Merchant Inventory Theft

[Uncle Foggy]

Here's a game mechanic I've come across but don't fully understand. Let's assume we're playing vanilla Morrowind.

Some (most?) merchants own a container which holds their inventory. If you steal this, then try to buy from them you'll see their stock is massively reduced.

Does stealing their inventory forever limit their trading stock?
Does stealing their inventory permanently affect their restocking items?
Is it worth taking their inventory if it removes their restocking items, or best to leave it so they will have stock to sell if/when you need it?

I want to hoard but I don't want to lose the unlimited restocking items.

[ZombieKidzRule!]

I don’t know the answer, but I would caution about stealing too much from merchants. Once you steal from them, you can never sell another item of that type to that same merchant. The game doesn’t differentiate between specific items.

For example, say you steal a silver long sword from the merchant. If you ever try to sell a silver long sword to that same merchant, you will be accused of theft.

For me, it is too hard to keep track of who I stole from. So if I do steal something from a merchant, I only steal stuff from their house that they don’t actually sell. Like stealing housewares from an armorer.

I know that doesn’t answer your specific question about restocking, but I wanted to mention this other aspect in case you hadn’t discovered it yet.

Good luck!

[Uncle Foggy]

I'm aware of the stolen item flagging issue. That can be quite frustrating, but not on this playthrough.

On most of my playthroughs I don't steal anything from merchants, but on this one I don't plan on selling anything. I'm going to hoard as much as I can in Adanumuran cave. I'm using the Adanumuran Reclaimed mod as my home.

That's why I don't know whether to snatch the merchant stock or leave it.

I did a test with Sharn gra-Muzgob in Balmora Mages Guild. I stole the inventory from her chest. She had two potions for sale after, which must be stored on her person. I waited for over a week in-game but none of her potions reappeared, not even the potions she would normally restock.

I'm thinking that if you steal a merchants restocking items, that stock is gone forever from their inventory.

Does anybody else have any experience with this?

[The Boss]

Does stealing their inventory forever limit their trading stock?
if you take their stuff, obviously they cant sell something they dont own, so why wouldnt it permanently reduce their stock? the only exception i can think of is stuff like replenishing alchemy materials.

Does stealing their inventory permanently affect their restocking items?
i dont think it would permanently affect their restocking items but i havent tested that but i dont think it would affect it...

Is it worth taking their inventory if it removes their restocking items, or best to leave it so they will have stock to sell if/when you need it?
if is truly restockable, then stealing it should have no effect. test to see if this is incorrect and be sure to post your findings!
but also what items are you worried about not being able to buy after stealing? because chances are good that you wont have a problem finding them from another vendor. for example if you want to buy arrows, but want to steal arrows, if it turns out that stealing it does affect their REPLENishing stock, then you could just only buy from one vendor and steal from all the others in the game.
but like i said test to see if it actually does, just steal the arrows, wait 24, and see if they still have it for sale.

[The Burning One]

Most of the merchants suck anyways the best merchants are the scamp merchant and the mudcrab merchant and the armor merchant in mournhold great bazaar

[Ω Spriggan Ω]

i remember selling a bunch of useless crap to a wizard in that.....wolverine hall?
in true spirit i got lost.
.
anyway i sold him a bunch of random crap and he called me a theif..somehow stripped me of my robe so now im standing there naked in a room full of now pissed off wizards.
I was end game monk so you know.....laugh at their weak spells, dodge their attacks.
3-4 punches to each of them everyone KO'd death soon after for them. then i take my robe back.
.
in the end i never did find out what i did steal from a guy i never met before but i lost my nerevarine ring the Moon-and-Star one. i ripped several cities apart searching for that damaged thing and it somehow ended up in one of the forts...

[terror923]

Originally posted by PregnantAndProud:

Does stealing their inventory forever limit their trading stock?
if you take their stuff, obviously they cant sell something they dont own, so why wouldnt it permanently reduce their stock? the only exception i can think of is stuff like replenishing alchemy materials.

Does stealing their inventory permanently affect their restocking items?
i dont think it would permanently affect their restocking items but i havent tested that but i dont think it would affect it...

Is it worth taking their inventory if it removes their restocking items, or best to leave it so they will have stock to sell if/when you need it?
if is truly restockable, then stealing it should have no effect. test to see if this is incorrect and be sure to post your findings!
but also what items are you worried about not being able to buy after stealing? because chances are good that you wont have a problem finding them from another vendor. for example if you want to buy arrows, but want to steal arrows, if it turns out that stealing it does affect their REPLENishing stock, then you could just only buy from one vendor and steal from all the others in the game.
but like i said test to see if it actually does, just steal the arrows, wait 24, and see if they still have it for sale.

it doesnt reduce their stock no
it forever flags that item as stolen in your inventory. so if you manage to sell it to another merchant and honestly get it somewhere else it will still be flagged as stolen.

one of the greatest flaws of morrowind

however you can still buy from them

[The Boss]

just noticed u posted this on gamefaqs lol

[terror923]

Originally posted by Uncle Foggy:

Here's a game mechanic I've come across but don't fully understand. Let's assume we're playing vanilla Morrowind.

Some (most?) merchants own a container which holds their inventory. If you steal this, then try to buy from them you'll see their stock is massively reduced.

Does stealing their inventory forever limit their trading stock?
Does stealing their inventory permanently affect their restocking items?
Is it worth taking their inventory if it removes their restocking items, or best to leave it so they will have stock to sell if/when you need it?

I want to hoard but I don't want to lose the unlimited restocking items.

if your worried about theft type tfh in console itll tell you what the items belong to.
\\you need to do this everytime you load a game

onto theft system.
basically if you loot something that belongs to someone it will mark it in your inventory as a flag forever that you took that item from someone, so if it was a merchant you can no longer sell said item to them.

\\(if it is a non merchant it doesnt really matter)

guards will seize the items if you get caught

[Uncle Foggy]

Originally posted by PregnantAndProud:

just noticed u posted this on gamefaqs lol

Yeah, the Morrowind board is really slow over there.

Originally posted by terror923:

if your worried about theft type tfh in console itll tell you what the items belong to.
\\you need to do this everytime you load a game

onto theft system.
basically if you loot something that belongs to someone it will mark it in your inventory as a flag forever that you took that item from someone, so if it was a merchant you can no longer sell said item to them.

\\(if it is a non merchant it doesnt really matter)

guards will seize the items if you get caught

This doeasn't answer any of the questions. I already know about the flagging issues. I'm keen to know about the REPLENISHING of stock.