiece of the group for RP purposes makes perfect sense for the PC you have in mind and is usually the only way to do things anyway in NWN. An unfortunate side effect of the way conversations are usually written is  that the PC is the only character who can do the talking, even when that isn't what you might want. And, because of that. the PC will often be the focus of ire when the NPC becomes hostile at the end of the conversation. In other words, it would be nice if my sneaky rogue / harper scout or delicate wizard could send his burly henchman over to see what those currently non-hostile bandit-looking creeps down the road want to talk about while I stay stealthy. But, the game doesn't usually work that way.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_HipMaestro]

               Completely forgot about those skel knuckles & quartz, MrZ. '>  Not a bad way to create some side income that I never considered since the OC quickly reaches a state of excess. 

The only disclaimer to that craft strategy is that, except for the beginning few chapters, a player needs to train in at least one of 4 "rogue" skills to trigger the blackmarket merchant to do business.  TBH, with a modest investment in Disable Trap and as much INT-boosting as possible, many/most traps can be recovered, pretty much eliminating the need to wait for crafting components to drop.  And besides, the skill is worthwhile to the entire party during adventuring mode. The OC has loads of low-mid DC traps to grab and in the first chapter or so, when resources are tightest, marketing traps can be a reliable cash cow.  Now, in SoU, the most economically-stingy campaign of the 3, it (redeeming recovered traps) can make progress more affordable.  Except one needs to haul all those traps around...a possible storage issue.

The "mum henchman" syndrome limitation of which you mentioned briefly always bothered me about default NWN (& BG, as well, btw).  You'd think there would be a way to script an interface between henchie attributes & merchants using some sort of menu system that would grab the stats of the henchie.  I mean, Deekin can ID the player inventory and "cheat" the merchant from the getting a fee, right?  But this is a subject for an entirely different conversation, eh?  Place it on my wish list. '>