What skill would be easier to control for Major Skill purposes... Mercantile or Speechcraft?

Speechcraft, I would think...just don't play that little persuasion minigame with people, bribe them instead, and it won't level.

Yeah-- speechcraft is easier to control. You get mercantile experience whenever you buy or sell something, regardless of any other factor. You only get speechcraft experience if you play the disposition mini-game-- you don't get it if you bribe or use charm magic.

Both can be very tedious to level, but I've found Mercantile to be more simple. Don't haggle, sell everything you can, and sell items individually instead of always in stacks.

With Speechcraft, eventually you'll increase everyone's disposition, but you can also stop before they're maxed and work on lowering it again -- careful if you get it below 20 though, or they could attack you. Fame and Infamy also affect the disposition of all NPCs, so it'll depend on what you've been doing up to that point. There are also a lot of meta-gaming ways to work with Speechcraft, which could affect your roleplaying -- for instance, one exploit is to draw your weapon before speaking with someone to lower their disposition, but you could also find a roleplay reason for the weapon being drawn. Plus, personally the Persuasion minigame jars me from the roleplay experience :shrug:

Strictly for controlling it to level, yeah, Speechcraft. But from a roleplaying perspective, Mercantile IMO.

Great, thanks guys

I'm glad you made some of those points, for whatever it's worth.

Yes-- speechcrat, from a pure metagaming perspective, is the easier skill to control. But I LOATHE speechcraft as a major, just because if you pick it as a major, you have to pay attention to it -- "I don't want a level up yet, so I can't play the mini-game." or "Okay, now it's time for a level up, but I've got everybody maxed, so I have to do the drawn weapon exploit." or any of that other metagaming stuff that completely destroys my immersion.

I want to just play the game, and for that, I find Mercantile to be a far, FAR better major. It increases at a nice, slow, steady pace, no matter what. Just pick it and ignore it.

Haggling or not has no effect at all on raising Mercantile skill. You get a bit of xp every time you make a sales transaction whether you get 800 gold for selling a stack of potions or 7 gold for selling a wolfhide. The only way to control it is not to use it.

Speechcraft is totally avoidable - Charm and/or Bribery can substitute. If you want Speechcraft raises it levels up pretty quickly, although, yes it's a) tedious and B) immersion breaking unless you're rp'ing a guy that enjoys messing with people's heads.

Mara

I agree that speechcraft is much easier to control by simply not using it.

I always take speechcraft as a major and never use it. That way my character will cap out at a lower level (I want that) and it is a skill that bribing and charming render unecessary.

That said, if I ever did want to level it, I would find a guard, open the minigame and start mashing buttons indiscriminately. All you have to do is play the game - you don't have to do well at it.

It's not clear whether the OP is asking about control in the sense of keeping it low, or being able to increase it on demand, but Speechcraft wins either way.

Speechcraft can be totally avoided, so there's no problem keeping it low. You can't avoid Mercantile use.

Once you have the hang of the Persuasion mini-game, you can run disposition up or down at will. Mercantile is tedious - even using TQP - but you can buy and re-sell a merchant's stock of iron arrows one at a time as many times as you need to. Either gives you all the control you need, but Mercantile will be slower.

My choice for making it a major would be Mercantile, as it has benefits with its mastery perks, if you need the extra gold from your sales, and the higher start level can help that. There's no alternative that will increase barter gold. Speechcraft can be totally substituted by the use of Charm spells.

Just to clarify, as Acadian pointed out and as is stated on UESP wiki, leveling speechcraft at will (i.e., under your control) is very, very simple. All you do is play the minigame by selecting the smallest "wedge" as fast as possible, and changing to actually playing it if the NPCs disposition drops too low (around 10 or so is my guideline, and no, I have never, ever been attacked... I must be a scary fairy! ^_^). Mercantile is an uncontrollable skill in the same way that Athletics is uncontrollable, except Mercantile is perhaps a bit less noticeable due to leveling with any merchant transaction rather than simple movement. That is, Mercantile is uncontrollable unless you avoid selling anything to anyone (and avoid quest rewards that give Merc pts, and avoid skill books, of course). Money becomes moot at high levels, but it's definitely an issue at low levels, so I can't really see how anyone could avoid selling anything (and thus leveling Merc uncontrollably). Sure, you can watch it all the time if you like, but that's only needed because it's uncontrollable. You don't need to watch speechcraft as long as you avoid using it (i.e., don't play the minigame).