Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback shared skill checks conversations

Probably has been suggested before (couldn't find it, but seems obvious ), but one of the things that annoys me most about the game at the moment are the skill checks in conversations.

Like, if I want to intimidate somebody, but I didn't know that that would be an option in the dialogue, so I started the dialogue with my weakling mage, I will fail that check. But my scary buff fighter guy is right next to me. Why can he not intimidate my opponent?

Imo, either skill checks should always be made by the character in the party (in a certain radius, not if they are in the camp and only my character is out in the world talking, of course) that has the highest bonus, or I should be freely able to switch the character who is currently talking and make the check with them.

Imo you should also see all options in the dialogue.
So if I talk with somebody, and both Laezel and Astarion have a unique dialogue choice because of their race etc, that should both be shown

I believe that this proposal has been made before and I think it is a good one. Even if there are still some things to be considered, first encounters or the start of the dialogue / a reaction are often dependent on the race. If I start a dialog as a [Human] and switch to [Drow] or [Tiefling] shortly after, I would find that strange if the overall context of the dialog flow is not coherent.

But if it's just the pure "skill checks" you mention, I totally agree with you. Beamdog did it quite well with the additional companions in the Enhanced Editions of the predecessors. (I don't know how it was with the vanilla version with the old companions). The MC could choose a dialog option where he called a companion by name and asked for his opinion. (Of course, Larian could then do the same for both companion opinion dialogs and skill checks accordingly). This should of course also apply to custom party members and would IMO increase the group cohesion considerably.

Yes this was mentioned multiple times already and it's not only skill checks that get effected, party comments are lost this way as wel and it can lead to strange combat start.

Dialogue cutsceens could do with better party implementation and that goes double for skill checks in those.

Not sure why they do it this way, maybe it's multiplayer? Unlikely that it would be inexpraince in dialogue cutsceens.

At start of EA it was even more strage (same as in DoS 2 if i remember right) where you could have the same conversation mutiple times and get multiple items, do checks multiple times so if you failed a check you could redo it for free 3 more itmes with different companions.
As far as i know this was fixed. This party checks/comments would be the next step in improvement.


Bioware and other devs don't have such problems as far as i know and it leads to better party atmosphere where you have the whole team participating. Even if it's just a tiny comment still worth it, especially if companions can save the day with a good check pass and outcome cutsceen that comes wiht it.

+1

I agree that companions should be able to participate to certain skill checks. In one way on another.
This would give the feeling of solving thing as a team instead of companions turning into empty vessels once a conversation starts 😅.

I've seen some players express that this is also frustrating in multiplayer. I can understand why.

With PnP, people can all participate together. I don't think it would be impossible to translate that in a video game. Like mentioned above, a dialogue option with the name of companions in a good example on how to do it. I would even take a small bonus to certain skill check. Just anything that indicates that my Tav is not alone in the convo when it comes to thing like this. With those options, there isn't even a need for a fully animated/voice-acted reaction from the companions either (if that's what stopping this from becoming a thing).

Examples where it felt really weird not to be able to ask for help :