Master Trader

How does it work?

Merchants gold will be replenished every time you ask:

What have you got for sale?

*Requires the Master Trader perk

The amount of gold replenished will be multiplied by 5.

You exhausted a merchant's gold?

• exit the barter menu
• re-enter the barter menu

*No need to exit the whole conversation menu, only the barter menu

The longer explanation

Merchants keep their barter gold in the same hidden chest they use to keep their inventory, which is governed by leveled list laws.

Since the barter gold is technically not on the merchant, you can't pickpocket that gold or temper with it directly, at least not in a live fashion.

To circumvent this problem, this mod adds gold directly on the merchant before the barter menu appears.

It's like reverse-pickpocketing, an invisible hand place gold in the merchant's pockets.

To avoid exploits, the mod removes the gold on the merchant as soon as you quit the barter menu.

Gold Replenished

Formula

basis gold + (basis gold * gold multiplier) + 50

Examples

Arcadia in Whiterun is an Apothecary.

According to the table, the basis gold for an apothecary is 500.

Without Master Trader, replenish 0 gold.

With Master Trader, replenish between 3050 gold.

Limitations

Requires the Master Trader perk

You need to invest yourself to get some goodies. No perk, no gold replenished.

Unlimited gold ≠ unlimited selling price

Problems with other mods:

• add an insane amount of gold to merchants
  • highly possible to encounter the gold glitch
  • you can sell 1 item for a disproportionate amount of gold
• gold is only replenished after 2 days
• you need to visit multiple merchants to sell everything

This mod:

• limit the total amount of gold available per barter session
  • unlikely to ever encounter the gold glitch
  • limit the selling price of an item within reason
• replenish the merchant's gold instantly
• no need to visit other merchants

Not all merchants are equals

To be more realistic, the gold added is proportional to the merchant type.

For example, a city blacksmith has 1000 gold, so with Master Trader he will have an extra 5000 to spare, which brings it to a total of 6000 gold.

On the other hand, a street vendor has 50 gold, so he will have an extra 250 gold which brings it to a total of 300 gold.

Master Trader only grant 50 gold

*But unlocks the gold multiplier instead.

This was done to keep balance and avoid messing with leveled list.

The original 1000 gold was balanced for a blacksmith, but it was out of proportion for a street vendor who had 50 gold to begin with.

Since an extra 50 gold won't unbalance a street vendor, it's a good compromise to avoid compatibility problems.

Investments and leveled gold

Investments and leveled gold aren't replenished instantly, they follow the normal 2 days cycle from the game.

20K limit for gold on a merchant

Technically speaking, it's impossible for a vanilla merchant to have 20K on itself.

Unless, of course, a mod introduces a custom merchant with gold on itself.

To avoid the gold glitch, where the gold get stuck at 30k something and you receive nothing for things you sell, this mod caps the gold to 20K.

I chose the 20k value because:

• if a mod increases the merchant's leveled gold, you still have some room before encountering the gold glitch (30K+)
• it still allows to buy many things without exiting the barter menu

If a merchant is near the 30k limit, you can reset its gold by:

• exiting the barter menu
• re-entering the barter menu

Barter dialogue

For the gold to be replenished, a merchant must use the vanilla barter dialogue to barter with you.

Normally, it should work out of the box for almost all merchants, even when added by a mod.

In the rare case where a merchant from a mod wouldn't work, you could ask the author to add the functionality to his mod or do it yourself. I include the sources for that reason.

Installation

Requirements

Latest version of Skyrim Special Edition

* Should work on normal Skyrim too, but not tested

Install (auto)

For an automatic install without risk of errors, I suggest you use the NexusModManager.

Install (manual)

For a manual install, extract the files from this mod and copy them to the appropriate folders.

Compatibility

Mods that modify the barter menu structure will conflict:

• Vendor Sale Delay - Gone
• etc.

Otherwise, pretty much compatible with anything.

In doubt, simply load this mod after the others.

FAQ

Known Issues

Merchants enthralled by Miraak

The problem isn't easy to fix as they're not considered NPCs by the game, at least not by the console or the Papyrus engine.

This means they don't have the structure required to put gold on the merchant.

And fixing this would require changing a couple things in the Dragonborn's main quest... Let's just say I wouldn't dare try to touch this with a ten foot pole...

In any case, you can still find merchants in Solstheim that weren't enthralled and work flawlessly, use those instead.

Do you use scripts?

There seems to be a lot of FUD about scripts so let me explain a couple things:

• Scripts are part of the game, without them vanilla Skyrim wouldn't work at all
• All vendors and trainers are purely scripted
• Most quests wouldn't work without scripts
• There's countless other scripted things in that game that you would never think about

Scripts aren't inherently bad, inexperienced mod authors are.

Because mod authors used badly explained functions in the past, which is the Creation Kit wiki's fault, scripts have been pointed as the cause for all the problems in the world...

Like most things in life, clueless people will mess things up, but those that do know how to work with them can do wonders.

As a professional developer myself, I make sure to the best of my knowledge that all my scripts:

• won't corrupt your savegame
• can be stopped at anytime
• are upgradable
• are extremely fast to execute
• are packaged with their source so you can check for yourself

With that said, yes there are scripts in this mod.

In fact, the barter menu is always called through scripting by the game so I had no choice in the matter.

Stop worrying your world's gonna implode and enjoy the mod.

Any future plans?

I'll offer support and answer questions when needed.

Credits

Amgepo ( Vilja in Skyrim ) for giving me the right hints on giving infinite gold to a merchant

Emma ( Vilja in Skyrim ) for introducing me to Amgepo which was invaluable in getting this done

Download

Available on Nexusmods.com

• Master Trader