is it me or is Barter not really that usefull in the game? I'm at level 30, only got my barter skill to 25, but still have plenty of caps, even after I've bought loads of ammo and mods from the gun runners, got all the implants etc. I know it does help with some speach challenges but normally they only lead to you getting an extra couple of hundred caps for completing a quest anyway.

You can get extra caps in lots of quests and you can obtain one of the unique with less hassle.

And yes you are right it is pretty unless.

If you're not putting points in repair, I can see it useful for fixing up your stuff, especially uniques. Makes that cheaper and lets you have more money to afford Major Knight.

The speech options it provides aren't too shabby. It's the only way to get an NCR Sheriff for Primm, it can let you talk down the final battles, and it's an alternative to the speech check required to get Cass.

Yeah I ended up boosting Barter to about 60 simply cause of all the quest dialogue options that use it. Similar to Science in that regard... there are far more locks to lockpick than computers to hack, so you'd assume that lockpick was more useful, but Science gives extra options in several quests.

(I'm a bit annoyed that there have been far more uses for Barter and Science in dialogue than there have been for Black Widow or Chechez La Femme!)

I boost Barter early to about 30, cause early game you still are short of caps. But then I pretty much leave it alone, using Hats/Mentats/Magazines to boost when I have a bunch of loot to sell ( I generally save high value stuff to sell all at 1 time to conserve magazines)

Barter isn't very useful i wish that you could make barter checks for discounts amongst other things.

Barter has its uses but its not an essential skill although you will need a high barter in order to get the Mysterious Magnum and not fail the quest.

As the game goes along I will boost it to 50-60 for the dialog ops. I boost speech up to 80 as I go as well. I am enjoying all the different dialog opportunities in FNV vs FO3. The comment about caps-a-plenty is right on the money. Caps are way too easy to get in this game, again.

If you are playing a complete packrat of a character, then barter does have two uses to get the perks which reduce the weight of 'light' items and allow you to 'Fast Travel' while overburdened.

Yeah.. I didn't stick any point into barter.. I also haven't bought anything... except the stuff to fill the rooms at the Lucky 38..(and then I decided to not even put any stuff there.) My first game I wanted to go with only found items and then see what items can't be found. Obviously you get the unique weapons but there are plenty of regular guns that I just haven't found yet. I stupidly took Fortune Finder and Scrounger.. I really didn't need those at all. Sitting on 125,000 caps with nothing to really spend it on. I'll probably buy the guns I don't find when I near the end of the game just to play with them.

High barter has its uses later in the game, and in situations not regarding caps.

Sadly, I use Barter for two things only. Quest dialog options, and Packrat. Oh, my sweet packrat! Halving the weight of my gigantic ammo stockpile, and my portable duct tape warehouse!

Barter is completely useless. I always have way more caps then I need. I even quit gambling, because it was getting ridiculous how many caps I was amassing.

I love packrat, it's one of my favourite perks, and with the extra speech checks also I find barter far from useless. Although it would be nice if there were more to spend your caps on, the point when you become meaninglessly rich still comes too quickly.

I want to be able to spend my caps investing in the community. Doing up Novac's defences or buying an auto-doc for Forlorn Hope, say.

These sorts of games are always way off balance in terms of money. It's simply too easy to accumulate. Personally I really dislike being rich. I love the early levels where I'm struggling for cash, and when you find something valuable or recieve a reward for a quest it actually means something. There's no way I'd put points into Barter and shorten that golden period even more.

You need to pass a 50 Barter check to get that weapon. You can get 20 points from a magazine with comprehension, 2 points from Mentats and 10 points from Party Time Mentats (which stack with regular Mentats). Its fairly easy to boost your Barter skill by 32 and further still with alcohol and apparel. This only applies though if your character has 4~ or less Charisma and if we are talking about min/max characters here then Charisma would be set at 1.

The addition of magazines devalued Barter and Speech even further because you no longer need to pump them up so high to pass speech challenges.



I agree. A single player RPG will always have that end game of infinite money which then leads to infinite supplies. Whats good enough though is if that doesnt happen until enough time has been spent to finish the game and then some. The first few hours of a new character is always the best because you have to scavange and make your supplies last.

I like to tag barter not cause i build it up during the game but because its mostly useful early in the game but later when you start getting more caps then you can spend there really is little need for Barter so i just let it stay at its starting level at 30-40 and read a magazine if i need to give it a boost.

I use Barter, but it's moderately useless, even with my terrible justification that I can always use the caps. At early levels when you aren't a baller it helps and for some reason I have this burning desire to make sure I can pass just about all of its checks. Maybe I feel bad for it because it's the red headed step child of the NV skills.

I guess it really depends on how you play. My first character was a smooth talker. I had high Charisma, Barter & Speech. As a result, I was able to talk my way out of almost every situation. Rarely did I have to 'defend myself' or go on a killing spree to accomplish my goals - even finishing the game I was able to talk my way out of it. Both speech & barter are vital in playing a near-pacifist character.

But more to the general point: A high Barter skill helped me with my typical style. I'm not a hoarder or mad prospector. I carry what I need for my uses and try to hold onto only high value / low weight items to trade. I don't use my homes for anything. Playing hardcoe, this doesn't leave a tremendous amount of weight to set aside for trade items. With a high barter, I can play this way MUCH easier than my current playthough (Barter 12) as even just one well maintained laser rifle offers enough caps for stims, rad away and bottled water for a good while. If you are hoarding every box of abraxo & bent tin can to sell; only selling to traders you can win your caps back playing 'Caravan' against (saving & reloading when you lose, of course) and doing your best to bankrupt casinos, I guess it is expected that you may have a small surplus of caps.

I still find it harder to accumulate wealth in NV than FO3. FO3 was gamebreakingly simple as there was next to nothing of high value to purchase and almost everything in the DC Wasteland had someone willing to pay you a ridiculous amount of caps for it. Have sugar bombs? Here's caps. Scrap Iron? Caps. Pre-War Books? Lots of Caps. Just walking around locating places? I'll pay you for that too. Toy cars & cameras? Show me the caps, Baby!

Barter has always been one of the less useful skills. They actually made it more useful in NV by adding barter dialogue options.

There are a LOT of barter options in this game. From simply bypassing quest runs, unique conversation choices or doubling the reward. Add the passive benefit of needing to trade less to accomplish the same thing and it makes the game a lot more streamlined.

For non-hoarding players, I would consider it among the most vital of secondary skills in the game. For hoarding players, it will just make your cap tally at the end of the game more impressive.

Maybe a way to make Barter more useful is to establish a cap limit in the game. Mind you, not a limit to how much money you can get, just a limit to how many caps are actually in the game.

I don't know. The OP is right though. Barter is more or less an unimportant skill to put points in.

Both Barter and Speech are actually very important if you want to finish the game in all the ways possible. More than that I can't say in the non-spoiler forum.
But I'll agree that it's not necessary. Then again, most skills in the game aren't necessary to have at high levels to actually win. The game is designed to be able to beat using many different options and I like it that way.

I have over 100,000 caps and I will tell you why, the vendors. They are everywhere and most have 5,000 plus in caps to trade with. P lus the weapons you can sell go for a stupid amount of caps. In FO3 vendors have half of what do now. I would like to see some weapons cost even more and not unlocked as you level up.

Don't forget that +10 barter is easy to get, with a roving trader hat+ body armor, combine that with 12 (or 16) from skill books and you can pass barter 60 dialogue checks (like the one to get the mysterious magnum) for only a handful of invested skill points.