Appraise

Ability Score: INT

You can evaluate the monetary value of an object.

Common Uses

Appraise Value of Item

A DC 20 Appraise check determines the value of a common item. If you succeed by 5 or more, you also determine if the item has magic properties, although this success does not grant knowledge of the magic item’s abilities. If you fail the check by less than 5, you determine the price of that item to within 2 Purchase DC of its actual value. If you fail this check by 5 or more, the price is wildly inaccurate, subject to GM discretion. Particularly rare or exotic items might increase the DC of this check by 5 or more.

You can also use this check to determine the most valuable item visible in a treasure hoard. The DC of this check is generally 20 but can increase to as high as 30 for a particularly large hoard.

Action: Appraising an item takes 1 standard action. Determining the most valuable object in a treasure hoard takes 1 full-round action.

Retry? Additional attempts to Appraise an item reveal the same result.

Bargaining

An item is worth only what someone will pay for it. To an art collector, a canvas covered in daubs of random paint may be a masterpiece; a priestess might believe a weathered jawbone is a holy relic of a saint. The rules presented here offer you a way of playing through the process of selling off goods brought up from a crypt, liberated from a baron’s bedchamber, or plundered from a dragon’s vault. They also enable players to establish contacts with local fences, launderers, antiquarians, and obsessive collectors.

Valuation

The Appraise skill allows a character to accurately value an object. However, the fine arts of the jeweler, antiquarian, and bibliophile are complex. Valuable paintings may be concealed by grime, and books of incredible rarity may be bound in tattered leather covers. Because failure means an inaccurate estimate, the GM should attempt this skill check in secret.

In general, a character can sell an item for Purchase DC minus 3 or half the value in credits. This keeps players from getting bogged down in bargaining with NPCs over 10 credit on a 10,000 credit item, and maintains game balance by not allowing players to use bargaining to exceed the Wealth by Level guidelines by buying low and selling high. The “sell for half ” rule allows a fair price for standard items in normal circumstances.

For rare or unique items, or in certain cases, the GM might allow or encourage bargaining. Keep in mind that bargaining usually involves one PC talking with an NPC while the other players wait, and watching someone else bargain is rarely interesting. Bargaining should be infrequent, and should happen only when it’s important to the story.

By using the rules for bargaining, you give up some control over your PC’s decisions and accept the risk of the deal falling through to gain the chance of getting a better price.

Step 1: Seller Sets the Asking Price

The seller suggests a price to the buyer. If the Asking Price is more than Purchase DC plus 3 of the item’s actual value, the buyer simply refuses to bargain. The lowest amount the seller will accept is Purchase DC -2 of this Asking Price.

Step 2: Evaluate Item

The buyer chooses to attempt either an Appraise check to estimate the item’s value or a Sense Motive check opposed by the seller’s Bluff check (with failure meaning the buyer believes the seller is being fair). If the seller’s price is the same as the buyer’s estimation of the item’s value, no Sense Motive check is needed and the buyer believes the seller.

A group of items can be sold as a unit. If the buyer is dealing with a mix of items she can appraise and others she can only guess about, she uses either Appraise or Sense Motive, depending on which she has more skill ranks in.

The GM can allow a PC to substitute an appropriate Knowledge skill for Appraise or Sense Motive, such as a Mysticism skill check to Recall Knowledge for selling a rare book about magic. He may also assign modifiers to skill checks to reflect expertise or ignorance about a specific type of item, good roleplaying, or insulting behavior toward an NPC buyer or seller.

Step 3: Determine Undercut

The Undercut Percentage is a portion of the item’s price or value used to determine the buyer’s Initial and Final Offers.

To determine the Undercut Percentage, have the buyer attempt a Bluff check opposed by the seller’s Sense Motive check. The Undercut Percentage is Purchase DC minus 1, plus Purchase DC minus 1 for every 10 points by which the Bluff check exceeds the Sense Motive check (minimum 0%).

Step 4: Set Offers

The Initial Offer is the buyer’s first counteroffer to the seller’s Asking Price. The Final Offer is the largest amount the buyer is willing to pay. Though the seller and buyer negotiate back and forth, the buyer won’t exceed this offer. For example, if the seller’s Asking Price is Purchase DC 21, the buyer’s Initial Offer may be a Purchase DC 19 and the Final Offer a Purchase DC 20. These offers are determined by how much the buyer thinks the item is worth compared to the seller’s Asking Price.

• Fair (Appraise or Sense Motive): If the seller’s Asking Price is less than or equal to the amount that the buyer thinks the item is worth, subtract the Undercut Percentage from the seller’s price to get the Final Offer, and subtract 1 Purchase DC the Undercut Percentage to get the Initial Offer.
• Unfair (Appraise): If the result of the buyer’s Appraise check leads her to believe the item is worth less than the seller’s Asking Price, subtract the 2 Purchase DC from the buyer’s estimate of the item’s value to get the Final Offer, and subtract 2 from the Purchase DC to get the Initial Offer.
• Unfair (Sense Motive): If the result of the buyer’s Appraise check leads her to believe the seller’s Asking Price is too high, subtract 2 Purchase DC from the seller’s Asking Price to get the Final Offer, and subtract 4 Purchase DC to get the Initial Offer.

Step 5: Bargain

The buyer begins bargaining by countering the seller’s price with her Initial Offer. This step repeats until the buyer and seller agree on a price or one side ends negotiations.

Counteroffer Is Less Than Final Offer

If the seller counters with a price that is less than the buyer’s Final Offer, have the seller attempt a Diplomacy check (DC 15 + the buyer’s Ego modifier). Success means the buyer accepts the seller’s counteroffer and buys the item. Failure means the buyer holds at her Initial Offer. The seller can try again, but the Diplomacy check DC increases by 5 unless the seller lowers his price.

Counteroffer Equals Final Offer

If the seller counters with a price that is the same as the buyer’s Final Offer, have the seller attempt a Diplomacy check (20 + the buyer’s Ego modifier). Success means the buyer accepts the seller’s counteroffer and buys the item. Failure means the buyer counteroffers at a price between the Initial Offer and the Final Offer. The seller can try again, but the Diplomacy DC increases by 5 unless the seller lowers his price.

Counteroffer Exceeds Final Offer

If the seller counters with a price higher than the buyer’s Final Offer, have the seller attempt a Diplomacy check (25 + the buyer’s Ego modifier). Success means the buyer counteroffers at a price between the Initial Offer and the Final Offer. Failure means the buyer holds at her Initial Offer. Failure by 5 or more means the buyer is insulted and lowers her offer or refuses to deal with the seller. The seller can try again, but the Diplomacy DC increases by 5 unless the seller lowers his price.

Collector NPCs

The GM can define a few NPCs as collectors, traders, or antiquarians interested in unusual items PCs collect after their adventures. If the PCs establish an amiable relationship with these collectors over time, the GM can reduce the base Purcgase DC by 1 or not at all, especially if the PCs’ offerings cater to the NPCs’ interests. Likewise, PCs may develop bad blood with one or more buyers; such buyers’ Undercut Percentage may rise the Purchase DC by 2 or higher, or the buyers may refuse to bargain with the PCs at all.

Flooding The Market

When PCs attempt to sell multiples of a durable good, the GM may lower the offered prices of the Purchase DC by 1 or more to reflect market saturation in that location. For example, a border town patrolled by guards with crossbows can always use more +1 bullets, but has limited use for a wagonload of masterwork batons, so the Initial and Final Offers for the spiked chains would be 1 Purchase DC lower.

Trade Goods

Trade goods are exempt from bargaining, even in extraordinary circumstances.

Using Magic to Bargain

An unscrupulous character may use magic to charm or dupe buyers into accepting inflated prices. Something as simple as charm person can alter the Diplomacy and Sense Motive DCs by 5 in the spellcaster’s favor for an entire negotiation, and a specific suggestion can alter the result on a single roll by 10 in the caster’s favor. If the buyer later realizes that magic influenced the negotiation, she may refuse to deal with the spellcaster and attempt to get her money back, or at least report the spellcaster to the local authorities.

Modifiers

With sufficient ranks in Appraise, you earn the following.

• 5 Ranks: A successful DC 20 Appraise check reveals whether an item is magical, and a second check (DC = 25 + the item’s caster level) unveils its properties. You can use Appraise to detect non-written forgeries and counterfeits.
• 10 Ranks: You can determine the most expensive object a creature is wearing or wielding (or in a 5-foot cube) as a standard action by succeeding at a DC 20 check. You never make a wildly inaccurate appraisal of an item’s value.
• 15 Ranks: Determining the most expensive object as above is a move action. You can substitute an Appraise check at a –10 penalty for a EGO save to disbelieve a figment or glamer.
• 20 Ranks: Determining the most expensive object as above is a move action, and if the check succeeds, you gain a +2 circumstance bonus on combat maneuver checks to steal that object or disarm a creature of that object for 1 minute.