It seems the bug tracker has a small glitch. I pressed the "Post New Feature" button here, but it was added as a bug.

Yep, seems like a bug in the issue tracker. I don't know if there is anything we can do about it though. :(

Going here and pressing Post New Issue -> Feature works fine, so I'd recommend that as a workaround.

He does have you by the proverbial balls. But I'm for anything that would help make the Haggling skill barely relevant.

On the ratling dealer, I agree that there should be a special message if you try to haggle with him. Something like (not wording it the way a ratling would) "I busted my arse getting down here, I'm not giving you a discount!"

On the haggling skill more in general, what if it were usable on any friendly (non-companion) NPC capable of talking? What would it do? 50% chance either way for the NPC to either offer you an item for some price, or look at what you have and offer you some money for something. Would only be possible once per NPC. Higher haggling skills would improve prices in both directions, and would have better chance of more specific information if they're offering you an item (low haggling skill = "Would you like to buy my sword? Just 100 gp."; high haggling skill = "Would you like to buy my mithril long sword of hunting? Just 100 gp.") I'd expect that certain types of NPC would be restricted in terms of what they can offer - for instance, a Child probably wouldn't offer many things, mostly candy, apples, worthless pieces of glass, fluff balls, wooden sticks, and the occasional whistle or flute - but in a rare situation, a child might offer something significant, like an amulet, or a more valuable gem, or a ring.

There could also be a small chance that the NPC will offer a trade of items - "Nice Clean Robes you've got there. Care to trade them for this amulet?"

If the quality of the item being offered were mostly dependent on the experience level of the NPC, it would prevent this from being easily abused, and instead just make haggling possibly a useful skill for PCs seeking to remain lawful (being, in some ways, the opposite of pickpocketing in this regard).

There could even be a few special NPCs that always offer certain things when haggled with. For instance, perhaps haggling with Ruun (when of the right alignment) will give you the chance to get... I don't know, a few holy waters? A ring of luck? Haggling with the mad minstrel could get you an offer of a random instrument. Haggling with Yggaz might result in him offering an item in exchange for a potion of booze, if you have one.

Aielyn: something like that would really give the skill value. You totally should post it as a separate suggestion :)

I never use Haggling, can't even recall the last time I used a skill increase on it. My experience is that it doesn't work when you need the most (early game) and is useless afterwards, when gold is less of a problem.

Haggling could be made useful simply by nerfing the price increases on failure and by fixing the Casino (issue #731).

Currently the Casino makes everything that has to do with gold totally irrelevant in the late game. With the ingot crash bug gone, this is now my biggest gripe with ADOM!

The casino problem should be improved with p7. And if not we are going to improve it even more ;-)

Haggling now works on the ratling dealer.

Haha, this made my day!

Now I have to train Haggling too, to enter the Rift?

Maybe I'll just take 4 sets rather, all guaranteed.

That's what you're expected to do! The point of the ratling dealer has always been that you don't want to get stuck having to buy his climbing set. Now, if you do, and you're 3000 gold pieces short, you get one extra thing you can try, which is also something logical a player might try. It's a fun little detail of the sort that I love finding in this game, and I love the fact that kind of thing gets added to 1.2.0, too.

And apparently haggling works on the adom-admin too! Can I use woodcraft on the ratling dealer too?