Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Dialogue changes based on intellect?

Has anyone heard any announcements on dialogue changing based on a character's intellect? How would folk feel on this? In BG2 it granted extra options for characters with either a higher intellect / wisdom (e.g. dialogues when you in the underdark / Veldrin). Would an idiot savant be appealing?

Hahahahahhaahhaa, I just had a funny thought.


Wizard: >threaten dialogue ( Int 16 )
" If you don't accept my peaceful proposal, my painful spells will surely convince you! "

Barbarian: >threaten dialogue ( Int 7 )
" I hurts you until screaming!! "

...I'd like this. Except the wizard calmly and politely explains his opponent how the wizard is able to bring about *insert the opponent's worst fear, which the wizard easily deduced with his genius*.

Unfortunately, I think Larian is set on "don't change dialogue, introduce RNG-based checks which anyone can attempt".

As fun as an oldschool Fallout style stupid playthrough would be, I doubt we are ever going to see it again.

Like Fallout? I don't mind the idea, but I think that few people will go out of their way to do a low-intelligence run, so it's not something they should be spending a lot of resources on.

Or having the aforementioned Beserker speak from the school of Minsc

Yeah - gotta admit, it's unlikely to occur (resources wise), beyond perhaps class-specific dialogue options. The Beserker default position of threatening everyone...

It would be really nice. And it would have meant a higher customization, like the one they are offering for origins. So I think that it is a matter of choice andxwhat do they want to prioritize.

I mean, you can't have an Int lower than 8 in this game, and that's just 'a little below average', and not an indication that you can't speak properly (PSA: 8 Int is not "dumb"). Getting down to 7 or 6 and you might be struggling, sure, but not at 8 or 9.

NW1 did alternate dialogues if you were below a certain intelligence, and while it was amusing in one way, it was out of place atmospherically...

Uncle Lester has a point, in that Larian's prospect on this seems to be geared more towards putting in as many skill checks as they can laden dialogue with, which will, themselves, represent more insightful, intelligent or clever things to say.

The main problem is that this is a voiced game (fully in the case of NPCs), so they would have to record a whole bunch of alternate lines that only a small percentage of players would ever hear.

Having high scores in INT and WIS is already represented by passing skill checks and such. It allows you to roleplay as an insightful, well learned character who knows a lot about a lot of subjects. High WIS also makes you harder to deceive and allows you to notice when you're under an illusion or not.

I wouldn't especially like a idiot dialogue just because I don't tend to find "Haha this person is so stupid!" to be especially funny. And since 8 INT is still perfectly functional it wouldn't work as being something you get from your attributes. Failing most of your INT checks already ensures your character is ignorant of a lot of subjects and that is fine for flavor.

If there was a bunch of stupid dialogue options I'd rather it be a tag you can select at character creation to represent your character just being an absolute moron. After all, even a high INT character can be really, really bad at making sensible decisions. This way if you want to play an idiot wizard you can just like if you wanted to play an idiot barbarian.

Playing Arcanum with an idiot evil half orc was a great game experiance.

But I agree that 8 int is not an idiot and the game has so many skill checks that your stats and skills matter.
My main issue was that some players ( well, at least I did ) will always use the char with the highest cha to talk to others. Better prizes in shops and higher chances to convince them.
So I almost never controlled my own char outside of combat.
D:OS2 and BG3 do not have a main char, all party members are equal. On one side I can understand that NPC interact with all party members equally because they see only a group of adventurers.
On the other side it can make your own hand crafted hero feel les importent.
Well, I play this game as single player with a custom char and companions.
Some things seem strange to me because D:OS and BG3 are designed for single player and multi player at once, like no real pause button (well, now you can go turn based) and NPC repeat all their lines again when you talk to them with a different char. (dammit, I just want to sell my junk and you tell me your whole life again).

Thats why i still love the idea of the party as a whole doing the conversations. Like with skill, class and race etc. options we simply get the option to have another partymember answer ([Astarion][Rogue]: "....."). It would stop feeling like the others chars are just simply standing around ignoring what is said, even when they actually could contribute to the conversation.
For trader pricing either take the highest cha or use a middle of all cha/2 or something like that.

I think that while it is true that you can't have int lower than 8, that wis and int rangos should offer different options without having to roll all the time. After all, 14 or higher intelligence or wisdom is supposed to be high, yet it is just 10% better than 10 on a d20 roll.

In the same way that someone with strenght 14 can automatically carry more weight and jump more, an intelligent/wise character should be offered some insights/conversation options with no dice involved. Just to reflect the character.

And yes, it is more work. But it is also customization being acknowledged. After all, Gale treating you as an idiot and you not being able to answer back when you have the same intelligence and wisdom makes no sense. For example

"You look like a rashemy looking at a blackboard"

Intelligent character:

"Rashemy witches hold her ground against thay wizards. Do you understimate everyone like you understimate rashemi?"

Of course, then Gale doesn't get to shine as much or, if done well, you can enlace both characters by creating a friendly competition, sexual tensión or other dinamics instead of "Gale intelligent and custom character basic/less intelligent".

Sure, that would require coding, ifs and branching in conversation. But so do origin characters and some of them would even less played than intelligent characters.

In factor, some people would never play as origin characters.

+1

This is more or less my problem with the current system.

"Making checks" (kind of) makes sense for things that can realistically be attempted by anyone, like lifting a heavy rock (Str), pickpocketing (Dex) or understanding a difficult text (Int). If you're not good, you just fail. That's what most skill proficiencies are for.

However, this doesn't make sense with regards to dialogue options. A brilliant character should have the option to say something that makes use of that intelligence. Like in EMC_V's example. This can't be reflected with a check; if it would, it would be completely ridiculous; are you rolling to check whether you can come up with this specific dialogue line? The random element would be jarring here.

There should be extra options for characters with very high mental stats that would reflect that yes, they are actually very intelligent/wise/charismatic. I'm currently playing Torment and it's this game's bread and butter. You actually feel that TNO is intelligent, because you can choose a dialogue option that is clearly something only someone intelligent could come up with. Not just a marginally better chance at succeeding on a roll. Of course, BG isn't P:T, but there were stat-gated extra dialogue options in BG2 and it worked very well. Felt rewarding, immersive and that your character's ability scores actually reflect something.

Maybe we can provide examples of answers we would have liked to see in the game.

For example, when you met Lae'zel. She is a gith. An intelligent character who has arcana (knowledge of the planes) would know about ceremorphosis, illithids and gith. So knowing that giths are illithid's enemies can say.

"I propone a truce against the illithid, until we remove the tadpole" and be proactive.

Also, an intelligent character might ask

"How do I know I can trust you? You can be controlled by them". While other characters might get the option to say "don't come close to me, freak!" Because they don't recognize her race and she might be a demon (you are literally in hell).

Dialogs for custom characters can seriously benefit from less generic and bland options. Even adding "who the hell are you?" As an alternative to the more polite "who are you?" Or introducing yourself first help to flesh out an otherwise blank character.

And notice that since the 3 options are just ways to ask who is Lae'zrl, they can have the same answer, so you won't even need to branch dialog there.

I agree with uncle lester about dialog options helping with inmersion. Hell, if your character is really strong, it can also show up on the coments or banter. Same if you are charismatic, the Npcs could comment about you. I'm aware that it is a lot of work, but choices having meaning in the plot/conversation is rewarding for the story and the players. Also can help to improve npcs. A coward that show it by being intimidated by someone strong. Someone elitist that recognices a noble and only speaks with charismatic people. A nerd who reacts better to erudites and intelligent people...

I can think plenty of ways to reflect that in conversation options. And I hope that they incluye some of those things in editing.

This. I know their philosophy is "allow anyone attempt anything", but this falls flat more often than not. Extreme "inclusivity" makes everything bland.

Part of your "people react to certain qualities" I'd shift to backgrounds, like Noble and so on (as long as it makes sense). Backgrounds are another thing that could use more reactivity.

Some examples for ability scores:

An intelligent OR wise (5e wisdom being intuition, more or less) character could realize Astarion's identity before an explicit reveal (provided some "clues" are witnessed).

A charismatic character could diffuse intra-party conflicts.

Maybe as a way to entertain ourselves, we might choose some conversation and quest and suggest alternatives. Kind of brainstorming to offer writers ideas. Sometimes I get the impresion that they are working in the squeleton code of dialogues, but that they would edit the dialogues later. Somepeople do that in choice script. Regardless, I think it would be good to show how different players would approach the same conversation of allowed to say whatever they wanted.

And a good starting point to show different ways to play conversation and set the tone for later (meaning that I would create variables and start keeping track of the player style) are the introductory conversations when you met the companions. That would set the tone for the relationship in the same way that trying to save Shadowheart changes the first conversation with her.

By the way "extreme inclusivity" is not what I see in the conversations. On the contrary, you are only allowed to play a dull character. While you always have an option to be a doormat (smear your face with huargo's shit, kiss the goblin's feet, put up with companions insults and never ever saying something clever to them...), an option to threaten and maybe one "I'm kind in the middle", the choices usually are grey or dull. No chance to be pedantic and say things like "In fact I just witnessed a ceremorphosis and according to my research we should have already transformed so we might need to gather more data to know what is the best approach to remove the tadpole in a non letal way". Neither to be sarcastic and answer back "Thanks mister obvious". Or even actually flirt and say "If you weren't so cute I would consider you a real bore" or "Men who know their planar creatures are so hot". Plenty of answers, each so different personalities. By choosing them, you do roleplay your character.

But right now, you can't roleplay personalities. You can just decide to be agresive, doormat or "meh". And the "baldurian" label is completely boring, because it never amounts to any detail. I mean, if I can't say "I'm an elf from mythdranor" or "I travel the sword coast route to trade metal and exotic minerals" or "I love to see the ships that just came to baldurs and talk to the sailors from far lands". Or "to be fair, there's just a couple of taverns that doesn't allow the scum from the docks and have a decent clientelle". "It is understable, I only move in noble circles and only talked to highborn" or even (in answer to Astarion) "now that you mentioned, my brother comented that he had met a handsome elf with white hair just before he disappeared" --> drama ensured. XD

But saying "I'm from baldur" and just that is like say "I'm boring and really have nothing interesting to say but I feel I had to say something". Devil is in the details.

I'm afraid I won't be of much help, not being an EA player. :') (Please remember to hide spoilers! Thank you. But if you can provide some low-spoiler examples, I'll be glad to try to think of some good responses.)

If anyone else wants to chime in - by all means, please do! I'll try to contribute as much as I can, haha.



That's a great idea, organically helping out with conversation options. And yeah, I think it might be the case that they're working with skeleton dialogue. See the feedback first, reiterate. It might be one of the reasons full voice acting is not here yet, perhaps.



That's what I meant - the choices are bland as to account for every character. One size fits all. And I very much agree on the need to include those "specific" options. They provide personality - something a custom character sorely needs. We had those specific options on BG2. It wasn't implemented perfectly, but it provided a lot of flavour.



Yup. I hope they expand the options... In the interviews they've said it really matters where you're from and that it can make playthroughs totally different. (Though being a drow or a githyanki by itself will make a playthrough different.)

Baldurian tag COULD be completely not-boring, it would just need those specific comments.

[Baldurian] Well, if we were in Baldur's Gate, I'd show you what a REAL harbour looks like!
[Baldurian] Hmph. That's no Sorcerous Sundries for sure...
[Baldurian] You know, I never thought I'd say this, but I seem to enjoy a walk in the forest. I've only ever known the bustling streets of a big city.

(Fun fact: it's yet another instance of me writing something for my stupidly long post I'm slowly working on, just to discuss this exact thing with someone on the forum moments later. :P )