As you've spent time with your bard, no doubt you've noticed you have a
distinct advantage over other citizens in that you can buy and sell much
more efficiently. Naturally, as the item price increases, so does the amount
of the advantage you get. Add to this the fact that bards can travel more
efficiently than most, and you've got the mixings for a natural merchant
class.
Here are some tactics you might consider in order to take full advantage of
your charming nature.
1) Make friends with high level players - maybe you do a free corpse
retrieval, maybe you sit around and heal a party for free. But the goal is
to get them to trust you. Why? Because you're going to buy their platemail
and combine weapons for them. If you can get them to trust you with 500+
plat, you can make a very nice profit off of buying high level equipment at
a rate much lower than what they can get.
If you can build up enough money to just start this process, you can
circumvent the "trust" issue by just selling equipment for a few plat over
what you bought it for.
2) Accept "payment" from other citizens in the form of retail items.
Basically, you want to "trade" rather than "sell" to them. This requires
careful charting of the cost of goods, and a willingness to be sure you have
good rapport with merchants.
FICTITIOUS SCENARIO:
You buy a GooberSword for 5 plat. A Dwarf rogue wants it, and he would have
to pay 7 plat for it. Instead of buying it from you, you ask him to trade
stuff he's already carrying. Let's say, a CheesyLightstone that the Dwarf
could sell for 3 plat, but that you could sell for 5 plat. So he gives you 2
of these - now the cost to the Dwarf is 6plat, in essence, but now you turn
around and sell the CheesyLightstones for 10 plat. Instead of making 1 plat
profit, you just made 5 plat profit.
3) Travel, travel, travel. You can run like the wind. Do it! Here's an
example of something I did. I went to Guk (near Grobb, amidst some
trepidation) and bought all the woven and netted stuff I could afford.
Trolls and the like will sell for 1-3 plat each piece since it's fairly easy
to find, and many of them don't want to travel to the karanas or Freeport to
make the sale, they'd rather stay there and get xp and loot.
Now travel to Felwithe, and sell the stuff to desperate mages, who can
hardly even hold up their own sword. Neriak is also a fine place to sell.
The real profit can be made in Qeynos - particularly with woven/netted
gloves. They give monks the ability to do magical damage. I have seen woven
gloves going for as high as 6pp and usually at 3-4pp. Monks love this armour
because they get large AC bonuses for staying under a certain weight). Plus,
Monks don't travel extremely well. Mage-types have Gate, Bards/shamans can
run, and going through Oasis or Rathe isn't a risk-free venture.
I hope these tactics can help you become a successful merchant. An editorial
on my part: Don't be intimidated by people who call you greedy. A merchant's
life is to make money through trade. On the other hand, you should learn the
going prices, because if you want to develop a reputation as a merchant, you
want repeat business. If you become well known, they may pay you to go buy
combine weapons, spells, gems, or other far away items.
greatest of speed to you,
Dendall, Ollave of the Aegis
http://www.soerbaird.com