Can someone explain the difference between commerce and barter? It seems from the rules that both are about negotiating contracts so exactly why a seneschal should spend xp to gain both commerce and barter +20 (and talented) is beyond me. Especially since commerce seems to be the main skill for negotiating (with plenty of examples of where you can use it) whilst barter seems to be left unmentioned outside of the skills section.

Badlapje said:

As far as I'm aware, it's a matter of scale - Barter is haggling over prices at a market stall and similar small-scale, informal stuff, while Commerce is an awareness of large scale business and the ability to negotiate big trade agreements and similarly grand affairs.

The difference is that commerce deals with money, and barter deals with things. If for example I want to give you 5 gelt for that chicken, then it is commerece. If however I want to give you 3 cows (It's a really good chicken) then it is barter.

Basically you would use barter for trading services for services, or goods for goods. It would be useful in dealing with people who don't use currency, or don't have real need of it (Money does little good in a desert for example).

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Pretty much this. This is how I've always applied it, with Barter being on the small scale, and Commerce being on the big scale.

Karoline said:

This fails to account for the fact that most Acquisition Tests involve more than money transfers and they are commonly adjusted by commerce rather than Barter. I'd go more for the scale difference with Barter being used on a personal level between buyer and seller while Commerce is between organizations (Dynasty and ________).

Having re-read the skill descriptions A few things I noted.

Barter can be used to modify the acquisition modifier of non set price goods (which is most things)

Commerce can be used to modify your profit factor for the acquisition test.

So they modify 2 different things.

Though no actual rules are given for barter modifying the acquisition modifier I would have it work in a similar fashion to commerce.

So commerce is the art of making the most of your resources, barter is the art of reducing the price on what you want to buy.

Gives barter a use.

Worth noting Barter is a skill most Kroot will pick up. But I don't see commerce anywhere in their ranks, including the shaper one.

So it's probably also used for very informal dealings such as what the kroot have to do in exchange for a case of plasma grenades and the heart of all slain foes. Less paperwork and things of commonly recognized values.

Hm, if i think this through then none of those answers make much sense to me.

Even if commerce is for large scale contracts you still need to go and sit down with the people you're dealing with and try to convince them to give you what you want as cheaply as possible. Which'd imply that you're actually in need of a barter test when doing a commerce test. If i go to the bank to procure a loan for my house then it still matters how well i argue my case to the guy giving out the loan to see whether i'll get a discount of x% on the interest rates or not. If it's for buying a factory i still need to go and talk to people and get them on my hand, convince them it's a good idea rather then going to the competition or simply trying to remain on their own or whatnot. Again: personal interaction on a person to person level will still be necessary. Scale means it get's more complex to be able to account for all things you need to know for the buy/sell, but it doesn't detract from the haggling that'll inevitably take place.

Saying commerce is for money whereass barter is for gelt makes equally little sense. Money is a thing. In fact money is a thing specifically designed to make trading stuff easier. If you trade goods then you have to have a specific item to trade which the other party finds interesting enough to trade for. If i don't have that then it'll not work to make a trade. On most worlds money can get rid of that problem because it'll allow the guy you're trading with to go out and buy what he wants with the money he gets. This bypasses needing to find out what it is he wants. Agreed that in a desert money wll likely do you no good, but then again: in most places money will serve you better then a chicken. It's all a matter of supply and demand.

I can't go with the theory of commerce between organisations and barter between persons for the same reasons as i don't buy the scale argument (both are akin though slightly different). You still need personal contacts when trading between organisations. As far as i know there is no stock exchange in 40k meaning you cannot simply buy and sell via a click on the button. At least my gm has never allowed me to buy something via computer. Any and all sales or acquisitions require someone to be there to talk to the other party, whether it's me or a fellow PC, or whether it's a background endeavour for a NPC doesn't matter. It always requires you to go and say hi to negotiate prices.

Ilsoth's theory makes the most sense to me, but only because of SoD. As soon as you start thinking about it you realise that the only way to increase profit factor via a commerce test is because you are good at bartering for prices or because you are good at finding out who has an item on the cheap (so you don't go buy a gun in an uptown shop but instead go to the grimy shopkeeper downtown who has an equally good gun cheaper because it's less polished or because it's contraband or because he simply cannot sell it to expensively to the kind of clientèle he gets). Saying that a skill reduces the acquisition modifier is pretty much the same thing as saying that a skill increases your profit factor (wel the first makes more sense).

Seems to me this is the RT/40k equivalent of what is in D&D 3.5 the Spot/Search check. They are supposedly for two situations but they rely on all the same talents. Pathfinder solved this by making it a single "Perception" check. Personally i would find it more logical if there was only a single skill here as well which then can be modified by whether or not you have the peer talent for the group you're negotiating prices with and/or by whether or not you have the right speak language/ciphers/secret tongue skill trained.

Well the way acquisitions work is messed up.. why would there ever be a opposed commerce check? The merchant you are trying to buy from does not want to sell? Some house rules for your consideration.

Commerce: The art of organizing your finances to have the maximum amount of liquid capital on hand with which to make acquisitions without damaging your portfolio. Successful checks increase your PF for the acquisition you are about to make. Never an opposed check. Test once for a given period of time or scene, for instance you come into port to resupply and pick up a few things, check once and apply the modifier to your PF for the duration of your stay.

Barter: The art of making the deal, you attempt to get the merchant to come down of the cost of his goods. Successful checks lower the acquisition difficulty. Almost always an opposed check(one exception). Test on each acquisition.

When making an acquisition rolls the person you are trying to buy from will fall into 3 categories.

1. Willing seller, he has a product and want to sell it. If you loose the barter check and then fail the acquisition check by less than the amount you were penalized you still get the item. The seller stops short of nixing the deal but takes you for all your worth, You have over stretched your PF and it does not recover until you can reroll your Commerce skill. If you fail the acquisition check by more than you were penalized for loosing the barter check you don't get the item and don't spend the money. The sellers minimum price was too high for you.

2. Indifferent seller, for whatever reason he simply does not care if his merchandise sells. Roll for acquisition and barter as normal.

3. Hostile seller, very rare but this is where the seller does not want to part with the items in question but for some reason must do so if the price he sets is met. He makes an unopposed barter check and adjust the acquisition difficulty accordingly. This is basically him setting a high price and refusing to haggle.

Notes on over stretched profit factor (when gained through barter failures).

You can over stretch multiple times each gives a effective -5 to your PF

Regaining it is done through commerce checks, When you are allowed to roll another commerce check instead of increasing your effective PF by +2 you may buy off a level of overstretching. So if you had 2 levels of overstretching and made a commerce roll and got 3 levels of success your effective PF would go from -10 to +2.

Any thoughts?

An opposed commerce test would make sense to me because the way i read it in the rules it's all about negotiating and as such it's an opposed test. Of course, the way i read the rules commerce and barter don't differ in any meaningfull way ... with your interpretation it would not make any sense indeed.

I like the house rules, especially how it differentiates commerce from barter. While it still feels a bit artificial it is within the limits of SoD imo, and a good enough explanation to use. It also makes sense that whilst you may have an enormous PF you don't actually carry around a lot of thrones with you everywhere you go. You have to call in favours, obtain gelt from the local bankers, etc. to actually translate your PF into something you can use to buy stuff with.

The main question would be how barter can reduce the acquisition difficulty. Does a win of the opposed test (without DoS) = -10 to the acquisition difficulty? With every two DoS on top of that = another -10? That doesn't seem to overpowered and well worth spending 600 xp for to get to Talented (Barter) on top of the 600 xp to get to Talented (Commerce) - both in the Seneschal career path that is.

As far as the rules are concerned at the moment, Commerce and Barter are almost identical. Commerce can be used to attempt to modify your profit factor (i.e. try to secure a better deal for yourself / make the purchase easier) as detailed in the acquisition rules. The book also says that, on a case by case basis, you can use Barter instead of Commerce for that PF modifying roll. Those are the only concrete rules concerning the use of Barter to modify acquisition checks as it currently stands.The main difference between the two skills is Barter is a basic skill while Commerce is an advanced skill - suggesting Commerce is a more difficult, more complicated thing to learn and not simply something anyone can do (unlike Barter).

Also, as above, Commerce tests are opposed because they represent negotiations, haggling, posturing and larger scale buying decisions. Any side can initiate an opposed Commerce test - so while the Rogue Trader or Seneschal will typically initiate when they're buying, a merchant may initiate when dealing with a group's Arch-Militant.

Concerning differences between the skills, I'm wary of making house rules to make Commerce and Barter different and would instead prefer to simply fold Barter into Commerce. There's not much need for two identical skills - it's just another thing players need to spend XP on.

The way the rule is set up now if someone opposes your commerce roll he is trying to kibash the deal.. If you fail the acquisition check you obviously do not buy the item. You have just bargained yourself out of selling your product. You walk away from the table chuckling to yourself "HA! I set a price he could not meet! I am an awesome salesman!!.... oh wait... "

The point of being a good salesman/merchant is to make the other guy spend money not kill the deal.