Social Engineering: Haggling - Broken?

[Kallatari]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Reviewing the commercial transactions reaction rolls, I see that the very best reaction roll possible results in the merchant being willing to sell for a minimum of 50% of the fair price, or to buy for 200% of the fair price. That might be a reasonable place to draw the line of "you're not serious."

Bill Stoddard

That is simpler, but does give a very good margin for leeway for more neutral reactions (i.e., you start at 50% or 200% and have all that room to haggle to the best offer of 90%/110%), and leaves no room to capitalize for the best reactions as you start at the merchant's best possible offer and must go down from there when haggling.

Perhaps doubling the merchant's limit for his offer based on current reaction might work:

EDIT: Bold text below edited in after initial post for clarification

- With a Neutral Reaction, the merchant will go to +/-10% as his best offer values, so he's not in the mood to entertain any haggling offer more than (2 x +/-10% =) +/-20% of fair price since you're just another customer.

- With a Very Good Reaction, he's willing to go for 80% (i.e., -20%) so he won't entertain any offer less than 60% (i.e., (2 x -20% =) -40%), or, when buying, he's willing to go to 150% (i.e., +50%) so he won't entertain any offer more than 200% (i.e., +100%). He's willing to entertain such offers because he likes you.

- With a Bad Reaction, he's willing to go fair price, or 100% (i.e., +/-0% to fair price); you need to start your offer at (2 x +/-0% = +/-0%, or) fair price to even get his attention to haggle. Seems unfair, but then again, you got an initial Bad Reaction from the merchant.

This proposed method allows you to negotiate to the merchant's limit, and varies the acceptable amounts based on the initial Reaction, which seemed to be implied in Social Engineering.