Why do Merchants lose everything upon death?

[Nyaria]

LIke seriously. If you kill a merchant you should get everything they have.

But they lose All their gold and like 99% of their inventory on death, it just evaporates.

It's especially annoying for the Absolutist traders you end up killing due to the main storyline, they have some nice things, I'm killing the absolute cult, I should be able to drag those weapons and armor and trinkets off their corpses, but instead it just disappears into the Ether.

[Jeffer'son Airship]

I can get some of the items maybe being damaged by the fight but it is rather silly.

At the very least they should have a container nearby with a lot of their sales goods. Put a trap on it if you don't want it to be too easy.

[Wojtek the Bear]

Originally posted by Nyaria:

LIke seriously. If you kill a merchant you should get everything they have.

But they lose All their gold and like 99% of their inventory on death, it just evaporates.

It's especially annoying for the Absolutist traders you end up killing due to the main storyline, they have some nice things, I'm killing the absolute cult, I should be able to drag those weapons and armor and trinkets off their corpses, but instead it just disappears into the Ether.

Because they don't want players going around killing every merchant in the game so they can get the phat lootz with no effort. It's been that way in a lot of crpgs.

[teksuo]

so you have a reason to pickpocket/barter maybe?

would be a bit too tempting to go brain-dead-murder-hobo if they just gave everything wouldnt it?

[Fujisawa1]

In normal D&D, you could definately kill and steal an entire merchant's stock. But the GM has ways to bring in consequences for that.

Although we lose realism for it here, I'm not sure how the game would balance around you being able to kill and steal from every merchant in the game.

Realistically, probably the only thing that would possibly make you not want to do it, is if it turned the entire town on you anytime you killed one. So you'd lose any quests there, and have to either slog through killing an entire town or just avoid that town from there on out. Would be a bit crazy. (Make for some crazy second playthroughs though, scorched earth run!)

[Nyaria]

And that's fine, killing a merchant makes the entire place hostile! That's one of the consequences, they hate you try to arrest you and try to kill you. You lose out on any quests there.

but like.. I'm going to kill the Absolute Traders, because I'm killing the Absolute cult. I shouldn't be punished because I decided not to give moeny to the absolutists for their equipment, I should be able to just kill them (As I am doing anyways) and rip the items from their bloody dead fingers, so that I can use them to empower my crusade against the absolute.

The entire Absolute compound going hostile to me is not a big deal, I'm killing them all anyways. But I'm not going to murder hobo the harper quartermaster because they have nice things.

[Shina]

An immortal vendor with a lost and found shop at a mark up with dead vendors inventory would solve that ( possibly the undead at camp)

[SoloQ]

Because then the only clear option would be to kill them and take their stuff. There would be zero reasons not to. If the town turned on you then you could just slaughter the town.

[Nyaria]

I mean if you want to be a murder hobo that kills everything I guess? Not everyone is going to do that.

[Tomas Mac Mordain]

They'd tell you it's balance. At the same time merchants regain everything after you robbed them blind within 8h. It is what it is IMO you should be more like in Morrowind - merchant dies, all is yours.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

ultimately they want the merchants to have a reasonably broad selection so the players have options. however the broader and more rewarding the selection the merchants have, the more rewarded the players are for just murdering them and taking their stuff. therefore limiting the rewards for merchant murder is a means to keep a broad selection in the game, without making merchant murder the mathemagically correct way to play the game.

complaining about realism is a bit ridiculous when the game lets you drag around hundreds of weapons and half-incinerated leather armors as loot. 'realistically' any gang of adventurers is just gonna grab the best stuff and move on. grabbing every random dagger is the realm of carrion pickers and scavengers.

[Draffut]

Game balance. I thought that was obvious.

[Hallfredur]

Because Larian hates murder hobos lmao

[Jaggid Edje]

In my current playthrough the number of "traders" I killed in Act 1 was higher than the number I didn't. if they don't want us to be "murder hobos" they probably shouldn't make the traders the bad guys.

Killed: Goblin trader in goblin camp, Zhentarim trader under Waukeen's Rest, Githyanki trader in the creche. All "bad guys". Shame too, because I would have liked to see what they offered for sale as I leveled up throughout the game.

[Dalaule]

You can knock them out (a toggle under "passives"), that lets you loot their entire inventory.

[Rommel]

Originally posted by Nyaria:

LIke seriously. If you kill a merchant you should get everything they have.

But they lose All their gold and like 99% of their inventory on death, it just evaporates.

It's especially annoying for the Absolutist traders you end up killing due to the main storyline, they have some nice things, I'm killing the absolute cult, I should be able to drag those weapons and armor and trinkets off their corpses, but instead it just disappears into the Ether.

This ain't Elder Ring dude lol!!!!