A witcher's life is far from luxurious, always on the road fighting hellish monsters, and perhaps the occasional tankard of mead if they're lucky and have the coin. Frugal lives to be sure, but the highly adaptable mutants have picked up a few tricks in their travels on how to scrape by.

Compiled below is a list of adventure tips to establish sound habits for keeping a fat coin purse throughout Geralt's travels and learning how to make money in The Witcher 3.

Updated by Kim Dailey on March 8, 2022: The Witcher 3's popularity isn't fading anytime soon, so we continue to revisit each bit of content to expand upon our wealth of knowledge on the game in order to enrich gameplay for newcomers and returning witchers alike. After adding an entirely new section to help you avoid overspending and identifying frivolous purchases, this time we are just popping in for a quick clean-up to better display the information and clarify a few points.

Essential Starting Tips For Finding Lootable Items

Witcher Senses Are Key For Treasure Hunting

Witchers will want to use their witcher senses to scope out their surroundings habitually. The many sights, sounds, and smells detected by witcher senses are depicted by red and yellow color coding for quick differentiation.

Red Tracks, scent trails, sounds, quest/tracking clues, and enemies.
Yellow Crates, parcels, and other lootables, along with interactable objects.

Enemies often yield valuable bounty, while countless lootables are stored in crates and other parcels around every turn along the path, at camps, and in abundance throughout cities-- just be careful of the guards.

Looting the streets of bustling cities like Oxenfurt and Novigrad during the night can prove highly lucrative and greatly reduces the risk of being spotted by the guards.

Some takeaways may be utilized to sustain Geralt throughout his travels, such as food, alchemy ingredients, and crafting materials. However, many items are best sold to vendors. Scanning an area with Geralt's keen witcher senses before moving on from any area ensures no rare or essential items get overlooked either.

Don't Get Swindled By The Dwarven Blacksmith in White Orchard

Geralt's adventures in The Witcher 3 begin in White Orchard, where you can easily fill up Geralt's inventory pouches if you want to get advantageous straight away with some early-game trading, which we'd highly encourage.

But we also implore you to be prudent about who you barter with. There's a dwarven Blacksmith in this region, and common to dwarven lore, many of the dwarves inhabiting the Continent are infamous for their greed. This one will swindle any overburdened witcher just getting their footing, so avoid making deals with him. It's better to stockpile valuable materials and wait to sell until Geralt reaches Velen.

Don't Forget, Witchers Have A Job To Do

Witchers earn their living by taking on Monster Hunts, or contracts as they are often referred to. While Witcher Contracts can't solely sustain a witcher's lifestyle, they are a key source of their income along with mini-quests.

Both types of quests earn experience and a small payout while providing plenty of looting opportunities along the way. These quests also tend to be quick and straightforward.

Selling Vs. Dismantling

When sorting through Geralt's inventory, it's best to sell weapons and armor rather than dismantling them generally, as they fetch higher prices with Blacksmiths and Armorers.

Junk can be dismantled at cheaper rates and provide crafting resources or more valuable components in the process.

That leads us to another tip: Always know what you are selling. Take seashells, for instance. You could sell them as is to clear inventory and make a few extra coins. But that vendor is getting a better deal than either of you bargained for when they find the valuable pearl inside.

To avoid giving away money, be sure to break down seashells so that Geralt can reap the coin from the much more profitable pearl inside.

Don't Become A Traveling Bookkeeper

Geralt picks up many books throughout adventuring, and if he takes the time to read them, he is excellent at committing the information to memory, which alleviates the need to truck around an entire library. He may simply access the book log through the menu. This permanent recording means that books have no further use once read and may be sold for some extra coin. And we know just the place to offload Geralt's literature collection, which we will discuss later on.

Lucrative Looting Sites In The Witcher 3

geralt at a crossroads in the white orchard

In the early game, some looting opportunities are well worth the time.

White Orchard Bovine Hack

CD Projekt Red gave players a fighting chance to line their pockets straight out of the gates by stocking the starter region of White Orchard with valuable loot and drops. There is even a well-known hack involving the cows grazing between the Woesong Bridge and the edge of town.

Firstly, the two cows residing on the outskirts of town drop Raw Meat and Cow's Milk, which the right vendors will buy at a fair price. You can exploit these drops by stepping away to meditate for a few hours. When Geralt returns, the bovine will have respawned fresh for the kill and re-laden with meat and milk once more.

Take heed you don't get too greedy as the developers caught onto this exploit and have sense put an overpowered Chort in place to ward off over poaching.

Geralt may kill a total of five cows before triggering the developer's pit fall. If Geralt kills the sixth, causing the cows to respawn for the third time, the Chort will charge in and begin terrorizing the small village.

White Orchard Guard Post

The guard post stationed across the Woesong Bridge is stocked well with valuable crafting components and other miscellaneous items.

The Devil's Pit

When Geralt leaves Vizima after his audience with the Emporer, he will be dropped by the Hanged Man's Tree, and there's a particularly lucrative looting sight located nearby in this low-level territory.

The Devil's Pit is a bandit camp outside the town of Mulbrydale. While it may seem a daunting undertaking early in the game, it is entirely manageable if approached methodically with wise usage of alchemy and signs.

After successfully raiding the base, Geralt will earn enough plunder between the camp's wealth of supplies and the dozens of slain bandits to fill his bags two times over.

Bee Farm Outside Novigrad

There is also a bee farm outside Novigrad with Honeycomb free for the taking. Honeycomb is a food item that replenishes vitality. However, Herbalists pay top dollar for the sweet nectar due to its alchemy properties.

Cities

As mentioned earlier, cities also provide lucrative looting grounds. Just be sure to rummage around at night when there are fewer guards.

Smuggler Caches

Smuggler caches are golden looting opportunities and an excellent way to upgrade armor for free early on.

  • The waters around Novigrad harbor several of these sunken treasure troves. Several Smuggler caches are scattered along the seabed of the canal and around Novigrad's docks to kickstart the mid-game.
  • The Skellige isles have claimed far more of these treasure troves, and with greater reward comes greater risks and deadlier waters.

Not All Vendors Are Made Equally

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Vendors offer better prices for items correlating to their specialties. Meaning Armorer's pay more for armor, Blacksmiths provide better deals on swords, Bookkeepers value books, and so forth.

Armorers Vs. Blacksmiths

Most pieces of equipment you loot from enemies or old chests won't be of any defensive value, so it's best to relieve Geralt of this cumbersome plunder with a reputable Armorer or Blacksmith. Which vendor he stops off at first, will depend on what type of equipment Geralt has accumulated along his travels, though he'll likely find it most advantageous to do particular dealings with both vendors in order to maximize his profits.

Armorers

Naturally, armor is most valuable to armorers. Though blacksmiths can still make use of the raw materials, Armorers will pay a marginally better price.

You'll want to sell most pieces of armor unless Geralt's short on particular crafting components, in which case he can dismantle some for less than it would cost to buy the individual components. Armorers will also pay good money for Roach's old tack.

Blacksmiths

Blacksmiths more readily trade in weapons, though they only truly value metalwork. If Geralt has had a lot of run-ins with bandits lately, he'll likely have looted more clubs and axes than blades. Any weapon made of more wood than metal will fetch a greater price among Armorers instead. Or they may better service Geralt by dismantling them into scraps to be reused in crafting better gear, rather than buying something from the shop.

Herbalists

As mentioned earlier, Herbalists buy Honeycomb at higher rates than other vendors due to the Honeycomb's double use for alchemy. Likewise, any ingredient with alchemical properties will fetch a fair price with Herbalists. However, as an alchemist himself, Geralt should think twice before peddling away his ingredients, as some are rarer than others, and all can prove invaluable in concocting witcher decoctions.

Innkeepers

Inns are great for unloading excess food and hides. Because hides also provide crafting materials, it's tactical to sell about half and dismantle the rest. Inns are also a wise place to offload silverware, bobbles, jewelry, and other fine trinkets.

To ensure Geralt's not getting swindled, c ompare the Innkeeper's rates with items like Erveluce, which earn about ten crowns per bottle at a decent rate. The Innkeeper, just off of the Hierarch Square in Novigrad, offers fair prices, as we'll discuss further in just a minute. The vendors in Skellige strike even better deals; if Geralt's so inclined, an early voyage can prove exceptionally advantageous.

Novigrad's Hierarch Square

The-Witcher-3-Novigrad-Map-Hierarch-Square-Blacksmith

One of Novigrad's center hubs is Hierarch Square, and there are many profitable stops to be found while visiting.

Vivaldi Bank

The first person you should be visiting is the banker, Vimme Vivaldi, on the corner of Hierarch Square to get a loan and exchange Orens and Florens for more crowns.

Armorer

Just down from Vivaldi's bank is the Armorer, who, along with the Armorer in Oxenfurt, offers the best prices for outdated armor.

Blacksmith

Likewise, the Blacksmiths just South of Hierarch Square and in Oxenfurt offer the best prices on swords.

Bookkeeper

Following the covered walkway around the corner, there's a bookshop at the end of the line of shops. The Bookkeeper, Marcus, sells and buys books along with bestowing a mini-quest upon you. The quest entails looting books from the shop, which can be sold back to the unwitting shop keep.

Alchemy Merchant

There's a Merchant towards the center of the square specializing in the various Cordials, Oils, and Spirits. This is an excellent place to sell unneeded items such as Alchemy Powder and Paste.

Roughly seven Alchemy Powders are needed throughout the game. The rest are good for coin.

Alchemy Paste is a material used to craft Master Repair Kits. However, Journeyman kits suit early adventures sufficiently, and the paste holds a decent financial value.

Conservative Spending

Witcher Tossing A Full Bag Of Coins To Buy Himself Some Food

Don't overstock on everyday wares. A common mistake witchers make is to over-prepare. While it's true that a witcher must always be prepared for any situation; they also have acute witcher senses that help them gather most of what they might require as they travel, without the need to deal with merchants.

Here's a list of some basic supplies Geralt likely won't need to buy except for on rare occasions if he is resourceful enough.

Common Crafting or Junk Items Items like Torches or Empty Bottles are helpful to have on hand as tools or for crafting purposes, but Geralt will naturally come across more than enough of these in his adventures. If you're worried about not being able to see in caves or other dark spaces and don't want to use the Cat potion, just be sure always to keep one or two torches on hand rather than selling or dismantling every one at an Armorer.
Herbs & Alchemy Ingredients After crafting an alchemy formula once, Geralt can replenish his stock as long as he has some alcohol, at least on the lower difficulty levels. This means he'll only need a handful of each new herb he comes across and won't need to restock his alchemy set manually.
Hard Alcohol Speaking of alcohol, running out of hard alcohol is a trivial matter to Geralt, as he picks it up regularly. It is rare to run out of distilled spirits as long as Geralt forms a sound and consistent looting habit. He should only have to resort to buying alcohol in a pinch.
Food Again, depending on what difficulty level you're playing on, Geralt won't have to worry about food much either. Eating food to replenish vitality during battle doesn't work quite as well as other RPGs. Furthermore, Geralt can replenish his health after challenging encounters by meditating for at least 1hr on the lower difficulties. Food is consumed quite minimally for those playthroughs and is often sold to innkeepers for extra coins anyway. Geralt will again gather more than enough food to sate him throughout his travels and need only keep a small stack of the more nutritious items on hand to ensure he can weather any storm.

The life of a witcher may not be exceptionally profitable, but knowing the tricks of the trade will keep the coin purse fat. The key secret lies in finding lucrative treasure troves and dealing with the most advantageous merchants.

Next: The Witcher 3 Complete Guide And Walkthrough