1. I agree that the fail or pass model isn't so great. The extent to which you fail or succeed should change the outcome of certain situations. If I fail to persuade someone by 1, I think it's reasonable to expect they'd react different than if I critically failed by rolling a 1 -- they might even react far worse than before in the latter case.

2. I never really had an issue with feeling like I missed anything, even though I'm sure I did. As you might expect in real life, people aren't just waiting around for you to trigger a scripted dialogue with them. If you don't encounter them at the right time, you just might miss whatever it is they were up to, which I think is perfectly fine.

I also actually think Lae'zel telling you to be careful who you tell you have a tadpole in your head *after* Nettie tries to kill you makes sense. It makes sense before, as well, but after is just as fine. She just witnessed you nearly get killed -- a fate she doesn't want to share, mind you -- because you were too open about that information. That's a good reason for her to tell you. It's not like Nettie is the ONLY person you'll ever encounter that might react poorly to being told you're turning into a mindflayer in the unforeseen future.

3. Regarding having to fight someone you don't want to, remember you can always knock them unconscious instead of killing them. If you fail to pickpocket Nettie, or convince her, or escape via the stone door in the room, AND you don't want to kill her... just knock her unconscious to take her key. You'll have to fight her, yes, but you won't have to kill her. When you return, she won't still be hostile, as far as I know. You simply can't experience EVERYTHING in one playthrough. Sometimes missing something the first go around is just what you should expect.

4. Charisma DOESN'T control all the roleplaying skills. Roleplaying =/= socializing. That said, I do agree that various other ability scores could be utilized in certain skill checks, e.g. Strength to intimidate.

5. I don't find modifiers particularly boring. Rather, there are just too few of them. My ability score modifier + my proficiency is all I've ever seen. It'd be nice to have circumstantial bonuses depending on prior events.

6. Strongly disagree. A 5e game needs to have 5e rules. I much more enjoy the 5e combat system than DOS2's combat system, similar as they may be.

Last edited by Fisher; 11/10/20 03:53 PM.