Appraise

From NWNWiki

The higher the character's skill, the better the price received when selling or purchasing goods.

• Ability: Intelligence

• Classes: Assassin, Bard, Harper Scout, Rogue

• Cross-Class: Yes

• Requires training: No

• Check: The character makes an opposed roll against the merchant's appraise skill. If the merchant wins, the character pays more for the goods in the store. If the character wins, he pays less. The first time the player interacts with a merchant dictates the prices in that store until his appraise skill improves.

• Use: Automatic in stores

[edit] Notes

• Added in the expansion packs.

• Before the expansion packs were released, store prices were fixed (no die rolls). A patch added the die rolls to the original campaign, even if neither expansion was installed. (A PC cannot buy ranks in appraise if neither expansion is installed, but intelligence will still influence the rolls.)

• Unlike other skill rolls, this opposed roll uses a d10 (10-sided die).

• The prices are adjusted by a percentage equal to the difference in the die rolls, subject to a 30% cap.

• Merchants subject to charm or dominate effects are considered easy marks, and have their appraise skill reduced. Reductions are -10 for charm person, charm monster, or charm person or animal; -15 for mass charm; and -20 for dominate monster, dominate animal, or dominate person. In the case of multiple effects, the smallest reduction is used. Taking advantage of easy marks can be problematic since casting these spells is considered a hostile act.

• As noted in the description of the check, an appraise roll is not made when re-visiting a store unless the player's appraise skill has improved, not changed. A lowered score does not trigger a new roll. Thus, a character does not need to equip appraise-enhancing items every time a store is visited; wearing them as the store is opened once is enough to gain their benefits for future visits to that store. Similarly, casting fox's cunning — or drinking such a potion — to improve appraise can be done for just the first visit to a merchant.

• Note that this skill is script based and it might not work in every community module, especially the really old ones.

[edit] Builders notes

• For this skill to be used, all stores need to be opened with gplotAppraiseOpenStore() or gplotAppraiseFavOpenStore(), both found in the include file nw_i0_plot.
• The scripts x1_openstore and x1_openstorefav use these functions to open the nearest store object.
• A module builder has the option to change how the skill works by using module-specific scripts.