Gold ( may contain spoilers )

Ningengirai · Post by **Ningengirai** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 1:24 am

So, I restarted playing Icewind Dale after a longer hiatus, and have now made it to the doors of the Severed Hand, with a party of Dwarven Fighter, Half-Elf Ranger, Human Paladin, Half-Elf Cleric, Halfling Thief and Half-Elf Wizard. So far, the game's pretty hard - I've no idea at all how people manage to just 'breeze' through the game unless they're sending in 6 tanks - but it's fun and quite addicting.

...but I don't seem to be finding much gold, and subsequently, can't really buy anything. Aside from a few good findings in Dragon's Eye, which pushed my meagre income up to 20,000g ( and that's AFTER I sold most of the loot ), most of the enemies drop between 10 and 50 gold pieces, if they drop them at all. Maybe I'm just spoiled by NWN, but all my characters are around Lvl 9-10 now, and by that time in NWN, I'd usually have a little more than 20k. Am I missing something here?

Rabain · Post by **Rabain** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 4:09 am

That's what I liked about IWD, sure its frustrating but it lends to the atmosphere of the barren north.

Klorox · Post by **Klorox** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 11:05 am

You really need to scrap together everything you have. Don't forget to have a your highest CHA character do all the buying!

Aerich · Post by **Aerich** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 11:25 am

You'll find a lot of good items in the Severed Hand, and the shopkeeper there gives pretty good prices. You can generally bank on leaving the Hand with 70+K in gold.

The next area beyond that contains enemies that drop enchanted weapons. A little further in, there are tombs to raid. Many a time I've netted 100 000 gold from a single "selling run". Have a little more patience, and you will be rich.

Ningengirai · Post by **Ningengirai** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 11:35 am

Thanks everyone! I mean, I did manage to give everyone +2 weapons by now, but I saw Conlan's weapons and boggled a bit at the prices.

Redrake · Post by **Redrake** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 11:49 am

You might also install Grog's Auril's Bane mod. Not necessarily the entire mod, but his fixes also include lower (half) prices for Conlan's weapons, which are basically common +2 or +3 weapons with some nifty descriptions. Also never, ever sell anything at the temple of Ilmater. They have the worst prices in the game.

kmonster · Post by **kmonster** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 11:58 am

20,000 GP is quite a lot money for the start of chapter3. Later you'll get more.
Having as much money as possible isn't essential, but here's some advice for gaining more:

You can increase your money income considerably by selling the smart way.
The prices merchants pay for your goods vary, Orrick, Oswald and the merchant in the Severed Hand pay the most.
Prices are lower when a merchant already has the item you want to sell to him, so if you have 5 longswords +1 don't sell them one after another, give all of them to one character and sell all five together and avoid selling potions to Oswald which he sells in unlimited numbers.
When you find an easily stackable item like a "potion of freedom" it might be better not to sell it immediately, you can wait until you've cleared the whole Severed Hand so you can get the full price for all the potions of freedom you find there.

For buying stuff it's important that the one with the highest charisma starts the dialogue, 20 cha offers optimal shop prices, if your mage has 15 cha he can reach 20 with the "friends" spell.

Using potions or scrolls in combat or paying a temple for healing is quite expensive, better rely on your casters' memorization skills or use powerword:reload instead.
Selling priest scrolls can yield quite a lot of money.

Don't buy expensive weapons which only help for a short time, when you resell them after finding better things you won't get all your money back.

But make sure to go back to Kuldahar just before entering the new plot area and starting chapter4. Buy the rogue's cowl from Orrick then, his inventory will change when chapter4 starts and magical helmets which grant extra protection are rare in IWD.

Ningengirai · Post by **Ningengirai** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 7:46 pm

Thanks for the advice!

DaveO · Post by **DaveO** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 12:50 pm

There's not much to buy in the game. Some merchants provide good items at certain points in the game, but I never saw much worth buying. Only at the start of the game is when you need to buy basic gear. Let your adventures and monster encounters provide you with other items.

Redrake · Post by **Redrake** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 11:13 pm

Actually, some items are quite good. Iron Horn of Valhalla that you can buy from Gerth, Clasp of Bron Cloak and Girdle of Gond that you can buy at the Orrick's first store and Love of Black Bess at Conlan. Later on, when Orrick is changing his inventory, there are better items. In Lower Dorn's Deep Nym has a very good store, with spells and exotic items.

Aerich · Post by **Aerich** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 9:56 am

In addition to the Horn and the Clasp, which are great items for bards and druids respectively, there's a few more items I like to buy in Kuldahar.

The Robe of Enfusing (from Orrick) is a great item for a Fighter/Mage character, particularly for how early it is available. There are others in the game as loot, iirc, but much later. Orrick also sells some good wands (buy before finishing Dragon's Eye) that are not available anywhere else.

Redrake · Post by **Redrake** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 11:00 am

Don't forget Rogue's Cowl the best helmet a bard or a thief can wear. It is available in the second store of Orrick.

Ningengirai · Post by **Ningengirai** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 3:16 pm

Well, I now have about 80,000g. Dorn's Deep was a pure gold run! I finally managed to buy all my party members ( there's six of them ) very nice equipment.

Redrake · Post by **Redrake** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 10:45 pm

That's nothing compared to what you are going to acquire in HoW part. Just remember that if you want to go there before the final battle, you'll have to talk to Hjolder. However, I would rather recommend you move to HoW after the final battle (there's a very nice weapon that has its story continued in HoW), but in this case, you'll have to keep in your inventory the most expensive items. Gold doesn't carry on with imported characters to HoW.

Aerich · Post by **Aerich** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 12:09 pm

Neither do containers and their contents, so if you want to keep your best potions and scrolls, you have to remove them from their containers.