Just to the north of the Stables by the Imperial city (Along the wall) is a guy named Shady Sam. He keeps calling me over asking if I want to see his wares, but when I talk to him there is no barter option... I have tried several times through-out the day with no luck. He just does not sell or buy stuff, so what is the point?

P.S. I tried this with my completed (Done practiclly every quest) character, and a new one, no difference.

P.P.S. It help if you use Detect life to find him.

He sells lockpics to anyone. You dont have to be in the Thieves Guild. He sez he is there day or night.

30 lockpics
skooma
Drain Health 20 pts for 30 secs (should kill anything used with sneak x3 or x6 bonus)
lots of other poisons

it helps to use detect life to locate him, and turn up your volumn so you can here him. Both good tips that have been posted elsewheres.

Won't sell them to me Oh well don't need them.

Was buying in the speech options? Thas how they do it in the thieves guild.

he is a vender, like all the others. Note the trade icon at the bottom to initiate trading.

Some of his apparel is zero weight. So I guess if you try to kill him for his hat and shirt he wont trade with you.

I did read there is zero bounty if you kill him.

have fun

If we have the skeleton key, his items can be useful. I guess.

Hey, cool. I haven't yet seen the guy yet. At last a way to get some skooma without having to steal it every time ^^

I've also seen this guy, but was not able to trade with him either.

Found Him. The problem I think you guys are having is that Barter Option is where the Persuasion square would be. You cant bribe him into liking you.

Though he is a great source for the Dark Clothing if you don't feel like going through Vilverin, or killing Vincente Valtieri.

I've had this problem too. I walked up to him and there was no barter option. But for me I just stepped away from him for a second, he seemed to take a step back and when I talked to him next I could buy stuff from him.

Odd little glitch I guess.

Theres a dark hat, gloves and shoes? I just have some shoes and wide bottom pants from Vilverin.

Hood, technically. But no....no Gloves. I loved the Black Gloves in Morrowind, they suited my Assassiny Character quite well.

I just have a black shirt. Are wide black pants the same thing?

There is a nice mod that add gloves, and one of them is black. They look very nice...

It is based off of Teagal's Robe Pack, which is also very nice mod.

I have trouble with a couple of the gloves, they dont work, but most of them are GREAT!!

Cadaver

I couldnt find him.

Maybe you need some infamy... so Sam knows you won't rat him out? I'm not sure he works for me... sells some nice poisons ;P and of course, handy lockpicks.

I found him recently. I just bought the lockpicks and killed him for the dark items. Even though I already had the weightless black robe. Oh well. Im not really a fan of potions, Il try experimenting with them some more.

He´s an interesting character. I just wish he had more special items, things you really cannot get anywhere else.

I agree. What good is a black marketeer if he doesn't even carry a selection of transcendent sigil stones?

Lothran and Buffy might not be very impressed, but Sam is fine for a low-level character, especially a 'shady' one. Like Kahreem. Shady Sam carries lockpicks, he carries poisons, he carries skooma. The lockpicks alone are such a convenience for Kahreem.

You're right, Renee. A vendor who sells lockpicks is much needed for many characters - especially, as you say, early on.

I tend to forget, since Buffy's never touched a lockpick.

She would probably think they were for her hair!

Lothran uses lockpicks from time to time to... pick his teeth But as he finds them everywhere he doesn´t need Sam or even Ongar.

Finding them everywhere can be a problem if your character has a habit of using "take all" on containers, and dumping the trash in another container later. Lockpicks get added to your collection, but because they're weightless, you tend to forget about them. (Which actually makes them one of the best value-for-weight items, but that's another topic).

One of the quests in my Bear Riders mod has the player try to break into the Legion offices in the IC Prison district, and when you fail (i.e run out of lockpicks), Claudia finds another way to get the key for you. When I first tested that part, my test character had 200+ lockpicks in inventory! It's a good thing you can take multiple copies of items away with the console in one command.

Most of my characters prefer to use Open spells, but I have tried "no magic" builds that didn't get that option. Those all went looking for Shady Sam a few times. And so did a few of the others, as there's always a point where the lock exceeds your Alteration level, and you have to resort to the mechanical, or give up.

Yeah, that's true, Ghastley, about the characters. Some of mine don't use magic (Kahreem) and some do (Lady Saga). Kahreem enjoys the challenge of using lockpicks, and I'm not sure what'll happen once he gains access to the Skeleton Key or whatever it's called (he's doing TG).

Saga on the other hand is learning Alteration specifically so she can pick locks. I think she's got the Easy spell learned, and is working on Average (3 tumbler) locks next.

It was such a long time ago since I had any trouble picking locks. But as I read comments here it all comes back to me.. It really was hard picking locks back in the day!

So yeah by all means, visit Uncle Sam

Buffy just let the hard ones go that her spells wouldn't open early on. She worked hard though and it was not that long before she crafted her 'Open Any Lock' spell. Actually however, the name is misleading. Some wonderfully witty wizard (not) decided that unlock magic could not be crafted into touch spells - only on target. Apparently that wizard must have been completely ignorant of how target spells are useless under water.

When she encounters a lock under water, she simply sits there calmly breathing (thanks again to alteration magic) while I employ what she calls 'Acadian magic' to open it for her. Oh well, 'tis one of the few ways I get to earn my keep.

I was actually pretty good at picking locks when I was playing OB more often; a 4 or 5 tumbler lock might cause a couple broken picks, but if I slowed down and concentrated I could always open it. It's all abou concentration and letting those fingers strike the button at the exact moment.

Nowadays with Kahreem I usually suck at lockpicking! Even an average lock can cause a wrath of broken picks!, like 4 or 5 broken picks on a 3-tumbler lock! *facepalm*

Jerric depends on the lockpicks that he finds. He can’t actually use them, so opening locked containers is one of our triumphs of imagination over game mechanics. He can bash some open (if I get it on the first pick), but many remain unopened (if I break a pick that means he can’t bash it open). He is presently learning spells for unlocking things. He is not very motivated and hates to “waste” the magicka, so it’s been slow going. If there was a spell called Containers Explode I’m sure he’d already have mastered it.

Regarding Shady, others of my characters rely upon him for lockpicks, skooma, and poisons. The occasional naughty character also uses him to unload select items without attracting the notice of the guards. I always thought he should be an independent fence.

Kayla is relatively useful with locks. The harder ones she gets frustrated and starts cursing at them and breaks more picks XD

Definitely. It´s strange though. Every time I enter this mini-game I automatically think about what happened in my life back in ´07 when I was a noob and had more trouble with it than today. I remember what was going on at work, what radio station I listened to, what hosts they had and what music they played.

Oh, I remember it so clearly...

Heh. Well back when I was new I had no idea we could set the tumblers of the lock individually. I used to use the "auto attempt" instead. I did this for quite awhile. Then one day after I joined beth's forums, somebody was describing how it's REALLY done.

*another facepalm*

I still like using the auto-attempt for inexperienced characters, though. When Kahreem was a Novice at Security, I would use the auto-attempt to simulate his clumsy fingers. And the funny thing is, these days I'm probably only slightly better than the auto-attempt, as I attempt to place each tumbler one by one (breaking pick after pick).

This website really needs a facepalm smiley.

I used to always do it manually but these days it´s stricktly auto-attempt. Mostly because I don´t care to do it with a single lockpick anymore and also because I want to Morrowind-ize up my Oblivion game by using Lothran´s stats a little bit more.


Yeah. Hey, Acadian. Get to it!

AAAAUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHH!

^excited

No way, are you serious???

...oh wait, it's from photobucket. Still, this is good. I can cut & paste the text above, save it somewhere ,and now I can have my lovely facepalm. Here at Chorrol!

No more XD, eh, Miss Hollow? Now we've got the real thing!

What´s the code for it, Acadian?

The best way is to open up a quote/reply to this post, then copy the code for it and save it for pasting when needed.

Hey!!...I just found this!!... ...That's the hood Tharryn's wearing!!...

I like Shady Sam...I wish there was more you could do with him...

I think the idea that there's always lockpicks available on-tap is an excellent thing that Bethesda did right...

Although, I've realised that maybe Ubisoft had a lot to do with the mass-appeal of the game, y'know?... ...Having made a couple of popular games themselves...

Yes I know it was before the first AC game...Leave me be!...