UI design is an art that only a few games really master. Giving the information to players can be tricky and sometimes you don’t give enough. In Baldur’s Gate 3 the bartering and trading can be a bit confusing for some people. This is especially true for those who haven’t played the previous games Larian Studios have made.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to navigate through the bartering menu in Baldur’s Gate. We’ll also cover some great tips to make your shopping experience in the game better. Now, let’s get some trading done for the party!
Wares, Bartering & More Complete Guide
When you first find a merchant in Baldur’s Gate 3 you can talk to them and see their wares. Some of them can see consumables and items like gear that you might need. When you do that, you’ll see the Trade/Barter screen pop out and it can get a bit confusing for some people.
Trading
To the left of the screen is your character and your items, to the right is the trader’s character and their items. This is where you can just buy and sell items one by one. When double click or drag one of your items to the trader’s side then you’re selling them. You do the same with buying by double clicking or dragging an item. It will automatically transfer the gold for that item to either you if you’re selling, or to the trader if you’re buying.
You can quickly buy or sell items by holding down the shift key and clicking on the item you want to buy or sell.
The buttons on the top of the screen in the middle of the portraits is the filters. You can filter out items if you want to just see a certain category. For example, you want to see what weapons the traders are buying, so you press the weapons filter.
This is a great way to not get overwhelmed by the items that the trader has. Or the items you do have if you’re a loot goblin like me!
Wares
You might have noticed that there’s a filter in the middle of Books and Miscellaneous items that’s most likely grayed out. That is the filter for wares and it’s basically the “junk” filter in previous Larian Studios games. For those who don’t know, you can mark an item as wares to quickly sell them all later on. You can do this by right clicking on an item and select “Add to Wares.”
Once you’ve added an item to wares you can see them in your wares tab. They’ll also have a small icon to indicate they’re marked as wares. So how do you sell all your wares at once? Well you can do that through the barter window!
Bartering
At the top of the trade window there’s a toggle button for either trade or barter. If you change to barter, you’ll see something like the image below. There you can easily see how much gold you and the merchant have which you don’t really see easily in the trade window.
This is also where you can trade items all at once, including your wares on the lower left of the screen.
Just like in trading you can double-click, click and drag or shift-click on an item to buy or sell them. When you do, gold will automatically placed to balance the trade. So if you place an item worth 40 gold, that 40 gold will then be placed on the side of the trader automatically.
Here is where you can also barter and not trade for gold. For example, you want to buy a weapon that costs 50 gold. You don’t have gold, but you do have an item that costs 60 gold. So, you place the item you want to buy and trade in, and the trade will automatically add 10 gold to balance the trade!
Once you’re good with the trade you can then click the big “Barter” button at the bottom to complete the trade.
Trading Tips
Now that you know how trading works here are some tips that you’ll want to know. Of course, some of these may be subject to change on release so make sure to keep an eye out for news!
- Shops refresh their stocks on a Long Rest or Level Up.
- If you kill a shopkeeper, items bartered to him/her will be present on their corpse.
- When you double click to sell an item in trading you might not get a chance to buy it back. You can buy it back if it’s sold through barter, this might be a bug.
- You can improve a shopkeeper’s attitude to you by purposely bartering stuff and reducing the gold he pays for it. This can make them pay more and charge you less in the future.
That’s how Bartering, Wares and Trading works in Baldur’s Gate 3. I know it might be confusing for some people, but you’ll get used to it! Now that you know how to trade go check out our guide on how to make a custom party in Baldur’s Gate 3 to further learn more about the game!
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