In Baldur’s Gate 3 managing gold can prove to be a tricky challenge. A Twitch streamer only notices his fateful mistake after 80 hours of gameplay. You can find out more details on MeinMMO.
What did the player notice? itmeJP is eagerly playing Baldur’s Gate 3 and showing it to his 365,000 viewers on Twitch. Recently, he uncovered a fascinating game mechanic. After 80 hours of gameplay with his monk, he realized that his charisma attribute plays an important role when trading with NPCs. He may have lost thousands of gold coins.
We have embedded itmeJP’s Twitter post here:
Use your charm for better merchant prices
What does charisma do when trading? The streamer’s character has most likely lost significant amounts of gold since charisma plays a crucial role in trading.
This attribute not only influences persuasion attempts but also has a direct impact on trade prices. Characters with higher charisma enjoy the advantage of receiving better offers.
With high charisma, you can:
- Buy items from the merchant at a lower price
- Sell your items at a higher price
So it’s best to send a character with high charisma to the merchants – for example, a bard. It pays off and there are many more NPCs to trade with than you think.
The charisma value is taken from the character who initiates the interaction. The character’s charisma modifier determines the prices, regardless of which character has the items. So you can switch between inventories freely.
- A bard with a charisma score of 20 has better negotiation skills than, for example, a monk with a terrible charisma score.
What else affects prices? Another way to lower trade prices for your goods is to build a good relationship with the respective merchants. This way, you can also reduce trade prices.
How do I do that?
- Harder option: Give merchants gold or items to increase your sympathy. Sympathy can rise to a maximum of 100. However, this is only worthwhile if you actually buy a lot from the respective merchant.
- Easier option: Open game settings and reduce the difficulty before interacting with a merchant. This will automatically lower the item costs without needing sympathy points. In my opinion, it’s not the coolest solution for a genuine role-playing experience – it just doesn’t feel authentic.
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