Don't understand Mercantile Skill Perks : IV

» Tue Jun 09, 2015 4:19 am

Dear forum,

In the instructions, it says that an Expert of Mercantile can invest in a shop,

"giving the merchant money to permanently increase his shop's available

gold by 500."

I don't know what it means by "available gold".

Does this effect how much loot you can sell to a store? I've never had

a problem with a store not being able to buy my loot.

The amount of gold a storekeeper has does not seem to change

when I buy or sell anything.

And I'm not sure why you'd spend lots of time to train Mercantile,

just to gain 500 gold pieces.

Maybe I'm not understanding this skill perk, can someone explain?

Wahooka

» Tue Jun 09, 2015 7:43 am

"Available gold" is the amount of gold a merchant has to barter with.

This was one of the first things I disliked about Oblivion. I now use mods to correct this. But if you're on console you're stuck with it.

Yes. If you increase his gold by 500 you can sell 500 more in a single transaction. This seems fairly pointless to me since merchant gold never depletes. And besides, it is far too easy to become filthy rich anyway, in my opinion.

Whether it is worth investing in a shop is up to you. I have only done it once, and that was for roleplaying reasons (I was playing an entrepreneur character whose "main quest" was to make money).

» Tue Jun 09, 2015 9:15 am

Ninja抎 by PW.

Here抯 a slightly different take from a Master of Mercantile, and a filthy rich one at that.

Each merchant has a set amount of gold (available gold), say 1800 gp for example, and that never changes as you sell him loot. But if you抮e selling him something worth 2500 gp, then you loose 700 gp on the transaction. If you invest 500 gp in the shop (pay him 500 gp one time) then that merchant will always have 1800 + 500 = 2300 gp from then on. So if you sold him the same piece of loot worth 2500 gp, then you would only loss 200 gp, not 700. If you are selling a lot of high value loot the 500 gp investment pays for itself in no time. At master level Mercantile you get full value for your loot up to the 揳vailable gold?amount of the merchant. No more selling at a discount or haggling.