Mercantile
From the OblivioWiki – your guide to everything Oblivion
The Mercantile skill gives the player better chances of selling items for higher than their average value, and buying items for cheaper than their average value. The skill increases for each sale made.
- Governing attribute: Personality
Contents |
[edit] Skill levels
- Novice: Value of items is reduced by condition of the item.
- Apprentice: Item condition no longer affects value.
- Journeyman: Can buy/sell any item to a vendor, regardless of the vendor's specialization.
- Expert: Can invest in a shop, increasing the shop's gold permanently by 500
.
- Master: All shops automatically have 500 more available.
[edit] Leveling tips
- Simply moving the "Haggle" bar to the right and selling items provides points to increasing the Mercantile skill, regardless of how effectively you haggled.
- Since the skill increases for each sale made, it's best to sell items one at a time. Selling the whole batch at once will only increase the skill once, while selling the items one at a time in a batch will increase the skill that number of times.
On the XBox 360, hitting the left bumper will move the slider to one automatically, speeding up the tedious selling process for players trying to maximize their Mercantile skill. For PS3, simply press L2 to move the slider to the left, and R2 to move the slider to the right.
[edit] Mercantile trainers
- Refer to the Trainers page.
[edit] Books that permanently increase the Mercantile skill
- A Dance in Fire, v6
- A Dance in Fire, v7 – Can be found as part of the quest Two Sides of the Coin
- The Wolf Queen, v 4
- The Buying Game
- 2920, Sun's Height (v7)
[edit] Leveling text
Apprentice-level text:
- Negotiation, bargaining, dickering, haggling, they're all a means to an end... getting the best price for your goods. You are now an Apprentice of Mercantile. The damaged condition of an item is no longer a factor when you sell it.
Journeyman-level text:
- Negotiation, bargaining, dickering, haggling, they're all a means to an end... getting the best price for your goods. You are now a Journeyman of Mercantile. You can buy and sell any object to any vendor, even if they normally do not deal in that type of wares.
Expert-level text:
- Negotiation, bargaining, dickering, haggling, they're all a means to an end... getting the best price for your goods. You are now an Expert of Mercantile. You can now invest in a shop. Give the merchant money to permanently increase his shop's available gold by 500.
Master-level text:
- Negotiation, bargaining, dickering, haggling, they're all a means to an end... getting the best price for your goods. You are now a Master of Mercantile. All shops in the world now have 500 more gold available for barter.
[edit] NPC Dialogue
When your Mercantile skill reaches 70 or higher, NPCs will say: "You look like a shrewd businessman."
[edit] Tips
Making a spell to fortify mercantile for 100 points for 1 second on self will give you the expert skill perk and the ability to get a better bang for your buck. It is an easy spell to make considering the duration (it can be cast with a novice restoration skill). As long as you talk to a character immediately after casting it, the effect will stay.
The easiest way to access skill fortification spells is if you have The Thieves Den official plug-in, as many of the pirates you hire will have several of these types of spells. After you have bought one, you can make a fortify spell for any skill you like.
[edit] Usefulness
Mercantile is not generally considered a useful skill. However there is some benefit in obtaining the Journeyman level, as being able to sell any kind of goods to any merchant can save significant amounts of time looking for a particular salesman. The payoff in gold is minor compared to other methods of obtaining gold, and the need to sell items one by one makes leveling it up an extremely slow process.
