Do u guys notice that the traveling merchants have about 7000 caps when there alive but when u kill them u only get 130 caps,wtf :brokencomputer: and also u can't take whats in there inventory when ur trying to buy from them.One question where is the money?Another thing i've noticed is that at stores/armorys items pop up from nowhere cuz i killed the vendors but i never found the items they were selling, So basically u can't steal everything bcuz once u kill the vendors the items and caps disappear.Robbing the good people of New Vegas should have been something we could do be we can't :sadvaultboy:

Seems like Obsidian pulled the trick that Bethesda did in Oblivion.

The Barter Gold Count is treated as a value on the NPC, like, say, skill with energy weapons. You can't steal that, can you? And their inventory is *probably* placed in a chest OUTSIDE of the explorable areas in the cell. The Noclip command should allow you to get to it...

Cause of game balance?
Every merchant is easy as hell to kill except the vendetron at Gun Runners since he's sealed in and Gloria cause of all her guards.
But everyone else is really easy to kill and if you could loot their store items it would break the game incredibly easy.

No it wouldn't, because from then on you'd be screwed without any merchants.

Hmm, wandering merchants can have up to 3000 caps in their inventories + their inventory AND they respawn IIRC.
So, IMO, unbalance. :/

Hah! The only thing I ever used them for was to sell cigarettes. No way you'd be screwed without them, because they never sell anything of interest.

Actually, that's true.
Here's what you need:
For Explosives, go buy a GMG at Mick And Ralphs, then kill them.
For Guns or Explosives use Gun Runners exclusively.
For EW use Van Graffs exclusively.
Melee and Unarmed doesn't need anything at all, maybe that Major Knight at Mojave Outpost to repair stuff but otherwise you can kill every single merchant.
Every other merchant in the game can be killed and looted without much problem.
But leave "one" doctor alive.

All of that money might be in the merchant's hidden container, which is why you can't access it.

The only hidden inventory I've discovered is Contreras, and that may be due to Developer oversight.

The one who does implants/modifications, 'cause nobody else does. I gotta get that dermal armor now...