Are merchants allowed to cheat?

[Aero Silver]

My question is, are characters who own player shops allowed to cheat?

I found in a store a +2 piercing bolts named Damask Bolts, and it has 20% Weight Reduction. This is clearly a bundle of Steel Bolts that someone enchanted with weight reduction and slapped the name as Damask Bolts, and offered for sale for over 800 gold.

Is this acceptable, if the character is evil, greedy, and lacks morals and ethics to do this? I almost fell for the con and bought it.

[Yellena]

I wondered that myself many times. I bought items in shops years where it's just IMPOSSIBLE for you to know before buying that it's not what it looked like.
It seemed to me like an abuse of the limited mechanics of NWN.

[Cortex]

If there is something that hints at the item being fake, I'd say it's your fault for falling for it. Though if it's a bronze ingot renamed adamantine without any hints or something like it, I'd be inclined to report it to the DMs.

[Dorkas]

You got swindled!

[Black Wendigo]

No it's not the victim's fault if they got cheated. It's the cheat's fault. That being said I don't see it as a player exploit/cheat so I'd consider it all IC. Your char got swindled and just deal with that IC.

[Iceborn]

If the cheat can be detected ICly by inspecting before buying, I'd say it's okay.
If it's something impossible to tell until you have the item, that seems like exploiting mechanics and should not be allowed.

[Gods_Kill_People]

Fairly you can be cheated IRL, but your likely gonna make every effort to pay the bugger back in one way or another...such as ruining his business, cornering him in a dark ally and beating him to a pulp till you get your money back, hiring thugs to beat him to a pulp till he gives THEM your money back, going to the guards, or even attempting to resell the item as the fraudulent item.

Honestly, its an IG and IC thing, roll with it.

[Aero Silver]

It was detected IC using the Look feature.
My goal is not to troll here. My concern is that there is a big difference between (1) selling Steel Bolts for 800 gp at a store, when a merchant sells them for 450 gp, a buyer ignorance of the market price is fair.
and (2) between what seems to me like a veiled attempt to trick players into thinking that they are buying a higher quality bolts.
In both cases, the buyer pays the same amount for the same product, but the label is misleading.

[Gods_Kill_People]

Fairly, evil characters are generally gonna cheat you, you shouldn't expect otherwise. Now, your char might ICly report him to the government officals as a scam artist trying to exploit people.

[Nitro]

The most wicked scam I ever saw IC was a random library book enchanted with 10% weight and renamed to "Pocket Xanalress phrasebook" with the exact same description, sold at 10k.

Which coincidentally is why I only ever buy unenchanted phrasebooks, or use a printing press to get them myself.

[Umskiptar]

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This really shouldn't be allowed. At least leave some hints in the description that it's fake. Damn.

[Astral]

It happened to me before, with adamantine ingot, I never bothered reporting. The next time my character had interest in an ingot, they tested it, found out that it's fake and brought the cheater to the local authorities IC. Worth mentioning that the first player left no clues and the second player did RP like they're hiding something so I guess my point is there ~are~ ways to do it, so long as you make it interesting IC and leave clues in the item's description and/or in your RP.

[Dreams]

It's IC. There should be an IC response. If you got cheated, maybe your character will be more careful in future, maybe they'll seek vengeance, maybe they'll try and get their money back, etc, etc.

[susitsu]

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This really shouldn't be allowed. At least leave some hints in the description that it's fake. Damn.

This.

It's not IC, and everyone saying it's okay are honestly disappointing me greatly right now. It's explicitly something that affects those who are less mechanically informed. When did we become a server that punishes people for not being good at the game, as opposed to just enjoying the roleplay experience?

Oh wait, death update...

[Baron Saturday]

Rule of thumb: If in doubt, report it and let the DMs decide.

[Cybernet21]

I think if there are any hints on the examine button you should do something about it IC

Example:I once saw a "Damask Arrows Bundle" that was actually steel,it had the same description as Damask but there was "Material:Steel" on the description so that should be handled IC

If there are no hints whatsoever it should be reported OOC

Example:Nitro's case

[Aero Silver]

The most wicked scam I ever saw IC was a random library book enchanted with 10% weight and renamed to "Pocket Xanalress phrasebook" with the exact same description, sold at 10k.

Which coincidentally is why I only ever buy unenchanted phrasebooks, or use a printing press to get them myself.

Do you still have the book? I assume that with 10% weight reduction, the current weight should be 0.6. If it says otherwise, then it is probably fake.

[God In Action]

I would suggest a simple rule of thumb to tell if it's okay or not: is it fun?

If a player is selling a bronze ingot renamed as adamantine without any indicator then the only purpose of doing that is lots and lots of profit. No character-to-character interaction. No fun.

If a player is interactively meeting other players, is RPing being a shifty acting, dodgy merchant, is giving RP hooks and letting other players influence the little storyline, then the purpose is the RP itself. Fun.

[Sab1]

If its a fake then there needs to be a way to discover it, you really think my master smith wouldn't know the difference between a bronze and adamantine ingot? Fake it one thing, but if someone is changing the name and description to trick someone then to me that's exploiting the mechanics.