manual

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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Bartering
Choosing Barter will display both your inventory and the person’s inventory. In the Barter
menu, click the bag on the right to show a list of items you can sell to the merchant. Click
the bag on the left to show a list of items the merchant has for sale.
Select any item(s) you want to obtain from the person and they will be placed in your
inventory. You can also attempt to sell him any of your items by selecting them from your
inventory. The person you are bartering with will choose to accept or reject any offer you’ve
modified based on your Mercantile skill and how much you are haggling. Note that if the
offer is rejected, their Disposition will drop by a point.
Haggling
The prices a merchant offers are determined by your Mercantile skill, the merchant’s
Mercantile skill, and the merchant’s Disposition towards you. A merchant may actually be
willing to sell at a lower price, or may be willing to pay more for your goods, but you can
only find out how much more by haggling.
Select the Haggle button to haggle. The Haggle display indicates the merchant’s Mercantile
skill mastery level and Disposition, and lets you adjust how easy or hard you want to
bargain. The greater your Mercantile skill, the lower the merchant’s Mercantile skill, and
the more the merchant likes you, the farther you can push your haggling to the ‘Hard’
setting and still have your offer accepted. Once you find a point on the slider where the
merchant will accept an offer, however, he consistently accepts offers at that point (unless
his Disposition towards you drops). And as your Mercantile skill increases, in time you’ll be
able to push your haggling even harder.
Sell From Your Inventory
Buy From
Shopkeeper’s Inventory
Persuasion
Disposition
A person’s Disposition to you is a number on a scale from 0 to 100 that reflects how he
feels about you. The higher the number, the more he likes you.
A person’s Disposition is based on a variety of factors, including race, personality, your
reputation, faction affiliations, and how the person may feel about your previous actions
(e.g., you helped a member of this individual’s guild, or stole from or killed a friend of his).
Disposition: The person’s current Disposition score.
Disposition
Bribe
Rotate
Done
bribe: The cost of a bribe attempt. Bribes allow you to pay to increase a person’s
Disposition. Not everyone will accept bribes.
rotate: Only appears if you have the Speechcraft Apprentice Mastery Level. This permits
you a free rotation of the wedges once in each Persuasion round.
start: Begins a Persuasion round.
done: Exits the Persuasion Menu. Not available until you have made all four action choices.
Persuasion Rules
In each round of Persuasion, you must Admire, Boast, Joke, and Coerce and you can only
choose each option once per round, but in any order you desire. Each of these actions
raises or lowers the person‘s disposition. You may play many rounds of Persuasion before
raising the person’s Disposition to the desired level.
To begin a round of Persuasion, select the Start Button. Each of the four quadrants will
fill with wedges of different sizes. The size of the wedge reflects the scale of the potential
effect of your choosing an action. Choosing a large wedge has a great effect; choosing a
small wedge has a small effect.
As you highlight in turn the Admire, Boast, Joke, and Coerce quadrants, the person’s face
shows his reaction to each of the actions. For each of the four actions, he will Love one,
Like one, Dislike one, and Hate one. Don’t take too long, because the person’s disposition
is steadily falling. The person’s disposition goes up when you select a Loved or Liked
action and goes down when you select a Disliked or Hated action.
The potential gain or loss for each action is based on your Speechcraft and how full the
wedge is. Try to select fuller wedges when they are aligned with actions the person likes.
Try to select less full wedges when they are aligned with actions he doesn’t like.