Money, as it turns out, is pretty important for adventurers. Sure, deep down we’re all just petty thrill-seekers on the lookout for our next adrenaline hit and the wealth is just a side bonus we need to pay our bill, but an abundance of cash can be used to purchase better weapons, armor, potions, spells and other tools of the adventuring trade, as well as purchase more camping supplies, allowing us to rest more often and ensure we’re in top shape for more encounters.
You can’t quite buy your way to victory in Baldur’s Gate 3, but you can buy yourself some significant advantages. Fortunately there’s an exploit that will allow you to gain infinite gold, and this page will explain how to take advantage of this while also providing relevant, related information like when merchants restock their wares and what determines what items a merchant will possess when they restock.
(1 of 2) Hide near a merchant, outside the line of sight of any NPCs in the area,
Hide near a merchant, outside the line of sight of any NPCs in the area, (left), then steal whatever gold they have on them. (right)
How to Earn Infinite Money in Baldur’s Gate 3¶
Earning gold in Baldur’s Gate 3 is usually a slow and steady process. You defeat enemies, loot dungeons, sell the junk you don’t want, buy items from merchants, and ideally you’ll end up earning a net positive amount of gold from this whole cycle. There is another, obvious way to accumulate wealth, however - pick pocketing. Check out the linked page for more in-depth information on how this works, but basically you want to get a character with a high Stealth score, make sure they’re not in any NPC’s line of sight, hide, pick pocket a merchant, and steal whatever item you want. The more valuable the item, the more difficult it will be to steal (ie, the higher the required Sleight of Hand DC will be). Once you’ve stolen something (you’ll want to save/scum to ensure you don’t get caught), quickly leave the area so the merchant is just at the end of your sight range (draw distance) and wait for the merchant and any summoned guards to stop searching for perpetrators. Repeat as necessary.
Seems like a simple enough way to get your hands on more resources, but there’s one limiting factor (aside from your patience and willingness to save-load): eventually that money tree runs out of leaves. The most obvious thing to steal from a merchant is their stack of gold, but once that’s gone you’re not accumulating wealth - you’re stuck stealing individual items. If you use them, fine, but if not, who are you going to sell them to after you’ve stolen the gold from every merchant? To keep getting more gold, you need a way to get the merchants to restock, and fortunately there are some ways to manipulate this.
(1 of 2) You can cause merchants to rotate their stock (read: get more gold) by leveling up - even the levels you reassign by respeccing count.
You can cause merchants to rotate their stock (read: get more gold) by leveling up - even the levels you reassign by respeccing count. (left), Or you can just take a long rest. (right)
How to Get Merchants to Restock Their Wares in Baldur’s Gate 3¶
There are two circumstances under which a merchant will restock their wares in Baldur’s Gate 3:
The latter is pretty simple: cough up 40 Camping Supplies and you’ll perform a Long Rest, recovering fully. This itself is sufficient to ensure an infinite cash flow, as you can just steal or buy Supply Packs each time a merchant restocks to fuel more Long Rests. Leveling up is a bit more complicated, because merchants don’t just restock when you reach a new high level, but rather every time you level up any character. That being the case, when you get enough experience for your party to level up, every merchant will restock every time you level up one character. This allows you to potentially steal all over again each time you level up a character. Even better, if you respec via Withers you’ll also cause merchants to rotate stock, and since a character who respecs can level up back to their old level they can rotate merchant’s stocks multiple times. For example, if a level five character respecs, they will rotate merchant’s stocks as soon as they’re done having their level one stats sorted, then one more time when they level to two, three, etc., ultimately up to five stock rotations when they’re back at level five - all for a mere 100 gold!
It’s really just that simple, steal money from merchants, then either perform a long rest or level up (or respec) characters. Repeat until you have as much gold as you wish.
What Determines the Quality of a Merchant’s Wares¶
It’s also worth noting that when a merchant restocks, their wares are semi-randomized. Some merchants will sell specific magical items, and these will be retained between restocks, and will not be replenished if they are stolen or purchased. Other items, however, vary, and seem to scale in quality based on character level. What character level, exactly, seems a bit odd - if you respec, merchant wares seem to scale down to your new level (at lower levels they’ll have less gold and will sell lower-level spell scrolls).
For related tips and other handy how-to-dos, check out the following pages:
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