Gold Sinks etc

[Lostdreamer]

It's a common comment I see in a few threads - people looking for ways to rebalance gold in their game so that it isn't just an infinite resource.

 

So I figured I would start a thread to chat about it and see what ideas people had.

 

I'll start with the mods I'm using that interact with this sort of thing and what they do. I'll add the mods other people raise to this list as they get mentioned.

 

 

Treasure you don't get in the first place:

Timing Is everything. This allows you to delay the start of many vanilla quest arcs. Including, notably, the main arc and the dawnguard one. No dragons & vampires spawning means no dragons & vampires to loot.

 

Deviously Cursed Loot. Which I am sure everyone on these boards knows of. You don't get loot from containers you chose not to search because they might be trapped. Also frequently results in having to leave dungeons early and spend a lot of your time dealing with being tied up etc rather than adventuring & looting things for fun and profit.

 

No Player Crafting. This isn't a mod per se, but a playing style/choice. Just cause you are some chosen of akatosh or other great prophesied hero doesn't mean you can suddenly start making items better than the finest master crafters in all skyrim. So don't. Also, you can't sell potions etc you don't make.

 

Dynamic Potions. This lets you change all sorts of effects of potions, how they interact, etc. I only use it to drop the price significantly. Massively devaluing potions not only makes them much easier to buy and use in a low gold game, but also makes them much less worth selling.

 

Bandit etc overhauls. Not a specific mod, but there are lots out there that make bandits (and other stuff like Draugr) more complicated, meaner - or just makes more of them. So good luck raiding that bandit fort/camp for stuff, they will kick your ass. Expect lots of running away and carefully picking your fights, rather than just steamrollering through everything then taking their stuff.

 

Weighted Arrow & Realistic Gold Weight. Both of these make previously zero weight items now have negligible weight.  Given that you can easily carry lots of them tho, 'negligible' adds up fast. Inventory space you need for these is inventory space you can't use for treasure.

 

Scarcity. This mod alters treasure drop rates. I havn't found it necessary myself, but it's a stable of many builds and does offer a simple solution to a complex issue.

 

 

Treasure you can't sell:

Contraband. Marks all loot on bandits, forsworn, tombs, dwemer ruins, etc as stolen. After all, you shouldn't be robbing peoples graves or disturbing ancient dwemer ruins best left undisturbed. Or murdering people in the wilderness. Some people have immersion issues, but I don't have any problems with abstracting it to 'of course respectable merchants won't buy second hand stuff of unknown origin.'. The net effect is a LOT of your loot is suddenly near worthless.

 

Skytweak. Let's you change lots and lots of random values in the skyrim engine. I use it to change two. One is to make training much cheaper so that I can still afford it. The other is to remove all cash from blacksmiths/alchemists/court wizards - these people are in the business of selling you things, not buying your rubbish. You might be able to trade something with them if they have something you need, but you can't just use them as banks any more. Only general merchants, market traders & orcs etc can buy your loot which means that a trip to town will only get you a couple of thousand at most. There might be more elegant ways of doing this, but I find this works.

 

Trade And Barter. This lets you alter buy/sell levels & tweak merchants in general, changing both the amount you get for your loot and how much you have to spend on new gear. Some situational modifiers are also available making some places better for buying stuff than others. It's possible to make money simply by carrying things from one place to another!

Cursed Loot. Again. It's a big complex mod, which means it can stop you selling stuff as well. Device Dialog, mysogency etc can make going round every trader a high risk activity.

 

 

Extra Costs:

Better Fast Travel / Inns etc. Fairly trivial on their own, but every little helps.

 

Loot and Degradation. This means you need to repair/replace your gear after each adventure. Works nicely with 'no PC crafting' (which means you have to pay a blacksmith to do it. Doing so is supported by the mod.) and with Cursed Loot which makes searching bodies for better gear (Loots and Degradation can spawn 'smithed' items) a risky activity that can backfire.

 

Devious Followers. A fairly new mod. You need to pay your follower, or else they will find ways of making you pay. Can synergise nicely with Cursed Loot by paying followers to remove devices (I normally make keys).

Sexlab Adventures. This makes being naked/having sex in town etc illegal. Also has a rape mechanic. So chances are high you are going to start racking up bounties. Goes nicely with Contraband (all your useful loot goes when arrested), Prison Overhaul (with wear & tear mods, this can make getting arrested something you want to avoid), Cursed Loot/Devious Followers (more likely to make you commit sexcrimes).

 

Sexlab Mortality. You have to pay to heal yourself after rape events. Which with some of the other mods on this list are probably going to happen

 

Just Sleep. No direct costs, but plays nicely into increased Inn cost & Devious Followers.

 

Mini Needs. Expanding on the idea above, this is a basic needs mod that covers, well, pretty much all of them. So expect to have to find money for food, water, booze, etc.

 

Cursed Loot. Yes, yet again. Depending how you do it, device removal can be expensive. And there is effects like public indecency with can get you arrested/fined/otherwise into more trouble.

 

Taxes of the Nine Holds. I found this a little flaky in sucessfully collecting the taxes, but others have had good results. It's a good way to increase your characters cost of living.

 

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Between most of these, I find I don't really need to do any of the 'trade & barter' type re balancing - cash flows out at about the same rate it flows in.

 

So then, what are other people's thoughts on the subject?

[Saraniamic]

I never understood the "Contraband" mod. The fact that the items you find in dwemer ruins, which have been there for hundreds of years, are marked as stolen as well as bandit loot seems highly unreasonable to me.

It is, however, a good point that you generate way too much gold when you are a higher level. The mod I use to counter this is called "Scarcity", which basically removes all loot from the treasure chests you find in the world.

[Lozeak]

Thanks for the mention of devious followers.

 

https://www.loverslab.com/files/file/3776-player_exhibitionist/ as a cool feature of Midas touch which turns all the armour on dead body into gold (the mod is incomplete tho so things seem a little buggy)

 

If i could ever work it out I'd do something similar but with crafting material so you'd have to make your own armour.

[terrorofmorrowind]

26 minutes ago, Saraniamic said:

I never understood the "Contraband" mod. The fact that the items you find in dwemer ruins, which have been there for hundreds of years, are marked as stolen as well as bandit loot seems highly unreasonable to me.

It is, however, a good point that you generate way too much gold when you are a higher level. The mod I use to counter this is called "Scarcity", which basically removes all loot from the treasure chests you find in the world.

Yeah, i just installed an skse plugin that makes it so that as long as there is no npc around the item i take will not be counted as stolen. HOWEVER depending on the value in it's ini file, item over a certain threshold will be marked as such. But if you use mods like immersive jewelry (that has the weighted gold already implemented) you will probably carry a lot of stolen goods unless you said the value at something like 2000 or something like that.

[43deadwood]

For the crafting side I use Crafting requires Tools (nexus 58328) & crafting requires permission (nexus 80341). With the latter one you have to pay to use any crafting station. The author has also produced SV Mods Menu (nexus 86109) which adds 5 other mods including hunting requires permission plus more punishable crimes (MPC). MPC adds crimes such as vagrancy so your character can get fined for waiting/sleeping in a lot of areas.

[Guffel]

Trade and Barter lets you chage the buy and sell value of items which has a nice subtle effect. One of my must haves.

 

Higher Bounties increases the bounties quite a bit and makes it really a pain to pay it back. 

 

Loot and Degradation lets your equippent break after some use and so creates the need to buy new item or at least pay for the reapir/ tempering

 

and there was someting like "less gold in chests" which is pretty self explaining^^

[Lostdreamer]

30 minutes ago, Saraniamic said:

I never understood the "Contraband" mod. The fact that the items you find in dwemer ruins, which have been there for hundreds of years, are marked as stolen as well as bandit loot seems highly unreasonable to me.

...see the comments I made about "Disturbing ancient dwemer ruins best left undisturbed."

 

It's entirely possible there are laws against looting such places as accidentally releasing robot spiders all over skyrim is probably frowned upon. Which, you know, is what has happened to everyone else in the world when they did it. Something to do with not being a mythical hero capable of blowing them to smithereens just by yelling at them.

 

It's also entirely possible that shopkeepers won't want to buy priceless ancient historical artifacts you should probably be turning in to the Jarl or his court wizard for study, rather than just selling on for a quick buck.

 

...I'm not saying you are wrong - but I am saying I don't think Contraband is as hard to rationalise from an in game immersion point of view as many people seem to think.

 

 

 

Quote

It is, however, a good point that you generate way too much gold when you are a higher level. The mod I use to counter this is called "Scarcity", which basically removes all loot from the treasure chests you find in the world.

One of my reasons for starting this thread.

 

I never had much luck with Scarcity, although I know many others like it. Partly, it's overkill in combination with what I do use.

 

It also interacts badly with other elements of my build. Cursed Loot for example. Making it so treasure chests don't actually have any treasure in them makes DCL even more trouble than it already is.

 

Also making it so that adventuring into a dangerous ancient ruin doesn't actually yield any cool treasure also doesn't work for me. I want to explore places and find stuff - even if that stuff is flagged as stolen, that still means I get to use the cool sword/armour/whatever.

[Lostdreamer]

36 minutes ago, Lozeak said:

Thanks for the mention of devious followers.

Devious Followers works VERY nicely for this job.

 

Not only does it provide a significant extra (configurable) expense, it also provides a time constraint. Do you really want to hang around for a day in order for the traders to open - and have to pay your follower for another day? What about fast travelling to another city to sell more loot?

 

Decisions what were trivial in a standard game suddenly gain more depth. Which is cool.

[Teutonic]

I always felt Survival mods paired with Trade and Barter work well reducing the amount of gold in my pocket. With the poverty option in Sexlab Adventures you will also have a hard time carrying the loot to the nearest merchant. Also when captured through SL Kidnapped Redux, they will take all of your stuff. 

[Nagib]

Loot and Degradation=>LaD

 

I replaced 'LaD' with 'Equipment Durability System' does all the same stuff, but it is a SKSE plugin and probably better performance (not sure about it).

The random enchantments from 'LaD' feature are managed by Summermyst in my game.

And I also use 'Honed Metal' (NPC crafts for PC).

[valcon767]

i may not use a lot specific to this but what i use works well for me in combination

 

Cursed Loot - dangerous to loot stuff

Skooma Whore - merchants don't like druggies (worse prices, this is in conjunction with another mod to get the effect) 

Trade and Barter - stuff costs more and sells for less (plus there are times when it's a "day off" for the merchants that makes prices even worse)

Player Exhibitionist - unless i am friends with a merchant i have to be naked about 80-90% of the time (worse trading rates yet again, and other dangers)

Devious Device Helpers - likes to truss me up like a turkey in town, which leaves me running around naked and bound, with all that can happen that way

Devious Followers - paying that follower (or 2 on those rare occasions) does take quite a bit of what i earn along the way (and they can miscount the amount paid).

Mini Needs - trying to wait for a shop to open can be painful now

then i have one to "help me" - DDMDQ (Devious Device More Devious Quests) the only part of it i have turned on is the Devious Worker part which does

  let me earn some "money" from merchants when i am bound and cannot afford what i want to buy (course it gives other mods more chances to trigger

  their "fun times" ).  of course the "money" i earn this way is not in the form of cash, but in the form of goods i do not have to pay cash for.

 

[The First Lady of Hats]

12 hours ago, Lostdreamer said:

...see the comments I made about "Disturbing ancient dwemer ruins best left undisturbed."

 

It's entirely possible there are laws against looting such places as accidentally releasing robot spiders all over skyrim is probably frowned upon. Which, you know, is what has happened to everyone else in the world when they did it. Something to do with not being a mythical hero capable of blowing them to smithereens just by yelling at them.

 

It's also entirely possible that shopkeepers won't want to buy priceless ancient historical artifacts you should probably be turning in to the Jarl or his court wizard for study, rather than just selling on for a quick buck.

 

...I'm not saying you are wrong - but I am saying I don't think Contraband is as hard to rationalise from an in game immersion point of view as many people seem to think.

 

Back in the TESIII:Morrowind, trade in glass, ebony and as far as remember Dwemer artifacts were all illegal. May have been daedric items as well, I forget, 's been a while. Were all considered contraband though, only folk actually able to deal in them legally and legitimately was the East Empire Trading Company. So yeaaaa, Contraband mod ain't too hard to justify and rationalise at all :]

[SmedleyDButler]

I prefer Scarcity over Cursed Loot or Contraband, because the way I figure it, why are these tombs and bandits so full of loot anyway? Bandit should be poor and ravenous if they're out fighting and the Dwemer ruins may be dangerous, but they've been there for thousands of years. Tomb robbers and archaeologists must have gotten in there at least sometimes. And having them be full of Septims is just silly.

[The First Lady of Hats]

"And having them be full of Septims is just silly."

 

That too, being using Skyrim coin replacer redux to actually fill places with fitting coins, Nordic ruins get Harald, dwemer coins in dwemer ruins and the like. Sadly it does bugger all to stop books from the third era and imperial legionaire gear appearing in pre-mereithic places, but it's a start.

 

Been using Trade Routes along with Trade and barter, can make buying certain items in certain holds a far far more costly process.

Also started using Honed Metal this run, and actually having to pay a blacksmith/enchanter to create my weapons and armors for me as well as enhance/hone them. Makes slightly more sense to me since me bard ain't a smith and having to see a blacksmith to actually get fitted/tailored for armor seems it'd fit and protect better than pulling it off a random corpse.

[SmedleyDButler]

Yep, the coin replacer is great for that.

 

Honed Metal is fantastic both for being a gold sink and restriction on just using whatever armour you come across.

 

The two things I wish I could add to it is an equivalent service for alchemists and a tailor version for non-armour outfits using the existing tailors' shops.

 

It would also be cool if you could give ingredients to an innkeeper to cook too, as historically this is something which actually happened. For example a barber-surgeon or primitive veterinarian might be paid in preserved or freshly-hunted food, which they could have cooked by their innkeeper as part of their room fee for the night. This would be a really nice compliment to those hunter live-off-the-land playstyles (well, except for the hardcore woodsmen who stay away from towns entirely).

[Lostdreamer]

3 hours ago, SmedleyDButler said:

I prefer Scarcity over Cursed Loot or Contraband, because the way I figure it, why are these tombs and bandits so full of loot anyway? Bandit should be poor and ravenous if they're out fighting and the Dwemer ruins may be dangerous, but they've been there for thousands of years. Tomb robbers and archaeologists must have gotten in there at least sometimes. And having them be full of Septims is just silly.

This is one of the things I like about skyrim modding. Different mentalities lead to different playstyles, and there is so much out there that almost anything is possible.

 

I generally assume the opposite. No, nobody else actually has successfully looted the various cyrpts and ruins. Oh, some people have tried, sure. But they have almost all come to a bad end trying (sometimes you even see evidence of this.). Nobody else is a chosen hero of the gods able to wipe out entire armies of bandits on their own so these places really have been undisturbed for ever and ever. NPCs dream of exploring these and unearthing the treasures within, so i'm a little disappointed when there ain't any!

 

Quote

"And having them be full of Septims is just silly."

It's a little weird they didn't just call gold coins "gold coins", especially as they are even listed as such in the inventory. I never got much mileage from stuff like the realistic coin replacer as it conflicts with anything that gives weight to gold - the weight isn't added to the new coin varieties. I like the fact that I can't just carry around enough cash to buy a house in my pockets easily.

 

Might be cool to have something that removes gold coins from tombs/crypts and increases the possibilities of jewelery drops slightly to make up for it. That said, I can't say i've ever been too bothered by finding gold in tombs. It's easy to add an abstraction layer to it and assume some of the items you find are as near cash as matters for a fantasy/medieval economy.

 

...oooh, now that could be an interesting change but might be a pain to code. Something that just removes gold from the game and means you have to barter for everything - inn stays, carriage rides, etc:

"Can I stay in your Inn?"

"Sure, what will you give me for a night?"

"Well...I don't exactly carry around sacks of potatoes. Infact...the least valuable thing I'm carrying is an ancient emerald necklace..."

"I'll take that then."

"Err, can't I just pay in gold coins?"

"We don't take no strange coins in here luv. It's good old fashioned trade goods, or you can sleep in the street."

 

 

Quote

Mini Needs

I have never been that drawn to basic needs type mods. They always felt like they had a bit too micromanagey to me, and I get more than enough of that from DCL. I want to be killing dragons and exploring the pretty wilderness - not messing around in my inventory.

This one could be interesting tho - I shall have a look. Thanks.

 

Quote

Devious Device Helpers - likes to truss me up like a turkey in town, which leaves me running around naked and bound, with all that can happen that way

...another one to note for 'more investigation'. I've actually got it in my game, but it doesn't seem to do very much. Seems I need to work out why!

 

 

Quote

Loot & Degradation Vs Honed Metal Vs Equipment Durability System

I tried Honed Metal, and settled on L&D instead for reasons I partially forget. I think it just seemed to work better for me. I'd be interested to know which of these mods is most efficient in terms of script load as I have a very script heavy game so anything I can back off a bit is a win.

 

One of the other things I like about L&D is how base damage isn't the only relevant stat in a weapon. Material type matters as more exotic stuff wears down more slowly, but more importantly - cost matters. Expensive weapons are expensive to upkeep. But that near worthless draugr axe? Surprisingly easy to put a decent edge on that.

[Slorm]

I use Trade & Barter (purchase +50%, Selling -50%) and for a constant gold sink Taxes of the Nine Holds. You do still accumulate gold but at a much slower rate

[The First Lady of Hats]

 

18 minutes ago, Slorm said:

I use Trade & Barter (purchase +50%, Selling -50%) and for a constant gold sink Taxes of the Nine Holds. You do still accumulate gold but at a much slower rate

Yer know, I was gonna ask if there was a taxes mod. Want my bardic rogue to be in a constant state of perpetual poverty, get lucky and strike it rich only to loose it all again, keep 'em hungry for more heists. But gold is far too bloody easy to come by in Skyrim, once you've knocked over Mistviel keep, there's pretty much no reason to ever steal an item again :3

 

Gonna have to look Taxes of the Nine Holds up. And if it's taxes get more severe the more properties you own, all the better.

[Grey Cloud]

Interesting thread with some interesting mods, comments and suggestions.

 

The main thing I spend money on is training. I use Training No Limits which allows unlimited training per level but at the usual cost. Mid- to late-game, 3 and 4k a pop can put a hole in your pocket. My other outgoing is crafting materials. These can hurt early game but gradually become penny ha'penny. Generally speaking, by late game I have more money than I can spend and accumulate it just for the sake of it (old adventuring habits die hard).

 

Apart from the odd accident I don't break the law so I rarely need to pay a fine.

 

As for 'immersion', I find that one man's immersion is another man's unnecessary detail. The same with realism. In Skyrim you can get the bus to, say, Morphal but you can't get a bus out. Buses never, ever get attacked by anything yet if you travel on foot or by hoss you get attacked constantly by everything from mudcrabs to dragons. So wtf if I craft my own weapons and armour.

 

I cut my teeth on AD&D so I like to use a 'give and take' play-style, i.e. for each benefit there is an offset. I play with PSQ Succubus so I require regular sex. I use TFPP to generate money via sex. I use Timing is Everything and a couple of other mods to turn off all the vanilla stuff which costs me a lot of XP/loot/money etc. I use Achieve That and ESO Skyshards to give me a bump up. I generally play solo with extra NPC mods like OBIS and War Zones (plus Revenge of the Enemies) so I try to find a balance between my PC being under- and over-powered.

 

 

 

[valcon767]

3 hours ago, The First Lady of Hats said:

 

Yer know, I was gonna ask if there was a taxes mod. Want my bardic rogue to be in a constant state of perpetual poverty, get lucky and strike it rich only to loose it all again, keep 'em hungry for more heists. But gold is far too bloody easy to come by in Skyrim, once you've knocked over Mistviel keep, there's pretty much no reason to ever steal an item again :3

 

Gonna have to look Taxes of the Nine Holds up. And if it's taxes get more severe the more properties you own, all the better.

you may also want to check Simple Taxes

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/57239/

4 hours ago, Lostdreamer said:

 

I have never been that drawn to basic needs type mods. They always felt like they had a bit too micromanagey to me, and I get more than enough of that from DCL. I want to be killing dragons and exploring the pretty wilderness - not messing around in my inventory.

This one could be interesting tho - I shall have a look. Thanks.

 

while i have always loved the idea of needs mods i never found one i liked before this one.  all the others ran into one of two (or both together) problems, they

needed to be micromanaged or they were heavy in usage.  i find Mini Needs to be very easy to manage your needs with, and extremely light in usage.

it has a basic mode and an advanced mode. in advanced mode you can fine tune a lot more of the mod (including what penalty applies to what need and when).

 

for someone trying it for the very first time i will put some personal suggestions in a spoiler 

 

 

the mod (at this time) does NOT tell apart fresh (river) water versus salt (ocean) water. it treats all water the same.

the mod should not start with all needs having to be taken care of right offhand but it can, so a little planning ahead can be a useful thing to do.

the mod does have a "unknown food" section for anything it does not already recognize (so it is compatible with any mod added food or drink)

the best place i found to start the mod is a small (ish) interior cell, with a shrine or cooking pot (spit), or both.  any Hearthfires house (Heljarchen hall is the worst of them) will work if it has the main hall built and a shrine in the basement just makes it even better.

the basic needs i see it needing work on right away (may not be taking penalties yet but soon) tend to be eat/drink/sleep/pray/bath.

so by taking 6-10 of a lightweight food (potatoes/carrots/apples) and drinks (alto wine/mead/ale/jug of milk) will let you take care of the eat and drink needs very fast, and by starting in a player house you will also be able to take care of sleep, this leaves the need to pray and take a bath.  if you have any shrine in the basement that will take care of pray (there is a Shrine of Talos very near Lakeview Manor). for need a bath - you will have to build a shower or bathtub OR just walk to a stream/lake and use the included ability to take a bath there.

take the time to make the initial setup for what you think will work for you.  make sure to take a look at advanced mode, yes it will take a little time to do so, but it allows you to adjust a lot of the mod - turn animations on or off - adjust widgets location, spacing, colors, turn them on or off - adjust penalties individually, when they apply and what the actual penalty is - turn individual needs on or off to match personal taste (do you want to have to take a dump in game?? etc)

actually taking care of needs during regular game play i find is very easy to do - i just add consumables to a favorites menu (makes finding and eating food/drinks etc very easy), if you use certain needs you may need to use some hotkeys, and the rest (sleep/bath/talk/pray) will be handled during regular gameplay (with minor adjustments for most).

needs it covers

food (eating) - i just favorite a common food

drink (hydration) - i just favorite water bottles (or other drinks)

sleep - use a bed or bedroll

pray - use a shrine

talk - talk to npcs in game

bath - build a shower or bathtub and use in game OR use built in mechanic (spell or power type chosen in MCM) at a stream or lake

drunk - (you are drunk...not addicted to alcohol) if you drink booze in game it increases (applies penalties) and goes away over time

pee - hotkey (i dont use - personal taste)

poop - hotkey (i dont use - personal taste)

weed - i do not have a weed mod installed should work similar to eat/drink

drink (addicted to alcohol) - should work the same as food/drink (just put it in a favorites menu)

 

overall you should need at most about 3 hotkeys (pee, poop, weed, cleanup pee/poop) and the rest are covered using base (vanilla) Skyrim mechanics.  you just have to actually use them for it to work is all (pray at a shrine to take care of Pray need).  to make eat/drink needs easy to take care of you can just add the stuff to be consumed to a favorites menu and that is easy to access/use.

 

i personally play using a x360 controller and take care of 2 (sometimes 3) needs thru a favorites menu (basically it is hit a button, select food, hit a button to eat it, hit back button when done) and the rest are covered by just playing the game.
 

 

 

p.s 

i did not cover the "other" need of mini needs due to the location of this thread.  it is handled by regular mechanics (of that specific need) anyway.

 

[Fakenet]

The most basic mod for this issue would be Gold adjustment.

I think that hasn't been mentioned yet. It simply sets all gold found and earned to a customizable factor.

 

[worik]

Not directly a gold sink,but indirectly a necessity:

I'm still thinking about the fact that not everybody is of the same physical shape. Nevertheless a huge orc fits into the same iron armor or helmet as a tiny breton sorceress.

My fantasy can cope with a bit of in-the-wilderness-tailoring for robes and simple clothes, but armor?

 

Is there a mod somewhere that makes clothes "unusable" or "unfittting"? It would push the player a bit more into the need to buy or craft the own clothing.

 

[thesteve812]

To go with the gold sinks.

 

[The First Lady of Hats]

Encrust it with rubies an' yer got a sale.

[Grey Cloud]

Definitely a step up from the wooden bucket but is it immersive?