Okay, so the rules don't specify how buying works on page 150 CRB... So the first thing I assume is that the positions are simply reversed. Selling works completely the same for either an NPC or a PC. If a PC wants to buy something, the NPC simply follows the selling rules as described on p150, except now that it's in reverse, it seems broken.

So here's my flawed assumption in action:

-Lando wants to legally buy a Personal Deflector Shield which costs 10k.

-He makes a negotiation check to find it on Coruscant, so he's in luck today and manages to find it with no cost increase due to rarity, as described in Table 5-3.

-Now he wants to actually purchase it and this requires a second haggle roll.

-A personal deflector shield on Coruscant has a rarity of 6, making it a hard difficulty check.

The NPC now sells the item, using his negotiation check against Hard.

Note that Lando has no haggle check. The NPC is checking against a difficulty table.

Because the check is so difficult, the NPC has 1 net hit, so the personal deflector shield is sold at one quarter of the list price, at only 2500.

--------------------

I think I've got this all wrong. P114 describes "Extra hit on a negotiation check may be used to increase the acting character's profit by 5% per hit."

So I made a bartering flowchart.

Step 1: Find the item's listed rarity in the book. The GM adds rarity modifiers due to where the item is being sold or purchased. Determine the difficulty of the rarity check in Table 5-1.
Step 2: PC attempts to locate the item or where to sell the item, legally with Negotiate, or Illegally with Streetwise, or any other skill allowed by the GM.
Step 3: If the player is purchasing the item, go to 4A. Sales go to 4B.
Step 4A: The PC has found the item and rarity no longer affects the purchase. The PC and NPC make an opposed negotiation check, and every success the PC gets nets him a 5% cumulative discount from the base cost. Purchase finished.
Step 4B: Go through the process on Table 5-3 (determine rarity increase difference, multiply the base cost of the item, determine the final sale value, which is a percentage of that multiplied base cost, with a negotiation/streetwise check). Sale finished.

Can someone help me revise my bartering flowchart, as to how FFG intended it to proceed?

That sounds right within the system. Determine rarity, that determines price, make the roll to find it, make the opposed roll to buy it. In regards to selling, you might want to consider a successful Knowledge check for bumping rarity one way or another to either increase or decrease price as a means of incorporating Knowledge skills.

Okay, so the rules don't specify how buying works on page 150 CRB... So the first thing I assume is that the positions are simply reversed. Selling works completely the same for either an NPC or a PC. If a PC wants to buy something, the NPC simply follows the selling rules as described on p150, except now that it's in reverse, it seems broken.

So here's my flawed assumption in action:

-Lando wants to legally buy a Personal Deflector Shield which costs 10k.

-He makes a negotiation check to find it on Coruscant, so he's in luck today and manages to find it with no cost increase due to rarity, as described in Table 5-3.

-Now he wants to actually purchase it and this requires a second haggle roll.

-A personal deflector shield on Coruscant has a rarity of 6, making it a hard difficulty check.

The NPC now sells the item, using his negotiation check against Hard.

Note that Lando has no haggle check. The NPC is checking against a difficulty table.

Because the check is so difficult, the NPC has 1 net hit, so the personal deflector shield is sold at one quarter of the list price, at only 2500.

--------------------

I think I've got this all wrong. P114 describes "Extra hit on a negotiation check may be used to increase the acting character's profit by 5% per hit."

So I made a bartering flowchart.

Step 1: Find the item's listed rarity in the book. The GM adds rarity modifiers due to where the item is being sold or purchased. Determine the difficulty of the rarity check in Table 5-1.

Step 2: PC attempts to locate the item or where to sell the item, legally with Negotiate, or Illegally with Streetwise, or any other skill allowed by the GM.

Step 3: If the player is purchasing the item, go to 4A. Sales go to 4B.

Step 4A: The PC has found the item and rarity no longer affects the purchase. The PC and NPC make an opposed negotiation check, and every success the PC gets nets him a 5% cumulative discount from the base cost. Purchase finished.

Step 4B: Go through the process on Table 5-3 (determine rarity increase difference, multiply the base cost of the item, determine the final sale value, which is a percentage of that multiplied base cost, with a negotiation/streetwise check). Sale finished.

Can someone help me revise my bartering flowchart, as to how FFG intended it to proceed?

I think you've got the right idea there. On page 113, for the Negotiation skill, it says, "Any time a character wishes to purchase goods or services, he must either pay the seller's asking price or utilize the Negotiation skill." Then it mentions that each net success adds 5% to the acting character's profit (profit seem a little weird for purchasing, but it works either way).

I think of video games where you can buy a weapon for 500* and if you try to turn around and sell it, it will only recuperate 300*.

* Insert your favorite currency here.

Which of course begs the question; what's the exchange rate on credits to rupees and gil...?

Maybe I'm reading something wrong, but Chart 5-3 on page 150 of the core rulebook shows that any item with a Rarity of 4 or more has a x4 cost increase. Even on a main core world sitting on a trade route, an item with a Rarity of 8 would have a Rarity of 5 which still means the cost is x4. So a Personal Deflector Shield with Rarity: 8 and Cost: 10,000cr becomes Rarity: 5 and Cost 30,000cr.

Here's how it breaks down for me:

• Lando is on Coruscant, and he wants to buy a Personal Deflector Shield (PSD).
• A PSD has a Rarity of 8. Because Lando is on Coruscant, which is a main core world on a trade route, the Rarity is decreased to 5.
• Lando's player makes a Negotiate roll at Average. Success! He finds a seller.
• From there, Lando can haggle with the seller, but NPCs have set prices. They don't sell things to the PCs at one quarter cost, it's the other way around - players selling to established merchants sell for one quarter their price, so the merchant can make a profit. Unfortunately, that means unless Lando's player has a trick up his sleeve to bring down the price, he's going to be shelling out 40,000cr for that PSD.
• Haggling appears to be done with a Negotiation check, with each Success bringing the price down (the book uses the phrase "increase the acting character's profit") by 5%. It's an opposed check against the seller's Cool or Negotiation. Lando's player rolls and... success! Two of them, actually, bringing the price down 10% to 36,000cr.

I think one of the places where we're having a disconnect is your step 4A. Rarity always affects the purchase, because it changes the purchase value of an item. Otherwise, PCs would be able to buy something like a PSD on Coruscant for 10,000cr and then resell it (according to the game's Selling and Trading rules on page 150-151) for 30,000cr without even having to go off-planet.

Maybe I'm reading something wrong, but Chart 5-3 on page 150 of the core rulebook shows that any item with a Rarity of 4 or more has a x4 cost increase. Even on a main core world sitting on a trade route, an item with a Rarity of 8 would have a Rarity of 3 which still means the cost is x4. So a Personal Deflector Shield with Rarity: 8 and Cost: 10,000cr becomes Rarity: 5 and Cost 30,000cr.

You could certainly use this table for standard purchasing, but it appears to be specifically mentioned for trading, when the players buy items in one location and then attempt to sell them in another location where they might be more rare.

Maybe I'm reading something wrong, but Chart 5-3 on page 150 of the core rulebook shows that any item with a Rarity of 4 or more has a x4 cost increase. Even on a main core world sitting on a trade route, an item with a Rarity of 8 would have a Rarity of 3 which still means the cost is x4. So a Personal Deflector Shield with Rarity: 8 and Cost: 10,000cr becomes Rarity: 5 and Cost 30,000cr.

Here's how it breaks down for me:

• Lando is on Coruscant, and he wants to buy a Personal Deflector Shield (PSD).
• A PSD has a Rarity of 8. Because Lando is on Coruscant, which is a main core world on a trade route, the Rarity is decreased to 5.
• Lando's player makes a Negotiate roll at Average. Success! He finds a seller.
• From there, Lando can haggle with the seller, but NPCs have set prices. They don't sell things to the PCs at one quarter cost, it's the other way around - players selling to established merchants sell for one quarter their price, so the merchant can make a profit. Unfortunately, that means unless Lando's player has a trick up his sleeve to bring down the price, he's going to be shelling out 40,000cr for that PSD.
• Haggling appears to be done with a Negotiation check, with each Success bringing the price down (the book uses the phrase "increase the acting character's profit") by 5%. It's an opposed check against the seller's Cool or Negotiation. Lando's player rolls and... success! Two of them, actually, bringing the price down 10% to 36,000cr.

I think one of the places where we're having a disconnect is your step 4A. Rarity always affects the purchase, because it changes the purchase value of an item. Otherwise, PCs would be able to buy something like a PSD on Coruscant for 10,000cr and then resell it (according to the game's Selling and Trading rules on page 150-151) for 30,000cr without even having to go off-planet.

So far as I'm aware, Table 5-3 refers to the Rarity Difference. I.e., when moving a product from one place to another, its price increases. So if that Deflector Shield is rarity 5 on Coruscant, and Rarity 8 on say Rodia, the Difference is 3. And then you reference that 3 against the chart, and the players can increase the price.

I could be wrong though.

Addendum: I think what is missing from the trading rules is some sort of chart to change prices based on the type of world, just for buying. Yes, something's rarity goes down, making it easier to buy, but I think the price table per planet type/rarity needs to be separate from the trading table, as those amounts are far higher (Considering they're intended for the difference in rarity, not the actual rarity of an item.)

Just realised you could combine the rarity chart for planets to the rarity of the item, and then use the rarity difference chart to determine the buying price of an item. That would probably be easier than a new chart.

2P51 is totally correct. Ignore me. I'm dumb.

Maybe I'm reading something wrong, but Chart 5-3 on page 150 of the core rulebook shows that any item with a Rarity of 4 or more has a x4 cost increase. Even on a main core world sitting on a trade route, an item with a Rarity of 8 would have a Rarity of 3 which still means the cost is x4. So a Personal Deflector Shield with Rarity: 8 and Cost: 10,000cr becomes Rarity: 5 and Cost 30,000cr.

Here's how it breaks down for me:

• Lando is on Coruscant, and he wants to buy a Personal Deflector Shield (PSD).
• A PSD has a Rarity of 8. Because Lando is on Coruscant, which is a main core world on a trade route, the Rarity is decreased to 5.
• Lando's player makes a Negotiate roll at Average. Success! He finds a seller.
• From there, Lando can haggle with the seller, but NPCs have set prices. They don't sell things to the PCs at one quarter cost, it's the other way around - players selling to established merchants sell for one quarter their price, so the merchant can make a profit. Unfortunately, that means unless Lando's player has a trick up his sleeve to bring down the price, he's going to be shelling out 40,000cr for that PSD.
• Haggling appears to be done with a Negotiation check, with each Success bringing the price down (the book uses the phrase "increase the acting character's profit") by 5%. It's an opposed check against the seller's Cool or Negotiation. Lando's player rolls and... success! Two of them, actually, bringing the price down 10% to 36,000cr.

I think one of the places where we're having a disconnect is your step 4A. Rarity always affects the purchase, because it changes the purchase value of an item. Otherwise, PCs would be able to buy something like a PSD on Coruscant for 10,000cr and then resell it (according to the game's Selling and Trading rules on page 150-151) for 30,000cr without even having to go off-planet.

Maybe I'm reading something wrong, but Chart 5-3 on page 150 of the core rulebook shows that any item with a Rarity of 4 or more has a x4 cost increase. Even on a main core world sitting on a trade route, an item with a Rarity of 8 would have a Rarity of 3 which still means the cost is x4. So a Personal Deflector Shield with Rarity: 8 and Cost: 10,000cr becomes Rarity: 5 and Cost 30,000cr.

Here's how it breaks down for me:

• Lando is on Coruscant, and he wants to buy a Personal Deflector Shield (PSD).
• A PSD has a Rarity of 8. Because Lando is on Coruscant, which is a main core world on a trade route, the Rarity is decreased to 5.
• Lando's player makes a Negotiate roll at Average. Success! He finds a seller.
• From there, Lando can haggle with the seller, but NPCs have set prices. They don't sell things to the PCs at one quarter cost, it's the other way around - players selling to established merchants sell for one quarter their price, so the merchant can make a profit. Unfortunately, that means unless Lando's player has a trick up his sleeve to bring down the price, he's going to be shelling out 40,000cr for that PSD.
• Haggling appears to be done with a Negotiation check, with each Success bringing the price down (the book uses the phrase "increase the acting character's profit") by 5%. It's an opposed check against the seller's Cool or Negotiation. Lando's player rolls and... success! Two of them, actually, bringing the price down 10% to 36,000cr.

I think one of the places where we're having a disconnect is your step 4A. Rarity always affects the purchase, because it changes the purchase value of an item. Otherwise, PCs would be able to buy something like a PSD on Coruscant for 10,000cr and then resell it (according to the game's Selling and Trading rules on page 150-151) for 30,000cr without even having to go off-planet.

Chart 5-3 is an increase in price based on the rarity modifier of a given item, not the rarity rating itself. Look at chart 5-2 and then 5-3 will make more sense.

Somehow it doesn't surprise me that I've been reading that wrong. It did seem to make things a bit cost-prohibitive. That said, am I still missing something? I'm still not sure how Lando (in hencock's example) is getting a 10,000cr item for 2,500cr.

No the price for Lando is not correct. The player is the one to roll, not the NPC merchant, I wouldn't flip it around. Those price reduction guidelines are more about bulk sales for players. You would use the rule in Negotiate and get a 5% reduction for every success on the roll, so a good roll might be a 15% discount for a player.

My impression was that the Negotiate roll determines whether you found the item. You then pay the book price (barring any GM's intervention for circumstance). That's it.

Black market goods use Streetwise to find. And the GM determines if rarity alters the base price.

I see nothing anywhere that hints at using the charts to establish any kind of rigid rarity-to-upcharge ratio for buying anything. Legal or illegally. It's all a GM call.

For legal goods, barring unique circumstances, an item usually just costs what the book indicates. If the GM deems a second Negotiate check is appropriate for the PC to haggle on this price, then you go to the Negotiate skill for guidance.

I think given talents like Know Somebody, Black Market Contacts, Smooth Talker, Wheel and Deal and Master Merchant, along with the Negotiate guidelines in that skill, the developers wanted prices for sales and purchases to be a dynamic value influenced by the players and not just a static number in the book.

Of course those talents alter price. It says so right in their descriptions. I don't think that was ever in question...

Somehow it doesn't surprise me that I've been reading that wrong. It did seem to make things a bit cost-prohibitive. That said, am I still missing something? I'm still not sure how Lando (in hencock's example) is getting a 10,000cr item for 2,500cr.

I was agreeing with Hencook's bartering flowchart, which contradicts the first half of his post. It shouldn't be possible for Lando to purchase the Personal Deflector Shield for that price.

--------------------

I think I've got this all wrong. P114 describes "Extra hit on a negotiation check may be used to increase the acting character's profit by 5% per hit."

So I made a bartering flowchart.

From this point the bottom half of the OP seems to be on target.

One of my players is at 760 earned XP, but the only talent trees he has are Trader/Fringer, and he's only dipped into the astrogration stuff on Fringer for the most part. Other than that, he is the ULTIMATE salesman who can find anything the party needs at an astounding price. Now that I'm allowing AoR material he wants to go into Quartermaster, simply becase he considers it "Trader pt. 2" (which he's kind of right, to be fair).

I actually find it quite refreshing, honestly. I've never played a game where one of the players was ablet to entirely forsake combat ability in order to buy crazy awesome gear for the party and run businesses on the side, but it's flavorful and the other players are beyond appreciative, so much so that this Trader fellow gets to control nearly ALL of the party's funds. (Hence why the only combat-oriented party member has so much gear he could probably trade it all for a semi-decent used starfighter.)

Of course those talents alter price. It says so right in their descriptions. I don't think that was ever in question...

Well that's not the impression I got from your previous post. I think the price in the book is a guideline or starting point for players. I would think it would be very rare, and it should be for players to pay the listed price. Whether they get a deal or they get done, nearly every time the price should be different.

Well that's not the impression I got from your previous post.

Ugh. Why would I waste time discussing talents that have specific, non-murky mechanical modifiers to price? Especially when none of the discussion to this point referenced them either. This isn't a discussion about how Know Somebody works, because we already understand what the talent says. This discussion is about the basics of finding/buying something.

I think the price in the book is a guideline or starting point for players.

Agreed. And I said as much.

I would think it would be very rare, and it should be for players to pay the listed price. Whether they get a deal or they get done, nearly every time the price should be different.

...assuming the group has a fringer, scoundrel, negotiator of some sort, or otherwise has one of the talent, or bothers to haggle at all, you mean?

How does your opinion fare when the group doesn't bother to do anything to alter the book price? Do you force something on them to drag out the buying process?

How does your opinion fare when the group doesn't bother to do anything to alter the book price? Do you force something on them to drag out the buying process?

We have no one in our group with Negotiate. Thus, when a price is offered, my players immediately announce, "I take it." without arguing. I don't force it. Usually because I overcharge for the item

Well that's not the impression I got from your previous post.

Ugh. Why would I waste time discussing talents that have specific, non-murky mechanical modifiers to price? Especially when none of the discussion to this point referenced them either. This isn't a discussion about how Know Somebody works, because we already understand what the talent says. This discussion is about the basics of finding/buying something.

I think the price in the book is a guideline or starting point for players.

Agreed. And I said as much.

I would think it would be very rare, and it should be for players to pay the listed price. Whether they get a deal or they get done, nearly every time the price should be different.

...assuming the group has a fringer, scoundrel, negotiator of some sort, or otherwise has one of the talent, or bothers to haggle at all, you mean?

How does your opinion fare when the group doesn't bother to do anything to alter the book price? Do you force something on them to drag out the buying process?

No one needs a talent or the Negotiation skill to haggle, a base Negotiation check doesn't require it. If they have a Presence score they can roll a Negotiation check. I was speaking more to the bartering universe that's presented in the movies and suggesting how they could be incorporated into the game. I use the examples of talents and skills to highlight how the developers certainly support the notion as well. This is a discussion about how prices of goods can vary based on skills and talents that the OP started. If he just wanted to look up prices in the book I don't think he needed to solicit opinions on the internet to do that, so I sort of thought I might offer a hand by giving some ideas about that, as well as, an opinion of what he is doing, since that is what he asked for.

I hate asking a question with a question but in regards to forcing things on my players, do you force a combat check on them to hit a target? I force commerce checks on them when they are engaging in commerce. I find commerce checks to be just as valuable and potentially rewarding as combat checks and perfectly in keeping with the background of the movies.

Well that's not the impression I got from your previous post.

Ugh. Why would I waste time discussing talents that have specific, non-murky mechanical modifiers to price? Especially when none of the discussion to this point referenced them either. This isn't a discussion about how Know Somebody works, because we already understand what the talent says. This discussion is about the basics of finding/buying something.

I think the price in the book is a guideline or starting point for players.

Agreed. And I said as much.

I would think it would be very rare, and it should be for players to pay the listed price. Whether they get a deal or they get done, nearly every time the price should be different.

...assuming the group has a fringer, scoundrel, negotiator of some sort, or otherwise has one of the talent, or bothers to haggle at all, you mean?

How does your opinion fare when the group doesn't bother to do anything to alter the book price? Do you force something on them to drag out the buying process?

No one needs a talent or the Negotiation skill to haggle, a base Negotiation check doesn't require it. If they have a Presence score they can roll a Negotiation check. I was speaking more to the bartering universe that's presented in the movies and suggesting how they could be incorporated into the game. I use the examples of talents and skills to highlight how the developers certainly support the notion as well. This is a discussion about how prices of goods can vary based on skills and talents that the OP started. If he just wanted to look up prices in the book I don't think he needed to solicit opinions on the internet to do that, so I sort of thought I might offer a hand by giving some ideas about that, as well as, an opinion of what he is doing, since that is what he asked for.

I hate asking a question with a question but in regards to forcing things on my players, do you force a combat check on them to hit a target? I force commerce checks on them when they are engaging in commerce. I find commerce checks to be just as valuable and potentially rewarding as combat checks and perfectly in keeping with the background of the movies.

I think "forcing the check" needs to be defined. When your players buy something, do you make them roll Negotiate, regardless if they haggle? If so, you're forcing player decisions. Maybe they want to pay full price. Maybe they want to support the local greedy merchant population. Maybe it expresses desperation or being rushed from the PC to 'not have time' to argue.

The flip side is when you 'force the check' by having all of your merchants being vicious swindlers who charge 150% for everything they sell, making the PC balk and go, "That's ridiculous, I'm not paying that, I'll give you 90%." And then, like magic, roleplay occurs.

I don't force a combat check on my players, if they opt not to shoot something.

Everyone likes to play the occasional bartering scene. Sure. Don't we all? But I prefer to avoid making every session another episode of Buyer: the Shopping.

If the group is running around stocking up on supplies, the last thing I'm going to want to do is bog down the game, and keep the plot from moving forward, all because I need a couple dozen tedious Negotiate checks to see what might happen when Joe Gun wants a few Extra Reloads and some Stimpacks...

To each their own, I suppose.

Honestly when it comes to incidentals I generally don't even spend the time or have them spend the money. I'm not interested either in what they buy when they go grocery shopping or if they need 4 quarts of hyper matter oil for their power core. I reserve it for the real purchases, such as a Personal Deflector Shield

Everyone likes to play the occasional bartering scene. Sure. Don't we all? But I prefer to avoid making every session another episode of Buyer: the Shopping.

If the group is running around stocking up on supplies, the last thing I'm going to want to do is bog down the game, and keep the plot from moving forward, all because I need a couple dozen tedious Negotiate checks to see what might happen when Joe Gun wants a few Extra Reloads and some Stimpacks...

To each their own, I suppose.

My GM and some of the players love to RP shopping. Me, not so much. I usually just kick back and read up on some rules while they do their shopping RP thing. I prefere a straight up negotiate/streetwise to find the item, tell me how much they want for it, and I'll roll negotiate if I feel like trying to work with the price. Unfortunately it appears that all shopping has to be done in game too. So, I've just gone without several of the things I've wanted because I don't want to drag the game into "Buyer: the Shopping^" lol. The few times I've gotten involved we've spent upwards of three hours just trying to get the equipment we were after. I'll roll play the heck out of business negotiations though. RP'ng shopping is just too tedius for me.

I don't worry too much about it mostly because I don't understand the economy in the game I'm in. Prices seem to fluxuate quite a bit, especially with how much my GM has been drinking. lol. Unfortunately weapons and armor seem to be extra expensive. I paid 4800c for my H7 after a really good negotiation roll, and he's mentioned that a fully customized suit of heavy battle armor could cost us upwards of 1M credits. It used to bother me, but I've zenned about it and just go with the flow now.