I am level 79 and for a good part of that journey I was focused on investing in perks that have a direct payoff in dealing damage or reducing damage taken. Over time I got real tired of constantly having to go from merchant to merchant to sell all my loot off and acquire materiels for smithing, enchanting, and alchemy. On a whim I decided to start taking some of the merchant based speech perks. I eventually went all the way up the left side of the speech tree. I have to say that this has made the game much more enjoyable as I can now sell everything off and buy what I need very quickly. I used to have very little money and lots of expensive crafted items that the vendors couldn't even afford to buy. Once I took the perks it was not time before I was walking around with 100,000+ gold. I can now trade any item with any merchant and all of the merchants have much more money available for trading. It might be a glitch but the riverwood trader has over 10,000 god available for trading whenever I go. Anyway if you do alot of the crafting skills and need to buy/sell alot of stuff you should seriously consiser the merchant skill perks from the speech tree.

I'm walking around wit hover 200K with a level 44, and I just got investing but don't really need it. Really money is so abundant unless you just going to unload ultra expensive items each trip you'll have tons of money before to long, with default money vendor levels.

I always take a Haggling perk fairly early, when it does the most cumulative good and when you need gold the most. After that you can usually get by comfortably, but it's annoying having expensive loot pile up because no one can afford to buy it from you. I can't abide the 3 day waiting thing- that's so boring.

With over 10,000 gold after investing in him the Riverwood trader is able to buy the most expensive enchanted daedric stuff that I can make.

Right, but you invested in speech. If you didn't do that, he'd have his same piddly 400 or whatever.

I'm saying you don't strictly have to invest in speech, but it reduces certain annoyances if you do.

The problem with Speech is that the persuation perks are fairly useless, and by the time the Merc perks become useful... youre already drowning in septims. I dont even take any of the crafting skills either lol.

Thanks for that info, SidRon...I'm definitely going to be exploring that perk tree...sounds like fun.

Thieves guild pretty much overrides almost all the persuasion perks.

And probably all the investment ones as well, in a way.

Persuasion is basically useless but haggling isn't, I'm gonna give it a go.

Correct, I am mentioning that I can do that as a benefit of investing in speech. It changed the game so that I could spend much less time bartering and more time adventuring.

If you do start picking the perks I think that you can get the most bang for the buck by stopping once you get the investment perk. Investing in the riverwood trader gives him 10k plus gold. I went all the way to the top but looking back I think I could have got 90% of the benefit and saved some perks by stopping at the investment perk.

I always invest points into the Speech Tree.

The only ones, I do not take is, Persuasion, Intimidate, Fence and Master Trader. Lots of folks say the tree is useless, I however beg to differ, being able to sell any item to any merchant is alone worth it.

If you did crafting skills having alot of money comes in handy for buying lots of filled grand soul gems to enchant with.

I kind of agree on persuasion. With 100 speech and no perks invested in persuasion I seem to persuade or intimidate with near 100% success. I don't know what additional benefits the perks could bring.

I am going to invest all the way ul the left side if the tree, as I hate getting ripped off for expensive gear. I also dislike the tedium of running around and selling off my unwanted items, I want to sell more items in one location and the haggling perks I guess you can say is the way to go.

I agree, If I had it to do over again I would have stopped at investment like you did and not picked up fence and master trader.

I started putting perks into speech shortly after I got into smithing. Buying materials was draining me, putting a little time into speech is one of the best things I've done.

Being able to Bribe the guards is nice, especially if you have stolen items.

Not true. If you take one Haggling early, that's 10% which adds up a lot over time and early on you need that gold. Then you can wait until late game to take the others, when you're already so OP you don't need to be stingy with perks, and it makes selling off your higher level crap feasible. Of course if you have willpower to leave loot where it lies, you wouldn't need it. I.... can't... not...pick up... the shiny.

Leave loot behind?!

Inconceivable!

I always perk out Speech, and this is one of the main reasons why. I also craft a ton of crap, and high-end crafts are very valuable and hard to sell without increasing the amount of cash merchants have on hand.

That said, I do see why some folks consider perking Speech a waste, since most dialogue checks can be passed, and a lot of cash raised, without them, and many of the same folks tend to stop their characters in the 30s or 40s and don't really have 'spare' perks.

One of my guys has 100 Speech, and if my bounty is pretty low I can just tell them to leave me alone and they do. It's great, someone will call for the guards cuz i just robbed their store and I'll be all like, "How about you leave me alone" and the guard is all like "sounds good!" and then i go back to robbbing the store.

Gosh, the guards in this game have the I.Q. of a cannoli.

It would be good for a thief but right now I have a spellsword.

I stop at investor. I usually join the thieves guild too though.