Appraise

#### **Appraise Value of Item**

A DC 20 Appraise check determines the value of a common item. If you fail the check by less than 5, you determine the price of that item to within 20% of its actual value. If you fail this check by 5 or more, the price is wildly inaccurate, subject to GM discretion. Particularly rare or exotic items might increase the DC of this check by 5 or more.

You can also use this check to determine the most valuable item visible in a room. The DC of this check is generally 20 but can increase to as high as 30 for a particularly location cluttered with items.

**Action**: Appraising an item takes 1 standard action. Determining the most valuable object in a room takes 1 full-round action.

**Retry?** Additional attempts to Appraise an item reveal the same result.

#### Appraise Unchained

Characters with the signature skill feat for appraise unlock additional abilities when they attain 5, 10, 15, and 20 ranks in a skill.

With sufficient ranks in Appraise, you earn the following.

**5 Ranks**: A successful DC 20 Appraise check reveals whether an item has mastercraft bonuses, and a second check (DC = 25 + twice the item’s mastercraft level) unveils its properties. You can use Appraise to detect non-written forgeries and counterfeits.

**10 Ranks**: You can determine the most expensive object a creature is wearing or wielding (or in a 5-foot cube) as a standard action by succeeding at a DC 20 check. You never make a wildly inaccurate appraisal of an item’s value.

**15 Ranks**: Determining the most expensive object as above is a move action.

**20 Ranks**: Determining the most expensive object as above is a move action, and if the check succeeds, you gain a +2 circumstance bonus on combat maneuver checks to steal that object or disarm a creature of that object for 1 minute.

## **Bargaining**

An item is worth only what someone will pay for it. To an art collector, a canvas covered in daubs of random paint may be a masterpiece; a historian might believe a weathered jawbone is a holy relic of a saint. The rules presented here offer you a way of playing through the process of selling off goods brought up from a crypt, liberated from a millionaire’s penthouse, or plundered from a mafioso’s vault. They also enable players to establish contacts with local fences, launderers, antiquarians, and obsessive collectors.

### **Valuation**

The Appraise skill allows a character to accurately value an object. However, the fine arts of the jeweler, antiquarian, and bibliophile are complex. Valuable paintings may be concealed by grime, and books of incredible rarity may be bound in tattered leather covers. Because failure means an inaccurate estimate, the GM should attempt this skill check in secret.

In general, a character can sell an item and gain a +1 bonus to their wealth checks so long as the item’s purchase DC was higher than their current wealth bonus. This keeps players from getting bogged down in bargaining with NPCs over small bonus to their wealth check over an unimportant item, and maintains game balance by not allowing players to use bargaining to go overboard with their wealth bonus by buying low and selling high.

For rare or unique items, or in certain cases, the GM might allow or encourage bargaining. Keep in mind that bargaining usually involves one PC talking with an NPC while the other players wait, and watching someone else bargain is rarely interesting. Bargaining should be infrequent, and should happen only when it’s important to the story.

If bargaining goes properly, the GM can reduce the base purchase DC by up to -5 if buying something from them, or if things go poorly, raise the DC by up to +4.

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 Roll of 15 or less

### **Collector NPCs**

The GM can define a few NPCs as collectors, traders, or antiquarians interested in unusual items PCs collect after their adventures. If the PCs establish an amiable relationship with these collectors over time, They can gain an additional +1 to their wealth checks after making a sale to them. This can be increased by as much as +2, and this stacks with the bonus usually gained from the selling rules.

### **Flooding The Market**

When PCs attempt to sell multiples of a durable good, the GM may not allow them to gain the +1 bonus to wealth checks to reflect market saturation in that location. For example, a border town patrolled by guards with AK-47 can always use more ammunition, but has limited use for a truckload of photography cameras, so selling the items to those particular sellers may not be worth doing.

### **Trade Goods**

Trade goods are exempt from bargaining, even in extraordinary circumstances.