I recently started running a 4e game where a character is playing an unaligned merchant bard who is also a bit of a snake oil salesman.
What is a good way to play up the merchant / snake oil salesman aspects of a character?
Some things he'd like to do:
-
Maintain a collection of items for sale: We're both worried about the overhead of managing a store inventory and have thought about using a "trade goods" generic item that he can keep in his wagon inventory and sell instead. However, the idea of being able to use or sell specific items in the cart is something that appeals to us both. I also considered using a rule/boon sort of like the Charm of Making:
Utility Power
Encounter (Minor Action)Effect: You create a nonmagical object in your free hand or in an unoccupied square you touch. The object can weigh up to 10 pounds and be worth no more than 50 gp. The object lasts until you use this power again.
or like the Robe of Useful Items or similar object:
Utility Power
Daily (Minor Action)Effect: You procure one nonmagical item worth up to 10 gp (with the DM’s approval) from the robe. The item is generic (a torch or a rope, for instance), not a specific item (the key to a particular chest). The item lasts for 1 hour. When it disappears, you regain the use of this power.
-
Selling items in a town: He'd like to be able to unload items he finds throughout the adventure in a town. However, we both like the idea of making it a more interactive process, possibly with skill challenges taking place outside of normal game time. What I'm mainly worried about here is how to balance the amount of gold he earns in terms of what is both level-appropriate and in line with the rest of the party. Additionally, he'd like to be able to buy and sell items for a profit, but the item selling rules only allow resale at a loss.
- Run scams on people: This seems like the perfect opportunity for some skill challenges, but he and the party are all highly trained in Bluff. How can I make this challenging and interesting?
I'm looking for all the help I can get. Has anyone played with or as a similar character?
Best Answer
Speaking as someone who has tried something like this, maybe D&D isn't your best system.
Here's why, and what needs to happen to get around the problems.
Money is Finite
In each level of D&D, players are expected to earn a fairly exact amount of money, ranging from not much to being able to buy large cities out of pocket change for healing potions. Selling things doesn't produce money, it merely changes where the money gain occurs.
This means a few things.
First, don't worry about maintaining inventory. At all. He's a greasy merchant with a cart. So long as he has the cart, he gets paid. He gets paid whenever he/the party needs money. Instead of getting grants from kings or rewards from grateful villagers... he defrauds the ungrateful villagers from their money.
The horrible truth that you both have to agree on though is: this doesn't actually change how much money would be earned by the party.
What it does do is make a lovely narrative and a huge plot token for adventure of when the cart is stolen. Also, every three levels, you should generally upgrade the scope of the cart, to keep pace with the amounts of money being exchanged. Plan, in mid paragon, to sell a kingdom a monorail.
For normal magical items ... there's no really good answer. Selling common items is silly, and it's impossible to create uncommon magical items. Personally, I would allow the party to respec their items if the bard/party can overcome a skill challenge (as a DM, I just allow players to choose level appropriate magic items every level because it means I only need to worry about plot magic items. This provides a narrative framework from that. The value gained in the respec because of a new level can represent the "truly excellent scams" that the bard comes up with.)
Having "the right item at hand."
Happily, there exist rules for this. If your merchant is human, ask him to take wild talent master as his free feat. (One of my most favourite feats in the game.) Refluff one of the powers, Mental Tools to be representative of him having "just the right tool on hand." And, of course, the fact that they don't last is even more illustrative of the ... quality... of his fine fine goods.
Make sure the rest of the players are invested in this.
This concept is horrible for normal dungeon crawling. If the party is willing to engage in an urban game, perhaps even with the Break & Enter third-party stealth rules, this can be quite fun. As a concept attached to a normal adventuring group, this concept will be just horrible. Here, maximal refluffing is your friend. Have a complete decoupling of powers from their appearance, such that the party can fit into the venue and archetypes allowed by this world. Furthermore, make sure the entire party is cool with where the "who do we defraud" line is drawn. 4e is not a good game to model subtle party conflict nor direct PvP. Take everyone through the Same Page Tool and probably joint character creation before continuing. Finding the right setting is also important.