Persistent Merchants

Persistent Merchants (or p-merchant)

The p-merchant is the most complex interface that you will work with. Once you get the hang of it, though, it's easy. When you buy your p-merchant through Player Housing, you will obtain a key. That key will allows you access to the full menu functions.

Main Menu Overview

Initiate a conversation with the p-merchant. You will see a menu listing the items they currently have for sale (it will open to the last page that someone has looked at, and not reset back to the first page like our chests). Ignore the list of items. We're interested in "Options" from the following menu:

Page 1 of 13 The following items are available: 1. Some item 2. Some item 3. Some item 4. Some item 5. Some item 6. Some item 7. Some item 8. Some item 9. Some item 10. Some item 11. Next page 12. Forward 10 Pages 13. Options 14. I'm done

NOTE: "Options" may not always be #13, depending on which page is displayed, but it will always be blue.

Clicking on "Options" brings us to the menu we need to do some real work:

Options Menu 1. Let me see the books. 2. Change to CHEST/STORE mode. 3. Display the contents please. 4. I want to upgrade. 5. Reinitialize please. 6. Back. 7. I'm done.

Here is what each of the (non-obvious) choices does in brief. More details are in the replies below on adding items and adjusting prices:

Let me see the books: returns the current balance of gold that the p-merchant is holding. Change to CHEST/STORE mode: toggles the p-merchant function between that of a merchant (swap items for gold and vice versa) and a chest (add and remove items without gold changing hands). NOTE: You can only add a brand new item to the p-merchant's inventory using the appraisal table. However, once they have at least one in their inventory, you can add and remove items while in chest mode from the GUI menu, just like you would with the real chests. Display the contents please.: With ClientEntireChatWindowLogging=1 in nwnplayer.ini, this will dump the entire inventory into a log file that you can then use for whatever purpose you want to. I want to upgrade.: P-merchants intially start with limited storage capacity and you must purchase more space. Reinitialize please.: Resets the p-merchant, much like a server reset.

Adding a NEW item

1. Intiate a conversation with the p-merchant and click on "Options" on the resulting menu as described above.

2. On the Options Menu, make sure that p-merchant is in CHEST mode.

3. Close the dialogue box with p-merchant by clicking "I'm done."

4. Open the Appraisal table on their desk, and place the new item(s) in, then close it.

5. A blue circle will briefly flash around P-merchant, then go out. Your character will NOT initiate conversation with her while they are in CHEST mode (unlike when you sell to them). This is normal.

6. Initiate conversation with the p-merchant, set them back to STORE mode, and browse to the item you just added. For our example, we'll use Shrieking Bolts. Click on the item. It yields the following menu:

Shrieking Bolt 180 available [display only] I don't buy this item 1. Examine 2. **I want to save my character** 3. Adjust pricing 4. Back 5. I'm done

7. Click on option 3, "Adjust pricing." The following menu will appear:

Shrieking Bolt 180 available [display only] I don't buy this item 1. Change sell price 2. Don't Buy 3. Change buy price 4. Change the target buy stock level 5. Set minimum stock level 6. Back 7. I'm done

8. Set the values for the 4 parameters one at a time. I'll cover how to set one of them below -- the process is the same for each of them. In the interest of keeping this short, here are the four parameters that you can set:

Sell price: If you can't figure out what this means, please turn off your computer now. Buy price: Ditto. Target buy stock level: This is the maximum number of items that you wish her to buy. If you set a Sell Price on an item, but don't change this parameter, it defaults to infinite. One example of this is hornebound branches. We buy them, don't sell them, and will buy as many as we can get our hands on until gold runs out. Minimum stock level: This is the lowest number of items you would like her to keep on hand at any time. If you don't set it, the default parameter is for her to sell all of the items. For most things, we set the value to "1" so that she always maintains a list of things that we sell.

9. Click on option 1, "Change Sell Price." The following menu appears:

Speak or whisper the new sell price. Then choose 'Done'. 1. I've changed my mind 2. Done

10. Leave the current menu up and have your character speak the sell price. I prefer to use whisper so that if someone walks in I don't sound insane. Do not use punctuation of any kind in the numbers. For example, 8000 is correct, while 8,000 is bad. If you mess up, simply speak a new number. The p-merchant takes the last number that you speak. Once you have spoken the sell price, select option 2, "Done" and the p-merchant will prompt you one more time with the following menu (using 15 gold as the price for our shrieking bolt example):

Please confirm that you want the new sell price to be 15 gold 1. Yes 2. No, let's try again 3. Cancel

11. Select option 1, "Yes" and then set the values for the other three parameters using steps 9-11. When you're finished, if you click on Shrieking Bolts, you should see values assigned to each parameter that you set:

Shrieking Bolt 15 gold each I pay 5 for this item My stock target is 1000 I must keep 1 on hand

12. Profit.