Published January 5, 2017
Topics Morrowind, ordinator, high ordinator, glitch, seller gold


It all started when I figured out a way to level up indefinitely - put on a constant effect "drain [skill]" piece of equipment to lower a skill's level then train it until the trainer cannot train any more.  Remove the equipment then reequip it and repeat.  Then repeatedly rest.  Since, normally, you have to rest a long while to reset seller gold, as from the mud crab merchant, and you have to rest to level up in the first place, I figured I'd gather a bunch of daedric equipment (usually from Randas Ancestral Tomb west of Ald-ruhn) for gold and combine the obtaining of huge amounts of gold with that of leveling up.

Then I found an indoril helmet in a tomb almost due north of the mud crab merchant's location.  When I visited Vivec and spoke with one of the ordinators there, that got the ordinator to attack.  It was easy pickings but it meant, from that point onward, I have to always be ready to fight ordinators as they always like to attack.  I can't even go shopping without constant ordinators.  As long as they make the first attack, there's no penalty, due to the "right to defend yourself" rule.  Once the ordinator is defeated, loot them for tons of gold.

Interestingly, I got it so that the game would load the next area and, upon it doing so, forces the just-defeated ordinators to respawn and make for an easy, never-ending supply of ordinators.  I branch out from there showing how it's hard to get anywhere without ordinators always wanting to pick fights with you.  Then there's the main ordinators in the town itself.  These ones have ebony maces that sell for 12K gold each.

If the ordinators are easy, go to Mournhold and speak with those high ordinators.  They'll do the same thing and their equipment is vastly more powerful with tons of enchantment potential in them.  They're also a lot stronger as well.  Thanks to figuring out how to level up indefinitely, I gained over 10,000 HP.  From enchanting items that cause constant healing effects, healing, in my case, 18 HP every second (I could increase this still more yet, to a bit over 30.

Of course, with so much equipment, the weight eventually bogs you down to the point you get over-encumbered.  Cast recall and it's right back to the mud crab merchant I go to mass sell all that.  But... something isn't right.  How come, right after finishing the sale, the seller is back to having 10K gold again?  I encountered this bug during my burst from level 620 to 1019.  I don't know exactly how to reproduce it, but based on what I've observed when I began noticing it, how I was oddly able to successfully sell to the mud crab merchant after only 18 hours of resting (I intended on 24, but a monster of sorts interrupted the rest.).  Here's the steps to reproduce, based on some info I have, though I will make a major disclaimer:  I have not tested this so I don't know if this is right.  Once the bug takes effect and you save, it's taken effect for the remainder of the game.

1.  Have several pieces of equipment worth 10K gold ready for selling.
2.  Go to the mud crab merchant (or just cast recall if you already cast mark when near it).
3.  Save your game.  It may take a few tries so saving will help you undo unlucky setups or to better experiment.
4.  Sell one of the 10K gold items as is.  Attempting to barter again has the seller showing up with 0 gold left.
5.  Rest and choose 24 hours as the duration.  Normally, that's how long it takes for the gold to get reset.
6.  With some luck, the rest will get interrupted 18 hours later by some sort of monster.  Just defeat that monster.
7.  Without resting the other 6 hours, sell to the mud crab merchant a 10K gold item, even if the seller has no gold.

I think, at this point, after finishing step 7, you've set the trigger that caused it.  In my case, every time I'd rest without an interruption, I'd level up so I'd have the level up screen coming up.  But, when the rest gets interrupted, which always happens at the 18th hour, with some chance, I'd defeat the monster that spawns (if I get a hunger, I have to wait for it to run out of magicka before I can get it as I don't have a way to defeat it otherwise as it stays out of range).  Probably from being distracted and not paying attention, I sold to the mud crab merchant after only that 18 hours of rest, not even paying attention to how much gold it has, as I was in a long-running routine spanning several hours.  I'm guessing that the fact I was intending on resting 24 hours sets a flag in the game where the gold gets reset but doesn't show up that way.

Another possibility is that, after selling a 10K gold item (or a daedric dai-katana at 120K gold and buying back 110K gold's worth of stuff), I rested 24 hours but the rest got interrupted 18 hours in.  I defeated that monster and attempted to rest again but it got interrupted right at the end, 6 hours in.  I may have not thought of it, but I attempted to rest 6 more hours, thinking I had only rested 18 and needed another 6, I did that, got my level up, then attempted to sell 10K more to the mud crab merchant.  At some later point, I rested 24 hours again but got interrupted 18 hours in, I attempted to sell to the mud crab merchant after only that 18 and it went through normally.  After several dozen more levels, I noticed that the mud crab merchant still had 10K gold available after resting 18 hours (24 intended but interrupted), and it was my first clue to the bug having been triggered.

I didn't think much about it until I noticed that the 600 gold limit of Ra' Varr (sp.?), the trader in Balmora very near the mages guild was reset instantly after selling a bunch of ingredients (like netch leathers I got from defeated monsters), not quite fully using up the gold and realized it was reset when I only had like 14 left and was intending on emptying that on something else I forgot I had.  I was, thus, able to get rid of everything I wanted to get rid of, such as the hard-to-sell daedra's heart (from having so much value).  I only noticed it happening with other sellers after a bit more time, such as repeatedly speaking to some in order to get large supplies of armorer hammers or the like.  It affects every single merchant in the game.  Saving your game, turning the system off, and reloading it doesn't reset it.  It's permanent, and it's vastly more useful.