^This.

That, and if your in the Thieves Guild, you end up making tons of money... Multiple fences with 4k+ gold each on them =
Never got any of the speech perks, and never will, i find them useless tbh.

I find no reason for it. It's very common to find a Zenithar amulet early on or a piece of gear that gives bonus.

Plus with alchemy you can take just a handful of ingredients and put an easy 1000 gold in your pocket, no haggling needed. Money is in grass, mushrooms, and psychedelic flowers and butterflies, not in speech perks.

I would recommend only taking a MAXIMUM of one perk spent in haggling and that's only so you can get allure and the investor perks which make life so much easier. On my game it's an utter nightmare doing the Whiterun rounds to Adrianne, then her husband, then the fletcher, then my missus, then belathor, then alchemy chick then up to Jorlund and finally to Farengar only to realise that I still have junk to sell so I have to do the whole trip again, on this character I spent as much time doing this as I do exploring. It was better when I had Riverwood trader to go to as Lucan had 11K of gold reserves until he died in a dragon attack. I keep doing this because I'm trying to level speech but it's the slowest skill in the world to level like this and it's still nowhere near 100.

You really don't need the other haggling points though as I have a hood that gives me 15% off, some clothes that give me 20% I think and a Necklace of Haggling at 25% off, silly me put tons of perks into it so everything is fab value I just can't sell more than a few things at a time.

I don't even need the money my character doesn't even buy anything, nothing, and I get 100 a day from the missus if I ever do need something so today I decided I just couldn't take anymore of this ridiculous run around all the traders nonsense, do all TES have stupid low caps on the gold merchants carry?, I've decided that all I'm going to pick up is gold and things under 1 weight, so no weapons. Left the first Daedric Sword I had seen in a chest earlier, with the new weight policy I can run around a goodly number of dungeons till I have to go and get rid of those potions and things.

Its usefull for thieves, can make every single merchant a fence, and theybuy everything, can sell books to blacksmiths and armors to alchemists and such. It is however not recommendable to put 5 points in haggling, trying to get everything sold is already a pain and requires a few trips between shops forth and back. With 5 in haggling they would even run out of cash faster and you would end up with more loot then you can sell.
Wich means you would have to sleep/wait more for them to reset
I miss the Scamp in Caldera with 5k gold.

In my opinion, it's worth putting 1 point into. Anything beyond that only gives +5%. You have lots of perks to spend early on, and the 10% price difference will definitely add up over time. Furthermore, some of the options it unlocks are pretty nice. (Merchant, Investor)

The character which I played for the longest was a Treasure Hunter, who for RP reasons, placed three perks into Haggling and then up the left to Investor, as he would not steal from the living or join a Guild. He also took the Steed Stone for extra inventory space; invested into Lockpicking up through Treasure Hunter; into Smithing up through Daedric; and into Enchanting up the middle through Extra Effect.

This was a really fun character. The lack of combat and armor perks was offset by overpowered gear. Sure, most of the time I had 50,000 gold sitting in a drawer for a rainy day; and could buy every smith out of all crafting supplies in one tour of the capitals; and craft an Ebony set to Legendary, enchanted with Grand soul gems, and then sell it off a day later and do the same process with an Orchish or Fur set instead, whenever the mood struck me.

Sometimes I would sell everything in storage, and most of what I was carrying on me except for the bare minimum needed, and would give away legendary items to shops that I had invested in, and give large donations to the beggars in town, and start over with no gold again.

Then go hunting for more treasure.

In my opinion, the Speech tree up to Investor is worth it, to be able to sell items off at one or two places in a single location, and to get reasonable prices and dialogue options without wearing a bunch of Speechcraft or Fortify Barter equipment. I enjoyed it.

I think the merchant perk is a good buy. Means I can sell off all those high value potions I whip up and clean out every merchant in town with minimal inventory weight. I pretty much only check bodies and chests to see if there's something in there I or my companion can use (though if I spot something worth more than 100 gold per lb, I usually nab it anyhow).

I'd consider Investor, but I have no idea what I'd do with the extra money.

Let's see river wood trader before investment perk 750 gold

After investment 11,500 gold

Yes please, I get investment on every character because I like to sell all my stuff I get from 1 dungeon to 1 merchant without having to wait 2 days.

Or you can make potions and carry pots that weigh 0.5 and are worth hundreds of gold each and slowly sell them off, never lacking gold, instead of carrying that crap armor that weighs 30 and is worth 100 gold, constantly looking for more crap to sell and more stores to sell them too, because you're lacking gold.

Ummm I'm talking about what you come out of dungeons with like I posted. Unless you take all you reagents into dungeon to finda alchemy table your post makes zero sense. When I come out of a dungeon I come out with at least 5k in goods, with investor I can dump themm all at once seeing he has 11k. Without it I have to wait seeing he only has 750.


If I want to make money I will just go make banished daggerswp worth 1k each, screw couple hundred potions.

I don't know... I never really liked the old speech wheel from Oblivion. That being said, I kind of miss the old lock picking mechanic as I got pretty good at it. Not that I mind the new one which was borrowed from Fallout...

I would rather loot every draugr, bandit and urn by hitting Select All and then selling it all off at the Riverwood Trader in one go... than stand at an Alchemy table, listening to that tap tap, grinding swirl sound. Drives me crazy.

Not to mention you make more money by enchanting that crap gear then selling it. Now I make potions also but I tend not to sell them, for some reason I like a ton of potions in storage just in case. But if you want to compare money making ways in this game enchanting will always beat alchemy.

I agree some of tho perk are really useful in the long run.

But what level were you then??

Early game the Speech perks are very nice to have - let's you buy that house that much sooner

From my experience so far with one character I invested only in the perks needed for the persuasion and intimidation perks as those were the ones I wanted most and from my experience if you like to try and persuade, or intimidate a lot these are for you as they allowed such options and actually had them work in cases I could not with any other character. Even worked on quests I didn't think they would which gave a nice shortcut to finish them and felt like I had more in the way of options in some npc interactions.

gold is not uncommon dont mislead the op just because its your choice to have them, lets comparethe first perk in speech to all the other trees, 10% better prices (then 5% x4) vs
20% for all combat and armour skills, sneak, lockpick, alchemy and enchanting, 50%off first spells from all magic schools, 2 x smithing of steel(which by end game any armour set is viable with smithing and potions bought from shops) only other weak link i see is novice locks are easier... which is also pointless but the tree at least is worth some limited atention if you plan of some serious theifery as one of your main game play mechs.
Simply that 10% - 30% more gold for 1 - 5 more perks makes no sence simply put you want more gold put that perk in alchemy and make potions with the ingriends that are worthless at low level and get massive incease in there sale and level up a skill thats worth some thing and will prevent you spending so much money in the long run. Ever drauga has gold ever pot has gold, if u only take gold you come out of most barrow with 250 gold so with selling loot included you can wipe out 10 reasonable caves/forts you got your 5000 gold hmm thats all of a few hours of play, for what in the long run will be regretable when you finish all your core skills and have like 3 perks left over and then that perk in speech would be nice to give you say double enchants.

At the end of the day its a one player game thats far from challenging with lots of opotunity so If you really want it do it but seriously i fail to see it unless your either rping seriously or trying to off set a handy cap like not looting.

I've never used the Speech perks on any of my playthroughs, more useless than the lockpicking perks.

The masque of clavicus vile together with the thief questline make mercantile completly worthless. Every fence has 4000 gold at the end of that and master trader combined with investor just give 1500 combined.

In perspective, you can spend those perk points on Combat Skills and Magics, or even crafting skills like Enchanting. Gold is scarce early game, but in the long run you'll end up with more money than you could ever think of, and at that point the perks simply are no longer useful, unlike, say, Armsman.

Or heck, Dual Savagery

If, like me, you are a player who loots and sells anything and everything of reasonable value, then the speech tree is a huge help.

Before I got the investor perk, I found myself travelling around for weeks (game time) between different cities just to sell the loot I obtained from a single dungeon run. This wasted a lot of my time and effort, and meant that I had less time to get on with actual quests.

After taking the investor perk, and investing in a particular merchant who will gain 10000 gold, I have cut down my trading time dramatically, and the game is much more enjoyable now. After each dungeon run I will only need to travel to a couple of near by places to get rid of my loot and start the next quest.

So even though it has not benefited my in game character much, it has made a big difference to the gameplay, which is what matters in the end.

Edit:
Just to add, even though I don't see the speech tree as essential, I will see myself taking the 4 perks up to investor for every character that I make. It just makes life so much easier being able to sell anything to anyone, and increasing the gold reserves of all the merchants.

Now you guys piqued my interest. What is with all this "10000g merchant"? I invested on a merchant and now he has... like 2,5k gold? And I think it has something to do with me inputting "additem f 5000" too, not he investment. I just invest for crap and giggles

Merchant perk is great value for perk investment imho, since it significantly simplifies selling stuff.

For most merchants, investing in them will only increase their normal reserves by 500, as the perk states. However, there is one particular merchant who will gain 10000 gold after you invest in them.

If you want a clue:

UESP page says it has been fixed. Oh well...