I’m all for the headband of intellect being downgraded to 17 INT. 18 seemed overpowered. Though I guess it had precedent in that 18 CHA ring you could find early in BG2, I never approved of that either!
Regarding Scratch, did you definitely not engage with him before trying to talk to him with your bard? If it’s not a bug - and of course it might well be - that’s all I can think of. I seem to recall that if you talk to him once, then talk to him again he’ll just bark.
Not sure I’ve ever tried to see whether he’ll still have a brand new interaction with another party member, as though the first chat never happened, as some NPCs do. If you’ve not already tried it, does anything different happen if you try to talk to Scratch with another party member?
