While playing D:OS, one of the many characters you may come across is Ernest. There are quite a few things that can be said about Ernest. That he is an old mage, or that he sells spell components in his house in Orisis are some of them. That he is a big crook, always trying to get a leg up on his customers is another. Whether it is by forgetting his hand on the scale, or "miscalculating" the change, or by mixing blackberry roots with the mandrake ones, you should always keep an eye out on him when buying in his shop. Depending on the attributes of your character, Ernest's trickery may go unnoticed no matter what... at least until you are out of his shop and decides to open your reagent bag.
Now, different from most people in Orisis, you actually a choice about this. Going to the neighboring town is enough a hassle most simply put up with Ernest's shenanigans. But controlling a band of adventurers means you are always on the move anyway. So it is completely feasible to just not do business with Ernest. However, you may also try to beat Ernest in his own game. As things are, Ernest is too smart to be fast talked when bargaining, but if his intelligence was reduced somehow, it would be easy to use his greed against him, and pay a pittance for a ton of reagents.
Then again, Ernest is a mage. If you were to cast a spell on him reducing his mental accuity, chances are he would figure out what is going on right away and refuse to do business until he felt better. And even if you managed to cast a powerful enough spell on him that he couldn't figure what is going on, he would probably figure it out later, and refuse to do business with you again. But if you decide to be attentive, you may find out another way. For example, if you were to visit Ernest a little past noon, you might see that he always eat his lunch in the local tavern. You might also notice that he always downs it with a cup of wine. But if you really had it out for Ernest, you might see that he can't hold his alcohol at all. Every saturday evening, he will get plastered in the tavern with just 1 cup of whiskey. Thus, if you were to mess with his drink... Maybe changing his cup while he is not looking, or maybe mixing something stronger in his wine... You would find him a lot more loose in his calculations later on in his shop.
One of the elements we are really looking forward implementing in Original Sin is the schedule system. Like in Ultima 7 before it, NPCs in OS have their own lives. They wake up in the morning, open their shops, eat their lunches, go to their churches and so on. This, of course, opens up a whole lot of possibilities to interact with them. If we manage to get $600,000, we will be able to do a good do over on these various possibilities, adding quests, tidbits, interesting quirks and such that would otherwise fall outside our budget, like the interactions with our friend Ernest above.
