Oblivion talk:Shady Sam

Faction: Evil?

Does this mean that killing him will not count as a murder?

Honestly, there seems to be no point in killing him unless you intend to kill every unimportant NPC, as he sells poision, lockpicks, and other nifty stuffGrub 20:09, 7 May 2007 (EDT)

Actually, there is a faction specifically made just for Shady Sam, it's literally called "Evil -- no affiliation", and Sam is the only member. However, this does not mean he is actually evil. Just a little in-joke by the devs, which you'd never see without looking in the Construction Set. And yes, killing him will get the attention of the Dark Brotherhood just like anyone else. Other interesting facts about Shady Sam: He's one of the only NPCs in the game who has almost no dialog beyond a greeting. He's also immune to Persuasion. You can, however, invest in his "store". You won't get any lockpicks or poisons from him if you kill him, though, as they're all stored in an unopenable chest hidden underground, like most vendors. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 22:58, 7 May 2007 (EDT)

It doesn't count as murder if you kill him. --Aldage 13:47, 13 October 2007 (EDT)

Confirmed that killing Sam does not get the Dark Brotherhood's attention. Left Imperial Sewers, made straight for his location, killing nothing but a few Mudcrabs on the way, and killed Sam twice: one-hit stealth kill and noisy straight-up sword fight. Neither kill resulted in the 'observed by forces unknown' message nor a follow-up visit from Mr. Lachance. Shayoli 17 (talk) 11:24, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

No Barter?

Why dosen't have the trade option on xbox 360? — Unsigned comment by 83.67.39.175 (talk)

He has the barter option on Xbox 360; I play on Xbox 360 and I've bought hundreds of lockpicks from Shady Sam. So if you're having a problem it is not because you're playing on Xbox 360. And given that nobody else has ever reported this problem I couldn't even start to guess as to what the actual cause is. --Nephele^Talk 13:03, 13 February 2008 (EST)

I've had this problem on XBox 360. He does have a barter option, but unlike other NPC's you have to press right or left or something odd on the directional controller. At first I thought he didn't have a barter option, but then I discovered his menu navigation is just a bit odd. xoxo Coryl

Yes, on the 360 you can only reach his barter icon by pressing left on the directional pad. (Gadianzero 23:16, 5 January 2009 (EST))

There's been some discussion (in particular, here) about whether a note on this oddity is necessary. Yes, it's true of every merchant who has the "no persuasion" option selected. But there are only three such merchants in the entire game. In fact, there are only three NPCs who offer any type of services (merchants, training, repair, etc) who have the "no persuasion" option. And in each case people have posted that they have had problems trading with the NPCs: on M'raaj-Dar's talk page, on the Dark Brotherhood Murderer talk page, and here on Shady Sam's talk page.

So I'd say it's something that is causing enough problems to warrant an explanation. And it's something that's rare enough that a note on the NPC pages for the three affected NPCs is probably the most logical place to post the information. --Nephele^Talk 12:13, 11 January 2009 (EST)

I was able to buy from him once, then the next time I went to him I couldn't get to the barter icon! Not even by pressing the left button. I finally figured out that it was because I had cast Captivate on him the second time. So I waited for Captivate to wear off and the barter button was available again. Weird. --66.25.163.41 19:42, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

"Black Hood" (March 2008)

The article currently states "Shady Sam is also the proud owner of one of only three Black Hoods in Cyrodiil, a valuable item for enchanters." The link to Black Hood has no information at all about what possible benefits the "Black Hood" might have (it appears only as a clothing item on a list of hoods). Can anyone add any detail about WHY the 'Black Hoods' are "valuable items for enchanters?" Cheers, - Laisren; March 14, 2008

The Black Hoods are special because they're weightless, and therefore can be reverse-pickpocketed. Some players like to put various enchantments on them, then give them to NPCs. This can only be done if the item has a weight of 0, though, which is why these are noteworthy ;). –Eshe^talk23:19, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

The Black Hoods are special because not only are they wightless, but enchanters are mages, so they would want the best enchanted clothing, and for headgear, hoods are a good option, seeing as they can be weightless. The Mage's Hood is blue, and so clashes with other weightless clothing.- Neural Tempest 05:06, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Attacking

I've moved the following comment here from the article:

He is not hostile unless you draw your weapon. Having a weapon drawn in front of him instantly causes him to attack. There is no bounty for killing him even if he does not attack first, presumably because he is considered evil.

Every NPC in the game will attack you if his/her Disposition towards you is less than his/her Aggression. Drawing a weapon lowers the NPC's disposition, and therefore may be the action that triggers an attack. However, the exact details of whether or not it occurs depends upon all the factors listed on the Disposition article. Therefore, just because one player gets attacked when drawing a weapon, does not mean that all players will get attacked then. As a result, the information is not actually true in all situations and keeping it in the article is misleading. The more general information about attacking is true of every NPC and is explained on the Aggression article instead of being repeated on all of the hundreds of individual NPC pages. --Nephele^Talk 18:26, 17 May 2008 (EDT)

He Speaks!

He spoke to me! After his greeting he gave me the two dialogue topics of Gray Fox and Rumors. I'm on my X-Box 360 with the latest patch. While there is no persuasion, he acts like a normal Imperial City Citizen when asked about the Gray Fox, with the I hope they string him up when they catch him. line, and with Rumors, he told me about how wild it is in the east niben ( I don't know if this is a normal rumor). Does anyone have a reason this could be? I went to him immediately after finishing the tutorial.-Puddle ^{Talk•Contribs.} 20:57, 23 July 2008 (EDT)

He spoke to me too!!!he talked about the gray fox and under rumors he said something about will-o-the-wisp, i'm going to change the article 66.82.162.13 11:17, 4 October 208 (EDT)

In my current (basically "finished") game, he talks and has the Gray Fox topic and rumors. Starting a new game on the unpatched version, he doesn't have any option at all. I've reinstated the deleted text and added a VN - we need more information on what causes Sam to gain dialogue. Is it progress in the game? A Patch? What? –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 11:59, 4 October 2008 (EDT)

Must be a patch, he speaks right from the start in my patched game.

Can't be a patch. I'm on PS3 GotY edition and I have the same dialogue options. Sorry to be reigniting an old conversation, just thought it was a valid point to make. Also, I have the disposition option, which seems to be nonexistant in previous discussions. Does anybody else have this option or is this just my copy? or possibly just PS3 version(unlikely)? — Unsigned comment by Masterlocksmith (talk • contribs) on 24 November 2009

Infamy

Is Same affected by infamy in the same way as most other merchants? One of the problems with getting to high an infamy score is that disposition drops, making prices lower for selling non-stolen goods. Is Sam the same, or does he prefer you evil?

Can this guy buy stolen goods?

Just curious if this guy can buy your stolen stuff.--71.126.33.7 21:00, 30 May 2009 (EDT)

I am pretty sure he cannot. However, outside of the thieves guild, Manheim Maulhand can buy them. --Mr. Oblivion^(T-C) 21:06, 30 May 2009 (EDT)

Sadly and strangely enough Shady Sam is considered to be an "honest" merchant. -_- So he will not buy stolen items and his dispostion will be lowered by a high infamy. — Unsigned comment by 207.69.139.144 (talk) at 08:30 on 12 August 2010

Respawn Shady Sam?

I killed him and find I need him for a mod quest. How may I get him back?Al K Hall 20:08, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

You will have to use the console:

• prid 14
• moveto 000C45B8
• prid 000C45B8

Which will move you his position. If you can't find his body you have to enable it again:

• enable

After which you can resurrect him:

• resurrect

If nothing works, you can always place a new copy of him:

• player.placeatme 000C45B5

Though that can have some unexpected results. --Timenn-<talk> 11:42, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Moved from the article

* To get his disposition up, buy 1 item at a time, even if it's 30 lockpicks. This works well for low levels.

A merchant's disposition only goes up when 100 gold or more is involved, and as I don't believe a single lockpick costs more than 100 gold, this technique does not work. As the original author put it in the bugs section, it might be a bug with this NPC that makes the above technique possible, but that's unlikely. ^Talk Wolok gro-Barok _{Contributions} 10:10, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

PC Users

If you think Shady Sam isn't evil enough, and you are playing on PC, you can select him in the console and type in setav responsibility 0. He will buy stolen goods, like you more if you are infamous and change his Gray Fox dialogue if you wear the Gray Cowl of Nocturnal. This is unconfirmed, but it also may change his reaction to the Gray Fox option if you are not wearing the Cowl. Stirksailor 08:10, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

And Weapons - one, to be exact

Sam also sells one weapon: his own shortsword. Since it comes from the NPC leveled list rather than the Vendor leveled list, this means he'll have e.g. an Elven weapon for sale at level 9, when they don't appear in other shops until level 13.

If someone can confirm this on a non-UOP install in case he was one of those merchants with a non-resetting inventory and this is a side effect of fixing that bug, and update the article, that'd be great. --Aliana 01:30, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Like I said on my talk page - this is not true. Sam will not sell you his own weapon. Krusty 10:14, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for checking. So yeah, it's a UOP thing like I thought. --Aliana 04:56, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Long after the fact, but we were both wrong: he will sell you his weapon, but it's not because of UOP, it's from having 50+ Mercantile. So he is indeed a guaranteed source of an Elven weapon 4 levels earlier than normal. Aliana 11:29, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Incorrect information

Theres quite a few merchants that I've been able to buy skooma from, although they dont always have it, is that what it means? Shady Sam is guarenteed to have Skooma untill you buy it? Mikeyboy52 16:39, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Apart from Sam and Nordinor, who have you bought it from? I can't see anybody else in the CS who will sell it. rpeh •T•C•E• 17:10, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Stolen Hood

An anonymous poster recently changed the text of this page and Ri'Bassa's from "athough the hood does not actually count as a stolen item" to "which will be tagged as stolen until it is enchanted". I'm unable to reproduce this. When I "steal" the hood, it has no stolen marker on it, though anything else I steal does. – Robin Hood↝talk 01:48, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I've found that, (in the Shivering Isles DLC at least) if you fire an arrow in a building, such as the palace, or a shop, the arrow is registered as an NPC's property, even though when scrolled over it will have the symbol stating that you can take it without any charges, but it says 'Steal Arrow' this might be a similar bug, probably of no use to you, but I thought it interesting enough to share 66.220.212.157 13:48, 3 December 2012 (GMT)Danger Prone

Lockpicks

I just bought all 30 lockpicks off of Shady Sam and came back the next day to buy some more (I'm trying to get my security up), but he didn't have any. When does his stock replenish? — Unsigned comment by 174.124.138.165 (talk) at 14:20 on January 16, 2011

I think that all merchants that restock will do so in 3 days time, but I'm not positive. --DKong27 ^{Talk Cont} 19:28, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay thanks! — Unsigned comment by 174.124.138.165 (talk) on 20:17 January 16, 2011 (UTC)

well... maybe the restocking thing is buggy because for me 2 times he restocked in 24 hours. and after that 2 days than it went to 4 days. very weird. or maybe it was because i was checking him every 24 hours? [time forward]--217.121.86.187 15:54, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

No Barter, redux

A couple times now, his barter option has vanished, and this is on the PC not a console. This time, it's 12:20am. Waiting an hour makes it reappear. I'll try and pin it down a little. Aliana 11:36, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Odd. He was standing with his back right against the wall: about 10 seconds later he took a step forward, and the barter option reappeared. Aliana 11:38, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

The exact same thing happened to me on the xbox, waited for 4 hours, had a loading screen and his barter option returned. — Unsigned comment by 86.157.133.99 (talk) at 17:22 on January 22, 2011

The Case of Sam's Unique Dialogue

While looking over Rowley Eardwulf's dialogue, I noticed something interesting. He shares most of his dialogue with Shady Sam, except for his goodbye which he took from a member of the Dark Brotherhood. This means that his dialogue is technically no longer unique. This raises two problems. The first problem is, do we let Sam keep his unique dialogue? If we left him with only his unique goodbye line his dialogue would feel rather empty, and it'd probably be better to just remove all of his dialogue if we were to remove his non-unique dialogue. Personally, I don't believe we should remove his dialogue for this reason.

The second, more annoying problem is, do we bother writing Rowley Eardwulf dialogue due to it's somewhat unique nature (Only shared by one other NPC for most of it). When I wrote Ri'Zakar's dialogue, I made note of all of his dialogue despite some of it being shared with his lieutenant because I found it interesting enough to note. I however did not mention the lines that Ja'Fazir shared to avoid redundancy. While I'd of gone with this decision again, I thought it would be better to weigh in on the other editor's opinions on this subject. Do we allow redundant almost unique dialogue? Do we still list it, but only on one NPC page? Or do we not list it at all? --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 04:38, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

There's no real harm in listing it unless it's completely generic. Since Sam is a secret and Rowley is added by a plug-in, it seems noteworthy to include the dialogue on both pages, but Sam in particular considering his is unique in the vanilla game. —Legoless 15:48, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Possible FO3 easter egg?

My little brother was playing the Bethesda game Fallout 3 a few minutes ago, and during the radio special "Adventures of Herbert 'Daring' Dashwood," the ghoul Argyle refers to his trick of pickpocketing explosives onto unsuspecting victims the 'Shady Sam shuffle.' I am unsure whether this would warrant a mention anywhere, whether here or in another section. Eltee (talk) 23:24, 5 January 2014 (GMT)

Actually, nevermind. Turns out there is a town in the Fallout mythos that is called 'Shady Sands,' which seems a likelier candidate. Eltee (talk) 23:24, 5 January 2014 (GMT)

Not just more likely but also the name of the maneuver Shady Sands Shuffle. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 23:30, 5 January 2014 (GMT)