Edit: The Rpahael example stands in very strong contrast to say the Gith'yanki patrol. In the case of Gith'yanki you can take charge of the conversation and reach a peaceful solution (while being a badass). It's three hard rolls to do it, but it leads to a different situation and a different solution to the encounter. As previously stated, I get that we can't have that everywhere, and that the main story encounters are more important in that sense, but I'm missing the details and the nuance in the side-quest encounters quite often. The devil's in the details, and the details will end up making a game like this from an RPG-perspective (in my point of view).
are there alot of options with the gith patrol tho? - i may have not been able to see all the options on my playthrough and it is ea, but regardless of interrupting Laz, passing all the skill rolls, changing choices in dialogue, attacking and knocking out, or showing the gith artifact, that encounter always resulted in the gith flying off on his dragon (likely scripted) and me either having to fight the gith that remain or they run off on their search/patrol - and we never get any insight as to where the gith nest is, what this artifact is or why the gith are after them, or via Laz how the knight 'betrayed' their gith protocols. I understand that the gith arent necessarily supposed to be the most friendly of races (despite my pc in that playthrough also being gith) but i feel like this encounter is more similar to the deal with the devil and druid v child encounters that others have commented on than ppl realize where you really dont have many varied outcomes to the scenarios the player is presented with and in the case with the druid v child, one bad roll/specific dialogue choice leads directly to the snake attacking with no opportunity to react or intercede.
the more i play the more i also agree with what warbaby2 said in another thread regarding random encounters.
That's because, right now, Larian's idea of a D&D RPG is guided storytelling between setpiece battles... so, not really a RPG in the classical sense at all.
I see more (possible) choice the more I play, instead of less. What's lackluster about Raphael is that the outcome is set in stone when the dialogue tells the player that you can have many different approaches. With the Gith'yaki you're never really presented with an alternative, or hint, that will cause the dragon rider to remain, and thus I think it's fine. Sure, the skill checks are super tough for the Gith'yanki and the Kagha+child encounter but there is no pretense about it being any other way.
On a larger scale I'm still clueless as ot whether you will be able to explain the full game or if certain paths lock off other possible options. E.g. going through the Underdark (EA ending) will not let you experience Mountain Pass in the same playthrough. I think those design choices will have the most impact on the game, for better or worse, just like locking the party after act 1 will (as a limitation for the player).
I think it will boil down to whether the player feel like these smaller and larger decisions boil down to something worthwhile, where it feels like you have chosen your path and the outcome of the story, and as of this point I have a really hard time making my mind up about it, due the limited scope of the EA.
